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What the Chapel Means to Me
Some thoughts from Betty Wiberg
Yesterday, March 30 , 2001, during the Chapel's centennial year, I was fortunate to be able to be present to photographically record the signing of the documents for the purchase of Swedenborg Chapel by my husband Lars-Erik Wiberg, President of the Cambridge Society, and Raphael Guiu, Treasurer of the Society at the offices of Anderson and Kreiger of Cambridge, MA. It was a touchstone event marking the first time in my Swedenborg experience when the Society's position has been freed and cleared for action in its own right without the constraints of the Swedenborg School of Religion. I look forward to a healthier state of being for both of us. The task before us of raising two million dollars to complete the purchase could be a daunting one except that the hazardous waters we have already traversed make me feel confident that we will accomplish our present mission with God's continuing guidance.
I have started my own dream series at this momentous time for my personal, as well as for societal, benefit. My reason for attending Swedenborg chapel was inspired by a dream dating back thirty years when I dreamed I was attending a gathering involving food, music and much communion of members. In my dream the chapel was just down the road. In fact it is one hour away from our home in Rockport, but the distance has not kept my husband nor me from making Swedenborg Chapel our spiritual home.
Sometime in 1977, Dr. Freidemann Horn, then President of the Swedenborg School of Religion, invited us to attend. We had been attending a lecture by Wilson Van Dusen , whose book, The Presence of Other Worlds had been our first step to becoming Swedenborgians. My first encounter with Swedenborg's name was in Ralph Waldo Emerson's Representative Men.
Swedenborg specifically advises attending church, and I have found our members and our minister, Rev. F. Robert Tafel, and the Chapel all to be important factors in my own spiritual journey. While books and dreams, family and friends, have been an invaluable resource, interaction at the Chapel has keep me grounded in the need to refresh my efforts and restore my spirit.
I have been a member of the Swedenborg Chapel for twenty three years and am still learning to grow spiritually. The Swedenborg doctrine offers a well of never ending revelation that continues to quench my thirst and enrich my living. Come and join the flow. We are entering a new reign with new responsibilities.
Betty Wiberg, March 2001
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