Page 21 - C.A.L.L. #22 - Fall 2003

Each of You Who Came Changed Me for granted by most of us. My eyes are brimming
Thanks For Sharing Your Visions
By Jean Potts
Many of you who attended Woodcrest Collective
2003 came from trapped and stifled places where
it's hard to imagine life any other way. Your
oppressive circumstances hardly inspire a vision
of a future that's a totally different world. But you
had a vision anyhow. In turn, you renewed those of
us who live in more comfortable circumstances,
whose vision can easily become clouded and
narrow, though we also try to live out a just and
peaceful future every day.
What is it that drives a handful of students to move
to Camden, NJ and imagine vegetable gardens in
the middle of the sewage
and industrial run-off of
Philadelphia? But they've “The thing we have almost
moved in, and they are forgotten is
serious about this vision nevertheless possible.”
even if there are no beds Eberhard Arnold
to sleep on and someone
has already broken into
the house.
She drove up from the Bronx on Saturday and
walked onto a lawn where a breeze was blowing
and we were enjoying fresh sweet corn and
thought she was in another world. How can this 18-
year old from Guadalajara, Mexico reach out from
the cycle of poverty and oppression that she faces
daily and still believe that every person can find
stillness within themselves? But she believes and
she knows it's found by demanding more than the
material satisfactions that lure people to our
western culture. I told her and her friends that this
isn't paradise, that community takes work and
struggle. They told me “vale la pena”—it’s worth
it. And they are right.
The fist-pounding urgency of a college student
who lives a few miles from my home puts me to
shame with her pleading that our generation takes
responsibility for our future. She asks, why can't
we make a commitment towards a better life for
our children? What is keeping us disunited?
I am left speechless and challenged by the peace
and forgiveness that radiates from a wheelchair-
bound father of six, left paralyzed by an accident.
His poetry bursts with images of himself exalting
in the beauty of the surrounding mountains, taken
21
because I know I can still embrace that natural
glory, walk in it, run and swim in it whereas he
faces a life confined to a chair.
Some of you are just starting out in making your
visions reality—you have planted an urban garden
for families of every race to come and work
together. Others strive to provide an organic farm
for your rural community to experience the rich
rewards that farming offers—and you are still
waiting for the parking lot to fill up with eager
families. You said you were moved by the
exceptional singing at the Woodcrest Collective,
but you reminded me how singing can often be
the best way to express what is in our hearts, and
that we can do it every day.
It takes vision to bring a teenage daughter halfway
across the country in an
attempt to open her eyes to
truly and belief and discipleship. So
does moving into an old
Cathedral with a few equally
dissatisfied college
students, disillusioned with
the status quo and hoping
their life of service will advance a new world order
of equality and respect. Making caring homes for
teenage mothers, traveling to war torn countries to
make peace within your soul as well as with
people there - all these take vision.
All of us who gathered at Woodcrest were inspired
by words spoken years ago by Eberhard Arnold,
calling the world to awareness that “the thing we
have almost forgotten is truly and nevertheless
possible.” Together, with each and every person
who came, we can make this a reality in 2003. With
this vision, our own lives won't matter anymore;
nor will our selfish desires take up all our thought-
time.
If your hope was restored after the Woodcrest
Collective, know that mine was too. You left me
challenged, humbled, stretched; a lot more
compassionate and prayerful for the countless un-
headlined efforts, the bloodied fists, the many
warriors for the truth who won't let setbacks deter
them from the goal. Thank you for coming. You
opened my mind to the reality of God's global
working today.
The Woodcrest Collective was held at Woodcrest
Bruderhof from August 1-3, 2003.