Throw A Stone
2024 marks the 100th anniversary of Seabury Resources for Aging! What began in 1924 as the Episcopal Church Home has continued through the years despite everything that has come after: The Great Depression, two World Wars, profound cultural shifts, and dramatic changes in and around DC.
What we have is a mission that endures. As we reflect back on our history, I want to share some words that stood out to us.
Writing in 1930, just six years after our founding and at the beginning of the Great Depression, Ms. Sally Fauntleroy Johnson (Ms. William Channing Johnson as she notes) wrote a report from the Board of Lady Managers to the Bishop. Here is a short excerpt:
In submitting this report for 1930 it brings us to the realization of our sixth year in this work.
While we are emphasizing with gratitude our progress, let us not fail in according much of it to the fires of love that burned unceasingly in the hearts of all the friends for this great work, and their ability, to continually, by teas, concerts, card parties, rummage sales, articles in magazines and daily papers, talks to different organizations of the Church, keep alive the needs and interests of our Home[.]
May I ask you to study its architecture - think about its future needs, pray continuously for those who have the work in hand, that broad and sane judgement may be theirs, and a wealth of kindness shown in all of their decisions. Then you can point with pride some day and say “I was a part of that splendid work.”
The foundations of the greatest success are laid, not in days of universal prosperity when anybody can succeed, but always in days of uncertainty and difficulty when faith, courage and enterprise are required. So prepare yourself now for the part you will take in seeing it completed.
Throw a stone, it continues in flight as long as it has momentum; spin a wheel and it continues to revolve as long as it has momentum; but neither stone nor wheel will continue in motion from momentum alone; unless they receive increases in force, while in motion, they will come to a stop.
I don’t know if Ms. Johnson dreamed that the foundation she helped lay would outlast her lifetime. But 100 years later, the stone she threw has continued in flight, serving hundreds of thousands of people.
