Western Gathering:
FGConnections Fall 2006
Touching others … others touching us
By John Helding
 John Helding |
I sat down on the floor of the University Center, just outside the Gathering Office, waiting for the dinner line to subside. I had been a member of the Gathering Committee and one of the people in charge of putting together the Peace Tree Witness. It was mid-week and the tree had been planted and dedicated. As such, my collapse onto the floor was as much a sign of relief and exhaustion as of the need to wait. Quakers had received the tree with open arms and I’d been quite moved by the silent procession from the All Gathering Worship, the contribution of Pastor Stephen Cornils of Pacific Lutheran University, and the impromptu singing at the end of the dedication ceremony. In front of me now, posted on a movable bulletin board, were the “Living Water Cards” with the stories behind the water brought by many to nourish the tree. The job was done. Whew. Relief.
And as I sat there watching Friends file by to dinner, my attention was caught by two men who’d come up to read the Living Water Cards. They weren’t Quakers, but rather two PLU employees, dressed in coveralls with tools at their sides. Facility workers on a break it looked like. I wonder what they thought of the unusual display and this peculiar faith community responsible for it all.
They were scanning the cards and then one man said to the other, “There it is … here’s the one I told you about.” As the first man read the card he added, “See, it’s the one from inside, the water composed of the tears of prisoners.” There was some silence as the other finished reading the card. They stood and then the second man spoke, “Tears have memory, man.” They glanced at a few more of the cards and moved on, back to their work, I imagined, of hosting our very large group.
The President of PLU in late August wrote to the Gathering Committee and thanked us and said FGC, our community of Quakers, had “made a lasting impression” on the PLU community. I have to imagine it was an impression built interaction by interaction: a thank you to the cafeteria staff, flexibility with crowded conditions, and a sharing of a tree, our water and our hopes for peace. I think of those two maintenance guys whenever I think of the Peace Tree. I can imagine them and others remembering us from time to time, maybe as they pass the Peace Tree. It is in how we walk our walk, in how we model the peaceable kingdom, that we have the greatest hope of changing the world.
John Helding is a member of San Francisco Monthly Meeting sojourning with the Lopez Island Worship Group in Washington. He currently serves as an AFSC Board Member and was the co-clerk of Outreach for the 2006 FGC Gathering.
Western Gathering
- Expanding Circles by Aimee Bucholz
- Listen and Obey the Spirit by Rubye Howard Braye
- Touching others … others touching us by John Helding
- Water Has Memory by Raelyn Joyce
- Living Water Cards
- Sailing to Gathering by Linda Hill and John Scull
- More Reflections from the Western Gathering
