Celeste...jumping for joy

I cannot begrudge the manner of her dying... at her beloved First Baptist sewing costumes for the teenagers musical... a massive heart attack that ended her time on earth. If she, with her customary cheerful relentless efficiency had been able to order the time and manner of her death, it would have been this one. I have known Celeste since I was thirty three, a young mother in the Sunday School class she taught. I am one of many who treasured her as a friend, and she knew how to be a friend.
Our last communication this morning was by e-mail and began with her response to something I had written. In my little writing, I mentioned taking flowers to church. She e-mailed me back and asked where we were going. When I told her we had found a wonderful inter-racial community at a Presbyterian church, this was our interchange.

I do believe you mean Pat Bacon's church. Hallelujah! If I am guessing correctly I swim with this phenomenal woman three times a week at Brooks Howell. Love you right back. Celeste

i tell you what... you never cease to amaze me. it is pat bacon's church. tell her i said hello. she is some more kind of preacher and we love to hear her and what she has to say. peggy

Then her last e-mail to Pat and me...

Morning, Pat. Just couldn't wait until tomorrow to share this with you. Please read from the bottom up. Peggy and Michael Hester are long time friends of mine, and with the grip God has on both of them, and with their multiple talents, your church will come alive in the ways your are visioning. I am about to jump out of my skin with pure joy.
By the way, Pat, I celebrated Memorial Day by sleeping right through our swim! I am knee deep in making costumes for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and stayed up way too late Sunday night/Monday morning.
Love to everyone who is reading this... I am on the way to church for more sewing and to meet daughter Sandra and Ryan for a picnic and love feast before he heads for his last session of undergraduate school.

She never made it to the picnic. Surrounded by the walls of the church building where she had served for most of her adult life, she died wrapped in the fabric of love that clothed her spirit.
I have wept this day for the loss in this world of my dear friend but my tears meet my mouth turned up in a smile at the memories of this most amazing woman. Raised southern with the knowledge of how to do things right, she retained the best of her heritage and became a citizen of the world around her. Everyone she met was a new friend and her friends are legion. Her taste in people was eclectic... artists, musicians, young adults, immigrants, white bread people like me and multi-colored folks from all over the world. My husband Michael says we should have tee shirts to hand out at the memorial service that say, "Celeste loved me best!" Each of us felt loved best by her.
Life lived on her terms was gracious, busy and often featured a dinner party gathered around the table at her mountainside home.She was not perfect. She would have been the first to say that. But she was always open to change, in herself and in others.
As she aged, she became more liberal... in her creativity, her politics, her loving, sharing her money and herself, and in her love for God. Not too long ago she told me she had no loose ends left to tie up. As much as she could, she had made amends, paid her debts, spoken her love and appreciation, held great-grandchildren, seen some of the world and done what she could to keep her body healthy. Whatever time she had left was going to be spent in giving and creating and laughing and learning and cooking and giving thanks. She won't make it to the opera this weekend or see Wicked, but she had lived life more fully than anyone else I have known.
And so, she jumped out of her skin with pure joy... home to God, reunited with Ray and her beloved parents. I, along with many others, will grieve the loss of our great encourager but I celebrate the wonderful gift I was given thirty years ago when Celest Rast became my friend. Godspeed, Celeste... love back at you. Peggy

Sunday flowers...

I have just come in from cutting flowers for this morning’s worship. My summer flowers are beginning to bloom and some of the late spring bloomers are still hanging on. Every Sunday morning the Lord’s Supper table in the little church of my childhood was graced with flowers from someone’s yard. There was a schedule and every family was expected to participate in providing flowers for worship. In those days, silk flowers were a disgrace and florist’s flowers were for emergencies only.
Some bouquets were more skillfully arranged. Some of us had greener thumbs than others. Some of us had black thumbs and had to ask for help from our neighbors. But all of us took our turn bringing flowers. Mama could stick a branch in the ground and it would grow and bloom. We always had zinnias, roses, marigolds, iris, hydrangeas, azaleas, old fashioned carnations, nasturtiums, spirea, forsythia, and more roses. Mama loved roses. They grew higgeldy piggeldy, a glorious riot of dancing color with bees and butterflies dining al fresco. I was the designated flower arranger in our family. Mama could grow them but she thought I did a better job of arranging them so I grew up being a part of the Ladies Flower Brigade.
This Sunday morning, as in my childhood, I will carefully set my arrangement of yard flowers in a five gallon bucket for the trip to town. The bucket will hold it upright and contain any spills. When we get to church, I will set them on the table and hand the pastor two empty quart jars so she can take flowers to those she visits on Sunday afternoon. All the Ladies Brigade knew this secret...sharing flowers shares not only their beauty but is a gift of grace, a blessing that comes from the renewal of the earth tended carefully by loving hands and given with loving pride.
One of the old hymns we sang began, “Bring ye all your tithes into the storehouse, All your money, talents, time and love...” Flowers are a gift of talent, time and love. I give them with a glad heart. They are a reflection of my soul’s desire for beauty, an affirmation of God’s gifts to us in our world, and a response to the call to bring all of myself to the table of plenty provided for me in the house of the Lord. Thanks be to God for yarrow and iris and achillea and lamb’s ear and catmint and echinacea and hydrangeas and bachelor’s buttons. Like the flowers, we are children of many colors and all beautiful in our time. It is a good and gracious gift. Amen.