The summer before I entered high school, I began working for money from someone else. All of my work before then had been free child labor for the family. My mama worked outside the home, a rarity in those days, so I was no stranger to working around the house. On Saturday mornings, my sister, mama and I began housecleaning after breakfast and finished by lunch. During the week, beginning at age nine, I started cooking suppers, washed and hung out laundry, helped daddy in the fields with the cows and hay baling, helped daddy build a greenhouse for a tomato growing venture, tended the chickens after school, helped plant and tend a garden with daddy, helped mama can and freeze the vegetables daddy grew. We knew work around the house and farm was not an optional activity. We were required to do our part to help. Summers had free time during the day but the chores remained the same.
Mr. Bland, a dairy farmer in our church, asked daddy if I would like to work tobacco with them that summer. All farmers had tobacco patches for a cash crop in a profession that never sees much cash. Tall tobacco barns with shed porches were a part of every farm’s collection of buildings. In the summer time, those barns were the center of activity for three to four weeks. We watched the stately tobacco plants grow, suckered the plants, pulled tobacco worms off by hand, and prepared for the harvest.
The teen age boys and men would hook up the mules to large sleds with runners and take them to the fields where they would be loaded down with tobacco leaves, handpicked at just the right stage of maturity. The sleds would come back to the barn where the leaves would be unloaded on long, waist high tables, ready to be handed to the stringers. Stringers would wrap twine around a group of three leaves and twist tie them to a long tobacco stake. When the stake was full, it would be hung in the barn, starting at the top, waiting to be cooked to cure. My job was the least skilled work as hander. All I had to do was gather up the three leaves and hand them to the stringer. She worked really fast and it took two handers to keep her going, one on either side of the stake. It was dirty, hot work but it was fun, too. Somebody was always laughing or singing or playing jokes.
Dinner was a two hour event at one o’clock. The heat of the day made it impossible to work in the fields without risking heat stroke so we ate a huge dinner prepared by Mrs. Bland, drank gallons of sweet iced tea, and slept under the shade of the big old water oak in the front yard. Around three o’clock, we returned to work until dark. Riding home in daddy’s truck, I was tired, filthy and sticky with nicotine and tobacco worm innards juice, satisfied with my first real job, good work done the best I could and the paycheck confirmed that.
Other jobs came in my high school and college years. I was a church organist all through high school and college going to Wednesday night choir practice, playing for Sunday morning and evening worships, accompanying the youth choir at Sunday afternoon practices. Paychecks were mine but I was expected to save some and spend the rest to buy my some of my clothes and other necessities of teen age life in those days. Tangee lipstick at McCrory’s, Red Roses perfume by Yardly, stationery from Southern Stationery for my letter writing, that really pretty red wool crepe dress at Martha’s Dress Shop... all paid for by my work.
I began to learn what kinds of work were more than just a job. Some work fed my soul while providing money. If I had to choose whether to work at Sears, as my sister did, making much more money, or work as an organist, music won hands down. Even with the drudgery of showing up for practices and Wednesday night prayer meetings, music could always provide an invisible paycheck for my spirit. The best work always provides meaning and joy even in the midst of struggle and drudgery. Learning that work is good, work can be life giving, work is important, work supports you financially as well as spiritually... all good lessons begun for me long ago in my family.
Daddy and I used to have long, heated “discussions” about my college major. I was convinced I wanted to be a social worker, save the world from itself. Daddy argued for music and teaching as my career choice. I persevered and graduated with a social work degree and actually held two full time jobs as a social worker. In my middle age, I discovered I was a good teacher, a really good teacher, helping people find their creative selves again, showing them ways to explore the connections between the Divine Creator and our own creative instincts. My part time job teaching at our local community college has enriched my life and I look forward to work. Daddy would be pleased to hear me acknowledge that he was right in his assessment of my talents and skills. He did love to be right.
Our children all worked as teenagers... worked as babysitters, worked in child care centers, restaurants. Their money paid for insurance and gas for their cars, a luxury I never had, as well as other items of teen necessity. I watched them learn how to show up even when you don’t feel like it, how to work with a boss, how to form relationships with co-workers, how to manage money, how to balance school, work and play, how to bounce back after you are let go, how to find and keep a job. And now they all have work that matters to them, work they are proud of. Some of it comes with a paycheck and some of it doesn’t but they know the value of all work. I celebrate the work they do and how they do it.
Proverbs says “Commit your work to the Lord...” An old hymn says “Work for the night is coming when man’s work is done.” Work that is made sacred by its dedication to our Lord, work that provides support and meaning, work that helps us find new layers in our soul, work that is not done just to fund us in our retirement but as a gift to the One who works by our side day by day, whatever our work might be... Thanks be to God for all the ways we work whether it be the necessary drudgery or the work that feeds our souls. We are blessed to be able to work.
And now, I have to go to work...
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Stepping in the Light...beautiful feet
It is a tender and oddly embarrassing act of devotion... washing someone’s feet. When we visit H.O., Michael always tends to his dad’s feet. First he soaks them in a warm bath of soothing oils, rubbing away the dead skin and massaging those old feet. After he trims his nails, he rubs a healing lotion on his dad's feet and legs. A son’s ritual of loving care for his father’s body becomes a sacrament, a reminder of our need to be cared for and our responsibility to care for others.
My parents belonged to a church that practiced foot washing. That church had three sacraments... baptism by immersion, the Lord’s Supper (Communion), and foot washing, the three acts that Jesus held up as examples for us to follow in community worship. Our UCC church tried foot washing for Lent. It was an uncomfortable experience for many of us, so uncomfortable that the minister had to offer the option of hand washing. I was struck by our feelings of pride that prevented us from allowing another to see, touch and wash our feet. We are not used to being that vulnerable with each other in church. This is not the kind of pride that says “I am better than you,” but the kind of pride that says “I can stand on my own two feet without your help.” Or, it is the kind of pride that passes for humility by saying “My feet are so ugly and lowly that I wouldn’t want anyone to see or touch them.”
It is a messy, sloppy, wet and splashy kind of sacrament. There are no beautiful baptismal robes, only towels. Naked feet in all their knobby, callused practical glory, some with painted toenails and some nails thickened and split, old and young feet with funny shaped toes, narrow heels, flat feet and feet with high arches, feet that dance and walk and stumble and run and skip, feet that give us support and balance as we live our upright lives. It is a laugh out loud at the beautiful ugliness of all our feet sacrament, a ritual that is filled with joyful appreciation for our utilitarian feet, a time to see how we are all alike and different. Humbled by our bare feet, sitting while someone we may not know very well washes and dries our feet, washing the feet of someone else, is a powerful reminder of our need for one another and our dependence upon God.
Two of my favorite Gospel stories have feet in a starring role. Luke tells about Jesus being at a dinner party at Simon the Pharisee’s house. The word got out that Jesus was in town at the local hot shot preacher’s house having dinner. A city woman, identified by Luke as a sinner, sneaked in and began to cry over Jesus’s feet, drying them with her unbound hair, pouring an expensive ointment on his feet, an intimate act of exposure in an unfriendly setting. Simon makes fun of Jesus by saying if he were truly a prophet, he would have known who she was and thrown her out. Jesus turns the tables on him by pointing out his lack of hospitality when the visit began. Then to add insult to injury, Jesus forgives her sins, which were many, because she loved much.
Unlike the previous story which is told in all four gospels with differing details and characters, John is the only gospel to tell the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet on the night of the Last Supper. Peter, the over the top full of himself doesn’t know when to quit disciple, isn’t sure he wants Jesus to wash his feet. It doesn’t seem fitting. His teacher in the lowly role of servant was not the image he had of a messiah. He tells Jesus he will never let him wash his feet. Jesus puts him in his rightful place by saying, “If you do not let me wash your feet, you will not be a part of me.” Peter responds with gusto requesting Jesus wash his hands and head, too. Jesus then gives instruction to follow his example using the washing of feet as a symbol of the equality between himself and them, between servants and masters, and between himself (the one who was sent) and the One who sent him. When we bare our feet, our knobby strange looking feet, and let another brother or sister in Christ wash and dry them, we stand stripped naked of all pretensions and armor that separates us from the Love of God available in the People of God. We are equals, servants not masters, family not business acquaintances, beautiful feet that walk in the Light side by side on our journey home with God.
An old hymn from my childhood says, “How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, Stepping in the Light, Stepping in the Light; How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, led in paths of light.” All our feet walking in the steps of our Savior, corns, calluses, strange looking toes and all, made beautiful by our willingness to open our hearts to each other in paths of light. All the pedicures in the world, Lord, can’t help my feet be pretty. I pray for the humility that comes with foot washing and the joy that comes walking in your steps. Keep my feet firmly planted on your holy ground as I try to love others and myself, funny feet and ugly feet and young and old feet alike. You must have laughed out loud, God, when you made feet for us... ticklish and strong, oddly shaped and perfectly functional. Thank you for reminding me of my beautiful peculiarities by giving me such good feet. Amen.
My parents belonged to a church that practiced foot washing. That church had three sacraments... baptism by immersion, the Lord’s Supper (Communion), and foot washing, the three acts that Jesus held up as examples for us to follow in community worship. Our UCC church tried foot washing for Lent. It was an uncomfortable experience for many of us, so uncomfortable that the minister had to offer the option of hand washing. I was struck by our feelings of pride that prevented us from allowing another to see, touch and wash our feet. We are not used to being that vulnerable with each other in church. This is not the kind of pride that says “I am better than you,” but the kind of pride that says “I can stand on my own two feet without your help.” Or, it is the kind of pride that passes for humility by saying “My feet are so ugly and lowly that I wouldn’t want anyone to see or touch them.”
It is a messy, sloppy, wet and splashy kind of sacrament. There are no beautiful baptismal robes, only towels. Naked feet in all their knobby, callused practical glory, some with painted toenails and some nails thickened and split, old and young feet with funny shaped toes, narrow heels, flat feet and feet with high arches, feet that dance and walk and stumble and run and skip, feet that give us support and balance as we live our upright lives. It is a laugh out loud at the beautiful ugliness of all our feet sacrament, a ritual that is filled with joyful appreciation for our utilitarian feet, a time to see how we are all alike and different. Humbled by our bare feet, sitting while someone we may not know very well washes and dries our feet, washing the feet of someone else, is a powerful reminder of our need for one another and our dependence upon God.
Two of my favorite Gospel stories have feet in a starring role. Luke tells about Jesus being at a dinner party at Simon the Pharisee’s house. The word got out that Jesus was in town at the local hot shot preacher’s house having dinner. A city woman, identified by Luke as a sinner, sneaked in and began to cry over Jesus’s feet, drying them with her unbound hair, pouring an expensive ointment on his feet, an intimate act of exposure in an unfriendly setting. Simon makes fun of Jesus by saying if he were truly a prophet, he would have known who she was and thrown her out. Jesus turns the tables on him by pointing out his lack of hospitality when the visit began. Then to add insult to injury, Jesus forgives her sins, which were many, because she loved much.
Unlike the previous story which is told in all four gospels with differing details and characters, John is the only gospel to tell the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet on the night of the Last Supper. Peter, the over the top full of himself doesn’t know when to quit disciple, isn’t sure he wants Jesus to wash his feet. It doesn’t seem fitting. His teacher in the lowly role of servant was not the image he had of a messiah. He tells Jesus he will never let him wash his feet. Jesus puts him in his rightful place by saying, “If you do not let me wash your feet, you will not be a part of me.” Peter responds with gusto requesting Jesus wash his hands and head, too. Jesus then gives instruction to follow his example using the washing of feet as a symbol of the equality between himself and them, between servants and masters, and between himself (the one who was sent) and the One who sent him. When we bare our feet, our knobby strange looking feet, and let another brother or sister in Christ wash and dry them, we stand stripped naked of all pretensions and armor that separates us from the Love of God available in the People of God. We are equals, servants not masters, family not business acquaintances, beautiful feet that walk in the Light side by side on our journey home with God.
An old hymn from my childhood says, “How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, Stepping in the Light, Stepping in the Light; How beautiful to walk in the steps of the Savior, led in paths of light.” All our feet walking in the steps of our Savior, corns, calluses, strange looking toes and all, made beautiful by our willingness to open our hearts to each other in paths of light. All the pedicures in the world, Lord, can’t help my feet be pretty. I pray for the humility that comes with foot washing and the joy that comes walking in your steps. Keep my feet firmly planted on your holy ground as I try to love others and myself, funny feet and ugly feet and young and old feet alike. You must have laughed out loud, God, when you made feet for us... ticklish and strong, oddly shaped and perfectly functional. Thank you for reminding me of my beautiful peculiarities by giving me such good feet. Amen.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Buttercup...
Buttercup, our oldest cow, is now a boner... an old cow who is skin and bones. Her hip bones jut out on either side of her knobby backbone. Every winter we expect her to die. She gets weak, keeps a runny nose cold, staggers up the hill. Somehow she made it to spring this year but she has begun to keep to herself, standing alone away from the herd. She eats still but doesn’t get fat no matter how much she eats. A big, red cow with a long face and mule ears, a gentle disposition unless she is protecting her calf, she is low on the totem pole of cow power. Tilly and Fanny rule the roost in the herd. Buttercup has never aspired to be a leader but has been a good follower bringing up the rear. She has been a dependable mama to her many calves with good sense about people. If we were truly in the cow business, we would sell her before she dies but she will die here, surrounded by her herd, a member of our farm family. Life and death... both are gifts from God in their season.
Neal Miller died yesterday, at home with Dean beside him. Mama and I called them our Wal-Mart friends. Often when we went to Wal-Mart, somehow we would end up at the check-out line at the same time. We would pay our bill and then stand and talk, laughing and telling stories. A trip to Target or Wal-Mart was not complete without a visit with them.
Dean’s first husband died while she still had children at home. She and Neal worked at the same place. He often joked about her being his boss. Seven years later, they married and became a pair. When you saw Dean, Neal was close by. Trips to the dump, Wal-Mart, church, doctor’s offices... all were made as a couple. Yesterday after telling me the story of Neal’s illness and death, memories of a life well lived together began to flow. Dean said Neal told her he would sign on for thirty years when they got married and then he would decide if he wanted to re-up (re-enlist) for another thirty. That time had come this summer and he was going to sign on for another tour of duty. Neal’s sense of humor, his sly dry wit, the Peter Pan grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth, his handyman abilities and his willingness to do the work that keeps a church building running smoothly were his gifts to our small congregation. They were a quiet, steady presence in the pews on Sunday and cutting the grass or fixing the furnace or building a Sunday School classroom on Monday. I will miss him.
Michael’s dad began the active dying process yesterday. Tammy, Gloria and all the other women at Autumn Place watch over him tenderly as he withdraws from this world. He no longer talks on the phone or responds to people. He has begun to stop eating. As much as he has enjoyed good food and people all his life, letting go of these two things is a clear signal of his dying. Michael and I are grateful for our last visit with him while he was still engaged in living. He wasn’t able to go to his favorite fish camp so we brought the catfish to him. He loved it and enjoyed eating it for an hour. When your teeth are gone and a stroke has impeded your swallowing, eating takes longer. Michael cut his hair, gave him a manicure and tended his feet. We chattered about grandchildren, great-grandchildren, folks he knew, places he had been and the love of his life, Ann. A surprise visit from a parishioner gave us stories we had never heard before and we laughed as she told one after another. H.O.’s speech was impaired by his latest stroke but he took a vacation from his dementia for that short while and was present with us, laughing and nodding his head. It is the end of a long fruitful life and he is headed home from the fields, walking towards heaven.
The old preacher in Ecclesiastes said there is a time to be born and a time to die. A life lived well, full of joy and service, after many years, leads to a death with grace and a sense of completion. There are no loose ends unraveling in the deaths of Neal and H.O. or Buttercup. Life, with all its joys and sorrows, was lived with gratitude for the gift and we are left behind to celebrate their presence in our lives. Thanks be to God for life and death and life again in the arms of the One who lived and died with us long ago. We weep and laugh, grieve and celebrate the lives of those we have loved as they go before us. It is all good.
Neal Miller died yesterday, at home with Dean beside him. Mama and I called them our Wal-Mart friends. Often when we went to Wal-Mart, somehow we would end up at the check-out line at the same time. We would pay our bill and then stand and talk, laughing and telling stories. A trip to Target or Wal-Mart was not complete without a visit with them.
Dean’s first husband died while she still had children at home. She and Neal worked at the same place. He often joked about her being his boss. Seven years later, they married and became a pair. When you saw Dean, Neal was close by. Trips to the dump, Wal-Mart, church, doctor’s offices... all were made as a couple. Yesterday after telling me the story of Neal’s illness and death, memories of a life well lived together began to flow. Dean said Neal told her he would sign on for thirty years when they got married and then he would decide if he wanted to re-up (re-enlist) for another thirty. That time had come this summer and he was going to sign on for another tour of duty. Neal’s sense of humor, his sly dry wit, the Peter Pan grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth, his handyman abilities and his willingness to do the work that keeps a church building running smoothly were his gifts to our small congregation. They were a quiet, steady presence in the pews on Sunday and cutting the grass or fixing the furnace or building a Sunday School classroom on Monday. I will miss him.
Michael’s dad began the active dying process yesterday. Tammy, Gloria and all the other women at Autumn Place watch over him tenderly as he withdraws from this world. He no longer talks on the phone or responds to people. He has begun to stop eating. As much as he has enjoyed good food and people all his life, letting go of these two things is a clear signal of his dying. Michael and I are grateful for our last visit with him while he was still engaged in living. He wasn’t able to go to his favorite fish camp so we brought the catfish to him. He loved it and enjoyed eating it for an hour. When your teeth are gone and a stroke has impeded your swallowing, eating takes longer. Michael cut his hair, gave him a manicure and tended his feet. We chattered about grandchildren, great-grandchildren, folks he knew, places he had been and the love of his life, Ann. A surprise visit from a parishioner gave us stories we had never heard before and we laughed as she told one after another. H.O.’s speech was impaired by his latest stroke but he took a vacation from his dementia for that short while and was present with us, laughing and nodding his head. It is the end of a long fruitful life and he is headed home from the fields, walking towards heaven.
The old preacher in Ecclesiastes said there is a time to be born and a time to die. A life lived well, full of joy and service, after many years, leads to a death with grace and a sense of completion. There are no loose ends unraveling in the deaths of Neal and H.O. or Buttercup. Life, with all its joys and sorrows, was lived with gratitude for the gift and we are left behind to celebrate their presence in our lives. Thanks be to God for life and death and life again in the arms of the One who lived and died with us long ago. We weep and laugh, grieve and celebrate the lives of those we have loved as they go before us. It is all good.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Out of sorts but not out of grace...
Some days just nibble you to death. Yesterday was that kind of day for me. Nothing major went wrong but I felt like I was skating close to the edge of disaster from morning til night. First Rufus ran away while on his walk with Michael. He is a roamer and when roaming with Barney, they can cover some ground. Diane called just before church to tell us she had him tied up down at the farmhouse. As we walked towards the chapel, she let him loose to come to us and off he went again running pell mell up the hill towards mama’s. Mama was standing in her driveway calling her cats in before she went to church. They raced by her running wide open chasing her cat Ben. If they caught him, they would kill him. Nothing I could do but sit through worship with nerves on edge muttering under my breath, “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” The dogs came home in the early afternoon, utterly spent. Rufus slept the day away rising only to eat and pee.
All mama has left of her life with daddy on the Georgia farm is her cats. There are only two of the original barn cats left. One kitten survived but all are now neutered and spayed... all except the two maltese grey stray toms and the old orange and white tabby who was here when we came. Her old Barn Bud has been beaten up and injured by these toms so he is terrified to eat with the others. She feeds him outside the barn and sits with him while he eats. My Sunday afternoon nap fell victim to anxiety about Ben. Thank God he came home unfazed by his close brush with my two holy terrors.
Michael had a phone message about his dad. When Gloria checked on him during the night, he had a small facial cut and a bruised hip. Somehow he had managed to get up, tumble and get himself back in his recliner where he sleeps now. He is so unsteady on his feet since the last stroke. Guilt and worry rolled in for a visit as I kept mumbling, “I will rejoice, dammit...”
We decided to go have a date, visit the arboretum and see a movie. We bumped into old friends from another part of North Carolina at the arboretum. They will be coming to the farm June 12 for the gathering of pastoral counselors at our house. World travelers in their retirement, their travels have been curtailed by health issues. The movie, Angels and Demons, was great fun. The theater had stadium seating and rocking chair seats. For two hours we raced around Rome trying to solve the puzzle. As we left the theater, we were headed towards a restaurant for dinner when the phone call came. Tim called to say the cows were out and corralled by a neighbor. So we headed home, arriving just as Tim headed out to check and see where they were. A tree had fallen on the fence line and the teenagers had taken full advantage of the opportunity that presented to run amok. Our fence lines need work but finding the time to overhaul them is difficult. And to add insult to injury, I have chiggers from the hay baling with a line of poison above my right eyebrow. This was the day the Lord made and I had a hard time rejoicing in it.
Michael and I sat on the front porch swing as darkness crept up the mountain side, watching fireflies twinkle, getting the report from Tim about the cows, putting the horses up for the night and nuzzling them for comfort. Finally I was able to say with a whole heart, “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Out of sorts but not out of grace. Thanks be to God.
All mama has left of her life with daddy on the Georgia farm is her cats. There are only two of the original barn cats left. One kitten survived but all are now neutered and spayed... all except the two maltese grey stray toms and the old orange and white tabby who was here when we came. Her old Barn Bud has been beaten up and injured by these toms so he is terrified to eat with the others. She feeds him outside the barn and sits with him while he eats. My Sunday afternoon nap fell victim to anxiety about Ben. Thank God he came home unfazed by his close brush with my two holy terrors.
Michael had a phone message about his dad. When Gloria checked on him during the night, he had a small facial cut and a bruised hip. Somehow he had managed to get up, tumble and get himself back in his recliner where he sleeps now. He is so unsteady on his feet since the last stroke. Guilt and worry rolled in for a visit as I kept mumbling, “I will rejoice, dammit...”
We decided to go have a date, visit the arboretum and see a movie. We bumped into old friends from another part of North Carolina at the arboretum. They will be coming to the farm June 12 for the gathering of pastoral counselors at our house. World travelers in their retirement, their travels have been curtailed by health issues. The movie, Angels and Demons, was great fun. The theater had stadium seating and rocking chair seats. For two hours we raced around Rome trying to solve the puzzle. As we left the theater, we were headed towards a restaurant for dinner when the phone call came. Tim called to say the cows were out and corralled by a neighbor. So we headed home, arriving just as Tim headed out to check and see where they were. A tree had fallen on the fence line and the teenagers had taken full advantage of the opportunity that presented to run amok. Our fence lines need work but finding the time to overhaul them is difficult. And to add insult to injury, I have chiggers from the hay baling with a line of poison above my right eyebrow. This was the day the Lord made and I had a hard time rejoicing in it.
Michael and I sat on the front porch swing as darkness crept up the mountain side, watching fireflies twinkle, getting the report from Tim about the cows, putting the horses up for the night and nuzzling them for comfort. Finally I was able to say with a whole heart, “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” Out of sorts but not out of grace. Thanks be to God.
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