Star light, star not quite so bright...

If I were given the power to excise two items from our modern technology tool kit, I would do away with security lights and half of the lights in our parking lots and our cities. Light pollution has arrived at Sabbath Rest Farm and I am not happy. The new Wal-Mart and Lowe’s in Weaverville are lit up like Christmas trees all night long. Added to the other lights in our small town, a golden glow now shines over our far hill blocking out the Milky Way and other stars.I know this seems like a small petty concern especially when balanced against war and famine but in this season of Epiphany, star light has a special meaning for me.
Most of us live our lives never looking up in the night sky much. Occasionally we might notice a full moon or a spectacular sunset. Star gazing is an extinct past time in the cities where most of the little jewels are hidden by the reflected light. When we first moved to Sabbath Rest, I remember Tim showing us the Milky Way overhead. He and Michael named all the stars they knew and there were thousands more, each a perfect point of light in the velvet blackness overhead. North Star, a guide for sailors and travelers... the Big Dipper, Orion... each constellation has its own story. I have two star stories that linger in my soul as reminders of my finitude.
My religious education as a Southern Baptist was grounded mostly in the here and now. Mystery was not on our church menu Sunday mornings. Much of what I learned about God, Jesus, faith and theology was presented as an absolute fact without any wiggle room. One of my encounters with the mysteries of the universe came at a Baptist Student Union retreat at a lake near our college. One night several of us lay on a pier stretching out into the water watching the stars. There was not much light pollution in rural South Georgia so the star gazing was spectacular. Everyone began seeing shooting stars. You could not see the same star someone else saw unless you were looking at the same place at the same time. The light was fleeting and fast. Each of us took a part of the night sky for our own and as we rested in the firmament, the traveling light show reminded us how small we were.
After we moved to Sabbath Rest Farm, we woke early one morning (or late one night) and went out to our sunset deck. It was midwinter and freezing cold. Bundled up, we laid down on the deck floor to watch a meteor shower, shooting stars. There were thousands of them and I loosed the tethers that held my feet to terra firma. Lost in the dance of the stars, I marveled at the mystery of creation and the God that set this all in motion. I felt like I floated up into the night sky, balanced between heaven and earth, dancing with the stars.
“What is man that Thou art mindful of him?” asked the Psalmist. That ancient question rattles around in my soul at moments like these. Creation seems so vast and unapproachable, full of mystery upon mystery. And yet...The unknowable God who set the morning stars singing, the loving God who created life, the God who waits for us to be still and know, is both beyond our knowledge and in our hearts. It’s a wonder... a mystery... a Christmas gift.
Star light, star bright, guide my soul to God who waits for me clothed in the body of a baby boy this season. Help me remember to dance with the stars in celebration of your presence among us. Thank you for the night sky and its star jewelry, reminders of my limits and your unlimited love. Amen.

Grief, grumps, gratitude and grace... Advent and Christmas 2009

It has been a forced march through unfamiliar terrain this Advent and Christmas. None of the signposts I was accustomed to seeing were on this twisty turning swichback bumpy road to Bethlehem. Only one Sunday worship and no special music program, two long road trips to Alabama, a funeral and a burial, no Christmas Eve service in the barn chapel, and to top it all off, a blizzard... I needed a wailing wall for all my grief and grumps. There was not much time for wailing, however. Christmas was coming with or without me.
Michael and I settled in Friday a week ago watching the pretty snow, thankful for a day of rest. That lasted until the power went out in the afternoon. Days of hard work followed. Snowed in without power, we needed wood and kerosene to keep warm. Our gas stove allowed me to cook and melt snow for water to flush the toilets. Without power, our pump does not work so drinking water came from a bottle. Nights without light were difficult since darkness comes early now. Going to bed at six seemed a little early even if we were cold. One night Michael entertained himself reading in bed but he needed to wear gloves to keep his hands warm.
Tuesday morning, the day Alison and the boys were coming in, a friend loaned us his generator. It was enough to run the furnace, lights and television. When we needed water, we turned everything off and ran the pump. Hot water came from the top of the stove. It takes a LOT of hot water to fill a bathtub for four little boys. Our gas stove worked the old fashioned way... you had to light it. The grandchildren didn’t notice that the decorating was only half done. They celebrated being together at the farm, loved all the snow, fed cows, gathered eggs, and went on Christmas mercy missions with Pop.
The grown-ups were on their last nerve Tuesday night when our church group was to go caroling and deliver Christmas to Bobby and Jack. Bobby, Jack’s nephew, is his care giver. Jack is 79 and what we used to call retarded. Everyone in our small group of singers was grumpy, wondering how long this would last. Walking into their small living room, receiving a big hug from Jack, feeling his delight in our presence, his joy and Christmas celebration kicked everyone there into a new space. Christmas came that night for everyone present. When Pat went back the next day to take them their gift certificate, Jack hugged her again and was still celebrating. We are going to keep in touch with them. Pat will be our minister of outreach to Jack and Bobby. Hard times are coming. Bobby is dying of lung cancer and Jack’s world is going to change.
Wednesday, Alison, Michael and the four boys went to the Farmer’s Market and bought boxes and boxes of oranges. Then they delivered them to homeless shelters all over town. A Hope, a day shelter for homeless people, was full of folks when they showed up. Michael wished he had bought more.
I know charity like this has gone out of style and I understand some of the reasoning. Helping a person find a job, providing the services needed by Jack, giving a gift that will change a life have long term benefits for the individuals in need. But there is something pure and innocent in helping your neighbor however they need help. A fleece jacket, a box of oranges, clearing trees off the driveway, a meal or a generator, we need one another’s help to make it and all of us need help sooner or later. If gifts can be given with loving hearts and a wish to be a Good Samaritan, both the giver and the one who receives the gift are enriched and made whole.
Thursday, Christmas Eve afternoon and we prepared to live through another day without hot water. All the other children came and pitched in to clean up and make ready for the coming of Christmas. As we gathered around the table that night, I gave thanks for the steaks David and Diane gave us (they thawed and needed to be cooked). I gave thanks for safe travel and the gathering in. I gave thanks for all the rough edges that keep us from getting too comfortable where we are, that remind us we are living surrounded by mercy and grace. I gave thanks for power repairmen working through their holidays for those of us in need. And I gave thanks for this bumpy road to Bethlehem, the star that shines even when my eyes are blurred with fatigue and grief.
The power came on that evening. Hot baths for small boys and a tired Nana helped end the evening. Christmas came without the usual preparation and it had all that I needed. Grieving, grumpy, grateful and grace filled... I celebrated the birth of the One who never leaves me to stand alone when nothing goes as planned. On a ride in the Kawasaki mule, I told the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem to Aidan, Matthew, Mason and Mead. Mason pointed down the hill to the chapel and asked, “Is that Bethlehem, Nana?” Mason knew what I had forgotten. Bethlehem is as close to us as our heart and the Christ Child comes to us wherever we are.
Merry Christmas to all of you. May the Bethlehem blessing be with you this next year as you travel a road full of bumps and switchbacks. Ya’ll come by if your journey brings you this way. I’ll keep clean sheets on the guest bed and a pot of soup on the stove. And may grief, grumps, gratitude and grace abound.

The best boy I ever knew...

This was written by our middle daughter Alison. She read it at her grandfather's funeral. It is another rich Christmas memory maker. Peggy

Hi Daddy. Below is a little thing I wrote about Daddy O. I did it more to include in Aidan's memory book so that he would have something about Daddy O. I have struggled this week with some moments of grief I did not expect. It has been a lot more sad than I had anticipated ~ probably due in part to the fact that I have not seen Daddy O in so long so his spiral downward wasn't as present to me as Mommy Ann's...but also probably because they are now both gone. Feel free to share...but just thought you might wish to read it.

Love you
A


Once Upon a Time (I am told by my son that this is how every story begins...and so it is...) there was this very special man. He was a wonderful servant of God in so many ways and to so many people. Civil Rights struck a cord with him ~ and he lived out his beliefs of equality in every aspect of his life. He did so many wonderful things ~ but to me, he was "The Best Boy I Ever Knew." He was Daddy O ~ husband to Mommy Ann; father to my father and to my uncle; and grandfather to me, my siblings and my cousins. I never knew him as H.O. Hester or Dr. Hester or even as Herschel Odell ~ and certainly not to diminish any of his many accomplishments and roads he has paved because his impact here is tremendous ~ but in my life the impact is far different as he was "The Best Boy I Ever Knew."

When my father called to report Daddy O's passing there was relief because we all knew he had been suffering and longed to be with Mommy Ann. We knew that he was in a much better place now ~ a long awaited journey home. A little sidenote ~ I found it fitting that he was returning to my grandmother just before Christmas ~ a holiday that reminds me most of Mommy Ann as she always seemed to enjoy the celebration. I figure he just did not want to be late for the huge party she must throw in Heaven...one adorned with holiday decorations including tiny elves she likely puts in the heavenly potted plants.

While Daddy O's passing was very expected and a relief in ways ~ I found myself a little shocked at the thought that he had died. I kind of found myself thinking I was being a bit silly at being shocked ~ he was 96 years old. This probably came for a few reasons ~ one, because Daddy O has suffered many setbacks in the last year and half somehow always managing to find his way back to a steady beat and I guess in some way I had believed this would continue to happen. Afterall, he is one of the only men I have ever seen lift a railroad tie at the ripe ol' age of 85 after countless hernia surgeries ~ to say he is the strongest man I have ever known would be putting it mildly. But I also think that even though we have known he was failing ~ his actual passing signified a moment when I had officially lost all living connection to Daddy O and Mommy Ann as my grandparents...kind of a rite of passage into full fledged adulthood. I know you might think ~ adulthood should have come to me before the age of 34 (afterall I no longer live at home, am married and have a 3 1/2 year old son) but somehow your grandparents can always make you feel the comfort of childhood again in a way that no one else can. I cannot think of moments at Daddy O and Mommy Ann's that were not filled with the following items: popcorn, grape Check Soda, frozen bananas, chocolate chip cookies, and banana nutbread ~ all accompanied by some of my happiest family together times with my cousins.

So while I am relieved that Daddy O is together again with Mommy Ann ~ I cannot help but grieve. But in my grief, I have been blessed. Blessed with having had him as a grandfather to help guide me in my religious and cultural beliefs. I have been blessed with the treasured memories of days gone by spent sleeping in the little house (the grandkid quarters on Bankhead Street in Mongtomgery) with my cousins. And since we are at Christmas I will tell you a short little moment that I think sums up to me all that Daddy O is in my heart ~ growing up our family liked to help provide Christmas for a family that would have otherwise been without. One year (in Louisville, KY) we provided for a single mother that was pregnant with her third child. Luckily she had been involved with a program that provided safer housing for women in her situation ~ and so she was living in an apartment with an elderly woman. I can vividly remember a few aspects of our taking Christmas for her family ~ we took some of our old toys and children's clothing. We took food for Christmas dinner and probably took some wrapped gifts too. While the adults unloaded the "goods" ~ we played with the young children to distract them so that they could open presents on Christmas Day. I clearly remember Daddy O coming along with us to help ~ and as the mother was saying goodbye to us ~ Daddy O reached out, hugged her and gave her money to be used however it was needed. To me ~ in that moment ~ Daddy O taught me a kindness I carry with me each day trying hard to help others without question. I also often try to remember to hug ~ something Daddy O loved to do (often referring to himself as the Hugging Hester). So while his impact on society, community and religion is indeed great ~ his impact on each one of us is more tremendous. And while I will long to have my grandparents back ~ especially at Christmas ~ I am so blessed to have had such special people as my grandparents. And while this is "the end" to the best boy I ever knew ~ it will never be the end to the impact he has made here.

A Christmas remembered... Christmas Cuties

My father did not remember much of his childhood. The abuse he suffered had mercifully wiped his memory slate clean. But one Christmas memory remained and I treasure this story he told me as his grown up daughter.
My grandfather had no money for Christmas for daddy and his brothers and sisters. He was prone to gamble and drink, a good time Charlie, so it had probably had been spent on wine, women and song. GrandMary asked my father to walk to his grandfather’s house to ask for some Christmas money. Daddy was a small boy and remembered the humiliation and shame he felt having to ask his grandfather for money. Every time he told the story I could see that small boy in his eyes, dragging his feet as he walked the dirt roads, shamed by his father’s behavior, sent by his mother to petition for charity. The five dollars Poppa sent home with him stuffed (sort of) their stockings. In the toe was one orange, a little dry and hard on the outside, but still sweet and juicy on the inside. It was the only orange they ever had during the year because oranges were dear, rare fruit for regular folks. Daddy said he saved the skin and chewed that after the fruit was gone just to remember the flavor of the orange.
Every Christmas, we would drive across the state line just a few miles from our home and buy big bags of Florida oranges, juice oranges and navel oranges. Daddy taught me how to cut a cone shaped hole in the stem end of a juice orange, how to suck it dry and then how to tear it apart to eat. Navel oranges were for peeling and eating, for ambrosia at Christmas dinner. We all loved oranges and in my childhood home, there were oranges in abundance. It was a Christmas gift for that small boy who lived in my daddy and a gift of abundance he gave my sister and me.
This tradition continued in our home. Michael loves Christmas oranges, too. Those of us who grew up close to Florida tracked the winter season by the appearance of the oranges and grapefruits. Our children grew up with their daddy peeling oranges at night as a winter bedtime ritual. Often we would eat ten oranges in one night. Big, sweet, juicy navel oranges were our favorite.
Now I have a new orange in my citrus vocabulary... the Cuties. Our church in Texas orders these by the ton, I think. Sharlande, the associate pastor, has written of the smell that floats down the church halls when the Cuties arrive. They are a small orange that peels like a tangerine with no seeds, perfect for little children (and big children,too).
Yesterday the minister’s group met at the Farmhouse for their regular monthly meeting. I carried down the coffee, cream and sugar, set out the tea bags and agave nectar. Then I found a lovely old wooden bowl, filled it with Cuties and set it on the living room table as a Christmas gift from my daddy and me, a remembrance of days gone by and loved ones now departed. It was a gift of love and memory, a gift to honor the little boy who was finally able to eat his fill of oranges.
This Christmas, as in Christmas past, we will take oranges and grapefruit to our local day shelter for the homeless as a Christmas happy. It is one of the ways we choose to share the more than enough in our lives as a living testament to those who gifted us. Our church has adopted a care giver and his charge, a developmentally challenged man. Along with the flannel shirt, fleece jacket and moccasins and food, Michael and I will take a big bag of navel oranges. I hope their Christmas is a merry one. It is our gift to honor the little boy who was born in Bethlehem so many long years ago.
Merry Christmas, daddy. When we gather around the fire with all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, orange juice dribbling down our chins, I will tell your Christmas story and the story of the baby boy Jesus. That little boy grew up and left us a legacy of hope, love, joy and peace. I wonder if he would be pleased with how we have turned out, with our memory of his Christmas story, and our sharing of the abundance he shared with us?

wild thing, you make my heart sing...

I was down at the stable, mucking out the stalls, putting out hay for the day when I saw the donkeys and Dixie run to the fence by the driveway, snorting and stamping. I looked up and saw a black bear walking past, ambling by, on his way somewhere through our back yard. The donkeys thought they could take him. Shirley was convinced she could thrash him and wanted a chance. He paid no attention to them or to me as I yelled for Michael to come look. Being that close to a really big wild thing was exciting and a little scary.
A woman in our community made the papers when her chicken flock was wiped out by a hungry bear. She was furious that the local authorities couldn’t do anything to protect her chickens and she was afraid the bear would harm her or her children. Of course she lives out in the country, perhaps in a subdivision, but still near mountains and woods. Wild things were there first and draw no distinctions concerning property lines or potential food sources.
Whether we live in the country or the city, we are surrounded by wild things. We live with the illusion we are in control of our environment until the power goes out. Then we are reduced to the basics... heat, light, food preparation are no longer easily managed. A gas shortage curtails our travel and we grumble about the inconvenience. Our bodies function as they should without our noticing until cancer or a heart attack get our attention. Our children are born and grow, living joy among us and then a diagnosis comes... autism, hearing impaired, ADHD, leukemia... and we are laid low in the certain knowledge that some things are beyond our control.
The scariest wild things are those that live within me. In the dark interior of my being lives a sometimes stingy soul who begrudges others their gifts. A sharp tongue gives vent to my anger and frustration without consideration. Forgiveness is not my strong suit. My rememberer is liable to get stuck on past hurts and grievances. Fear of failure that feeds my fear of worthlessness keeps me from venturing out into the wide world. My own personal little black cloud of depression that seems to provide a counterpoint to my Polly Anna personality can swamp me in times of stress. Fleeing to the wilderness seems to be my only option sometimes.
Wild things...wilderness where wild things live... can there be salvation in the wilderness? When David fled the wrath of King Saul, he found a stronghold in the wilderness, a place of refuge and safety in the midst of madness and murder. I am comforted by the possibility of a stronghold, a center of peace, in the middle of my own wilderness experiences. My stronghold would allow room for the wild things within me and without to rampage without doing too much harm. I am held in a safe space while the storms rage. And in that stronghold, without my usual props to keep the illusion of control in place, I can remember who holds the world in place, who holds my soul in safekeeping. Stripped of my strength, I fall to my knees calling for God to help me. My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth and wilderness... it does come.
This Advent darkness is a reminder that the darkness will give way to light. Darkness does not last forever. The Light of the World will come again to illuminate my inner darkness, to show me a new way of living with my inner wild things and to warm my heart towards my kin people, wild and tame. And if I wait and work, perhaps I can catch a glimpse of the peace of wild things...

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Funeral suits...

I went to the closet to begin packing for the long trip to Alabama. I pulled out the old standard, my funeral suit, black three piece crepe old as the hills still looks good suit that I wear on these sad occasions. Every Southern lady of a certain age has her funeral suit or dress, one that may be worn at other times but is always worn to funerals. It is usually black, perhaps navy blue, but is dark and as elegant as you can afford. One doesn’t want to be flashy but exhibit restrained style. Just because you are grieving, or are attending the grieving, doesn’t mean you have to look like a frump.
It was going to be a long weekend. After the drive down on Friday, there would be two services, one in Montgomery and one in Birmingham. In Montgomery, friends and co-workers (those who were still alive) came along with friends and family. All the grandchildren came, a testimony to the impact their grandparents had on their lives. The beautiful old sanctuary of First Baptist Montgomery was filled with joy and sorrow, both dancing their way through our hearts as the service progressed. Ann and H.O. were members there for many years and his pastor remembered him with affection.
Women from one of the churches H.O. served as an interim brought lunch to the church so we could eat quickly and get on the road to Birmingham. The second service was scheduled to begin with a visitation at three with a grave side at four. The church H.O. pastored for twenty years was filled again with friends and family. Five of Michael’s high school friends were there along with other friends who had driven in from far away just to be with us that day. H.O. and Ann’s north Alabama family were well represented and many of them remembered Uncle Odell and Aunt Annie with love. People who were members at Eighty Fifth Street Baptist Church during H.O.’s time there came in spite of their age. Old they may have been, but the memories of what H.O. had meant to them as their pastor burned brightly in the stories they told. Once again great-grandchildren sat patiently (mostly) through their second worship service of the day.
And then it was time to go to the cemetery. Darkness had fallen early on that cold rainy day. We gathered around the grave, hugging each other, explaining to the children what was going to happen, hearing old words of comfort from the Bible, sending Daddy O on his way home to Mommy Ann. Carolyn, your image of a house with the furniture moved out helped Matthew get a picture of death that he could understand. He stood by the grave with me and wasn’t nearly as scared as he thought he might be. I was able to do for him what my grandmother did for me so many years ago, help him begin understanding the journey of life and death in the middle of love, laughter and tears.
We checked into our motel, changed clothes and drove to a restaurant for our evening meal. The six young boys were let out of their cages and enjoyed playing together. Fatigue, gratitude, and fun were on the menu for the evening. Alison screamed appropriately when she saw the rubber rat much to the boys delight. Family ties that bind held us close that night and it was a memory maker. The next morning, we scattered to the four winds... California, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina... filled up and overflowing. Hugs all around, plans for the next get together, walkie talkies handed out, a flurry of leave taking as we began the return to our lives back home and we were off, on the road again.
Driving up the hill to our home, I saw the lights on and gave thanks to be back. Walking in, we were greeted by a clean home and food in the refrigerator. Our church had come and cleaned and cooked for us. Greater love hath no woman than to let other women see and clean her dirty house for her. 1st Peggy 3:16 It felt so good... loving arms and hands held us up, Pat’s home made soup warmed our souls and the lasagna meant I didn’t have to think about what to cook for supper today. We are loved and that love has been made manifest this weekend. We are so grateful for all those who have been a part of this journey. The pathway was made plain and smooth by your notes and cards, your calls and visits, your presence in our lives as we walked through this valley of the shadow of death. It is well with our souls because of you and the God we love and serve. My funeral suit has been made new again by the love and joy of those saints who surround us here on earth. Thanks be to God for all of you, for Ann and H.O., and for the gift of life that is such a mystery. Death was swallowed up in victory this weekend, the victory of love and life.

In the midst of life, we are in death...

It has been such a strange Advent, suspended between life and death, joy and sorrow, calm and frenzy. Hope Sunday was spent far from home, not with our church family as we usually do. Hope for new life was embodied in an old man dying, one body worn out but not yet moved in to his new one... hope for a peaceful passing over to the other side of the River Jordan, hope for joy in the morning, hope for all us mortals who live in the shadow of death. We were, in the words of the writer of Titus, “awaiting our blessed hope”. This year, hope is speckled with both darkness and light. I am the richer for it... richer in soul, steeped in gratitude for the hope that led a man to leave his cultural heritage and become a new being, one who saw no differences in the colors of skin.
We came home to wait for death’s arrival. One of the gifts and curses of being self employed is you are your own boss. When the boss wants to, he can choose to leave work... but he doesn’t get paid. There is no paid leave time for illness or family emergencies. Michael needed to work. During this week of Hope, I called family members, friends, funeral home, cemetery, churches, e-mailed the obituary, began preparations for Christmas. Life marched on, nay, it raced on with or without me. There were still meals to cook, animals to feed, clothes to wash, bills to pay, a house to clean, sheets to change, company coming. Wednesday night, the word came. H.O. died in his sleep, the sleep he entered before Michael left him. In the midst of life, we were in death. Those ancient words from The Book of Common Prayer stilled my spirit, calmed my frenetic pace.
And now we are living out the week of love. It has been a week of love filled up and overflowing. Church family calling and wanting to help... a clean house and food will be waiting for us when we return from Alabama this weekend. Friends of long standing, friends who have known us since we were hardly worth knowing, friends who knew Michael’s parents, new friends, all have opened their loving arms to us, enveloped us with hugs and pats, listened to our stories, wept with us, laughed with us. We know love because of the One who first loved us and our God kinfolk who have surrounded us this second week of Advent. Love is drawing the family to Alabama this weekend for one last time in the place Michael’s parents called home. All the grandchildren will be there. One will sing Amazing Grace, others will read scripture, their presence a witness to the loves that brought them into being.
For now, we rest... rest and wait. We wait for the promised joy, joy that knows no limits of circumstance but flows from the Source of all that is. We are singing our Requiem Mass this weekend as a family, our prayers for peace and rest and forgiveness, our song of joy for all that has been and all that is yet to come. I read the words of the Requiem Mass, the Mass for the dead. “In the midst of life we are in death: of whom May we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, Who for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord, most mighty, O holy and most Merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter Pains of eternal death.” The bitter pains of eternal death, our sins, all are wiped away as we seek the One who birthed us into this world. Hoping, peaceful, joyful Love awaits us all when our Advent life here on earth is completed.

Well done...

The old man died last night. Sunday, ten days ago Tammy called to say Michael needed to come on if he wanted to see his dad alive again. Hospice thought he wouldn’t live until Wednesday when Michael was planning to be there. Monday was a whirlwind canceling and rescheduling appointments, packing, getting the car ready to go, but he was able to leave in the early afternoon. The room across from his dad at Autumn Place was empty (Mr. Hudson had died) so Tammy had the room made ready for Michael. It was a tender week of care giving... hand holding, reading aloud from the Bible, the last haircut, H.O. aware of Michael’s presence intermittently. With his son by his side, the old preacher set out on his last road trip.
H.O.’s calling in life was to be a pastor. For the first part of his career, he was a parish pastor for 85th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The second parish was the whole state of Alabama, all the African American Baptist churches primarily. He and Ann traveled the state, the country and the world in the company of black Baptists. In an era when white people still gave their yard man a drink in a mason jar, Ann and H.O. visited homes, ate wonderful meals, preached and became friends with more black people than white. Whenever they came to visit us, wherever we lived, H.O. always knew who the black Baptist pastors were and was preaching in their churches or we went for worship. He has outlived almost all of his contemporaries black and white. The pastoral care he and Ann lived out during a time of turmoil is mostly forgotten now, eclipsed by the march of time.
When Tammy called last night to tell us H.O. had died, she was weeping. In his last parish, Autumn Place, the women loved him. The nurses and care givers loved him because he loved them. When they served him his meals, he would take their hand, kiss it and thank them. When he told his trademark corny jokes, they laughed and shared hugs. H.O. was proud of being a “hugging Hester”. All the helpers, black and white, loved him for who he had been and who he was now. Last night, Tammy and Cora bathed his body and dressed him for his last trip. It was a gift of love.
So today we wakened to a new world, a world where Ann and H.O. are together again, beyond our reach but in our hearts. After Ann’s death, H.O. couldn’t wait to get back home to Alabama. Alabama, his native state, where he and Ann grew up knowing each other, married, birthed children, lived their love story, home sweet home. The time after her death was lonely for him. She had been his sweetheart since childhood and his life after her death was lopsided and a little lost. This morning, in the midst of our grief is the joy of their glad reunion. Betwixt and between again...
Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Rest now in the arms of God with your sweet Ann by your side. We will catch up with you later.

Valdosta vignettes...Morven minutes

Instead of driving Miss Daisy, I was driving Miz Shirley down to the farm in South Georgia for Thanksgiving weekend. We drove on the back roads through beautiful farmland, past black and white speckled Holsteins reclining under water oak shade trees, passing small towns with rich history, on our way to see Uncle Harold, my father’s only surviving brother, in Tarrytown. It was a straight shot from Soperton to Tarrytown, past the town cemetery where many of my relatives are buried, turn left at Miss Ora’s house (my step-great-grandmother, gifted quilt maker), past cousin Jaymond’s house, turn right at the four way stop, then left on the dirt road named Vance Road after my grandfather, second house on the right. After a short visit we headed out to Valdosta-Morven and the farm, needing to be there by supper time.
We were only going to be there for four full days and there was a lot to be done. The house had mold in it from being shut up for ten months. Our first task after eating a sandwich was to scrub cabinets, furniture, and floors to get the first layer cleaned up. We saved washing the dishes for the next morning. We slept the sleep of the righteous that night worn out by the trip, the cleaning and all the emotions of being home again.
The new well pump wasn’t working so mama called the well men early. They could come the first part of the afternoon so we occupied ourselves with work that needed to be done inside and outside. After cleaning chores in the morning, we began picking up pecans from under the trees in the backyard. It was a bountiful harvest and we filled two five gallon buckets quickly. After a walk down the lane to check out the barns and speak to the one remaining barn cat Sam, we began weeding the flower beds overgrown with dog fennel. The well men came and just jiggled the pipe. Much to mama’s aggravation, it clicked right on. A quick run to the grocery store set us up for food and we settled in for the visit. Thanksgiving Day was filled with more yard work, turkey and trimmings, grace and gratitude for our family’s life on this little farm, and picking up more pecans. The writing that follows are short snapshots of our days in South Georgia...Valdosta vignettes and Morven minutes, a collection of where I come from and who my people are.
Valdosta... We drove into Valdosta to take the pecans to Everett’s for cracking. They do a better job than Exum’s just down the road from the farm. It was a neat old brick building, open on one side with a closed in small office space-gift shop to one side. In the back, the cracking machine ran tended by a black man and in the front, a Latino woman minded the tables laden with vegetables. The greens were freshly picked from the patch out back. Mama asked the owner if anybody ever stole his greens. He said, “All the time but I planted enough to feed them and me, too. If they care enough to take the time and trouble to pick them, they are hungry so I don’t mind.” There was laughter and joking and teasing between customers, workers and owners, each giving as good as they got.
As the owner’s thirty something son was checking me out he asked, “Is life in the mountains wonderful?” “Yes and no”, I said. “Mostly its life like everywhere else surrounded by great beauty.” He continued to tell me of his fears. He said there was so much racial hostility now, more than ever before, volatile and dangerous. Ten murders in this little city this year with a shooting the week before that injured eleven and killed one... all young black men. The violence is fueled by drugs and gangs sending those who can afford it to the county to live leaving a shell of the vibrant downtown I once knew. He worries about the future of this town he loves, this business he runs. “I’m caught between here and not here”, he says, “and I don’t know what to do.” Betwixt and between my grandma would say and for that I have no answer.
With an expanded Air Force base, a growing state university, a sturdy base of manufacturing companies and a mostly rural community, Valdosta has felt the pinch of the recession but is not yet desperate. Jobs are not plentiful but there is still work available. It has never been an area made rich by high salaries, flush with money. Folks have not forgotten how to get by, to make do, to do more with less. Food and living expenses are much cheaper than here in the mountains so it takes less money to make a life in South Georgia. Most of the places I knew and loved in downtown are closed. Crime has shut down the business district and most of the beautiful old turn of the century buildings sit empty and idle. Betwixt and between... the old ways and places are gone and it is not yet clear what will come to take its place.
Morven minutes... Mama and I run to the Dollar Store to pick up some freezer bags for our shelled pecans. As we stand in the aisle, a young blonde woman walks by, stops and hugs mama. Her name is Debbie Cason. Her family lives in the Morven community and we bought cane syrup from her daddy every year. He still made it the old fashioned way and a trip to the Casons was an annual ritual for us. When Mister Cason bought his small farm, the bank wouldn’t loan him the money because he didn’t have enough down payment. Daddy loaned him his down payment money for no interest and Mister Cason paid back every penny. Debbie was a part of the medical team that tended my daddy the last week of his life in the hospital. She and mama caught up on family talk while I listened.
And around the end of the aisle came a buggy pushed speedily by Wilma Elliot who heard mama’s voice and wanted in on the reunion. Daddy bought his farm from her daddy and they lived up on the road near our house. Wilma is a little older than I am and had become a good friend to mama after my sister and I left home. She and mama keep in touch by phone. “So, how long are you staying this time?” Wilma asked. Mama explained she no longer felt safe staying by herself at home so far from us. I felt her struggle with the loss in those words, saw Wilma’s eyes blur with tears, choked up myself. Beloved community there in the Dollar Store aisles in little Morven... women who have loved one another for years facing bravely the loss of the presence of one of their own. “No help for it”, mama says and so it is.
Morven has changed some. An Indian family bought the little grocery store. There are more Latino faces now and along with a Bar-B-Que restaurant owned by an African American family, a seafood restaurant will be opening soon. Jean’s beauty shop is still in the former service station and the bank is doing fine. The old brick stores are a little more decrepit than before but still standing. The phone booth at the crossroads is gone and has been replaced by a pay phone at the Flash gas station. The Baptist and Methodist churches still look active and well cared for. The old school has become home to a plethora of offices and looks a little shabby. Crime here, too, is a growing problem with drugs and home invasions a new reality for this little country town. Personal safety is no longer taken for granted.
Life goes on there and here. Changes come. Some are good and some not so good. The ties that bind are stretched by distance but not broken. There is much to say grace over in the here and not here of life. From the betwixt and the between of life in South Georgia and life in the North Carolina mountains, I affirm the grace of God, the goodness of people and the gift of life. These were the days the Lord made and we did give thanks and we were glad in it. Amen.

Don't forget your raising...

It was a warm sunny Sunday so we decided to worship outside. Our table, draped in green with the prayer bowl and candle, was against the brick wall and we sat with our backs to the sun. As we waited for Mark to start, Janet and I began a conversation about boundaries. Others joined in. No white shoes after Labor Day... girls can be nurses but not doctors... don’t get above your raising... The consensus was some boundaries are made to be broken but some boundaries are a necessity. This age of few limits and boundaries can be treacherous to navigate without a some fenceposts along the way.
Worship focused on the story of Hannah, her husband, and his other wife, a story that could have been told in one of today’s tabloids. Beloved wife is sterile, second wife bears many children and taunts her rival, husband doesn’t get it, beloved wife prays for deliverance through children and her prayer is answered, she offers her firstborn as a servant to the God who heard her prayer. Mark, who has an eclectic taste in music, played the Dionne Warwick hit song, “I Say a Little Prayer for You” and the group read the drama out loud. I came home and read the rest of the story in First Samuel.
The rest of the story is about God coming to the end of the rope with old Eli’s sons who were breaking all the commandments. Eli was hearing from everybody how bad his boys were. They wouldn’t listen when their daddy tried to rein them in. They were having too much fun living on the wild side. So a man of God came to Eli with a vision he revealed, a vision that told of the death of his sons, “There will not be an old man in your house”, and the beginning of a new priesthood. Enough is enough, said the Lord God.
No instantaneous miraculous death dealing in this story, though. It comes true through the years as Samuel continues to grow up with Eli at the temple. “And the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision”. That verse could have been written about my life... no frequent vision, rare connection to the Love of my Life, trouble listening and seeing God at work in the history of my life. Slight break here while I go mop up after the beagle who just threw up after eating a decorative birds nest he filched from the table top...no wonder I have difficulty with my God vision.
God works within the boundaries of time and space, allows the gradual unfolding of his purposes in our lives, lets us have some room to run and some time to find our way back. And when we pray, sometimes the answers to our prayers come in the form of those people of God who are living their lives next to us. The long slow working of God in our lives often cannot be understood until our lives are nearly complete. Like Eli, we hear the voices of the young Samuels around us and say, “Listen to the voice of the Lord and do what seems good.” Remember your raising, don’t wear white after Labor Day and girls can be anything they want to be...

Writing... my prayer of the heart

Those who have made the prayer of the heart a daily practice come to experience it as a simple, yet beautiful way to their true home. It gradually leads us away from the house of fear and moves us closer to the house of love, God’s house. Henri Nouwen

Someone asked me last night why I write... how did I learn to write... As far back as my memory goes (and that is pretty far back now) I have loved words. I couldn’t wait to read and pestered my daddy into teaching me using the newspaper and maps as my first books. He and mama read every night and our home was full of magazines and books. When school began, I could hardly wait to see what our reader was for the year. I would sit in class and read ahead, bored with just keeping up.
The good teachers caught me at it and gave me more books to read just to keep me occupied. Mrs. Dees, my fourth grade teacher, required a term paper and taught us the intricacies of foot notes and note cards. My tenth grade English teacher, a part time Methodist minister in our small village who taught to make a living wage, set up a special reading program for me introducing me to Flaubert and Darwin and Steinbeck among others. Mrs. Adams, my senior English Literature teacher, shared her love of the written word with an extensive reading course designed to turn little South Georgia rednecks into reasonable facsimiles of cultured persons. A college course in T.S. Eliot’s poetry introduced me to the wonderful world of poetry with layered meanings.
A town librarian who overlooked my age and let me check out anything I wanted from the adult section set my mind to roaming through all those lovely books shelved in the Carnegie Library. My grandmother ignored all the basic chores in life and let me read all day if I wanted to, sitting on the front porch of Cloverly or curled up on the old green horsehair Victorian sofa in the front parlor. She had a bookshelf full of potboiler romance novels from the turn of the century and I loved all those stories of high minded young women and men suffering the pangs of love.
Verbal communication was not a skill my father practiced. He belonged to the school of thought that actions provided proof of love and affection and anger was an emotion only adults could indulge in. There was very little teaching of appropriate expression of feelings with spoken words. Writing and reading, however, were seen as valuable evidence of education and written expression (daddy wrote a lot of letters to congressmen and senators) was an acceptable way to express feelings. One of my learning curves in marriage has been to acquire the ability to express emotion in words without chin quivers and tears. I would much rather write it out than speak it.
So when I read the Nouwen quote this morning in my little prayer book, I laughed at the synchronicity of the Holy Spirit. Writing is my daily prayer of the heart, my way out of the house of fear, my way home to the house of Love. I cannot speak with the tongues of angels. I get choked up and have not yet found a way to cry and speak effectively at the same time. But, I can write. I am grateful for all my teachers in the art of writing and reading. It has been and continues to be a lifeline that connects my inner self with the outside world, an important survival tool for an introvert like me. So I write because I can, because I must, because it leads me home to myself and God.
We are all different, unique in our choice of ways to travel home to the house of love. I write, others speak, others use actions or service, some sing and some create art, some meditate and chant, others pray without ceasing. However we get there, by mule or horse, by Model T or Corvette, by train or bus, it is important that we be conscious in our travels of our final destination and “keep our eyes on the prize.” Thanks be to God for the journey.

Come unto me...

Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

I knew when I married him that he wanted to be a pastor. His first church work after seminary was as assistant pastor (and youth minister) at Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, still one of our two home churches. I watched as parishioners made their way to his office... parents of teenagers, young married couples, young adults... all needing someone to tell their troubles to who embodied the face of God for them. After three years at Lake Shore, we moved back to the seminary for Michael’s Ph.D. in that peculiar discipline of Pastoral Counseling (not counseling for pastors), the discipline that marries the practice of faith and psychotherapy. For forty years I have watched him learn and practice the art and craft of pastoral counseling on church staffs, in church offices, in our home and at the office of Pastoral Counseling and Growth Center.
In 1980 when we moved to Asheville for the first time, he had an office at Beverly Hills Baptist and an office at home. Our outdoor swing was his waiting room in spring, summer and fall. Alison, our youngest daughter, was his greeter, often sitting in the swing with folks chattering away about her life and handing out hugs. When we returned to Louisville, Kentucky for Michael to serve as a professor at the seminary where he received his Ph.D., he had an office at home where he continued his private practice as a pastoral counselor. Our children grew up knowing clients as friends, neighbors, fellow church members and it was a seamless part of Michael’s ministry as a pastor whatever else he did.
When we moved back to Asheville in 1990, Michael established the Pastoral Counseling and Growth Center in an old house, 191 East Chestnut Street. For the first time, his practice was separated from a church building and our home. At first, it was just Michael with the other rooms in the house rented out. Gradually, a collegial practice came into being with other pastoral counselors joining him. As he had done throughout his years of practice, Michael continued to see people who could not afford to pay much at all for help. He always had a group of folks... teens paying their own way, families living close to the edge, pastors who worked for small churches... whom he saw for a very small fee, sometimes free. It was important to him that he tithe his time and talents for the greater good.
And then he had a dream... a dream of a foundation that could help pay the way for those who could not afford to pay, a way to provide help for the least ones, the lost ones, the overlooked ones. It would have been easier to establish a non-profit for his center, a way to expand his habit of tithing time and talent for those under the roof of Pastoral Counseling and Growth Center. But one of the hallmarks of Michael’s character is his generosity of vision and his generosity of spirit. His vision included all pastoral counselors in Western North Carolina and all the people they could help if some financial support was available. He knew that they, like him, depended on the fees collected to support themselves and their families. There was a limit to the help that could be provided by the individual counselors but a foundation could raise money, structure an application process, write checks to counselors for services given to approved clients and extend the ministry of pastoral counseling in Western North Carolina. And, so it has.
Every December, I watch as Michael sits at our big round table, surrounded by letters to donors, writing a personal message of gratitude and grace on each one, asking for their continued financial support for this important ministry. The list is long and it takes hours. He does so, not just for himself, not just for the other pastoral counselors, but for all those who labor and are heavy laden, those who need rest, those who need to see and hear the face of God in a counselor who will help them find their way through the valley of the shadow. He will never see or know most of those who will be helped by the money he raises but it is more than enough to know that they are helped.
Tonight we will gather for the foundation’s annual meeting to see the results of last years work, to give money, to meet and greet one another, to celebrate all that has been done, to see what lies ahead. We will write a check tonight, probably bordering on more than we can afford, not because we are special but because we have a dream. I will sit and give thanks for that dream of Michael’s all those years ago, for all the pastoral counselors who are able to extend a helping hand to those in need, for the generous gifts of the many supporters, and for the director of the foundation and the hard work she must do. But most of all, I give thanks for the opportunity we have to make a difference in others lives in the name of the One who has called us to walk with the weak and weary, to lend them a shoulder to lean on at a time when they are unable to walk alone. Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given... and so it has. Amen.

If you would like to support the Partnership for Pastoral Counseling, you can mail a check to PO Box 8177, Asheville, NC 28814.

a day at Sabbath Rest Farm...

I walked out to the gate headed down to the stable and smelled the sharp tang of wood smoke hanging heavy in the air. The air was cold, crisp and clear. The ground was white with frost. A cloud lay in the valley below blotting out the sight of the other houses on the farm. Junie B spoke to me and the donkeys complained about my being too slow. I fed Bud the Barn Cat, put out morning hay, set the captives free and mucked out the stalls. When I walked back up to the house, the cloud was slowly fading away as the sun rose in the valley. Like the musical Brigadoon, a little community was coming into view wrapped in soft edges. I stood for a moment and savored the beginning of my day, gave thanks for the beauty that surrounds me, went in to cook breakfast for Michael... some of his eggs fresh from his hens.
It was hay baling day, the last of this season...freeze dried by now after several days of frost and warm sun. Little Michael was back from his time in Winston-Salem with his new used pick up truck ready to work. His exuberant greeting and hearty hug set the mood for the day’s work. We did stable work, traded out the screens on the side porch for the winter glass panels, he and Michael did some fence work, and it was lunch time. Soup for lunch and short naps... time to bale hay.
It wasn’t much hay, just 140 bales or so, dry and light mostly. I stacked alone since Diane’s hip is out, and Leisa drove the truck and trailer. That is no small job since you have all the men telling you where to go next and how to get there. The men, whom God blessed with more upper body strength and am I glad, tossed the bales into the trailer and we stacked them five rows high for the drive home. After unloading the hay in Gary’s barn, we three went to eat supper at mama’s. She had cooked for us... roast beef, her famous mashed potatoes, rutabagas, peas, beans and cake. It is such a good gift to come home to a meal made ready for you after work in the fields. We gave thanks and ate like we meant it.
We drove up to our house and I got out to go stable the horses and feed them. I stepped out of the Kawasaki mule and looked up at the night sky. It took my breath away. Clear, dark night with more stars than my eye could count, light from far away in time and space, bathing my upturned face in their shining blessing. I got lost in the otherness of the sky world that is beyond my understanding and sang my evening blessing... “Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows of the evening, steal across the sky. Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet repose; with thy tenderest blessing, may our eyelids close. When the morning wakens, then may I arise pure, and fresh, and sinless in they holy eyes.” It was a good day, a very good day and I did rejoice in it.

Thank you note living...

We have been getting thank you notes in the mail from Alison’s friends who came to spend a weekend with us as a retreat time. Written by hand on lovely cards, expressing gratitude for their time here, they lift my spirit when I see them on my desk. Going to the mailbox was an adventure in thanksgiving as they began to arrive. Snail mail still matters. My mama would say they were “raised right” because they took the time and made the effort to send a concrete expression of gratitude.
Our daughters have worked with our grandchildren to teach them the basic words of politeness... please and thank you. Every time they ask for something, the word “please” must be used and when they receive something, thank you is required. On birthdays and holidays, thank you notes come from them emblazoned with drawings and words and scribbles. They are learning the fine art of thanksgiving. It is an art that only requires a grateful heart and the will to express it concretely.
My niece Genny sent us several thank you notes for our help with her wedding. The most fun ones were the picture postcards from their honeymoon in Hawaii. We felt that what we had given really was important to her and that we mattered enough to take the time to include us in her life. I am astounded to hear how many brides and grooms never send thank you notes for wedding largesse.
A few Sundays ago, Hannah and I made origami books for our small congregation and stuffed them with slips of paper. We handed them out at the end of worship and asked folks to keep a record of what they were grateful for during the next week. I didn’t have any presents that week wrapped in gift wrap but I found so much to be thankful for. The horses and donkeys making me laugh with their morning antics, the taste of fresh eggs scrambled with cheese, the sunlight on bright fall leaves after days of rain, a new (to me) car that is fun to drive, hot tub bath in an old cast iron tub that is just right for soaking and reading, riding Junie B even when she is cranky, a baby calf that scrambles to find his mama, the shape of graceful deer wreathed in early morning mist at the edge of our front yard...These were on my thank you note to God that week.
John Claypool’s sermon Sunday on gratitude and generosity has echoed through my spirit as I try to get my self together for this week. Paying bills... more bills than money this week, worrying about a friend who has been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, trying to figure out a way to help Tina, doing fall cleaning, looking for a home for Beagle Bailey who is driving me mad, changing summer clothes to fall and winter with a Goodwill bag collection... how can these be transformed into thank you notes?
Paying bills... We are not rich in money but we have more than enough even when we have to rob Peter to pay Paul. My sick friend... Walt and Mary Lynn were my best adult friends in college. Walt was my Baptist Student Union Director and he and Mary Lynn lived in an apartment in the center. They modeled another way to be married than the one I knew from my parents. Walt kicked my brain into gear with my faith, challenged my simple beliefs and loved me through an awkward transition to adulthood. When Tim was killed, he and Mary Lynn came when I needed them most to give me a day off from grief and anger. I am grateful to have them for friends. Trying to help Tina has been a tar baby. I keep getting stuck, pulled in feeling responsible for a woman I sometimes don’t like very much. Helping someone who is not like you can open windows into your soul and shine light in your internal darkness. What I see is not always very Christian. I think I am grateful for that. Fall cleaning... I have a house to clean when others have no home at all. Closet cleaning... I have more than enough clothes, enough to give away. Haven’t come up with a thank you for Beagle Bailey yet. Will have to keep working on that one. In all things, give thanks, the Bible says. This week I will continue to work on transforming gripes into gratitude believing God needs my thank you notes as much as I need to write them. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. Amen.

Tomato Soup Saints...

We sat at the table eating tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches Megan had prepared for lunch. Conversation was random, enthusiastic and loud as it often is when you eat with three boys ages seven and under. Mason asked for seconds of the soup and enjoyed it down to the last drop. I watched as he put the shallow mug to his face, held it there for several minutes before he put it down. As he lowered the mug to the table, he grinned, a large red ring circling his happy mouth. “I licked it clean!” he announced. And so he had... love of tomato soup led him not to waste any of the remains in his mug.
I thought of Mason this morning in worship as we celebrated All Saints Sunday. Our worship table held pictures, books and other reminders of those who are saints to us. We told our saint stories about teachers, grandparents, therapists, friends, aunts, and others who were the face of God for us. A sermon preached by John Claypool (thanks to the wizardry of modern technology) helped me understand a new meaning for saints in my life.
His sermon focused on two bedrock attitudes and behavior for a Christian lifestyle, gratitude and generosity. John spoke of Jesus’ gratitude for what he had been given. There was no sense of entitlement nor complaining about the cards he had been dealt in the game of life, only a profound sense of thanksgiving for the gift of life. And because he had been given much, his sharing of all he had and all of who he was, flowed like a healing river over all he met and loved. There was a recognition of the gift that life is and an equal desire to share the whole of it with others.
So I began remembering many of the saints I have loved in my life, none of whom were perfect. But, many of them shared these two important characteristics of a transformed Christian, dare I say saved by grace? Like Mason and the tomato soup, they drank deeply from the well of living water and loved the life they had been given even with its limitations. They lived with joy and thanksgiving even when life was difficult and the cup only half full. Whatever life brought to them, they licked up the last drops and were grateful for what had been and what was yet to come. In their sacramental approach to living, all they had and all they were, were gifts to be shared with open hearts and hands.
Mr. Reem, the best ever church custodian, who made care taking of the church building an art that cared for the ministers as well... Miss Panos, the daughter of Greek immigrants, who taught American history in my high school and ignited a love of freedom in our little redneck hearts... my grandma and Aunt Thelma who modeled constancy as members of the same church for all their adult lives... ministers I have known who spent their lives in small churches that never made it big in any way but in the ways of a loving Jesus... Mason’s school teachers who lay down their lives every day so that the children in their class can celebrate the gift of their lives... I am surrounded by saints and I give thanks for the gifts of their lives and the generosity of their spirits.
On this All Saints Sunday, I pray that we might be saints for one another, helping one another hold on to gratitude and generosity when life does not turn out as we hoped and planned. We are called to pass on the gifts we have been given, to share with thanksgiving as we live out our days on this earth knowing that our life was created in joyful relationship. Springing from One who was lonely in the Garden, we were created in God’s image and if we are true to our family heritage, we will pass on the gifts we have been given to those around us.
C.S. Lewis said “Nothing is ours until we share it”. So let me share, dear Lord, this week, the gifts from the saints I have known and loved. Let me be a saint and open my eyes and heart that I may see all the saints who surround me, that great cloud of witnesses, who are my kin people in the faith. Help me drain my life’s mug and let me lick it clean with enjoyment and enthusiasm and gratitude. Amen.

Ladies Aid to the Rescue...

We are continually borne by others. Therefore, willingly or unwillingly, we are perpetually in debt to God and to the whole creation. Mary Shiedler

I was miserable... lonely and lost, in Louisville. We had moved from a place I loved dearly and Michael was immersed in his new job as a professor at the seminary. He was starting a new center for family ministry as well as teaching. His days were filled with meaningful work and travel. I was at home with three children, one of whom was a depressed and angry teen. Our home was lovely, our neighborhood was full of nice people and lots of children, we rejoined the church where we met and were married, I volunteered in the schools, worked in the church, did part time work, went to therapy to work on my mixed up self and still felt lonely.
Michael was feeling lonely, too, so as a present for him, I gave him a Brotherhood. I called a group of men together at our house for an evening of food, fun and fellowship. I introduced the evening, served the food and then said, “You are on your own. If you want to keep this going, plan it yourselves.” They did. All the time we lived in Louisville, they met every month at the same restaurant (the same one frequented by Thomas Merton) creating the ties that bind and sustain.
I created a Ladies Aid for myself... five women whom I had known for years, some better than others. We were dedicated to eating in every restaurant on Bardstown Road at least once. Over shared meals, soaking in Eleanor’s hot tub one snowy evening, sharing the bread and wine of true communion, we shared one another’s burdens. One in our group was a widow trying to find her way back to a new kind of life. One was a contemporary gospel music performer who had moved to Louisville so her husband could teach at the seminary. Another was a professor at the medical school and a social worker rounded out the lot of us. Three of us had children still at home. All of us were members of the same church. Two of us were married on the same day, years apart. None of us had a perfect life and all of us had burdens we were bearing. It took awhile for the shields to drop but when they did, it was a relief to discover someone was standing beside us helping to hold us up.
Yesterday was my birthday and I gave myself the present of another Ladies Aid. Last night we met at a local restaurant in West Asheville. Gathered around the table, we began the getting to know you dance. We have known each other for years but not on a regular basis. The Vermont Rules were our guiding light... no talking about work, children, money or parents after the first ten minutes. Once members of the same church, we are now scattered with some still at the same church where we met. It doesn’t matter. What I need is a place to be with women who matter to me and to whom I matter. I don’t know how this group will come together. Maybe a few more will join and a few will drop out. Over the long haul, with the passage of time, a center will emerge and will hold us together like the gravity that plants our feet on the ground. Our roots will sink deep into one another’s lives and our branches will intertwine holding us up during storms.
One of my daughters has her version of a Ladies Aid group in her church. They came to the farm for a weekend retreat recently. I loved listening to them laugh, tell church stories, talk about their lives and watched as they took a break from their work-a-day worlds together. They go to movies, take road trips, eat out, work together, care for one another’s children and live their lives knowing there is a group of friends who will drop everything to come to their aid.
We are continually borne by others even if we appear to be self sufficient. Our outward selves rarely reflect the whole of who we are underneath. Only when we are in a safe place, a place where we know we loved no matter what, can we find traces of God as we let our masks drop to the floor, revealing the terrible awful wonder and need of being fully human. It is a gift and a crucifixion all bound up together. Listening and loving one who is different from me, who makes choices I would not make, who struggles with life situations that are foreign to me, trying to hear the soul speaking through the mouth of the woman who sits at my table not just the words... this is the hard work of being Christian, called to love others as I love God and myself. And if I show up, make myself available, do the work, I will find love and life and laughter in abundance as I am freed and free others to become their own true creation.
We are meeting again in two weeks to help Mary Beth put her Christmas Village (metropolis, actually) together for the holidays. We may try her crustless pizza recipe for our communion meal.Holler if you want to come.

Many are called, many are chosen.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. Henry David Thoreau

Living on a farm requires everyone in the farm family to work. As a child, it was expected of me to help with the garden planting, hoeing, picking and preserving. When it was hay season, I was on the trailer stacking bales and helping to transfer those same bales to the pole barn for storage. When a new pasture was needed, my sister and I spent five of our Saturdays sprigging and watering grass with our father. Driving the tractor while my dad peeled hay off the roll for the cows, washing the clothes and hanging them out on the line in the backyard, learning how to shoot a rifle so I could kill a rattlesnake (we lived on a farm that had previously been named Rattlesnake Hill for good reason), bucket feeding orphaned calves twice a day, feeding and watering the chickens were a part of my daily life as a child in the rural South. When my mother went to work outside the home when I was nine, daddy gave my sister and me two cooking lessons... how to make vegetable soup and how to cut up a chicken (you could only buy whole chickens back in the dark ages). After that, we were on our own and required to help start supper for mama before she got home. Often we had the meal ready by the time she arrived. This work was in addition to the usual chores... make your bed, clean your room, practice your piano, do your homework, help with the housework on Saturday mornings, iron clothes. Children in all the families I knew were good for something besides just being.
Barbara Brown Taylor in her book An Altar in the World lists all the jobs she has had and all the jobs she hopes to yet have. She chooses to see them as opportunities to learn about herself and connection to other people she would not meet except through that job. Like most of us, she lived with the illusion that God had one overarching most important just right job waiting for us when we grew up.
In my Baptist world, this was referred to as “being called”. A popular folk saying was “Many are called but few are chosen”.Working at the paper mill was o.k. but being called to be a preacher was much higher on the list of godly work. Being a teacher was good work but being a missionary was the pinnacle of sacrificial calling. Listening to Miss Pearl Todd tell of her work as a missionary in China elicited in my twelve year old self an earnest desire to be called to full time Christian service. I claimed that call by walking down the aisle and announcing it to the preacher, Brother Kannon, who promptly told the congregation. In later years my father owned his fear of that call coming true when I married Michael in seminary. He figured God was finally going to get me and send me to “Darkest Africa” far, far away from him and the family.
The truth of the matter is we are all called to and chosen for many different kinds of work in our lives. My daddy worked in a paper mill, his college degree prepared him for a work he chose not to do, in order to buy the farm, work that he loved to do. My mother loved working in the insurance business but was never paid what she was worth. I’ve been a social worker, a paid child care provider, a piano teacher, director of an Information and Referral Service, an office assistant for a fund raising effort, an organist, a picture framer and a teacher in a continuing ed program. None of this work was all of who I was but each job taught me something new about myself.
Most of us have two kinds of work... work we have to do and work we choose to do. Sometimes the work we have to do keeps food on the table and a roof over our heads, the dishes washed and the house cleaned. The work we choose to do keeps our souls fed and sheltered. Even those lucky few who have work that supplies both needs, will find worms in their shiny red work apples. The work we do, both kinds, is a gift we offer to the world not because it makes us somebody but because we are already somebody, a special gift from God to the world.
I mother my children and other young friends as one of my vocations. It is as special to me as the art I create and the classes I teach. The horse poop I scoop and the hay I feed the cows is have to work that offers me an opportunity to rest my spirit in the needs of the present day. Shopping for groceries, washing clothes, cooking supper and mopping the floor become sacramental acts, offerings of grace filled joy because I have been given much. In Ecclesiastes, the preacher says, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love...all the days of your life which have been given to you under the sun... and in your work at which you work under the sun. Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”
And so today, Lord, help me do what needs to be done and what I choose to do with all my might, not from any sense of unworthiness, but in the gladsome assurance that all I do is a gift from you that I am giving back to you. I am a somebody, a whobody, an employee whose paycheck is love, laughter and life. Thank you for all my jobs, great and small.

Good fences... good neighbors... good God

The minister’s group was sitting on the deck, warming their souls and their bodies in the fall sunshine, taking in the view and relaxed when I arrived. As I walked to the deck to greet them, Mahan made the mistake of asking me how I was. I was not good. The past thirty minutes had been spent fuming about hunters on the back part of the farm who ignored fences and posted signs in order to hunt deer. Leisa, our neighbor, had called me on my way home from work to tell me there was shooting on the farm. She offered to go check on the cows to make sure they were not hurt. As she walked into the Sound of Music hill pasture, she heard a big diesel pickup truck drive away. Hunters, using the old road that borders the back fence line of the farm perhaps, were leaving.
One of the early lessons I learned from my father was the importance of honoring fence lines. Growing up in a rented house on a farm owned by a friend and neighbor, we were instructed to ask permission when we roamed past the fence lines that enclosed the fields surrounding our house. When my pet pig broke through the fence line, we went to pick her up, apologizing for the inconvenience, loss of corn and fixed the fence. Boundaries matter in a rural setting. They help keep everything and everyone “in their place”. Poet Robert Frost in his poem “Mending Wall” says “Good fences make good neighbors”. Every farmer knows the truth of this statement. But, good fences make no nevermind if they are not honored by the persons on both sides of the fence.
Our donkeys nibble away at board fencing. Bit by bit, in boredom or just because it feels good, they chew small bits away until the board breaks. The two inch thick boards that separated them from Junie B in the stall are a memory. Now a metal gate will keep them and their busy teeth in check. Sometimes a fence, like the rock walls in Frost’s poem, is only as good as its construction.
Reading in Albion’s Seed, I find some of the ancestral bloodkin DNA memory that helps me understand my furious response to this invasion from the outlander, the foreigner, the one who does not belong. My Calhoun ancestors came from a lawless place where borders were routinely overrun with violence and hate. When they came to the New World, they brought with them a pattern of behavior and feeling that had formed through centuries of survival on the edge. Boundaries were a matter of life and death.
When I read of some of God’s encounters with my spiritual ancestors, I discover boundaries are important to God, too. Moses is told to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. The Ten Commandments give us fences to help keep our behavior contained. The Beatitudes, the New Testament equivalent of the Ten Commandments, give us a different pattern for fence construction. And the ultimate boundary, the greatest commandment according to Jesus, was to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
These boundaries, these fences, are a matter of life and death. The fence lines are a guide to follow. I would wander afield, be lost and separated not only from my herd, but also from my Shepherd. Like the hunters, I would be a trespasser, a breaker of the law, one who by will-full choice, breaks through the fence lines God has set for me.
Sometimes I, like the donkeys, nibble my way through to what seems to be greener grass on the other side. Other times I make a mad heedless dash through the border seeking a perceived freedom that is not really free at all. I can hear my father’s voice saying, “Mind the fence lines, Peggy”. And, I hear God’s voice holding me to accountability for minding my own fence lines, keeping my ego centered self contained, while I learn to live with my limits. I am mortal. I am not Queen of All I Survey. I am not God.
I hope God is more merciful to me than I was to the hunters when I break the fence lines. It would not do for me to be in charge.

Beagles and Burdens

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

Beagles are the traveling salesmen of the canine community. Another one showed up at our porch this morning, tail wagging, grinning, “Have I got a deal for you!” During hunting season dogs often get separated from their pack and wander into the wilderness looking for a place to light. This is the second one for us this season and I am sure there will be more. He is cute, neutered, well fed and obviously well socialized as evidenced by his joyful leap into bed with me. He and Rufus are cavorting while Barney looks on with patient curiosity. The away room seems too small for all this energy. After breakfast and playtime, perhaps they will settle down and sleep a little. If this one follows the pattern of earlier beagle visitors, he will spend a day or two gathering himself together, then leave quietly searching for home once again.
Sometimes I feel like the beagle... lost, lonely, looking for a place to light. And other times, folks end up on my porch needing some time to knit up their raveled ends. The need to be seen and heard, the desire to share what is weighing you down, the call to listen to others hurt and lost places is what defines church community for me. We are all lost beagles (or sheep) looking for some respite care. Our backgrounds, needs, hurts, journeys, and tolerances are often sharply different but that didn’t matter to the writer of Galatians. The instructions are clear. Carry each other’s burdens... “feed my sheep” said Jesus.
There is no judgement attached to these instructions... feed only those like you... be kind to those who are kind to you...they brought it on themselves, they deserve it... ignorant, poor white trash need not apply... rich people are different from the rest of us... only the words that say “carry each other’s burdens”. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with them politically or theologically. If you are well to do and they are poor, not important. The assumption is that all of us carry burdens, invisible and visible. Our calling as Christians is to share the load, pass the heavy burdens around so that no one sinks under the weight of what they are enduring.
Elie Wiesel says “Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately”. Many times I see the desperate need of those who are abused, the poor, the forgotten in this world, those at the bottom of the pile and miss the need of the normal looking young mother sitting next to me in church. Christ’s face and voice comes to me in all the people who cross my path whether they look like they need something or not.
Church community provides the starting place for practicing this calling. And it is not easy... far easier to carry the burdens of those you do not know well than to shoulder the hurts of those you know well and disagree with. Doesn’t matter to Jesus how righteous we are or how right we are or how hard we have worked pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps (one of my least favorite phrases). All he wants is for us to share more than our money and time. We are called to share ourselves, warts and all, and help bear the burdens of those who walk with us. Lord, have mercy... This is so hard for me. I don’t know where to start except to start where I am. I remember an old hymn we used to sing...”Brighten the Corner Where You Are”...It was bouncy and fun, pitched a little too high but still a treat to sing. The words... Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do, do not wait to shed your light afar. To the many duties ever near you now be true, brighten the corner where you are. Just above are clouded skies that you may help to clear, let not you narrow self your way debar, though into one heart alone may fall your song of cheer, brighten the corner where you are. Here for all your talent you may surely find a need, here reflect the Bright and Morning Star. Even though from your humble hand the bread of life may feed, brighten the corner where you are. Brighten the corner where you are...someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar, brighten the corner where you are.”
Today, Dear One, keep my narrow self at bay and help me brighten my small corner by sharing the loads of those who are my kinfolks, known and unknown. Loved and known by you, I must extend the same care to others... beagles and sheep are we all. Amen.

Tied down and bound up...

It is autumn in the mountains... colorful leaves, cool, rainy weather, crisp sunshine with startling blue skies, a young bear in our driveway looking for food and shelter, a gazillion walnuts on the ground, mallards on the pond, and stewardship sermons in all the churches. Like falling leaves, stewardship sermons are dropping on churchgoers ears this season of harvest.
In my childhood at Clyattville Baptist Church, there were two schools of thought about stewardship campaigns. One group, to which my daddy belonged, believed that you took financial responsibility as a church member as seriously as you did attendance without the prodding of another committee. Another group believed most people needed reminders to support the financial life of the church and without a stewardship campaign, the church would go bankrupt. So the pastor very wisely made room for both points of view with a low keyed stewardship campaign that consisted of one sermon, special envelopes in the pew racks and announcements for one month giving everyone a chance to do as they wished with the budget needs of the church.
The sermons used one of two gospel stories... the rich young ruler, or the man who gathered all his harvest into the storehouse then laid back to celebrate. The point of the sermons was always the same. To whom much has been given (and that meant ALL of us), much was required. And in case we forgot the point from last year’s sermon, we would be reminded that it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than to thread the eye of a needle with a camel. The hymn selection always included “Bring Ye All Your Tithes Into the Storehouse” and “I Surrender All”.
While surfing denominational internet web sites, I saw not much has changed... shame and blame for being rich, shame and guilt for not sharing enough, blame for being more than and less than at the same time, exhortations to do more and give more.
But last week I heard a sermon preached by our friend, Russell, that stood the rich young ruler story on its head and blew apart what I thought I knew about this story in Mark. Russell put the story in context. We heard a brief explanation of the character of the Gospel of Mark... no muss, no fuss, no pretty singing angels, no resurrection, like Jack Webb on “Dragnet”, just the facts, ma’am. He laid out the time line for when this young ruler showed up to talk to Jesus. Jesus was probably packing up, getting ready to move on when this young man approached him. Perhaps Jesus didn’t even look up when he was addressed because his first response was perfunctory... keep the commandments, he said. But when the young ruler responded saying he had kept the commandments since his youth, Jesus looked up, saw him and loved him. He saw him and loved him... and according to Russell, he saw what had the young ruler tied up in knots, crunched and bound. It was not the money but the love or need for the money to keep the hole in his soul filled.
So Jesus said what the young ruler needed to hear. “You won’t be free until you can let go of what is holding you back. Money is your god. When you can give it away to the poor, you will set yourself free.” Literalism keeps us tied to one interpretation of this story and indeed, we should be willing to give generously of our riches to those who need it. But, that is not the only layer to the story of this encounter. Bondage, slavery of the soul, stiff necks and tight jaws, clenched fists and cold hearts... where am I in slavery? What keeps me tied up in knots” How can I let go of my perceived wants and needs? Wipe away the illusion that I am in control of me, myself and I? Let go of the holding back that keeps me from living free, giving with joy and gratitude for all I have been given? How can I love God enough to let my whole self be seen and loved, bending my head to take the yoke that is easy and light when I surrender all to the One who sees me and loves me not in spite of but just because.
Russell had us sing the old hymn “I Surrender All” as our closing hymn and for just a few minutes, my heart cracked open, my head bent, my soul took a deep breath as the prayer took root in my heart. This week I have lived with surrender to God written on the tablet of my heart. “All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. I will ever love and trust him, in his presence daily live. All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to thee. Fill me with thy love and power, let thy blessing fall on me. I surrender all, I surrender all, all to thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.” It helps to sing this old hymn now and then as a reminder and as a prayer... number 82 in the Broadman hymnal if you have it. I will still be singing it this week. Sing along with me if you want to...

Home making...

I am a home maker... Home, how it looks, how it feels to the family and friends, has always been important to me. Even when we were poor as church mice, I visited wallpaper discount stores, rummaged through bins of fabric, bought returned paint and mixed new colors, sewed curtains and pillows and roman shades, pulled up filthy carpet and polished the wooden floor underneath, used cloth napkins and place mats for everyday meals. I needed the physical surroundings to reflect the home I wanted to come into being.
I have had some wonderful teachers in the art of home making. My mother taught me the basic skill set... how to set a table, how to clean the house, how to wash and iron clothes, how to can and freeze vegetables, how to be a part of a family in one house sharing life together. Mary Lynn, my Cherokee work camp mom, taught me how to cook for a crowd and to always have flowers on the table even if you are only eating beans and franks. Celeste taught me the art of entertaining, making your house and table settings gleam like jewels, providing food and comfort that draws people out of themselves into a safe haven.
Home making as a career choice is not well paid, does not have status or a benefit package. In some circles it is seen as a cop out from the real world. And yet, we all long for home, for what home has meant to us or the dream of home that we did not have. Whether we live in a studio apartment or a palatial house, home is separate from the square footage of our living space.
Last week I spent a morning getting the farmhouse home ready for a gathering of ministers. They will be meeting here once a month for the next year taking time for respite and growth at Sabbath Rest Farm. I moved Diane’s furniture around and added chairs, made dried flower arrangements, placed candles to light. Diane provided welcome and coffee the morning they arrived and they have a home now for their group. One night this week a friend’s visiting family came to our house for dessert and coffee. A fire in the fireplace, candles lit, coffee, tea and a mayonnaise cake made by a family member, conversation around the table, laughter and stories... home away from home flickered into being. This weekend Alison, our daughter, will be bringing some of her young mother’s group from her church in Greensboro home for a weekend retreat, time away from children and chores. Pop will cook his famous Lemon Chicken for supper and pancakes for breakfast. There will be clean sheets on the beds and fresh towels, bubble bath and time for walks, horseback riding and donkey petting, egg gathering and sitting by the fire, hugs enough to go around and firelight, Mexican Train Dominos and nap time if you need it. Home...
Sometimes visitors will say how much they love coming here... it feels like home... it reminds me of going to my grandma’s home to visit...it is such a comfortable place... These words make my heart sing. The housecleaning, cutting the grass, scrubbing the tubs and toilets, arranging the flowers, setting the table and cooking the food, lighting the candles, all that work of preparation has been worth it. They feel the heart of home when they are here, the welcome, the joy, the grace we say over being able to share some of what we have been given.
In Psalms I read, “God gives the desolate a home to dwell in”. And in John I read, “I will not leave you desolate...If you love me, you will keep my word, and my Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you”. If I do the housekeeping, the preparation, get my heart ready, God will come and make himself (and herself) at home with me. I need never leave home to find God. All I have to do is love God enough to provide a welcoming space, a place where the Heart of God can rest... “There is a place of quiet rest near to the heart of God”. Today I will hold a quiet loving place of rest in my heart for You, O God. You are welcome and I want You to live in my heart’s home. May we both find home with each other today.

Farm time... short time

All of a sudden, overnight it seems, it is dark in the morning when we wake up...not dark with light around the edges but really dark, like the middle of the night dark. The rooster, Cock a Doodle Doo, is crowing later. I can’t gauge the time by the amount of light spilling over the mountain ridge. This discombobulating process is akin to jet lag and always comes as a surprise to me even though I have seen it happen year after year. Darkness sneaks up on me. It is a part of farm time.
Farm time is different from any other way of measuring time for me. Farm time has a rhythm that is connected to nature and its time schedule. It allows you to stop what you are doing to chat with your neighbor who just drove up while you were outside splitting wood. You spend your time off mowing, teddering, raking and baling hay because your cows will need to eat this winter. Living by farm time gives you moments to set a spell and watch the little band of six does and fawns that walk through your front yard to the hay field to graze. The bear that walks down the road by the farmhouse is living on farm time and the mama duck setting on her eggs has a farm time schedule.
The connection to Nature’s time table keeps me grounded (yes, Thad, I mean that pun) in more ways than one. I do literally stand on hallowed ground, ground made holy by the generations of farmers before us who walked these fields, depended on them for their daily bread. Before them there were the Indians whose lives were lived by the creek that runs through our farm. We still find remnants of their tool making when we plow the ground.
All of those who came before me know what I know. Our time on this piece of God’s earth is limited. We are what my daddy called “short timers”. And as short timers, we need to look around us and savor the wonderful gifts of the land we take for granted. Even if we live in the city, we are surrounded by little miracles we take for granted... the rising and setting of the sun, rain storms and cloud formations, the changing of the seasons.
Most of us live our lives insulated from our outdoors by air conditioners to cool us that require us to keep the doors and windows closed, invisible heat that flows through duct work to keep us warm without having to split wood or build a fire, food that arrives in bags from the grocery store that we neither grew nor preserved, Walt Disney animals that are sanitized for human consumption, light that appears with the flip of a switch. We forget how to live connected to the natural world around us. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that if we were required to live on farm time, outdoors everyday for some work and play time, our lives would change in some fundamental ways.
My life has changed since I began living on farm time. Sara Miles in her book Take This Bread ,speaks of her life as a Eucharistic life, one of gratitude, a good description of how I now live. When we have dusty roads and dry fields, I rejoice in the rain. The bear sitting on Tim and Jeannie’s porch becomes an occasion for the neighbors to gather and wonder about the bear’s life. The barn full of good hay put up with the help of neighbors and other friends causes me to sing a song of thanksgiving. Canned tomatoes, beautiful red jars gleaming in the mason jars, bring visions of winter time soups and I give thanks for the harvest. I, who had a small extended family of origin, now say grace over meals shared with a large family. This family loves and cares for me in ways that take my breath away and I am grateful. My little church community values my gifts and forgives my inadequacies. God is in heaven and even though all is not right in this world, all is well and all shall be made well if we but remember to be grateful in our living.
Farm time... short time... to every thing there is a season the Bible says. So as I enter this season of darkness, I give thanks for the memory of light past and choose to live hopefully knowing the light will come again. Thanks be to God for all time, my time, your time, the times of our lives. Amen.

Driving in my little Subaru... a spiritual practice

I was so befuddled last night when we got home from our whirlwind weekend in California that I brushed my teeth with Benadryl cream... the opposite of being mindful and grounded. I have been practicing “Paying Attention” and “Waking Up to God”, the first two chapters in An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor, but jet lag and weddings leave my introvert self wrung out and unable to do much beyond mumble and moan. So today I will wallow in quiet and spend quality time with my animals whose speech is mostly non-verbal. I might even get in my new (to me) Subaru Outback and take a drive to a mountaintop for some more peace and quiet.
When our MPV began breaking down regularly (cars tend to do that when they are eleven years old), we found a good deal on a used Subaru Outback the color of metallic gravel dust. The color is important because we live on a gravel road and I wanted something that would at least disguise the fact the car had not been washed for a month. But this little wagon came with so much more... heated seats, a moon roof, six cd player, rubber floor mats, all wheel drive (important when you live in the mountains in the winter), a display window that gives you temperature, average miles per gallon, miles per gallon as you are driving and good gas mileage. When you live in the country, trips to town are made with due consideration. You don’t just hop in the car and drive in to pick up milk at Ingle’s... at least, I don’t. During the recent gas shortage, I was uncomfortably aware of how much gas I used and how I took easy transportation for granted.
I have been playing a little game as I drive. I turn the display window to the mile per gallon display that shows you how much gas you are using as you drive. It is fascinating to watch the numbers change as you accelerate or climb hills or start up from a full stop. I remembered reading that you should press the gas pedal as if there were a raw egg beneath your foot and you don’t want to break it. I tried that and the miles per gallon jumped up. So now I am hooked, addicted to making the most of each gallon of gas. I am the little old lady driving the speed limit in the right lane, being passed by the rest of the world on their way in a hurry to somewhere. But, I have made an interesting spiritual discovery in this process.
When you let go of the need to drive as fast or faster than the other cars, a small switch is turned on. This switch calms my soul. I observe. I see. I relax. I am not competing for quicker, better, sooner, first, nor do I worry about those pesky police who keep stopping people for speeding. Paying attention to the raw egg beneath my gas pedal foot shifts my focus and I am able to let go of the illusion that 70 miles per hour is better than the 60 mile per hour speed limit. I play by the rules and that frees me.
In my spiritual life, a similar transformation awaits when I play by the rules. Paying attention, I see God all around me. Abiding by the Golden Rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you gives me open eyes so that I see God in the faces of all who surround me. Practicing the Raw Egg Rule as I drive slows more than my car. It slows my breathing, my mind, my soul and I find a quiet space in my little Subaru, time for meditation and prayer. Letting go of my needs for just a little while gives God an opportunity to break through into my mostly self centered world and “I can hear my Savior calling, follow, follow, follow me”. I wake up to God.
So don’t cuss or sputter when you get stuck behind me or any other slow driver on the road. We may be praying for you and all of us need all the prayer we can get. Wave as you pass us by or better yet, slow yourself down and see if those extra few minutes you gain getting there earlier are really worth it. Life is too precious a gift to waste time being in a hurry.