the vision of a school for all

 Peter Klopfer

Peter is a force to be reckoned with,

a power that is as present and relentless as the sea,

he never suffers fools gladly, including those within himself,

for he is driven by great ability and powerful emotional leadings,

his intellect sees truly to the depths,

and understands a lot, though revelation is often uncomfortable,

the rational reality of rules, of cause and effect,

the fiscal realities of growing a school, forced him

to speak to the realities within which numbers live,

and such limitations are not comfortable,

he also focused himself on the realities of the animals he studied,

they for whom he cared deeply,

and of whom he wanted to know everything about their worlds,

as a teacher at Duke, he figured

students either did what was required, and thus got an "A,"

or didn't, and thus got an "F," not the way to please administrators

who saw reality as a bell curve,

he knows the rules, lives the rules,

and expects the universe to follow suit,

he has no patience when it doesn't,

that same commitment to truth came to him regarding race relations,

the meanness and tragedy of a segregated, white-dominated Triangle

offended him and his wife to their core

when they got to Durham in the 1950s,

his children, like him, found friends who were different,

who were true to themselves,

the state of North Carolina did not like his pushing for racial equality,

so they jailed him for a protest, tried him,

and threatened to retry him if he didn't stop messaging for change,

and his will won at the U.S. Supreme Court,

his same commitment to truth demanded that violence is not the answer,

the Quaker in him determined to help people resist soldiering,

Peter long followed his heart as a draft counselor during the Vietnam War,

he and Martha worked to create a school

that was more accepting and whole

than the irrational paradigm of the 1950s,

Peter was never the visionary 

who saw the exact shape of the future in its entirety,

instead, he saw the present and realized how it didn't measure up

to the clarity that shouted at him,

they helped create Carolina Friends School

so that it could be a place where everyone was accepted, and loved,

seen and empowered, and the bills paid,

though to institutionalize such a place, 

with all the logistics of its creation,

he trusted a team of others,

he regularly served on the C.F.S. Board

and demanded accountability to fiscal reality,

and to the vision of a school for all,

Peter loves excellence, and pushed himself in race after race,

Peter also knows his limits,

when reality forces him to accept that time and energy

dictate what can still be,

I feel for the burden that such a pursuit of truth and meaning can lead to,

and I hope for him to know that countless of us

love him for who he is and for who he has been across long years,

Peter got us across the desert,

may we appreciate his gifts

and know him well for the wonder that he is,

despite the costs he has had to pay,

he still flares his light bright,

despite the darkness that can seem overwhelming,

he is pleased with the sign on Friends School Road in front of the school,

that reiterates what the school stands for:

"Our Values Include: 

Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity, Kindness."

Peter still leads us to follow George Fox:

and "walk cheerfully over the world, 

answering that of God in every one."

  

by Henry H. Walker

May 2, ‘26

a vehicle, part of the family

 

object or subject?

I just read that the Chinese don't have "it"

 as a word in their language,

and that makes me wonder about English

and how, maybe, Americans can easily slip into

treating something as object,

in French nouns have gender,

the sea is "la mer,"

do the French think of the ocean thusly

as more mother than a thing to be used as we want?

no more consequential in itself than sand?

all this comes to me as I consider our '91 Toyota Previa,

a mini-van that has been part of our family for 35 years,

which we bought just before our sons started college,

for we reasoned that we had at least 7 upcoming years

of working to pay the extra bills for the higher education,

and no plans to pay for another vehicle during that time,

I don't know how I feel about giving the van away,

do I have a personal attachment to the van,

or is the van a "thing"

to which I am no more connected than I am to a tool:

a hammer, a screwdriver, an object not a subject,

or is the van a member of the family?

a cousin about whom I will care after it leaves us?

if I were Chinese or French, how would I phrase that last question?

what pronoun would I use for a vehicle

that has been with us over a third of a century?

and which has enabled many trips and haulings?

should I be sad or happy that 

another might find a good partner in the Previa?

we named the Previa K.C.,

is it time to let "it" or "K.C." go?

how profound is the transition coming up?

as an old man I am sensitive to loss,

increasingly I feel that the world around me

is more "thou" than object,

I just went to take final pictures of K.C.,

I touched the van and cried,

I guess I have my answer:

object is really subject to me.

by Henry H. Walker

May 11, ‘26

unique and also part of the whole

 

the ginkgo knows

our Western idea of individuality

can have me feel special,

isolated from the group as if on a separating pedestal,

I love the idea of being unique, my own master,

the only one to walk this path,

a "one" that excels and earns praise

for all that is different and impressive about me,

I shine brighter as those around me are duller,

what an absurd and wrong idea!

everyone is special,

with unique gifts and different paths to and with the Light,

what point is there to the loneliness of only one path?

for who we are deserves to be larger,

a part of wholes that call to us,

to reach toward what we call that of God in others,

the family draws us to be as one with it,

to treasure commonality while still holding to difference,

each individual strives to be true to its self

and craves also to be true to friends,

to appreciate how much easier and better it can be

to realize that all of us are on a journey,

that it can feel so much better if we're not alone,

finally research increasingly realizes that underneath our feet,

each plant is first on its own to find water and nutrients,

then part of the group,

so that each tree networks what it can to the whole,

all coordinated by webbing of mycelia  that we call fungus,

the ginkgo before me glories in what it is,

the ginkgo below me knows that it is but one voice,

and that it is part of a larger chorus

that strives to celebrate the individual, and the group, at the same time,

can we humans learn

how to be both unique and also transcend into wholeness.

by Henry H. Walker

May 12, ‘26