Walk-a-thon photos

Carmen and I were glad to be able to take part last week in the 11th annual Bud Rue Memorial Walk for Social Justice, sponsored by the Upper Delaware Unitarian Fellowship in Beach Lake. Some photos taken by fellowship members Robert Santee, Lloyd Johnson, Carmen Rue, and myself of the 2004 walk can be seen on my website.

Free on-line movies

Votergate
Farenheit 9/11
Hijacking Catastrophe

Someone saw the light

About a year ago, while surfing the web, I stumbled across the following account which is set at Innisfree, in a book called Harvest written by Chuck Smith and Tal Brooke:

In the fall of 1972 Joe's rock band rented a summer estate called Innisfree Estate at Skinner's Falls, Pennsylvania. By now, Joe's mystical pursuit was obsessive. He and his best friend, Harris, moved to the estate a month early before the rest of the band arrived. They brought hundreds of pounds of grain to eat along with wild roots and herbs that they cooked. They bathed in the cold river and spent half the night meditating. The estate had a decadent feel of opulence.

At three A.M. one morning Joe and Harris got into an argument. Joe had been reading the Bible from time to time, and Harris wanted to leave it behind arguing, "The Bible is against everything we've been doing." But Harris agreed to look at it one time. They threw the Bible open and their eyes fell on I Corinthians 11. They had been doing their meditation under blankets again. The passage read, in effect, 'Never pray with a veil over your head.' This statement made an impact on them.

Joe describes that moment: "The presence of the Lord stepped right into the room. It was tangible. There was the overwhelming sensation of a Person - not just a power or a force. I knew it was God in Christ. Harris felt it too. The Presence was so holy that I just hung my head. I couldn't lift it. We both started weeping. All of our previous ideas about finding nirvana were flushed out of our minds. Jesus was alive, and truly God in and of Himself. He washed all the junk away. We wept and wept as we felt His awesomely holy Presence.

That was it, the end of the road, of our search. We were converted. As I used to say, "You know when you know that you know." We were sealed with the Holy Spirit in the early hours of that morning in September 1972.

I wonder in what other books or publications Innisfree has been mentioned. Anyone know of any? How about adding a link or citation here?

Statement of philosophy, May 1970

If my memory is correct, this statement dated May 1970 was written by Lou Cammon, a teacher at Montclair High School (if it was not Lou, someone please correct me and I'll note it here). The statement was adopted by group consensus and was used as part of the original fund-raising material to promote the organization.

INNISFREE - A PHILOSOPHICAL STATEMENT

During the past few years it has become increasingly evident that the American culture, for all its worth, is rapidly alientating human beings from itself and from other human beings. The problem of alienation has for generations been a dominent theme in literature, but the time for consideration of this problem on purely aesthetic and intellectual levels is dwawing to a close. Although one can discover a desperate lack of meaning in all spheres of our society from a large corporation to the streets of Newark, nowhere is this lack so blatantly noticeable as it is in the public schools. Everywhere students are asking, "What is it all about?" And everywhere students are understanding that unless our culture begins to conscientiously come to grips with its spiritual emptiness, we may indeed be heading for disaster.

The primary purpose of the summer experience at Innisfree is to begin to deal with this emptiness. It is our belief that the most basic skill necessary for human development at this point in history is not the skill to name presidents of the U.S. nor the skill to swim a hundred yards in record time. Rather, we are concerned with developing in young people and in ourselves the skill to understand ourselves and to extend ourselves in a real spirit of community to others. The ideas of self-awareness and community awareness are then the two most important concepts in our program. In order to translate these ideas into behavior we have conceived of a living experience for young people and adults which involves everyone on as many levels of the process of living as possible. In our community there will need to be rules to insure the physical well-being of each member of the community; there will need to be policies to maximize the value of every experience which the community offers; there will need to be attitudes developed so that each member of the community has a maximum opportunity to grow both as an individual and as a member of the community; and all of these rules, policies, and attitudes will be developed as a total group through the experience of living together.

It should be apparent then that form one point of view our community is an experiment in democracy. By this, we mean that it is essential in order for a human being to be most fully human to learn how to govern himself and how to share in the government of others. In order to learn self-government, one must learn as much as possible about oneself. Such learning cannot come about through the imposition of values and experiencess -- and imposition is the characteristic process of the public school -- but rather it must come about byu exercising free choices for oneself and by examining these choices to discover their meaning. On a relatively simple level the members of Innisfree will have to make choices daily regarding the use of their time. Although a wide range of recreational, artistic, and educational opportunities will be available because of the physical and human composition of the community, the actualization of these resources will be made from moment and day to day by each member of the community.

Innisfree is to be an alternative to what we see as largely a dehumanizing and mechanizing society. Unlike mamny other utopian projects, however, we are very much concerned with the relationship between our community and the society as a whole. Rather than being an experiment in escapism, we conceive of our program as developing in people the inner strength that comes through awareness to deal with the world at large.

One may argue that we are a bunch of dreamy-eyed idealists. We do not think so. On the contrary, we feel that the "American Dream" of life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness has become a grotesque nightmare which may very soon destroy us. As a result, we firmly believe that our projected community is not a pipe-dream but a practical and realistic necessity.

A digital graffiti board

In response to Joe's observation about 'turnout' here (below), I've heard from some by e-mail who've not posted publicly, which is their choice but it limits the ability to keep in contact with old friends. The summers of 1970-1971 were life-changing for many of us. Like Gay, I have trouble describing the concept of Innisfree to people who weren 't there, more so as an ideal than what it was in practice. References to A.S. Neill's Summerhill School in England, his book by the same name, or the radical idea of self-government by consensus (particularly when it involves young people) often bring blank stares or a shake of the head, which is part of what led to this website. In practice, Innisfree was a scenic piece of property that hosted a variety of programs and informal activities over a quarter century commencing in 1970. Some of these memorable activities focused on outdoor and environmental education, self-discovery and personal growth, spirituality, community activism, music, radical politics and religion, drama (lots of drama!), recreation, work parties, family gatherings, garden variety barbecues, and lots of meetings.

This blog and its accompanying website cannot convey what Innisfree was about at any fundamental level, but they are an attempt to maintain memory and contact. Although what Innisfree was "about" changed repeatedly over the years, some seeming constants were an emphasis on openness to experience, interpersonal dialogue, and an embrace of wide variations in humanity. Perhaps by replacing the guestbook with a format that allows for more online interaction, conversation may develop here not just of what Innisfree was, but exemplifying what it might have been and what its ethical principles represent in today's reality to those who took part of it. Of course, I recognize that ethical principles vary depending on who is being asked, and that they may evolve over time, but I believe that the common emphases mentioned above may represent a shared foundation.

On the topic of early Innisfree, blogging kind of reminds me of the pine-plank 'graffiti board' that was mounted outside the main lodge at Innisfree in those early summers, freshly covered every few days with blank newsprint, inviting personal and political inscriptions. The topic of this blog need not be limited to Innisfree, but also to personal updates or current social topics of your choosing.

Innisfree guestbook entries transferred

To start off, I'm transferring the following posts from the guestbook that was formerly linked from the Innisfree website to this new, more flexible blog format which takes its place:

Name: Joe Bender-Zanoni (Homepage)
Country: USA
Date: Sat Jun 5 13:59:17 2004
Comment: Bravo Tom. The history reads right. I really admire the brave people who were so committed to trusting and liberating "children". It was right for me and I treasure those days. I'm still in touch with Jordan Chassan. He lives in Nashville. I returned to New Jersey after many years living in Vermont. I just went down Fairfield St. yesterday and thought of the Rues which inspired me to find the site. I'm surprised at the low turnout.

Name: Gay (Homepage)
Country: USA
Date: Thu Jun 3 19:24:56 2004
Comment: Wonderful to find the Innisfree site. A remarkable experience, wonderful people. I learned so much. My kids are now the age I was then. It is so hard to explain to them what it was.

Name: Dave
Country: USA
Date: Wed Apr 3 05:31:19 2002
Comment: Anybody heard from Elisa Hess? I lost contact with her around 1981.

Name: Jim (Jamie) Roth, 1971
Country:
Date: Sat Jul 28 22:12:35 2001
Comment: Well, I guess an actual alum oughta sign your guestbook. I have mixed emotions about my experience at Innisfree. It was the wrong place to send a 12-year old in 1971. Some wonderful and terrible things happened that summer. When I think about what went on I just shake my head. Sorry about Bud, he was a good guy. Thanks for the site. It was an important event im my life, it's great to see it preserved.

Name: Ella Rue (Homepage)
Country: USA
Date: Sun Mar 4 21:17:45 2001
Comment: Nice job Tom!!! :) Ella

Name: Victor Silverman
Country: USA
Date: Sun Mar 4 17:56:16 2001
Comment: Right arm