everything is connected

 empathic leap after leap

empathy is the gateway

into imitating the idea of God,

that underlying presence which is of Creation itself

and knows and expresses how everything is connected,

empathy is the key to escape the prison

within which individuality can encase us,

often we can be seduced by pushing 

who we feel ourselves to be onto the other,

congratulating ourselves that we know another

for we figure they are just like us,

commonality comforts us with the old,

difference stretches us with the new,

such a leap of projecting ourselves onto others helps a bit

to get us a small step out of our ego-centrism,

but, unfortunately, it also reinforces the limiting mistake

 that who we are is really just who others are,

instead we should celebrate both commonality and difference,

diversity, equity, inclusion,

shouts at us to expand perspective,

such as the challenging Christian call to love our enemy,

for they are also somehow us,

a further empathic step draws us 

to connect with other primates, with other mammals,

so that our wolf cousins should not be killed with prejudice,

our whale cousins should not be turned into meat,

instead we should marvel at whatever they are doing 

with their being, with their song,

birds can also spark us to love and joy in their being,

then what about insects?

can we feel as the ant? as the cicada?

as the caterpillar and its metamorphosis?

and that's only in the Animal Kingdom,

scientists and gardeners and lovers of beauty

reach to understand the Plant Kingdom,

how Gaia, the great alchemist, captures the Sun as sugar

so that life has energy, and finds itself with purpose,

somehow hidden within the gestalt of plant structures,

such a world calls us to leap where we don't know where to go,

we need to imagine ourselves throughout a great tree,

in the hope of a flower,

in the cooperation of root and mycelia,

for us to become more of who we should be,

we need a life of empathic leap after leap,

not only into living things but also into rock and their children,

we need to recreate ourselves 

in the image of the Divine 

that holds all together.

by Henry H. Walker

July 26, ‘24

"in trust"

 

Life as Stewardship

in my dream

I look out and see Daddy newly-returned,

he sits in the car we've just labored to fix,

and he sees to it that it works,

that we've done well with our charge to keep it going,

what a powerful metaphor

for how we work to live our lives,

as if those we are care about,

who are gone for good,

return,

and judge us and our actions,

we maintain what we call "the cabin"

a last homely house where city morphs to wild wood, 

Daddy used to say

"my backyard is thousands and thousands of acres!"

and now there's a trust we help manage

that keeps this gateway to "the mountains"

open and affordable,

kept up to high standards

yet full of the personal touch,

I stand at a grave

and pray that I remember,

there I pledge my self to use my life to honor my parents,

to express as well as I can the wonder of their lives,

and of all who have touched me for the good,

if spirits were to return,

I would hope they would judge my stewardship

as jobs well-done

by Henry H. Walker

July 24, ‘24

Madeline deserves praise!

The Parent Challenge

what a challenge a parent takes on

when they take off the gift wrapping

and open the box of a child,

all those many pieces,

and any instruction manual

doesn't seem to fit the actual pieces in your hand,

love often gives you the work-around,

our niece visits with her four children,

aged five to fourteen,

the oldest a boy, the other three girls,

we are amazed at the mother,

a short order cook taking care

of each variation of "the usual,"

enforcing rules that chafe the ego-centric first take,

demanding the larger view over zero-sum competition,

maintaining a sense of humor and of grace,

even when the situation shouts for anger,

my wife and I are in awe

of the wonder that is birthing in the kids,

of the wonder of the mother midwifing it all.

by Henry H. Walker

7/29/24

York Phelps, a tribute

 York Phelps

York was a gift to the world:

a gift to me as an early engaging student in my classes,

as the totally-involved father of an advisee,

as a friend,

York's soft-spoken poise and gentle humor

belied how hard he had to work in this challenging world,

most institutions did not draw him to them,

though Carolina Friends School did,

for its sense of rightness paralleled his own,

he worked hard on relationships,

he worked hard on taking his calling with sound systems

to surround him and others with the music they lived,

yet also to generate income for him,

his work on movies thrilled him even more: 

he helped find the right locations to tell the story

of The Last of the Mohicans,

and worked on the right lighting 

for Tequila Sunrise, Bull Durham, and The Handmaid's Tale, 

his children centered him,

those three extraordinary young people

who know the world needs changing

and are working hard to do their part in that positive changing,

York so like both of his parents:

the unflappable bemusement of his father Jake,

the infectious bubbling forth of his mother, Peggy,

she who advised me to wait till my children were 20,

for that which you thought was not taking in your parenting, 

takes hold,

my wife Joan gave York his first job at age 15,

as he helped her wrangle pre-schoolers,

I remember that being with him in his car on advisee trips to the Smokies,

was sought after by my advisees,

York has left us, and we are lesser for that loss,

what I remember and celebrate about him:

there was a deep sense of rightness about York,

a sureness to how he knew and expressed himself,

despite all the doubts and worries that could beset him,

when I call up a memory of him right now,

a smile involuntarily transforms his face, his eyes twinkle,

and he holds me in the warm sureness of his self,

he finds the world charming, so it is,

and his loving joy holds it all together.

by Henry H. Walker,

with love, 7/28/24

in praise of the gatekeeper

 Transformative

on the transformative level in a school,
it doesn’t matter how nice a teacher is,
how knowledgeable a teacher is,
how many degrees a teacher has,
it does matter the relationship a teacher has to the subject,
the relationship a teacher has to the student,

I was always buoyed up when a student
found value in a subject, a discipline, they didn’t value before,
when they found a competence within
they didn’t know they had,
I am still saddened by a comment a student made decades ago:
after a year of American history with me,
she announced she had decided
she really didn’t like history after all,

every subject is a door
that can open into wonder and joyous discovery,
or not,
at best a teacher is a gate-keeper
who can open both subject and student to discovery,
to asking a question and pursuing an answer,
it’s all like a “spark bird,”
an intensity of a particular experience
that reorients one’s insides
so that one lives a love of birds,

a stellar student tell me of a favorite high school biology teacher,
describing her with words like “genuine,”
“almost childlike in her enthusiasm,”
“excited,” “passionate,”
a teacher who made the subject understandable,
who found ways to contextualize it all
and fit the subject into the real world,
a teacher who knew the work needed,
who required the work done,
who made sure the work got the extra time it needed,
who enabled the student to find their way forward,
and who was fulfilled when the student swam on their own,

her former student graduated college with honors
and is still excited about subject and his steps forward
after his first year in graduate school,

how wonderful that he knew a high school gatekeeper
who helped him know the way forward,
and how to walk it.

by Henry H. Walker
7/4/24