"OUR FIRST 10 YEARS" 1982-1992:

A SHORT HISTORY OF MEETING GROUND

Anything can occur, anything is possible and likely, duration and space do not exist. On the tenuous ground of reality, imagination spins out and weaves new patterns...

by Carl Mazza

In the spring of 1977 I had an experience that changed my life. I was spending the night in a camp on the shore of the upper Chesapeake Bay. It was a crisp, wild evening, pleasantly cool, and because of the wind everything around me was in motion. As it grew dark I found myself sitting in a secluded niche, overlooking the turbulent waters of the Bay. The gray, churning water was like the soul of adventure. I could not escape a growing feeling of presence, and in this deepening experience, as night fell, I sensed I was not alone. At first it was very eery and exciting, then uplifting. In the morning I came away with a message -- a deep feeling and inner assurance. Behind or beyond this world, there is another -- a world more real even than that of the senses. Between the two worlds there is a connection, a relationship -- a bond, if you will, in metaphor and shadow. However expressed, it is beyond words to describe. There is a communication also. The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber might have called it an 'addressing' -- a spirit or force, an energy, with which we are in touch and which, perhaps more importantly, is touching us. I believe this "connection" names us, makes us each a person. This relationship becomes who we are. Yet there is a strong element of paradox. As we find our selfhood in this relational world we are compelled to understand others. What it means to be human is to share a common creation. To be in touch with that creation means to be inextricably, unalterably bound to one another. In my soul, this was the origin of Meeting Ground.

It seems to be a desire of persons of faith everywhere to seek the further shore of their religion. Meeting Ground is one such endeavor which began as a means of putting faith into practice and thereby giving faith definition. Our spiritual ancestors and mentors have included the likes of St. Francis of Assisi, Sister Claire, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin (and the Catholic Worker), and Brother Jesus.. The idea of "Meeting Ground" which came to me in the late 1970s, was in part a result of my fifteen year search for an answer to the question: "How can the church, and the entire community of faith be one with -- share ministry with -- and among persons who are homeless, poor, and in other ways made outcast because of class, race, or economics?"

After working in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York over these years I found few "models" which whetted my soul's appetite for more. It would be an advantage, I thought, to get off the established paths and start fresh with a brand new project. Besides, my interest was to pursue the ideal in a fresh way, allowing for insight and discovery in the process. I think I took as my model Gandhi's idea of project as an "experiment in truth." I think Gandhi meant that in spite of our best efforts at proposing, planning, and working -- in the end, God always makes the final result. As Tolstoy said, "Humans propose, but God disposes." Meeting Ground in 1992 is very different from what it was in 1982. The growth in the physical plant, and in the program aspect of the work, has been incidental to the growth in understanding and realization. And this process of soul deepening continues in the present day and into the future.