Viewfinder: Radnor Meeting House

When I read Thoreau’s “Walden” in college, our professor introduced us to the idea of “mini-Walden’s”— things set apart from the pace and plans of day-to-day living. They’re not necessarily escapes, but rather places, experiences or rituals that help us see our lives with a little more clarity because they simplify life.

We all need those mini-Waldens. Wordsworth wrote that, “the world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; little we see in nature that is ours; we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

For those who often feel that way, there are mini-Waldens in Radnor Township that don’t require that you say goodbye to friends and family and grab your cabin-building tools...or even give up your Blackberry (though you might want to consider it.). In what will be an occasional “Viewfinder” series, I want to introduce a few of these oases, and I’ll begin with my latest discovery – The Radnor Meeting House, and more specifically, the surrounding property.

The Quaker meeting house was at the heart of the community in its early history when the Quakers of Radnorshire, Wales, settled what would become our township. If few of us know its rich history, perhaps even fewer know of its beauty and tranquility hidden by stone walls, trees and fences along Conestoga and Sproul Roads. In addition to the spare and simple meetinghouse, outbuilding and stables converted into a daycare center, there are a wide variety of trees, benches to sit, a graveyard and an untouched meadow filled with wildflowers.

Until I visited the meeting house, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in traffic during rush hour on Conestoga Rd. where the line of cars extends along the length of the property...and always assumed that all that existed on the other side of the wall was a building and maybe a parking lot and few trees. I smile now at the irony that, while I sat in that congested traffic, which is so representative of the world that’s “too much with us,” I was beside a place that was a perfect refuge and antidote for that often stressful and crowded situation. Walking anywhere on the grounds, you can still hear the traffic all around, but, somehow it all blends together into a hum of white noise and mingles with the sounds of birds and the wind in the trees. 

I hope you get a chance to visit some time, to walk on the grounds, wander through the meadow or sit under a tree. Listening to the sound of traffic nearby will no doubt be a reminder that the swiftness and demands of our lives are still so close. They’re close...but somehow worlds away.