| Meditating on Meditations
— By Principal Tyler C. Tingley '48, '64, '01 (Hon.), P'99 |
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For more than 30 years, Phillips Church has been the site of our weekly Thursday Morning Meditation. Meditation is a time set aside for members of our community to come together for an interlude of reflection and music. Every week a different member of our community speaks from the heart about a topic of personal importance. This winter, as I prepared my own meditation, I had a chance to reflect on the significance of these gatherings. Meditations began in the early 1970s when the Academy first set aside a time on Thursday mornings for "services" at Phillips Church. Its antecedents date to the 1960s when many schools and colleges, including Exeter, were in turmoil over required church attendance. In 1968, Exeter's trustees decided that mandatory religious observance was to be replaced with voluntary participation more geared to student needs.
At the time, some students referred to the elimination of the church attendance requirement as "abolishing religion," but this decision actually led to an increased interest in spiritual matters. The deacons, student leaders of the church, played a major role in planning and conducting the services, and the school minister provided spiritual, ethical and personal guidance. Those first Thursday "services" were primarily traditional in nature, including hymns and prayers led by members of the faculty. By the 1980s other adults from the community-staff and alumni/ae, as well as faculty-and some seniors were giving meditations. Today, the spring term is devoted to seniors' meditations. Speakers and subjects are as varied as the Exeter community. Some meditations are personal and revealing, others more abstract. Some speak of loss, while others are humorous and lighthearted. Some subjects command attention, while others draw meaning from the commonplace or seemingly insignificant. What all the speakers share is a willingness to talk personally and philosophically about something they feel is important. In this time and this place, we share honest talk. Together, we express the kind of trust in one another that is at the heart of what I believe John and Elizabeth Phillips envisioned as a community of goodness. For my first meditation, I spoke about fishing. In the cosmic scheme of things, fishing is quite insignificant-although not to me and not to the fish. But for me, fishing involves a sense of understanding and then solving a grand puzzle. Fishing brings us close to what is sacred in the natural world: it also haunts us with the urge to know and see more. My second meditation was inspired by a visit to the Shaker Community in Canterbury, NH. The meditation began with the playing of that most famous Shaker hymn, " 'Tis a Gift to Be Simple." Struck by the simplicity of the Shaker work and traditions, I discussed the "gift" that can be found in each person's own natural talents and skills. My most recent meditation recalled my studies, during the summer of 1971, with photographer Diane Arbus. Arbus challenged me to use my photography to really see my subjects, not only as objects to be photographed, but as individuals in all their human complexity. And I told of how, while I was learning to do that, I may have not really seen my teacher as she fought her own invisible demons. As the winter term winds down, our seniors are finishing up their own meditations. Several will be delivered on Thursday morning during the spring term in Phillips Church. These young Exonians will join the ranks of those who have shared a piece of themselves with this community, and we will all give thanks for their "gifts." By Principal Tyler C. Tingley '48, '64, '01 (Hon.), P'99 |
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