New Hope Originals, The Toys
Quaker/Zen Poets Live the Simple Life
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New Hope for Burundi
Judith & Philip Toy do not
have a TV or a VCR or a microwave. They
sprout their own veggies; and they share one twelve-year-old car.
Only occassionally the Toys listen to National Public Radio for
their news and--even less frequently--buy a newspaper. They are
up at five every morning to meditate. In their New Hope home,
the largest room which once contained office furniture and housed
their bustling public relations business, there are now an altar,
a polished wooden floor and two quiet rows of black custions.
This morning rather than clients knocking at their door, meditators
walk in without knocking, remove their shoes and silently enter
the meditation hall to sit and still their minds. Now instead
of corporate managers, the Toys host Zen monks for days
and weekends of "mindfullness".
"Ten years ago, if you would
have painted this picture of my life, I would have said to you,
Nice work if you can get it, but I d'ont think so," said
Judith. "But that was before the murders." When Judith's
sister in law and her two boys were brutally murdered in their
beds in rural-suburban Bucks County, Judith took refuge among
the gentle Quakers at
Solebury Friends Meeting.
It was our Quaker elders Jack and
Irene Fisher who took us to meet the zen Roshi, Dai-En Bennage,
a Japanese-trained zen priest, who started us in the daily meditation
practice," Judith said. And, between the silence of the Quakers
and the serenity of zen, it's been a steady calming-down since
then."I didn't know it at the time," says Judith,
"but those murders were a call to love."
Judith and Philip Toy try to live their live with "wide margins"
as Thoreau called it, working only as they must, doing only work
they really love, to feed themselves and wear thrift store clothing,
which they say they appreciate because "It's soft and broken
in and pre-appreciated by some generous & anonymous strangers."
In 1992, the toys were led to travel
to Romania to work with handicapped orphans for a summer. But
because they are living the simple life, they had to raise the
funds for the trip. Their many friends were glad to oblige. "That
was a life-changing experience," says Philip. "We gained
a world-prespective that informs our lives every single day.
Philip drives a school van part-time for developmentally disabled
kids to and from their schools each day. Between bus runs, he
operates Cider Press, a micro press that publishes limited edition
poetry titles of high literary merit. Or he writes his own poems.
Judith teaches poetry and puppetry--a unique larger-than-life
pupperty--in museum programs, to homeless urban teens, and at
the local community college. Or she writes her own poems. "Judith
and I are each other's best, first-line editors,"Philip remarks.
When not working with the handicapped, the couple runs programs
at their home for home schoolers and gifted young writers. Philip,
who is a jazz pianist, plays for the music segment of the home
schooling programs, and Judith does the bulk of the teaching,
primarily on multi-cultural themes. And they both teach First
Day School to Quaker children.
"We teach all of our students
to breathe, to find that quiet place inside of themselves,"
she said, "which is probably the best possible life skill."
At the Second Annual Congress on
Quaker Education in June, where she presented a paper, Judith
met a young Quaker minister, David Nyonzima, of Burundi. Nyonzima
is one of the masses of refugees now escaping to Nairobi, Kenya.
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