Hopework-l Mailing List: "Being grace" folk school lunch Dec. 15

[John Wallace (walla003]

December 11, 2003

To:    Folk School folks

From: John Wallace

Invitation to:  Folk School lunch at John Wallace's office, this coming 

Monday, December 15, 11:30 -- 1:00

        This will be the last lunch meeting until the new year.  You are 

welcome to bring your brown bag lunch.  Juice and cookies will be 
served.

The purpose of these weekly lunch meetings is to dig into Gandhi's
saying, "You must be the change you seek in the world."  They are open, 

rolling conversations happening throughout this academic year, where 
people are free to come when they can, and come at any time between 
11:30 and 1:00.

        The next folk school retreat, February 6-8, will swing around the 
theme of seeking a graceful world, and accordingly the next few Monday 

lunches will explore the idea of Being Grace.  The lunch on December 15 

will begin this exploration.

I am pasting in below the Stafford and Woolman pieces we used last 
Monday.

My office is 868 Heller Hall, on the U of MN West Bank campus.  Close 
to Wilson Library and the Humphrey Institute.

At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border

This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed---or were killed---on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

William Stafford


John Woolman's Journal --- Visit to the Indians on the Frontier

Frederick Tolles, the editor of my edition of the Journal, writes about 

this visit as follows:  "It was in the conviction that the only
effective dissolvent of the love of power is the power of love that 
Woolman set out unarmed in 1762 to visit the Indians on the 
Pennsylvania frontier, where the embers of the French and Indian War 
still flamed out in sporadic massacres."  Woolman's account of this
journey is in Chapter 8 of the Journal.

Having for many years felt love in my heart towards the natives of this
land who dwell far back in the wilderness, whose ancestors were
formerly the owners and possessors of the land where we dwell, and who
for a small consideration assigned their inheritance to us, and being
at Philadelphia in the 8th month, 1761, on a visit to some Friends who
had slaves, I fell in company with some of those natives who lived on
the east branch of the river Susquehanna, at an Indian town called
Wehaloosing, two hundred miles from Philadelphia. In conversation with
them by an interpreter, as also by observations on their countenances
and conduct, I believed some of them were measurably acquainted with 
that Divine power which subjects the rough and froward will of the 
creature. At times I felt inward drawings towards a visit to that 
place, which I mentioned to none except my dear wife until it came to 
some ripeness. In the winter of 1762 I laid my prospects before my 
friends at our Monthly and Quarterly, and afterwards at our General 
Spring Meeting; and having the unity of Friends, and being thoughtful 
about an Indian pilot, there came a man and three women from a little 
beyond that town to Philadelphia on business. Being informed thereof by 
letter, I met them in town in the 5th month, 1763; and after some
conversation, finding they were sober people, I, with the concurrence
of Friends in that place, agreed to join them as companions in their
return, and we appointed to meet at Samuel Foulk's, at Richland, in
Bucks County, on the 7th of sixth month. Now, as this visit felt
weighty, and was performed at a time when travelling appeared perilous,
so the dispensations of Divine Providence in preparing my mind for it
have been memorable, and I believe it good for me to give some account
thereof.

(Woolman has many trials of body and spirit on this trip, including the
following.)

On reaching the Indian settlement at Wyoming, we were told that an 
Indian runner had been at that place a day or two before us, and 
brought news of the Indians having taken an English fort westward, and 
destroyed the people, and that they were endeavoring to take another;
also that another Indian runner came there about the middle of the
previous night from a town about ten miles from Wehaloosing, and
brought the news that some Indian warriors from distant parts came to
that town with two English scalps, and told the people that it was war
with the English.

Our guides took us to the house of a very ancient man. Soon after
we had put in our baggage there came a man from another Indian house
some distance off. Perceiving there was a man near the door I went out;
the man had a tomahawk wrapped under his match-coat out of sight. As I
approached him he took it in his hand; I went forward, and, speaking to
him in a friendly way, perceived he understood some English. My
companion joining me, we had some talk with him concerning the nature
of our visit in these parts; he then went into the house with us, and,
talking with our guides, soon appeared friendly, sat down and smoked
his pipe. Though taking his hatchet in his hand at the instant I drew
near to him had a disagreeable appearance, I believe he had no other
intent than to be in readiness in case any violence were offered to him.