Nancy Werking Poling

Synchronicity, Part I

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by

Nancy Werking Poling
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Synchronicity: “the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection” (Oxford Languages)

Twenty-seven years ago, in a narrow column of The Chicago Tribune, I read that the Virgin Mary had stopped visiting a farm at Conyers, Georgia. (Really.) Until then, as many as 80,000 pilgrims would gather to hear Mary’s messages. The farm owner’s name? Nancy. Nancy Fowler. (https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/conyers-apparitions-of-the-virgin-mary/)

How did Nancy Fowler feel about Mary’s abandoning her, I wondered. What would Nancy do now that she was irrelevant? What was Mary’s next project? I clipped the article out of the newspaper and tucked it in my journal.

Several years later I got to thinking about how I might leave the world a better, safer place for my grandchildren. Might the time come when I would be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice? What cause would warrant such a cost? The environment, I decided.

I started to write. Mary, more crone than virgin, wants women to organize to save the environment. She makes regular appearances at Elizabeth’s North Carolina farm. Elizabeth’s young adult daughter, taking on Mary’s mission as her own, becomes an eco-terrorist. 

Six years ago I finished writing While Earth Still Speaks. 

Recent political events leave me again thinking, might there come the time, sooner rather than later, when I will be required to sacrifice my life for a cause?

https://www.amazon.com/While-Earth-Speaks-Werking-Poling/

Comments

4 responses to “Synchronicity, Part I”

  1. Verna Todd Avatar
    Verna Todd

    When Trump took office this second time and started taking actions that were unconstitutional, I thought that certainly those actions would not actually happen. The courts would tell him he couldn’t carry them out. How naive I was.

    Reply
    1. Nancy Werking Poling Avatar
      Nancy Werking Poling

      Yes, many of us have been naive. How do we respond now that we know that he will disregard the Constitution and the courts?

      Reply
  2. Ann Poling Hawkins Avatar
    Ann Poling Hawkins

    Nancy,

    I am trying to find out if I am somehow related to you; I came across your book, “Most Ministers Wear Sneakers” in our First Congregational UCC Corvallis, Oregon, library. My name is Ann Poling Hawkins. My father was Dan W. Poling, former Dean of Men and Assoc. Dean of Students at Oregon State University. His father was Daniel Vandersall Poling, who came to Oregon from Pennsylvania, along with his brother Charles Cupp Poling. My father, Dan W., was a cousin to Daniel A. Poling (head of Christian Endeavor), who was the father of Clark Vandersall Poling, one of the four chaplains who went down with the USAT Dorchester in WWII: a memorial chapel in Philadelphia, and a stained glass window in the Pentagon, are dedicated to these four chaplains. I am just curious and would love to hear from you.

    Reply
    1. Nancy Werking Poling Avatar
      Nancy Werking Poling

      Ann,
      Sorry I haven’t checked on my comments in a long time. I married into the Poling family. Over the years many people have asked my husband if he’s related to THE Dan Poling. The answer is no. This branch of the Polings was from West Virginia.

      Interesting that “Most Ministers Wear Sneakers” is still around. I wish it could have been reprinted, as the artwork is so good.

      Thanks for contacting me.
      Nancy

      Reply

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