An excerpt from a recent message by Sukie Rice in October, 2017<\/p>\n
\u201cHumanity is like an enormous spider web, so that if you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling\u2026 As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference, or with hostility, toward the people we meet, we too are setting the great spider web a-tremble. The life that I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt. Our lives are linked together.\u201d (Frederick Buechner, 1926 – )<\/p>\n
I have pondered this quotation many times; it makes me very aware how we \u201ctremble each other\u2019s webs\u201d all the time. Sometimes in large ways, sometimes small, although we rarely know when it happens. An example: I\u2019m a total grouch early in the morning. I would drive to school each morning, grumbling about all those children I was going to have to be nice to, wishing I could just be left alone. But then, in the parking lot, a child would run up to me exclaiming, \u201cWe have music today, Ms. Rice. I can\u2019t wait!\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s great, Maryann, I\u2019ll see you soon,\u201d I\u2019d say, and my grumbly web would be shaken. Then two boys would come up with, \u201cCan we help you carry the autoharps, Ms. Rice? At home I\u2019ve been singing that song you taught about Charlie on the MTA. And my mom knows it.\u201d By the time I\u2019d reach the school door, I\u2019d be feeling chipper and looking forward to being with the children. They trembled my web. They never knew it.<\/p>\n
Now here is a story of something major that happened this summer. Friends of Kakamega decided to provide a SunKing Solar Light for every child\/youth in our program. For this we needed to raise over $8,000, a hefty amount. But because clean, renewable light in a home is so important, we made this commitment. It happened!<\/p>\n
But it wouldn\u2019t have happened without one of the people going on our summer trip to Kakamega, a college student named Liz, researching solar lights. She discovered this unique light, specifically designed for Kenyan homes and convinced Friends of Kakamega to make the big commitment. She trembled our imagination.<\/p>\n
Backing up the web: Liz wouldn\u2019t have gone on the trip except she had gone to school with Mitch Newlin, who has been to the Care Centre seven times and is now a valuable member of the Friends of Kakamega board. He trembled her web with stories of the Care Centre. But Mitch never would have gone to Kenya except he attended a benefit dinner at Durham Meetinghouse when he was 12 and exclaimed to his parents he wanted to go to Kakamega Care Centre when he was old enough. When he turned 16 in 2011, he went with his dad, John, and the rest is history for Mitch. The Care Centre has trembled his web in a huge way and his whole life will be different because of it.<\/p>\n
The trembling doesn\u2019t stop there. Durham Meeting wouldn\u2019t have held that benefit dinner (and all the subsequent ones) except that Dorothy Selebwa, founder of the Kakamega Orphans Care Centre came to Durham Meeting one Sunday at the end of April 2002. She trembled my web and turned my life upside down, as this project has done for so many people: children and families in Kenya, and for Americans who have visited and experienced themselves the hope and miracle of the Care Centre.<\/p>\n
There is more. I wouldn\u2019t have been there to meet Dorothy, but I began to visit Durham Friends Meeting in 1980 and, although it was very different from my Quaker experience before, I wanted to return again and again. I was an odd duck for Durham, but the women welcomed me. Betty White, Charlotte White, Mary Curtis,<\/p>\n
Lydia Rollins, Margaret, Clarabel. They made me feel so welcome and I wanted to make it my home.<\/p>\n
So, because the women of Durham meeting trembled my spirit, I was there so Dorothy could tremble my web – and that of Durham Friends. Mitch\u2019s web was trembled. His telling Liz about the project trembled her web. She decided to go, and did research on solar lights. Her research influenced Friends of Kakamega\u2019s determination to provide solar lights for 260 homes, which has had a terrific impact on the lives (and webs) of so many people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho knows where the trembling stops or in what far place and time my touch will be felt.\u201d May we all keep trembling each other\u2019s webs and let the trembling live on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An excerpt from a recent message by Sukie Rice in October, 2017 \u201cHumanity is like an enormous spider web, so that if you touch it anywhere, you set the whole thing trembling\u2026 As we move around this world and as … Continue reading