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FALL 2000
George Crispin
Woodstown MMOften in my religious life I have asked myself the question: What would heaven be like? To have life end like a blown out candle, with nothing left, has never seemed true. But to live on, forever, without end, is equally hard to imagine. Perhaps the question cannot be answered, but it hovers, stretching my imagination to the limits.
Maybe, like many deep questions, the answer is simple, lying at our feet like Russell Conwell’s “acres of diamonds.” Perhaps heaven is always with us, potentially at least, and that there is a land without time, where reality goes where our imagination points. In any case, the first nine days of July, and the nine days that preceded it, come as close as I may have ever gotten to a little piece of heaven, and I have lived those days over and again in my imagination.
I retired early to prepare for this Woodbury’s Millennium Celebration. From July 1st through 9th approximately 400 British citizens from Bury, England, were to come to the City of Woodbury, celebrating and honoring the arrival in America in 1682 of the Wood family and the founding of Woodbury and Woodbury Friends Meeting. They were to stay in our homes, reach out their hands in friendship, play us in sports, visit our historic sites, and have ceremonials to honor our historic past and each other. Little could I have grasped how deeply spiritual this experience would be.
The last two months before their arrival was one of the most exhausting, yet enriching, long-range experience of my adult life. For weeks my wife, Cindy, and I, with the company of our son, Carleton, worked ten-hour days on the grounds, while intermittently planning such events as the ecumenical service to be held at the Woodbury Friends Meeting. This required coordination with many people, remembering a myriad of details, running down chores that stretched in all directions, all kept straight in my little red notebook. Each night we returned home, sweaty, grubby, exhausted.
Yet it was a labor of love. The grounds began to show the fruits of our labor: Flowers were planted, trees placed where they would yield the best effect, grass cut, meetinghouse cleaned from attic to ground, and, most importantly, the Henry Wood burial spot raked and seeded. People began to notice. As we worked along the street, people would stop, and their conversation would invariably turn to, “I thought this was a museum or some old historic building. It looks beautiful. People still worship here?” Out of this, friendships were planted. The city began to notice. We are now a pleasant, yet vibrant, fixture in the community.
The day of their coming arrived. I was to canoe down the Woodbury Creek to meet Melvin Magnall, the original inspiration for the celebration, paddling upstream, after his long voyage, carrying the stone lintel from Henry Wood’s farmhouse.
To get to the launching place I had to cross a footbridge from the high school stadium at Wood Street to the soccer field. As I crossed I met Alan Booth, from England, one of the initial planners, and with him a rather dignified yet ordinary looking gentleman and his wife. “I’d like to introduce you to the mayor of Bury,” he said. I had been expecting robes and a staff. The couple were as engaging and pleasant as any I have ever met. It was my first chance to make contact with England in this direct way. “Mr. Mayor,” I chimed, “on behalf of the Quakers of Woodbury, I would like to welcome you to our city.” To this he replied, “I am honored to be here.” These few simple words of exchange said so much, carried such sincerity, traversed such distance. Several times our paths crossed during the nine days; we were now friends.
My expectation mounted with each bend in the creek as we paddled to meet Melvin Magnall. It felt as though we were making history. Melvin had, rather interruptedly, retraced much of the voyage of Henry Wood, and must have had many of the feelings the Wood family had as they crossed the Delaware River and made their way up the Woodbury Creek to their new home. I first saw his hat, then the broad shoulders of a stone mason, then his smile, registering the joy of the moment. On seeing us he knew he was nearing the landing. The shoreline was crowded for a quarter mile with cheers and gestures of goodwill and people with cameras, all entering into the moment.
Then his landing, cameras everywhere, and suddenly a throng, British accents cracked in the air, hugs, handshakes, smiles between people who did not know each other. The British had arrived. Naturally Melvin, the city fathers, Bury and Woodbury, were interviewed. Then one cameraman caught sight of my son, two and a half years old, waving a British flag in one hand and an American flag in the other. This image crossed the ocean, both the one of water and the one in our minds. Another little boy, age three, the Rev. Hugh Bearn’s son, Harry, also was waving. The two boys met, reached out, touched each other, and giggled shyly. The natural boundary between strangers faded, then disappeared. The two peoples became one, united by this historic moment celebrating another historic moment long years ago.
Thus began nine extraordinary days. The history of Quaker persecution in England is well known and documented. There may be reason for bitterness, or at least distance. If any of this remained, it was surely gone after this most uplifting event. The British brought to Woodbury Friends Meeting a stone lintel from the homestead of Henry Wood; the Rev. Hugh Bearn spoke eloquent words of regret at the Ecumenical Service the following Monday and asked for forgiveness. Quakers, standing as they do for reconciliation, responded with open arms. In a more private, later, service in the meetinghouse, between the Quakers of Woodbury and the Rector of the Parish Church of St. Anne, Tottington, England, the birthplace and place of persecution of Henry Wood, there were many outstretched hands and hearts, the giving of gifts, embraces, picture-taking, and moving words spoken about love. Our reaching out to each other did not end with their leaving. It will continue.
What will heaven be like? It will be where strangers smile at one another. It will be where accents and differences are regarded as charming. It will be where people are appreciated for what they are. It will be where past antagonisms are replaced by present cooperation. It will be hard work, but work of meaning. It will be appreciating the historic past while celebrating the harmonious present and the promising future. It will be moments to remember and return to often through the power of imagination. It will be like a picnic of hundreds of people on a sunny day, on ten acres of grass, under hugh tents, with the breeze blowing off the Delaware. It will be like the first nine days of July, in the year 2000, “sailing into the millennium.”
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Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:19 AM
