Mayberry Moments...

The Mayberry Moments of my life...

I step out on the back porch and Junie B calls good morning to me with her Greta Garbo voice. Dixie’s head pops out of her stall and my morning begins as I walk down to the stable to feed and scoop poop. Bud the Barn cat twines around my legs, ready for breakfast so I feed him first. As I walk down to the stables, the sun is warm on my back.
Later in the morning we take the morning paper and mail to our farm partners after we have fed the cows. Jeannie and her daughter Beth come out and we talk for a few minutes. While Michael heads off to other chores, I change the sheets on the guest bed and clean the upstairs. Good friends are coming for a visit this weekend and I need to freshen things up. The day passes in the haze of housecleaning not only for Gene and Brenda but also for our farm family gathering Sunday night.
In the evening I head to Pat’s house for a soup supper. The women of our church are having a get together. I bring a keyboard(Sorry, Andy. I can’t play the guitar.) And after the meal, we begin to sing. First we sing the spiritual that is our special Sunday morning. Then, we begin to sing our old favorites... Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior, Softly and Tenderly, Lift Every Voice and Sing, Do Lord, gospel hymns from the African American tradition that are new to me. The sweet harmony of voices was a benediction balm for my day.
My day, full of the grace and glory of Mayberry moments, also held grief and anger. One of our extended family members is facing a devastating cancer diagnosis. With no warning, she could be facing death in a few months, perhaps, just as a new grandchild comes into her life. Mayberry was not always an easy place to live either. Earnest T. Bass, Chaos personified, turned that community upside down more than once. Drunks, thieves, death and loss also showed up in Mayberry from time to time.
Most of my days are moments strung together like a string of pearls. Very few of them are “important” or newsworthy. My face will never show up on magazine covers wearing the latest in pooper scooping outerwear nor will I be photographed in a string bikini (thank God) on a far away beach. Every now and then a crisis interrupts or a time of great joy but there are more moments than “momentous”.
Today I am giving thanks for these moments, these little pearls of great price that make up my days. And I am praying for my extended family member who is watching her moments slide through her fingers, a rosary of grief and longing. I give thanks for her life, the love she has given to my daughter and grandson, and I pray for a peaceful passage to her life after death. For all of us who sit in the shadow of death, may God grant us light to guide our feet as we wend our way Home. Amen.