my status report

 

my charge

where am I now?

the students' school year ends this week,

and I have finished fulfilling my charge

to shepherd the 60th anniversary of CFS,

this year I have helped two books come into being:

1. Into the Light: How Carolina Friends School Has Touched Hearts and Lives,

alums write of the impact of the school on their lives, and

2. Callings and Answers: 33 More Views of Carolina Friends School,

former staff write of their coming more fully into themselves

within the womb of working at the school,

I was asked two hours ago by one of the school's Founders,

"What is your next project?"

so I listed various possibilities,

I still want to find space and opportunity 

for members of the broader community to speak and to be heard,

like in a fully-realized Quaker meeting for worship

the participants can "quake"

and risk sharing how the divine has manifested to them,

that sense of order and the way forward

which too often we don't see, don't hear, don't express,

these days too much short-circuits the way forward

and, in the din of that denial, we need to hear anyone 

who speaks from love, hope, possibility,

as Yeats warned us, at such times as these

the worst of us can be "full of a passionate intensity,"

so the best within us needs to answer with conviction

as heart wrenches and jumps toward the ways forward.

by Henry H. Walker

May 31, ‘25