as "a city on a hill"

 the challenge of community

what is at the heart of Carolina Friends School?

is it community?

if so, then what makes a community?

early on, those called to create a school

sought, like the early Puritans,

for the school to be as "a city on a hill,"

which cannot be hid,

and which would eloquently speak

to the moral conviction that all of God's children

are equal in their souls,

still each difference craves

to be seen, and treasured,

celebrated, and enabled,

for each, and for each group,

to be upon their own hill,

and yet somehow the disparate connect,

as if in a quilt within which

the glory of each square

only becomes real when it is part of the larger whole,

these days I feel heartened by the high quality of people

drawn to be part of the CFS staff,

who live the calling to be themselves, fully,

to connect with their students and help them be themselves, fully,

a truth that CFS has lived since its beginning

is that every structure we as a school live

must fit the people who are the school,

and fit the truth of what we can learn of child development,

we then can implement those leadings into our structures,

I feel a challenge CFS has now is 

to fix our structures

to connect more fully with alumni

who still are part of who we are,

if we do not learn from who they were,

and from who they still are,

our community diminishes,

for it takes all available

to see who we are,

and to see who we can be,

the word "radical" means to be of the roots,

CFS needs to be radical,

and to make sure we are true to our beginnings

and to the future that calls to us,

I know that we can do this,

I pray that we will.

by Henry H. Walker

June 17, ‘26

where are we? and where do we want to go?

 

us within space

spatial intelligence--

a way to describe one of the many lenses

through which the brain and the heart

can perceive and act upon the world:

where are we?

where are we as a part of where everything else is?

and how are we connected to the rest?

the concept of this lens provides a context

within which we can understand

how we move through the world, or not,

a skill our GPS machines are taking away from us,

at least in terms of literal movement on roads,

for it is beguilingly easy to have satellites and electronics

pinpoint where we are on a map,

where we want to go,

and the relationship of the two,

the routes that can get us there

and even commentary as to traffic and timing,

but they don't help us to get up in time 

to meet friends who await us,

what is our relationship to the Divine?

such self-knowledge of place and connection,

of the personal to the larger, can be vital

to our understanding of our place in the universe,

too many people seek to be like the GPS,

they tell us who we are and how we should be

in relationship to the whole,

by following their lead we can lose ourselves,

and the lost do not inherit the earth,

I also wonder about family,

how much who we are is influenced through relationship,

to siblings, to parents, to aunts and uncles,

maybe to grandparents,

maybe to the legacy of history,

maybe to the potential of the future,

to a partner,

to ourselves?

I talk to a former student who is the youngest in her family,

the third daughter just as my wife was also third and youngest,

much as I was the third son, youngest, too,

we were each burdened and blessed by our place

and its relationship to siblings and parents,

it is fascinating to question how 

it all affected the rules of the game

within which we played,

there is a fullness to who my former student is

and to how she surely acts upon the world,

I wonder how much she is faking it,

feeling the imperative of the need to act, and doing so,

I wonder how much she does so despite self-doubt,

and does her place in the family influence her actions at all?

the experiment of each life is tainted by variables

that can overwhelm the clarity of a surely-controlled reality,

there is still cause-and-effect,

but the variables add so much chance

 that we have to gamble

that we get enough right 

as to where we are and where we want to go,

that there is a rightness to our movement.

by Henry H. Walker

June 15, ‘26

still is within our hearts

 Adrian Menapace

for over 50 years I worked with middle school students,

all in the throes of developmental change,

change that was mostly of growth, of empowerment,

of the release of potential into actuality,

I watch a slideshow of the life of a former student,

who should be getting ready to celebrate her 65th birthday,

but who instead died a reality that took her away from us,

I watch a slideshow of snapshots of her life,

her bright eyes, her beaming smile,

her joy in the moments of family, of friends,

of life fully appreciated and embraced,

it throbs before me like a heartbeat,

beats surely like a clock:

enigmatic messages that can't decide

what they're saying:

is each passing beat of loss or of joy transcendent,

denying the chasm below and grasping 

at the peaks of rightness before us and within our hopes?

Adrian moved past our relationship of teacher-student,

and rightly into making her own way 

into tomorrows with those she loved,

and however she might still manifest in the universe,

I hope the universe appreciates her as do we,

we who miss the vibrant reality of who she was,

and of who we can hope she still is,

she certainly still is within our hearts.

by Henry H. Walker

June 13, ‘26

reaching to hold the truth of the shape

 

A Quaker Meeting for Worship

in a Quaker meeting for worship,

there is first an expectation of quiet stillness,

within which those present work to settle selves,

to open to thoughts arising from the center,

where all of our hearts meet,

and from which we can labor together

to open ourselves to the depths and to the heights

from which the Spirit can speak to the best within us,

we can then share Light with our words

that might illuminate a bit of the elusive shape

that aches to be noticed, to be appreciated, to be seen,

it is as if all of us are in a dark wood,

and don't yet see the path forward,

until we add the glimmer we perceive

 to the glimmers other perceive,

the presence, the shape, the direction of the path

starts to find itself real before us,

a Quaker meeting for worship is not like

revelation on a mountain where incised stone tablets are given to us,

instead, it is more like that old story

of a group of blind people working to perceive an elephant,

and each can only touch the part of the elephant before them,

in the Quaker meeting today we sought to see,

to remember, to appreciate a person we all loved,

one who is gone from our physical reality

but who is still very present 

in the reality within which our hearts live,

each person today, standing, speaking,

helped a bit of the shape of Adrian's being 

to be understood: seen, treasured, missed,

the elephant still beyond the fullness of our perception,

but the leadings of the words, together, shout of her truth.

by Henry H. Walker

June 14, ‘26

Izzi, on the way

 

Izzi, and the Grand Reveal

I keep remembering how tiny Isabel Jean was in her first days,

and still full of potential,

even as a baby she was open to this world,

open to being held,

open to trusting that this strange reality 

all about her awakening consciousness

was worth the gift of her existence,

was worth the gift of her acceptance,

was worth the gift of her acting upon it,

she will be true to the Great Reveal of self,

that trueness to what is within, when we realize

who we are at our best, which paths are the right ones for us,

no matter how obvious or hidden the Reveal may be,

I believe in Izzi and in what can come forth,

as near as I can tell, the stars are aligned for her,

and all the choices within her power

can be aligned with the universe,

as she has the courage to make her own way,

each of us is unique and still shares the journey with others,

as we climb upward on the mountain

we choose different ways,

while the journey up is, at heart, the same,

the future for all of us is uncertain,

and I trust that who she is will not be denied,

that she lives the burgeoning love and power within her,

I would not want to be an obstacle 

which places itself to block her way forward,

Izzi is, and will be, a force of nature,

it is exciting to imagine the story she will tell with her life.

by Henry H. Walker, her loving grandfather

June 7, ‘26