[Dialogue] Witness Sept 27, 2007

[Nancy Grow]

There are many things I don't bother following these days either from lack 
of time or lack of interest, but Witnesses is not one of them!  David 
Zahrt's recent contributionwas one of many that sounded close to my 
thoinking and feeling.  Perhaps all of us, whatever our journeys have been, 
miss the "Blesses Community" of which he talks.  Certainly Bill and I, 
living in a development in Pennsylvania where everyone seems to work two 
jobs and few are interested in local or global affairs, experience a 
physical loneliness of common minds and hearts.
	It's not that I loved the long days and absence from my kids, but we did 
feel we were doing the responsible thing as parents to build them a better 
world than we had. As we read now of Azpitia, Malaysia, Zambia Kenya and 
all the rest, of the many countries we worked in personally, we are 
grateful for the colleagues that continue to labor with the vision that 
"All the earth belongs to all."  The results of our family's struggles from 
1966 to 2005 have paid off big time.  The individuals and the societies are 
different and they are expanding far beyond our imagination, and we 
gratefully pass the baton to a new generation.  Yet we still hunger for the 
daily encounter of the "Blessed Community."
	We don't find it in the local church or the neighborhood groups or in 
sifting our files or in dialogues with newcomers, good folk all, who 
somehow miss the point of what we were all about. What is lacking is the 
comprehensive view and demand of every aspect of our lives.  What is 
lacking for us is the sense of the Blessed Community.
	So what do we do?  Romanticize the past as though it were without flaw? 
Cry over the present as though it were too flawed?  Narrow our efforts to 
what we can easily and comfortably do? Worry about our grandkids' college 
funds instead of the world they will inherit?  Consider ourselves 
"retired"  when we reach eighty? What is the answer and who can supply the 
comprehensive, intentional and futuric view we are no longer able to 
provide for ourselves?
	I keep going back to Tennyson's "Ullyses":
		Though much is taken, much remains.
		And though we are not now that strength
		Which in old days moved heaven and earth,
		That which we are, we are:
		One equal passion of heroic hearts
		Made weak by time and change
		But strong in will... to strive, to seek, to find,
		And never yield!

Nancy Grow, EI, OE, ICA