Making the Impossible Possible
A message from Melissa McCourt and Dan Zemaitis ’98
Chester Reagan Chair for Quaker/Religious Studies Melissa McCourt and MS/US Religion/Quaker Studies & History Teacher Dan Zemaitis ’98 are the duo charged with ensuring that MFS’ foundational Quaker values permeate throughout everyday school life. They work daily with students, faculty, staff, and administrators in countless ways ranging from teaching, to committee work, to leadership of Meeting for Worship, to casual conversation and interaction, and much more. This is the first of several Quakerism-themed communications from Melissa and Dan to help orient our families to daily life in a Friends school.
Meeting for Worship may be the most spontaneous part of your child’s day. Where else in school do students have the opportunity to speak from the heart, without asking for permission, whenever they feel led? Meeting for Worship is intended to be a period of freedom and potential, but as students get older, some may tune out, not fully embracing the impact of this opportunity.
Our challenge lies in the fact that it takes vulnerability and courage to do the work of listening to an inner spark of Divine wisdom. Imagine a student’s inner thoughts as they are being introduced to the practice. “You want me to do the important, personal, and spiritual work of listening for inner guidance in a room filled with my peers? It’s hard enough to share my thoughts in class. How could I spontaneously share in front of the whole school?” One might wonder why we don’t end Meeting for Worship after Lower School when they are still uninhibited and literally jumping out of their seats to speak. If students don’t speak, why put them through the task of sitting silently, convincing us they have nothing to say?
Except, eventually, they do say something. It just takes time. It happens when Middle School students prepare queries in advisory and proudly share them with the community. It happens when Upper School Meeting for Worship ends with a period of Joys and Sorrows and a floodgate of experiences is opened. It happens almost every week in Lower School, but in the weeks that their messages hold threads of admiration for the Meeting House and deep appreciation for gathering in worship, we realize that they truly understand the significance of our time together. When we wait, it comes. Maybe not when we expect it to, but it’s not about our will or expectations. The architecture of time is different when led by Spirit and care.
In recent surveys conducted by the school, 84% of recent alumni and 86% of recent alumni parents/guardians agreed that Quaker values have impacted their (or their children’s) lives. As we, along with our alumni, have experienced, it can be hard to recognize the uniqueness of Quaker education while knee-deep in a Quaker school.
We recently received this lovely message of reflection from Emma Baiada ’10 which is a glowing example of the impact Meeting for Worship and Quaker values have on our graduates:
Meeting for Worship and Quaker values played a big role in the first 18 years of my life, shaping me to be an open-minded and introspective human being, but they were easy to take for granted. Now, 12 years after graduating from Moorestown Friends, I’ve come to deeply appreciate and recognize within myself the principles of simplicity, quiet reflection, community, and service. A few years ago, I sought out a Quaker Meeting in Pasadena, CA, near where I was living, and was brought to tears during my first Meeting in 10 or so years. I didn’t realize how much I was missing it, and how deeply I felt connected to the spirit of Quakerism. I am now living in Upstate New York and am attending a Meeting here. I feel at home in the Quaker community, and it helps to guide me towards greater levels of compassion, connection, and reflection – all qualities that are supportive of my career as a documentary filmmaker, artist, and caretaker. Growing up with the Quaker values that Moorestown Friends embodies had a quiet but profound effect on the way that I want to show up in the world, and continues to encourage me to “let my life speak.”
It takes time and distance to understand how the service component at MFS is not just service for service’s sake, but is deeply rooted in Quaker ideals; how giving our students space to express themselves is tied to Quaker values; how many of the traditions at MFS are built on Quaker principles. One of our goals throughout the coming year is to help members of the MFS community more fully understand the Quaker roots at the heart of the education students receive here.
Sharing and reflecting about their personal journeys in different settings helps students learn that it is okay to open up and express themselves. We encourage you, even if your child seemingly does not want to share, to keep creating the space for them to speak, trusting, in their own time, that they will. It is hard for all of us to find ways of communicating what our daily lives are like, what issues we are dealing with, and how to best express ourselves. But, given repeated opportunities in a safe and open space, that communication will become easier. It can be as simple as changing our language from “what did you do today” to “is there anything you want to share with me?” We encourage you to model how open communication works; for example, sharing something from your own day first. Make it a two-way conversation and reflection, where both you and your student are sharing what was experienced. In the end, you might find that you are able to make the impossible possible.