Quaker echoes in pontiff's ideals

In the course of human events, in Philadelphia Pope Francis is among Friends, dead or alive. They are the people who built the city out of rich wilderness in the beginning and still influence its bedrock character. The pope may feel this revolutionary spirit shine like his own - especially that of founder William Penn, who was also a charismatic champion for peace.

The wildly popular pontiff may not have this on his itinerary this weekend, but there's a beautiful old Quaker burial ground up on Germantown Avenue that is testament to a biblical urban miracle. Historic Fair Hill has blossomed beyond the dreams of all hands who reclaimed the land from fear and violence.

The summer harvest of the flourishing garden growing right now has transformed the neighborhood near its gates. I first saw it 17 autumns ago as it was rising out of its days as an open-air drug market over the dead bodies of a thousand Friends.

"There was a lot of shooting, drug dealers, killing kids," Peaches Ramos, the block captain, said of what was known as the neighborhood's "badlands" period. "Neighbors got tired of living in fear."

Needles, condoms, and bullets once strewn around the land are now replaced by flowers, plums, pears, figs, rhubarb, berries, peaches, apples, broccoli, carrots, and lettuce. North Philadelphia resident Allen Baker, 38, holds the keys and encourages his community to enjoy the peace and beauty as well as the produce: "This garden is for you. I tell everyone that."

His 16-year-old son, Amir, a youth farmer who began as a volunteer, says he especially likes the garden-grown Swiss chard for salads. He is learning about the ancient art of seed saving - for those heirloom tomatoes that are all the rage - from Bri Barton, 26, Fair Hill's nature educator.

Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting started the partnership program with neighborhood residents more than 20 years ago.

Not far from Fair Hill, in 1688, the recently landed Germantown Quakers signed the first religious stand against slavery in the New World. Fair Hill's rolling land was granted by Penn to the Society of Friends. He was the brilliant Quaker governor who planned the graceful green city and made peace treaties with the American Indians.

The roots of American freedom and dignity were first planted by Quakers in these parts. Something to write home about, but it's somehow obscure and under the surface. Unlike most religions, Quakers are remarkably modest on their branch of the Protestant faith.

Under the trees, the tombstone names read like a city directory of leading citizens who worked for emancipation for slaves and the rights of women. First among these was a major figure, the gifted spitfire speaker Lucretia Coffin Mott.

In rest, Mott is surrounded by her family and Quaker educators, doctors, and merchants who advanced human rights in their time. More than we will ever know, because Quakers don't talk much about their good deeds in life or death. They just do them. They even worship in silence - a clear palette for speaking if moved to do so. That's how Quaker girls and women got their start, by speaking out of the silence in meeting.

As Pope Francis says: "May we learn to be silent in our hearts and before God." Can he fit in a Quaker meeting on his visit to Philadelphia? He might really enjoy that with all the hubbub everywhere else he goes.

The activist pope hardly stands on rigid ritual and ceremony. In word and action (such as his Cuba trip), he is rocking the world with nonviolent change. "War is the mother of all poverty, a vast predator of lives and souls," he says.

The 17th-century English Quakers were the original pacifists: Penn was one of them. What Francis preaches, peace and silence, the Quakers have practiced for centuries. This weekend is a meeting of like minds in brotherly - and sisterly - love.

Jamie Stiehm is a columnist for Creators Syndicate

jamiestiehm@verizon.net