the creating of Carolina Friends School

 

how to define a school?

when Carolina Friends School started,

it was easy to define us as what we were not:

not segregated by race,

not hide-bound by antiquated routines,

not an assembly line that believed

in uniform input and uniform output,

not hierarchical with the teacher

all-knowing and all-in-charge,

not what many of us felt subjected to

in the 1950s and 1960s,

so instead we threw out the textbooks,

embraced the natural differences in student and staff alike,

and worked to empower whatever ways up the mountain worked,

we embraced a rapid evolution of the universe,

experimenting with this, experimenting with that,

discarding what didn't work, holding on to what did work,

aligning ourselves with the Society of Friends,

who, in their spiritual quests, viewed that God speaks,

and that anyone can open themselves to hearing the Word,

and that all of us can open ourselves

to acting upon the truth of what is revealed,

we were fortunate that most drawn to the school

lived a great gift from the universe:

the love for the student,

the love for the teacher,

the love for Truth revealed,

who possessed the energy and wisdom 

to find the ways forward

into building and maintaining a school

that works for the best within us,

that sees the person,

loves the person,

and does its best to empower us all.

by Henry H. Walker

May 30, ‘26

Mother's Gifts

 to laugh at one's self

Mother gave me many gifts:

life, love, how to cook, how to care for another,

how to build connection, relationship,

appreciation of the natural world,

right now I am feeling the great gift

of laughing at one's self,

of dismissing the moment's wrench into questioning despair,

of finding how to just laugh at it all,

understanding that the universe has the perverse about it,

and must be more endured than fought,

you cannot win the lottery,

so laugh when the odds are stacked against you,

and, once again, the results work to break your spirit,

the glitch stymies you,

no way forward gives itself to you,

so just laugh,

just give in and accept that what is

is beyond your control,

that irrationality of outcome is baked into the system,

whereas reaction to that perversity is within your control,

Mother had not been able to walk for half a year,

when she tried to get up, I told her

"Mother, you haven't walked in six months,"

she looked at me with incredulity, and announced:

"Either you're crazy, or I am,"

we are all crazy,

and do much better when we realize it,

and just laugh

when we have no control over the moment.

by Henry H. Walker

May 25, ‘26

head or heart?

 

what am I missing?

much of who I am is of the intellect,

the sorting of the world into understandable pattern,

living the logic that is math,

for 2 + 2 = 4,

and if you're missing a "2,"

you can find it,

a potential emptiness is then filled,

that concept of discrete, logical pattern

fits with how I think,

and lets me figure,

often till I figure it out,

and suddenly the answer is obvious,

I think of every day, every reality, every problem,

as a mystery on the surface,

that a little noodling

can find what is missing,

and all clicks into sense again,

yet much of who I am is also of emotion,

roiling currents within my attitude

that can lead to exultation or despair

making it hard to figure the rhyme or reason to it all,

no easy cause and effect,

no easy answer of a number that makes

all right again with the world,

instead I feel, rather than think,

fear, or joy, grabs me

and wraps me up into itself,

I appreciate its realty even though 

my heart is harder to understand than my head,

a tear, a laugh, a sigh, a sob,

might each be the right answer

to whatever question forces itself at me now,

I yearn for the easier mystery of the missing "2."

by Henry H. Walker

May 24, ‘26

we are always at the plate

 baseball and life

around 18-21, we're supposed to be adults,

but there is no magic in the transformation,

as if, all of a sudden, we "get it":

how to vote, how, or not, to drink,

how to commit to relationship

and maybe to serve partner and children with our choices,

but we are batters, life is like a pitcher,

and we have to deal with curve balls,

if we're lucky, we get a hit 30% of the time,

despite our best efforts, we often strike out,

our challenge is to still come to the plate

and do our best even with the odds against us.

by Henry H. Walker

May 18, ‘26

paths up the mountain

 different paths, the same goal

the Jesus I know from the New Testament is unequivocal:

we should love others, just as we love ourselves,

his words don't dilly-dally,

they press us to love even our enemies,

to take care of any that might be deemed "lesser,"

to connect with children by caring

"for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven,"

is God in 3 persons? or not?

can revelation come clearly to any? or only to certain "elect"?

is there only one path to the Divine? or many?

such variety of answer far too often has led to death,

for we have convinced ourselves

that only the path that we are on is right,

and that the others have lost themselves to Satan,

thus damned be they whose truth stretches to where we don't want to go,

instead, I think our differences should reinforce our commonality,

each of our opinions matters for God made us each unique

and gifted us with free will, and we are united

in our hopes to be true to the most basic and real,

consider an international potluck:

the foods are different and find their own paths to our stomachs,

but each cuisine nurtures us

whether it be rice, or soy, or meat,

or a plethora of vegetables,

the way to our health can vary,

a truth that is expressed within the Hindu tradition:

a concept that God is at the top of a mountain

and that each religion is one path to the top,

we should celebrate any of us

who are working to ascend the mountain,

whatever the path that calls to us,

God does not care how we get there

as long as we carry love with us.

by Henry H. Walker

May 19, ‘26

the world and the soul

 "of the Kingdom of Heaven"?

I have the luxury, and the challenge,

of wearing different hats,

different perspectives from which to consider it all,

this week I am called by the history major within me,

who combines with the dutiful son, cousin, nephew,

so I search for the mechanism through which

to see, to appreciate, to chronicle

the worlds of our parents,

plus a bit of the worlds within which we now live,

as we seek to express and to honor

what they hoped for us to be with our lives,

today's reality is driven by the capitalist truth

that the bottom line shouts profit,

of choosing whichever way maximizes growth,

though the "growth" is usually of the material,

and unfortunately not of the spiritual,

for how can "enlightenment" give me a better steak?

our parents were badly burned by the Great Depression,

and the surviving of the psychic and material challenges of it and World War II,

we have a different problem now:

how to save our souls

when our bodies are doing well,

the Bible speak to us now, and hopes for us,

to spend more time on the heart and less on the body,

as Mark cautioned, 

"What profiteth a man to gain the whole world and to lose his soul?"

with my cousin I sought to remember and to honor our parents,

and to let us appreciate how much our souls need to be loved and nurtured,

for, like children, "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

by Henry H. Walker

May 20, ‘26

how to see the glass

 

optimist vs pessimist

when considering the entirety of a person,

what should you include?

certainly the positive, the accomplishments,

how the heart and love worked through them,

what a difference they made with the moments allowed to them,

but what about the absences? the mistakes?

when they chose to follow the lesser within them?

negative values can seem to intrude upon hearts and thoughts,

I am an optimist,

I love people,

I love my relatives,

I see the glasses as half-full,

but what about the half-emptiness of the glass?

that's the perspective I fall into when I consider myself,

I remember playing Trivial Pursuit with my mother-in-law,

she knew many categories far better than I did,

but she dismissed that understanding as just common,

for which she deserved no credit,

instead I saw her as a master,

for what she considered, she knew well,

and each absence in her to me was as nothing,

just as each presence was impressive,

when we look at ourselves,

when we look at others,

how much should we notice the presence

 and how much should we notice the absence?

I want to hold both, and at the same time

 I want to appreciate the effort,

the goodness of the soul,

wanting to be true to that of God in them.

by Henry H. Walker

May 16, ‘26