Pilgrimage

The bus, with highway traffic, put us into London at 3pm instead of 8am, as our planned itinerary had scheduled. We had intended to drive north to a campground in Scotland. Instead, we rented a cute blue car and drove north until we were ready to drop (no sleep the night before.) We pulled off at a highway hotel, only to find no room. Same story for the next three rest areas. Finally a fellow told us that all the hotels between there and Scotland were booked full that night, and we really should get off the highway at the next exit and find a place in town. We took his advice.

The town was Kendel, a name we know from the Quaker community in Pennsylvania. We said, “This could be cool!”

It was only the beginning. Just off the highway it said, “Home of Beatrix Potter” and “Welcome to the Lake District” – the words any English major salivates to see. Then there was

a sign that said, “Quaker Tapestries.” Joplin, McKinley and I gasped.

You see, in our New Zealand trip, we’d gone to the Auckland Friends Meeting and they had a fantastic display of life-size photos of a series of tapestries that tell the history of Quakerism. We’d been enchanted by these, and purchased the illustrated book, which is a wonderful way to share the stories with kids. Here we were, suddenly, in the place where the tapestries were actually made, and exhibited. Not only that, we discovered, we were also near Swarthmore and Pendel Hill. We were in the Mecca of Quakerism. By universal chance, it was Saturday night, and we could go to meeting in the morning.

We walked from our pub to the meeting house in the center of town. Meeting was like any other, anywhere in the world, a gathering of down-to-earth friendly people who spoke their hearts eloquently and shared with us freely. We are sincerely tempted to come back and do a sojourn there.

photos of the tapestries:

http://www.quaker-tapestry.co.uk/panels.htm

and Kendal information:

http://www.lakedistrictletsgo.co.uk/townsvillagers/kendal/kendal_main.html