August 11, 2005

Dear Friends,

     Communities of practice like Zen Center are also communities of memory and care.  As many of Suzuki-roshi's early students enter their final years, and many of us approach our final decades, now is a good time to remember what we share, and to find new ways to care for one another.

     This makes it a good time to join in taking hold of the "Alumbrella" David Chadwick has begun.  Each of us can discern how best to support its initiatives to aid our elders, get into closer touch, and deepen our memory through interviews, archives, and histories to come. 

     Together all of us can open up these efforts and open them out, complementing and conversing along the way with Zen Center's formal organization, to embrace the whole of our community in the spirit of the larger sangha we embody as members one of another.  This is a chance to join hands.  Let's welcome it.

Warmly,

Steve Tipton