mily arrived home from her first year of college last Mother's Day. She and four of her new friends had driven for 20 hours in order to make it to Durham in time to go to meeting for worship. They had wanted a road trip, but they also wanted to visit Emily's community and see for themselves if it was as good as it sounded. They were blown away!

Over the course of their stay there was a lot of teasing about Carolina Friends School (CFS) and it's laid back atmosphere. Listening to their improvisations about the freedom, the open expression of care and concern, the back massages and the unusual course offerings was a hoot, but through it their appreciation of Emily's experience was evident. These soccer players had gone to some of the best schools in their state and had done well on the field and off, but until they met Emily they had no idea of that a school like CFS existed.

I believe our loving community made the biggest impact. Friends' schools do not stand alone. They are always part of larger Friends communities so that the weaving of relationship strands is deep and intricate. Emily's friends were surprised to see that David and I were involved in projects coming from those connections- a blues band, a quilting project. They were amazed at the level of intimacy, trust and open caring among Emily's friends. Most of all I think they were incredulous at the respectful and meaningful relation-ships between students and teachers.

Positive relationships provide the best atmosphere for intellectual, social and emotional growth. Several years ago, I was fortunate to be clerk of staff at Carolina Friends School, a position designed to provide emotional and spiritual support to the teachers and adminis-trators. In this role I clerked the Staff Development Committee, which was charged with the responsibility of planning and facilitating the annual staff retreat. We had decided to focus on developing a staff vision for our work-a daunting task. At the retreat we divided into groups to work on various aspects of the vision. I was to facilitate the group that would try to come up with the introduction.

I had assumed that the oldest most experienced staff would be drawn to this particular group and that we could draw on their long-term wisdom. I was surprised and a little anxious when the group turned out to be some of the newest staff members, most of who were not Friends. I had some serious doubts about whether or not we would be able to accomplish our task. My fears were completely unfounded because exactly the people who were called to accomplish the task were present.

After reading through suggestions submitted by some 70 staff members we recognized that the overall vision had to do with love. I was clerking the meeting and kept making attempts to capture the essence of our discussion, but none of them felt right. After a time one of the quieter members of the group said that she had a suggestion. After she read her statement we simply sat in awe. The 1997 staff vision begins: "Love is our sub-ject matter and our process. It embraces all that we do. By loving that of God in each other, we honor unique-ness, educate, teach self respect and nurture commu-nity." Vision statements don't reflect reality, they build on the philosophical foundation and articulate dreams and aspirations. We knew at once that she had captured the essence of what we had been trying to say.

While CFS is not perfect, it does a beautiful job of nurturing love in its students: love of life including gratitude for all that we have and a desire to protect the environment; love of self and a desire to be the best we can be; love of learning, not for grades but because it is intrinsically satisfying; and love for others based on a deep and abiding respect for each person and a belief in the equality of all. William Penn said it beautifully many years ago, "Let us try what love will do." For individuals, a school and even a nation, we could not ask for a better guiding star.

I think Emily's friends felt the underlying core of love that grounded her experience. Emily chose not to go to a Quaker college. She wanted to be in "the real world" and she feels like she is making a difference. CFS nurtured the courage to reach out to others in love to work for change. We are deeply grateful to have been able to provide a Quaker education for Emily and our son Jacob. We recognize with a great deal of sadness that relatively few Friends have the ability to send their children to a Quaker school. We wish that every parent and child could have that choice.

FGConnections Fall 2001 Home