We seemed at first an unlikely table of lunch companions, strangers brought together by chance over split pea soup and roast turkey. Frank, an apple farmer from Virginia, talked of wanting to simplify his routine and focus more on his wife and son. Carmen, a social worker from El Salvador, had come to find new energy for her campaign to help her less-fortunate countrymen. Kelsi, a mother of three, was recovering from a serious illness. Yours truly, a travel writer, needed a calm setting away from planes, hotels and deadlines. As we ate and chatted, however, we discovered that there was a thread binding us together.
Daunted by the events of Sept. 11, each had come to this cluster of quaint buildings and green vistas in rural Pennsylvania in hopes of discovering solace -- and maybe get a little jumpstart for the soul. This is the specialty of spiritual retreats -- something that Pendle Hill, a Quaker-run center, has provided to visitors for more than seven decades, but never more than in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
"As soon as the buildings collapsed and the discussion about a military response started, it was clear to me that people were going to have a lot of issues to deal with, and somebody was going to have to help them," said Steve Baumgartner, Pendle Hill's executive director. "And so I thought, if not Quakers, who? And if not now, when?
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By late September, Baumgart- ner had revised the center's menu of programs to accommodate visitors affected by Sept. 11. For those with newfound curiousity about Muslim culture and central Asia, he launched a Monday-night lecture series. Featuring speakers such as Harvard University professor Cornel West, it is scheduled to continue until this spring. Guests with concerns about the wisdom of a military response to the terrorist attacks could sign up for a workshop on nonviolence with a Pendle Hill staffer. A weekend peace summit and a workshop on the role of women in Islamic culture were also added to the program.
Unlike many other spiritual retreats, which require participants to take part in a fixed schedule of activities, visitors to Pendle Hill can craft their own programs, drawing from the wide range of workshops, literary readings and seminars offered across campus -- from a week-long workshop on how to blend suffering and prayer into compassion to a class in writing Quaker-style. Or they can skip all the activities and use Pendle Hill's campus -- sparsely furnished rooms in quaint, Victorian buildings set on 23 acres of lush grounds -- and home-cooked meals to escape from everyday routines.
My own three-day retreat began shortly after sunrise with oatmeal and toast. Like other meals, it was served buffet style, allowing time for conversation with other guests. Next came the morning meeting, held every day after breakfast in a sanctuary converted from a century-old barn. Mostly a silent, Quaker-style service, it was punctuated occasionally by random thoughts from one congregation member or another, and ended with everyone wishing one another good day.
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I spent mornings in a workshop on simple living. Taught by biblical scholar Frank Levering, it was designed to help the participants cut the clutter from their homes and lives and to concentrate on the basic requirements of life more directly. In the afternoon, I sat in on the nonviolence workshop led by Dan Snyder, a Pendle Hill staffer. The goal of the class, Snyder explained, was to demonstrate that nonviolence is an extraordinarily effective means of "waging conflict," and that violence, in contrast, is an ineffective means of establishing peace. Evening took me to a lecture by a Bosnian social worker on the role of women in Muslim culture. Held in the Friends' meeting house in the neighboring town of Media, it was part of Pendle Hill's post-Sept. 11 lecture series.
At every turn, I was struck by the issues and questions posed by staffers and visitors. In the simple living workshop, the participants talked of how they had learned to live without television or other modern conveniences. Carmen, the Salvadoran, chided America for its indulgence in materialism. "Sept. 11 was a wake-up call for Americans to examine how materialistic and self-centered they are as a nation," she said. "For a real lesson in how to live simply, everyone should spend some time in a village in the third world." Some class members nodded in agreement, others groaned.
During the nonviolence workshop, participants discussed how violence had affected their own lives. One said she had written a dozen letters to President Bush since Sept. 11, each protesting the war in Afghanistan in a different way. In an emotional moment, one woman shared how the attacks had precipitated her pending divorce.
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After the three-hour session, I took a walk with Snyder. A longtime opponent of war, he criticized Washington for its ongoing military response to Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network. "In all cases, nonviolence is preferable to violence," he insisted, a viewpoint consistent with the Quaker peace doctrine.
But what about the passengers who brought down the United Airlines jet outside Pittsburgh, I countered. Were they justified in using violence to avert another act of terrorism?
"Obviously, once they were in the plane, they did not act wrongly to thwart the terrorists," he responded. "But my point is that if all of us understood how to use nonviolence as a tool before we get to that stage, the necessity of such acts can be averted. The work has to start long before we get to a point of finding ourselves on a hijacked plane."
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That evening, Tahija Vikalo, a Bosnian social worker, arrived for her lecture wearing stylish pants and coiffed hair and challenged the packed audience not to stereotype Muslim women as a docile group, always covered and subservient to males.
"Muslim women are free to choose to cover themselves, work outside the home, or live in whatever way they want," she insisted.
In the end, it was not the conversation but the moments of silence that affected me most strongly. A regular staple of Quaker life, silence is woven into life at Pendle Hill. Before meals and classes, during workshops, and just about any other time, participants are urged to take time for peaceful contemplation.
Taking that approach to heart, I devoted my last morning at Pendle Hill to a silent stroll across the grounds, stopping to behold the trees. Here were a pair of commanding redwoods imported from California. There were eight species of oak, four kinds of cedar, magnolias, maples and willows. As I strolled, I thought about how much work had gone into planting and maintaining the trees over the years.
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Back at the main house, I went to the dining room, grabbed a bowl of oatmeal and sat down with Carmen, Frank and Kelsi. As I listened to them chat about their schedules, it seemed to me that something had changed: They all seemed calmer than they had just a couple of days ago. Or was it me?
Unlike many other spiritual retreat centers, Pendle Hill lets its guests set their own schedules.WHERE: Wallingford, Pa.
HOW FAR: 127 miles
TRAVEL TIME: 2 1/2 hours
