CFS: The Early Years

 

toward the Light

society can lose its way

as it did with segregation

and systemic denial of possibility

deep into the 1950s,

into North Carolina came a couple with a young family,

they looked at a world many just accepted, 

and they would not accept such distortion into their world

and into their hopes for their daughters,

for them schooling should be a way forward,

school should be where structure and teacher and student

could work together to let that of God within

be seen, be appreciated, and given the power

to help school, and thus society, evolve toward the Light,

they knew they wanted better than what they saw,

enough others joined them in a quest,

and Carolina Friends School, in fits and starts,

entered the struggle to help us all move forward,

families joined and shared all they could

to help the truth as continually revealed, be noticed, and acted upon,

at its heart, C.F.S. opens itself to be led by its core:

the inner world of each student, and their decisions,

and by what is best for them--

not what bureaucracy and conventional wisdom advises,

but, rather, the radical idea

that education should be based on student and teacher,

working together to figure the ways forward,

that it's the relationship of student with learning,

and of teacher with student,

that should drive our choices of curriculum, coursework,

how to navigate within the shoals

of self-doubt, difficult challenges to get past,

encrusted rust upon the tools needed to move forward,

it is easy to feel daunted by comparisons,

it is easy to feel that others had, or have, greater gifts than we do,

Quakers, though, have it right,

that revelation can come from any of us,

and that we should own when we quake with truth,

and also follow the lead of others' quaking,

what is incredibly challenging, though,

is to intuit which is the way forward,

at least at this time,

and which quaking will lead us astray.

by Henry H. Walker

October 20, ‘23

a poem addressing self-doubt

 relax into who you are

seems to me that the first art is intuition:

a sense of rightness within

when a good choice is made,

a decision as to who one is

that fits the best that can manifest,

all of us, but particularly the young,

are challenged to see truly in the mirror,

to not see a distortion we fear we see,

a wrongness that fits a lesser view of possibility,

we should not see the imposter it is so easy to feel we are,

but rather the self with which we were born,

the one who joys in being, in learning, in connecting,

at our heart we want to give to others and to our best,

to choose a positive reality that will not be denied,

at our best we want to risk the action, the words,

the creation of assertion, 

but we fear the negative from others

 who seem to want to cancel our positive,

at our best we can separate 

for a time from the herd,

and be seen, 

we can deny the shouts of a false reality 

that wants to deny our unique gifts,

if we doubt ourselves we mistake who we are

by connecting to the least of who we can be,

we should follow the inner guide,

the intuition that knows we can be more

than self-doubt incessantly whispers at us,

we can then relax into letting ourselves just be our best,

we, and others, should break free into confidence, self-assertion,

helping not only self, but herd, to be better.

here's what an eighth grader told me thirty years ago:

"I decided to be who I am.  

I like myself more and others like me better."

by Henry H. Walker

October 21, ‘23