#16 / Pendle Hill

Friends from Santa Cruz, members of the Santa Cruz Quaker Meeting, have just written in from Pendle Hill to report that "there are 4-6 inches of snow lying about everywhere, because it rarely rises above freezing during the day. There have been three snowfalls of a few inches each since our arrival. It is quite lovely."

In general, I find it difficult to believe that I would ever characterize persistent sub-freezing temperatures as "lovely." The picture, incidentally, is of the "original" Pendle Hill, located in Lancashire, England. It was on this mountain that George Fox had a vision, in 1652, that led him to found the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers. My Santa Cruz friends are not in Lancashire, but are visiting a Quaker conference center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, named after this mountain, and which is also snowy, per their report.

The link to the conference center website provides an outline of all the educational and other activities that go on at Pendle Hill, which operates in all seasons - winter, summer, spring and fall. My ties are with the "bookstore," and particularly with the Pendle Hill Pamphlets series, to which I have subscribed for many years.

There are various ways to remember that we inhabit a world that we did not create (as well as a world that we do, indeed, bring into existence). I find that the discipline of reading the periodic pamphlets published by Pendle Hill is one good technique. I recommend them.