“Peace and Love is Allway My Gude”

We could all use a “gude”—er, guide right about now, couldn’t we? Our young and enthusiastic and insightful Cambridge Friends School artist has sensed that. Perhaps prompted by her school’s Black History “Roots and Resistance” theme this year, she’s explored what rooted her in the past, what has pointed the way, allway, what served as her touchstone, her lodestar. And with words and colors and images, she enthusiastically and firmly lets us know: Peace and Love! Good choice.

Her guidance continues. For by using that “is” rather than “are,” she says something about how that which we draw upon in hard times is often singular. Indivisible. One. Peace and Love lie, entwined, within our rainbow-enhanced hearts. (Even when we sometimes forget that!) And her heart, she wants us to know, points to the powerful and stark and imperative statement that “Black lives matter.”

Earth-toned and earth-shaped symbols of peace buttress her heart; they remind us that allway is beyond ourselves. Allway is multitudinously directional, isn’t it? Everything, everywhere, all at once? The land below our feet, the oceans and rivers, the air above us, the creatures we share this precious planet with. May we be guided by and mindful of those green and brown non-human entities. And while we, inspired by this young student, seek our own allway guide, may we be sustained by that pie slice-shaped and glorious yellow which tells of that light which shines on in the dark. (And the dark has never extinguished it.) Allway.

A first grade student at Cambridge Friends School shows off their poster for the “ROOTS AND RESISTANCE: A Celebration of Black History” Assembly in February 2025.