Entries in The Big Walk (14)
To the Spoon River
…They told me of the Flood of ‘93, when first the Mississippi, and then the Illinois, and finally the Spoon River rose up out of its banks and poured across the farmlands, and they and their nine guests couldn’t get out of the house for four days because of the waters covering the only road. They watched their hay bales float away, big waterlogged quarter-ton bales still lighter than the waters sweeping them off; and they played a lot of Scrabble, and learned to make pancakes with almost no eggs; and at the end, they built a raft to go for food and poled it across the floodwaters —
Called Meeting in Monmouth
Marshall Massey
in Appointed Meetings, The Big Walk
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Updated on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 08:23PM by
Marshall Massey
It troubles me that one side gets its views very prominently heard and promoted at liberal meetings and through the pages of QEW, while the other side sits on the sidelines feeling ignored, forgotten, and alienated. It troubles me even though I am closer to agreement with the side whose views are getting all the publicity.
Entering Illinois
Now I was in Illinois, and Illinois topography is palpably different from Iowa’s. The road led straight east for two miles across the river’s lower flood plain: a narrow two-line highway carrying very heavy truck traffic, elevated a few feet above the plain, with almost no shoulder to walk on. A breathtaking situation….
The Middle of My Second Week
…Come 5:00, when I started looking for a place to spend the night, I found myself on the edge of the giant Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (that bluish-grey semi-rectangular shape at the lower left corner of the map above), which looks very much like a vast, grim prison facility. The landscape was semi-industrial. No good places to camp.
The Opening of My Second Week
Marshall Massey
in Appointed Meetings, The Big Walk
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…As it turned out, the lady had no hesitations about letting me have a place to tent, right in her front yard. Not only that, she began bringing out refreshments — first well water, which was delicious (she and I and the little girl sat on a swinging chair together, drinking it down and chatting), and then fresh-picked lettuce and radishes, and finally fresh-picked strawberries and ice cream.
By the time we’d reached the strawberries, the family had dragged over a picnic table from the back of the compound, and we were all seated around it talking together.
I Return to the Road
Marshall Massey
in Appointed Meetings, The Big Walk
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6 Comments
“I will be honest with you,” the Fairfield pastor said. “We discussed this and decided not to invite you to speak to us. We’re not sure we agree with your plight. We thought your journey was too expensive for the purpose.” He added, “Besides, this will be the graduation day at our local high school; we will all be at parties for our kids.”
Naming the Creatures
Marshall Massey
in Community, Relating to Creation, The Big Walk
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2 Comments
This might perhaps be a good place to bring the Judæo-Christian idea of the “covenanting community” into our discussion. My friend the steak-eater, and my friend who doesn’t brake for animals, and I myself, might all be people who consciously identify ourselves with some such community. But the community I identify with includes the cattle and the wild animals on the road in a way that other people’s communities do not. Mine makes the cattle and the wild animals a little bit more like citizens —
Traveling in the *Gospel* Ministry
Marshall Massey
in Discernment, The Big Walk, Travel in the Ministry
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Frankly, I see travel in the ministry as an activity that goes all the way to the heart of the dynamic that is Quakerism — the metaphysic, if you will, of our life as Friends. And I’d like to bring that metaphysic out into the light of day, so that we can see it more clearly.