Pentecost... I listened to the scripture Sunday morning describing the mass confusion and milling about, the speaking in tongues and the loud crowds and preachers. It must have been a disturbing sight and sound. God’s Spirit, tongues of flame, setting the people of God afire with enthusiasm and energy. No wonder other folks thought they were drunk. I don’t think I have ever been that caught up in the experience of the Holy... so caught up that I threw caution and dignity to the winds and just got happy. I have danced around the edges now and then.
When we worked in Cherokee, we attended a small Baptist church that spoke in tongues, expressed themselves in physical action during worship. Once the pastor’s wife got so caught up she threw her grandchild in the air and my friend Mary Lynn snagged the baby on the way down. My experience at the Baptist Covenant was powerful partly because of sharing the charismatic expressions of faith by my African American brothers and sisters. Their ease in verbal and physical expressions of faith had me standing, speaking back to the preacher, laughing and clapping, singing with soul... or as much soul as a white bread Southern Baptist woman can muster. The sight and sound of the Holy Spirit working can be messy and untidy, loud and unruly. It can also be liberating and joyful, fun and funny.
I don’t know why I have such difficulty with letting go. Perhaps my early lessons in denominational differentiation...That is something Pentecostals or Holly Rollers do, not us...helped put my soul in a straightjacket. Or it could have been my natural tendency towards introversion and my need to be in control that kept me from throwing over the reins that have guided my spiritual life. Music and singing in worship are the one place where I can occasionally catch a glimpse of my soul running free, feel the glory of God and let go. My Southern Baptist hips have loosened up a little over the years and sometimes you can catch me moving to the music, a small mirror image of a body soul rising up in joyful abandon to the One who made me.
Many of our revered religious leaders have experienced the ecstasy of the Unexplainable, the God who lives deep within our feeling soul. Some have tried to describe the experience and words always fall short. How can you capture the ephemeral Holy Spirit in words? It is like trying to describe the experience of giving birth, or dying, or falling in love. No matter how hard you try, words fail to capture the fullness of the feeling.
I now understand and am grateful for the impact sacred dance has had on my soul. A minister of music in a Baptist church over thirty years ago called me out to be a part of a dance group for worship. Me... awkward, trip over my feet, embarrassed me was learning to dance. We took ballet, jazz, African, modern and folk dance lessons. We learned some of the rudiments of signing for the deaf. And there I was, running diagonally across the church dance studio... run, run, leap, run, run, leap. Each leap got lighter and I felt myself leaping up to God, body and soul. For over twenty years participation in sacred dance provided a physical expression of the inner workings of the Spirit in me. Even now I weep when I remember some of the times I felt so connected to God when I danced. Dancing Eagle Wings with my friend John Sims singing, dancing the Crescent Hill hymn written by friends Grady Nutt and Paul Duke, my first solo dance... To everything there is a season... from Ecclesiastes 3... My body and soul were one during those exceptional expressions of Spirit. It didn’t happen every time I danced but it happened enough to keep me dancing.
I don’t dance in worship any more but I dream dreams of dancing. Last week I dreamed a dance to Roberta Flack’s version of the hymn “Come Ye Disconsolate”. As I danced in my dreams, the Comforter came and danced with me. Grief and sadness gave way to sweet peace as I danced. My Pentecost, my tongue of flame, still lights the way for running and leaping to God. Today I will try to dance again, dance the movement of the Spirit within me and like a good ballroom dancer, stay connected to my Partner in life and love. Thanks be to God for bodies and souls that can dance in so many different ways.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Miss Flossie...
My pink double flowering almond shrub is always the first to bloom in the spring. Before the forsythia and the daffodils break out in their glorious golden exclamations of spring’s arrival, the almond shrub will be covered in pink ruffled pin cushions of bloom. And, I remember Miss Flossie and Mr. Jess.
Miss Flossie and Mr. Jess lived down the road from us a piece. They were short in stature and tall in hospitality. Miss Flossie, wearing rimless glasses and old brogans, an apron covering her daily house dress, could be seen working in her flowers every day. Mr. Jess, bald and kindly, still farmed some on their homeplace. The house was built like many others in the deep south... two rooms on either side of a dogtrot hall, once open but now closed in. On one side of the hall was a kitchen-dining room and parlor. The two bedrooms were across the hall on the other side. Twelve foot ceilings helped manage the stifling heat in the summertime.
Built from Georgia pine, the outside walls, never painted, had weathered a silvery gray. The inside walls and floors were also pine, wide boards that had been varnished and were the color of coffee with a little cream. A single light bulb hung down from the center of the ceiling in each room and Miss Flossie was proud of her electric stove that sat next to her old wood burner. Each room had one outlet and that was enough for them. They had running water but no indoor bathroom so the little house out behind the big house was still used. The big windows let in light but did not do a good job keeping the cold out in the winter. Insulation and double pane windows
were not available when this house was built.
They lived in that house all their lives, raising two children, farming, going to church, making a life. After the children were grown and gone, Miss Flossie spent time in her flowers. When you went to see her, you always came away with something to plant. And when we went to see her, we would try to bring her something new to plant, too. The best flowers always came with a story... This althea is a start from the ones that grew at my great-grandmother’s house... I found this daffodil growing at an abandoned house site... Miz Cooper brought me this from her yard. Miss Flossie could talk the ears off a flea and next to gardening, loved to talk. Although the truth is, talking often won out over gardening. I have my flowering almond as a gift from Miss Flossie and it has moved from house to house with me carrying her memory from yard to yard.
Their lives were very simple. Pleasures were sharing meals with friends, going to church, singing, working the earth for flowers and crops. Money was scarce and they lived hand to mouth with no health insurance or retirement plans. As a farmer, Mr. Jess had never had much money to put in Social Security so they didn’t get much in their monthly check. But I never heard them complain about what they didn’t have. I heard them give thanks for what they did have often. If I played a song on the piano that she liked, Miss Flossie would give me a hug and tell me the story of it, laughing all the while. She never complained of having only two Sunday dresses for each season year after year and Mr. Jess’s Sunday overalls were always pressed with a crisp crease in the pants legs. Simplicity was not a moral choice for them but a fact of life imposed by their economic reality.
The children provided the extras and often came bearing gifts... food, material for sewing dresses, a radio, a rug for the parlor... and these were a source of pleasure and pride. If you had enough nerve to ask them if they were poor, they would have denied their need. They had enough food, a home, each other, their farm and their God. They were rich beyond measure and had all they needed and more.
Hard times came in their old age. Mr. Jess got sick with cancer and worried about losing everything to pay for his treatment. When the cancer was no longer treatable, he chose to end his life in the barn with a gun rather than lying in a bed hooked up to machines. Miss Flossie lived on alone growing silver gray like the outside of her house, comforted by the garden, the church and family. She lived her last two years in a nursing home remembering her life and giving thanks for all she had been given. Our last visit we talked about flowers, her yard, and I gave a report on my flowering almond. We laughed, sang some hymns, and I listened as she talked without ceasing, breathing quickly so she wouldn’t lose her rhythm, and we remembered her life together.
When I go home, I drive by her old home place. The house is long gone and so are most of her flowers. The camellia bushes still stand as do the stately pecan trees. I lift my hand in a wave as I always did when I saw them in their yard working. I give thanks for their lives and the lessons they taught me. And as I carry my surplus to Goodwill and Habitat this week, the result of spring cleaning, I vow to try to live more like Miss Flossie and Mr. Jess. I have more than I need and I am grateful. Thanks be to God for all the good gifts I have been given and most of all, thanks for Miss Flossie, Mr. Jess and my remembrance of them.
Miss Flossie and Mr. Jess lived down the road from us a piece. They were short in stature and tall in hospitality. Miss Flossie, wearing rimless glasses and old brogans, an apron covering her daily house dress, could be seen working in her flowers every day. Mr. Jess, bald and kindly, still farmed some on their homeplace. The house was built like many others in the deep south... two rooms on either side of a dogtrot hall, once open but now closed in. On one side of the hall was a kitchen-dining room and parlor. The two bedrooms were across the hall on the other side. Twelve foot ceilings helped manage the stifling heat in the summertime.
Built from Georgia pine, the outside walls, never painted, had weathered a silvery gray. The inside walls and floors were also pine, wide boards that had been varnished and were the color of coffee with a little cream. A single light bulb hung down from the center of the ceiling in each room and Miss Flossie was proud of her electric stove that sat next to her old wood burner. Each room had one outlet and that was enough for them. They had running water but no indoor bathroom so the little house out behind the big house was still used. The big windows let in light but did not do a good job keeping the cold out in the winter. Insulation and double pane windows
were not available when this house was built.
They lived in that house all their lives, raising two children, farming, going to church, making a life. After the children were grown and gone, Miss Flossie spent time in her flowers. When you went to see her, you always came away with something to plant. And when we went to see her, we would try to bring her something new to plant, too. The best flowers always came with a story... This althea is a start from the ones that grew at my great-grandmother’s house... I found this daffodil growing at an abandoned house site... Miz Cooper brought me this from her yard. Miss Flossie could talk the ears off a flea and next to gardening, loved to talk. Although the truth is, talking often won out over gardening. I have my flowering almond as a gift from Miss Flossie and it has moved from house to house with me carrying her memory from yard to yard.
Their lives were very simple. Pleasures were sharing meals with friends, going to church, singing, working the earth for flowers and crops. Money was scarce and they lived hand to mouth with no health insurance or retirement plans. As a farmer, Mr. Jess had never had much money to put in Social Security so they didn’t get much in their monthly check. But I never heard them complain about what they didn’t have. I heard them give thanks for what they did have often. If I played a song on the piano that she liked, Miss Flossie would give me a hug and tell me the story of it, laughing all the while. She never complained of having only two Sunday dresses for each season year after year and Mr. Jess’s Sunday overalls were always pressed with a crisp crease in the pants legs. Simplicity was not a moral choice for them but a fact of life imposed by their economic reality.
The children provided the extras and often came bearing gifts... food, material for sewing dresses, a radio, a rug for the parlor... and these were a source of pleasure and pride. If you had enough nerve to ask them if they were poor, they would have denied their need. They had enough food, a home, each other, their farm and their God. They were rich beyond measure and had all they needed and more.
Hard times came in their old age. Mr. Jess got sick with cancer and worried about losing everything to pay for his treatment. When the cancer was no longer treatable, he chose to end his life in the barn with a gun rather than lying in a bed hooked up to machines. Miss Flossie lived on alone growing silver gray like the outside of her house, comforted by the garden, the church and family. She lived her last two years in a nursing home remembering her life and giving thanks for all she had been given. Our last visit we talked about flowers, her yard, and I gave a report on my flowering almond. We laughed, sang some hymns, and I listened as she talked without ceasing, breathing quickly so she wouldn’t lose her rhythm, and we remembered her life together.
When I go home, I drive by her old home place. The house is long gone and so are most of her flowers. The camellia bushes still stand as do the stately pecan trees. I lift my hand in a wave as I always did when I saw them in their yard working. I give thanks for their lives and the lessons they taught me. And as I carry my surplus to Goodwill and Habitat this week, the result of spring cleaning, I vow to try to live more like Miss Flossie and Mr. Jess. I have more than I need and I am grateful. Thanks be to God for all the good gifts I have been given and most of all, thanks for Miss Flossie, Mr. Jess and my remembrance of them.
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