The Land of Overhead Lights

I was raised in the land of overhead lights. Every room in our house had overhead lighting... as bright as could be. My parents were raised in homes with oil lamps so they valued the bright lights the REA brought to their family farms. At Cloverly, my mother’s home in Virginia, bare light bulbs hung down from the ceiling lighting even the corners of the large rooms. The chore my mother detested, washing the Alladin lamp chimneys daily to keep them soot free, had come to an end. It was a life altering gift for rural families, akin perhaps to the changes that have come with the computer age.
I am sitting in front of a therapy light as I write, its 10,000 lux beams helping with my light deprivation sadness that comes in winter. It seems to be working as I finish the first week of using it. I need light, sunlight or its equal, for my body and soul to be balanced.
When I remember how God comes to us in our world, it is often as light... fire without heat, a glory light so strong that it was hidden behind a veil, light in the heavens with angels, a transfiguration light. We speak of Jesus as the Light of the World and are told not to hide our lights under a bushel basket.
There have been times in my life when God’s light has been turned on... shocking me, comforting me, calling me out, lighting up all my dark corners and bathing me in restorative beams of loving illumination. The Light that knows no limits in love comes to me in many ways, usually when I least expect it.
This week has been difficult and dark. The school shootings with little children killed, a friend’s hurry up and wait time with a cancer diagnosis, my mother’s ongoing issues with her lung, the absence of my sister...each little darkness seems to lead to another until the Light dims, frayed around the edges by so much grief and worry.
Then two year old Grayson shows up at the Farm Family Christmas party full of his first adolescence vim and vigor, all the world gift wrapped in possibilities just for him. I see his bright smile under his curly mop top head and the darkness lifts. Junie B nuzzles me, speaks to me, lays her head on my shoulder and I feel connected to a Life Force that binds all God’s creatures together. The full moon shines in a winter crisp sky, stars bright and arranged in their many patterns. The night lights remind me that God is so much more than my limited imagination can conceive. I feel wrapped in Light that moves with me. I am a pillar of light, God’s light, and can be light for myself and others.
In this season of darkness, Lord, I thank you for all the night lights I have been given. As my grandchildren are comforted by little beams in their bedrooms, so am I sustained by the glimmers of light in my dark nights. I appreciate the astounding bright light that seems to come when I most need it assuring me of your Presence in my life and your Love. Thank you for the inner light that shone so brightly in Jesus, a light that still gives me a clear path to follow home to You, a Home filled with loving light that knows no end. Amen.

Hard Times Hope

I have a friend who is very angry with God right now and with good reason. She is struggling to reconcile her anger with a powerful loving God who seems to dish out suffering and then stand by to watch what happens. Telling her to read the book of Job is not a good answer. It only proves her anger. To tell the truth, I have no easy answers for this timeless question. Better minds than mine have explored and written about God’s presence, or lack thereof, in a world filled with pain.
As a certified bookaholic, I turn to reading in times of great need. After Tim’s death, I read “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis written about his wife’s death. In him I found a tough minded writer who did not suffer fools or foolishness gladly. His writing served as a staff in the valley of death while he reworked what he believed about God. When my sister committed suicide, someone gave me a copy of “Brother to a Dragonfly” written by Will Campbell. The story of his faith journey through the aftermath of his brother’s suicide helped me find new paths to travel. And always, always, I read the Psalms. Those ancient words sing my sorrow in ways that honor my grief and anger without the sop of easy answers. “How long, O Lord? Wilt thou forget me forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all the day?”
I am not the first person to question God’s presence and loving care in the face of unbearable, unimaginable pain and suffering nor will my friend be the last. As one of my favorite therapists used to remind me, “It is not just about you, Peggy.” Crucifixion happens every day to those we know and love and to those far away. It is as much a fact of life as birth and death. The difficulty comes when we feel singled out as if the universe created by God should be fair and just. My daughter Alison had a standard reply to all of life’s perceived injustice, whether being made to go to bed early or having to do homework… It isn’t fair. Now her son echoes the same observation as he begins to learn how to live in a world filled with discrepancies.
All I know about God is this… God is love. God loves me. When bad things happen, it is not God’s fault nor is it God’s responsibility to fix it. We are all finite creatures and when our time of ending comes, we have choices to make. After the pain and anger subside, we can choose to find meaning and a deeper, truer way of believing or we can choose to be consumed by loss. Either way, God is with us as much as we can stand it. And, sometimes, we can’t stand it for long. I cannot imagine a world where death is the final word, where endings have no new beginnings or a universe without a loving Creator. In the midst of my darkest times, somehow, somewhere, God has come to me in other people, books, the Psalms, animals, and silence. And I know, I know even if just for a moment, that I am not forsaken or forgotten. That memory sustains my hope in this Advent darkness.
Today, Lord, I pray hope will be a companion for those who are angry and hopeless in this season of joyful anticipation. Let hope light the hours of the dark days and nights of sorrow and grief. And somehow, Lord, could you let hope lead us to a blessed assurance that you are present when our hearts are breaking? Please?

It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are -are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Lessons Learned in the Land of After... Advent Hope

Grandma and Granddaddy were extra special for the cousins. When we were there, they had all the time in the world for us in the midst of their busy days. Trips to the Post Office became an adventure when Granddaddy hit the bump at the top of the hill just right so our stomachs would fly up. Chinese Checker games with Grandma were lessons in losing and winning with passion. When one cousin needed a Sunday dress for church, it was no problem. Grandma made the pattern and the dress, lavender lawn with little white flowers, in one day. I asked her for a matching dress but she had used all her material. We amused ourselves on the farm and in the house, showing up for meals and falling into the old iron beds at night worn out from the sheer pleasure of being at Cloverly.
When Granddaddy died, our family made the long journey to Virginia from South Georgia to a new place, Cloverly without him, a world without him. My soft spoken, tender hearted Grandaddy was gone. This was my first experience with death and Grandma gave me a never forgotten lesson on how to live in the Afterward. We arrived at the funeral home in Walkerton, Virginia and walked into the chapel where an open coffin lay at the front. Afraid of the unknown, my sister and I sat in a pew, watching and waiting. After a little while, Grandma came and took us by the hand to lead us to the front. Talking in her normal voice, she began to explain death to us so when we reached Granddaddy’s body, the fear had subsided.
Her generation grew up with death a visitor to the home. Her mother died at home as did most of the people in her time. The rituals and practice of death began early for her and she had the words we needed to hear, the hope we longed for without even knowing what our hearts were aching for. Granddaddy’s body was a shell, she said, a shell that gave him a home to live in while he was here on earth. When his body died, all that was left was the shell but Granddaddy was still alive. He was in our hearts and he was with God. We were comforted and learned to live in a land without Granddaddy present in body. The true lesson she taught us that day was hope… death is not the final word nor is it endless separation. It is both ending and beginning but the love flows on without ceasing.
“We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us…a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul, a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain where Jesus has gone before…” Grandma helped me see beyond the curtain that day, lifted the hem a little so I could hope again, gave my soul an anchor that has held steady all the years since as other losses came my way.
Thanks be to God for the sustaining gift of hope, a clear eyed, no nonsense hope that knows the odds and hopes anyway. This hope has lifted the hem of the curtain and sees beyond the grief and loss to a new day, a new life, and Love that knows no end. In this dark Advent season, I seize hope again as I wait on the Lord… not so patiently but I wait nonetheless. My lantern of Hope is dim and flickering this year but it still lights my path as I wait. Help me hold on, Hope of the Hopeless, abide with me until I find rest in you. Amen.

Before and after...Advent Hope

In my life… in everyone’s life… come moments of before and after. The before moments, the moments when life is normal as you know it, disappear like morning mist evaporating under the warm gaze of the rising sun. One minute it is there, solid ground, and the next minute solid ground is gone, replaced with quicksand. Before Tim died, before Gayle died, before Daddy’s diagnosis, before Michael’s heart stent, before… I experienced a seismic shift in my ground of being once I heard words that could not be taken back.
I do not stand alone as a survivor of before and after. All of us, if we have not yet felt the ground move under our feet, will someday know the feeling of time standing still as our world changes forever. In those moments, what we believe, who we believe in, how we live what we believe, becomes the skeleton for our new life in the land of after. This skeleton will be fleshed out in the blazing light that evaporates the soft, misty edges and reveals what is true, what is necessary, what is real, what is absolutely essential for survival afterward. We are born again and in the birthing, we are stripped naked, forced to change, grow or die for lack of understanding.
My friend Judy Herring said it best when presented with her diagnosis of ALS. “Not why me,” she said, but “Why not me?” None of us are completely protected from struggle, pain and heartbreak. God does not carve out a safe place, a cocoon for those who live for God in this world. Our response to the unbearable, the unthinkable determines who we become as we walk through the valley of the shadow. And there, in that place of choosing, one can find power, strength, hope, grace and joy. One can live in Lamentations or sing a Psalm, see only darkness and loss or search for light and a different life. Quicksand becomes solid rock as life, the precious gift of life, is celebrated in spite of, because of its limits.
Dear friends hit the wall last Friday, the wall that leaves you grief stricken, bewildered, lost and sinking. They are moving on now, making choices, living in their altered world, trying to remain upright as they walk over this stony ground. For them and for all those who walk in Advent darkness, I pray the light touch of hope to come and rest in their souls. I pray the rough places will be made smooth as hope becomes the wind beneath their eagle wings. As they live with uncertainty, I pray for an abiding assurance of new light yet to come, for new life yet to be born, for beginnings in the midst of endings and for the strong, strong Love That Knows No End to surround them. Help me be a part of your Loving Face, O God, for those who need to feel and see you in their time of Advent darkness.

The land time forgot...

In memory of Dean Probst who has crossed over the River Jordan and is now resting in the arms of Jesus with all the time in the world...


I wake up in my sister’s old bedroom and look out the window. Spanish moss, hanging on the old water oak trees, drifts in the morning breeze. The single pane windows look out on a view that has changed some, but not much. There are a few new neighbors across the road but the landscape of longleaf pines and hayfields remains familiar. The early morning sun lights up the front yard pine trees with a golden glow and the hayfield across the road is white with frost. The big green mailbox still stands guard at the gate as it always has.

Cotton has returned to its place as King replacing the now defunct tobacco farm. Farmers here had such a bountiful peanut crop last year that the surplus will carry over until 2014. Cotton farmers will plant two years of cotton and one year of peanuts on the same field. Cotton depletes the soil and peanuts, a root crop, builds it back up. Here in South Georgia, farming is still a viable occupation for those who love the work and the life. It never hurts though, to have a side job just in case. On the surface, it seems as if time stands still here. And yet...

Mama asked me the other day if I ever imagined what my sister would have looked like if she had lived. The image I hold in my heart is the young, ageless Gayle, dressed in sixties style with her life waiting for her in the wings. I imagined her face changing through the years, aging with wrinkles and grey hair, tart tongue still in place, and I wept for the loss of those years. Time does indeed march on with or without us. And that is as it should be.

Time does not stand still for the people of God in the Bible. They begin as nomads, fugitives living in tents, wandering the wilderness, waiting on a promised land that is not handed to them on a silver platter. They are given new laws to live by, new social structure when they are divided into tribes, one God to replace many gods. When Jesus comes many generations later, these same people are living in their land ruled by outlanders. Life is very different from their beginnings. No longer nomads, the center of their world is Jerusalem and a temple that houses all that is holy for them. Jesus brings a new vision, new tents, a new journey and the people of God continue to live in the package of time they are given with the gift of life.

To everything, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven... This passage from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorites. I have danced these words in worship and my body memory lets me dance it again when I close my eyes. A time to be born and a time to die... A time to hold on and a time to cast away... Between our birth and our death, as we travel through our allotted measure of time, wisdom can come and be our guide as we choose what to hold close and what to cast away.

This Thanksgiving season, I choose to be grateful for my beginnings here in South Georgia. Born and raised in the rural south, I carry with me the memories of all in my family who were born in a different season with another purpose under heaven. And as time changes the landscape of my soul, I choose to be grateful not only for where I come from but I celebrate where I am going, the new promised lands waiting over the river. Dear One, you are both my still, safe haven and my pillar of fire that leads me into new lands. Guide my feet as I walk this pilgrim way and when my time here is done, gather me up in your Love so that I might rest my weary soul in thee...home at last in a place where time does stand still and love never ends. Amen.

Oh...

Oh, the wonder of it all….
I woke to a solitary bird song echoing in the early morning half light. In spring and summer, the birdsong is a Handel Hallelujah Chorus but fall brings YoYo Ma cello solo songs. It seems as if dawn comes subdued and slow, not the quick bright light of summer mornings. The annual Ladybug invasion has begun. The little spotted specks of winged flight use our front porch as a landing field and creep through cracks and crevices to end up in the kitchen sink, on the walls, and underfoot. Grasshoppers are not hopping as high nor as plentifully as they were last week. The bears are bolder this year. Not satisfied with demolishing birdfeeders, they have moved on to trash cans in their search for fattening foods. The apple crisp morning air brings the horses and donkeys out of their stalls jumping for joy, kicking up their heels in gleeful abandon. Traveling salesmen Mallard ducks float on the pond for a night of rest before departing in the morning, headed to their winter homes. The baby turkeys are grown now and indistinguishable from their mamas. In the dusk, the silhouettes of deer grazing on the hill form a silent, still tableau as they pause in their grazing to watch me drive by. Walnuts in their bright green spongy hulls litter the ground and squirrels are gathering them into their dens. The sounds of crickets and locusts are gone now and winter silence is creeping towards us. I love the subtlety of the seasons changing guard. These small signs, not particularly noticeable in their singularity, are a continuing invitation to move on to the next season.
God can be as subtle as the signs of seasonal change. Bear tracks and God tracks mark the passage of mystery in my life. The solo birdsong reminds me that heartsongs continue even in deadness of winter. Deer, poised and alert, are symbols of attentive alertness to what (or Who) is passing by. Canada geese flying through the sky in their distinctive V formation call me to move on, to let go of the lush spring and summer. The squirrel cussing me out for disturbing his nut gathering calls me to do some of my own prep work for the coming grey time. The thickening coats of horses, donkeys, cows, cats and dogs causes me to put on a thick coat of my own… a coat of memories and thanksgiving for all that has been and all that is yet to come. These will keep me warm as winter’s cold comes to Sabbath Rest Farm.
Let me have eyes to see, ears to hear and a song to sing as You pass through my life in this season of settling in. Keep my memories fresh and full so that I may rest in peace by the winter’s fire warmed by your presence in my life. And in the flickering firelight, help me to hold on to hope as I wait on Thee. Amen.

Asleep in Jesus

Asleep in Jesus…
I woke to a misty mountain morning. The after-image of my dream floated on the fog and I saw them, the two brothers, sitting hunkered down on their heels like they always did, by the fence line. Daddy, wearing his Massey Ferguson baseball cap, was peering off into the pasture, checking out his cows. Uncle Harold, wearing overalls, pulled his Prince Albert can of tobacco out and delicately rolled his own cigarette, twisting the end to keep the tobacco from slipping out. He lit up and they sat there in comfortable companionship, the older brother babysitter and his younger baby brother, Uncle Harold and Daddy. I miss those two old Calhoun cusses.
Autumn is my time of remembrance. As the leaves blaze and the air cools, my inner vision clears and it seems the dark glass between this world and the next is thinner, more transparent. Dreams are often of those I love who have gone on before. I find myself thinking more about death, not in a morbid way but a contemplative exercise in my mortality. In my sixties, death has a new reality and unlike my thirties, forties and fifties, I can imagine my own ending.
At my little Southern Baptist church, Jesus’ death came up most frequently during revivals when the visiting preacher painted vivid word pictures of a gruesome crucifixion and a fiery hell. We didn’t observe Lent and our Easter celebration was singing “Up from the Grave He Arose” without much consideration for the grave. Our church art was a painting of the River Jordan, appropriate for dunking Baptists. Catholics had the death scene down pat. The nine Stations of the Cross, stained glass images and statues of saints and Jesus dripping blood as they faced death surrounded them at mass every week. The forty days of Lent ended Good Friday night with stripping the sanctuary bare, a striking symbol for the reality of death.
As so often happens for me, a hymn tune circles around the inside of soul and I find myself singing, “Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, from which none ever wakes to weep! A calm and undisturbed repose, unbroken by the last of foes.” What happens after death remains a mystery even unto this day. We have more knowledge about the exact time of death, brain death, and the physiological changes that occur as our body shuts down but we cannot say with scientific certainty exactly what happens to the essential us after death of the body. Images of standing on the banks of the River Jordan waiting to cross over to the other side, being asleep in Jesus, beyond the sunset, the sweet by and by… these words and music are a bridge for my imagination that help me prepare for my final days.
What I can say is absolutely true for me, a faith statement that is inexplicable and indefensible, is I will go to be with God. I suspect my imagination is neither accurate nor wide enough to contain the reality of life after death and for that I am grateful. I do not need a little “g” God when my time to die comes. I need the deep, deep love of Jesus…
O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to Thy glorious rest above!
This old hymn, written in a minor key, says all I know about death and the ever after…God’s love in the person of Jesus will carry me on its ocean waves homeward to a new existence in all its unimaginable fullness. That is more than enough for me.Selah.

It came in a plain brown paper grocery sack...

It came in a brown paper grocery sack, neatly folded with a letter. We took it out and spread it on the floor, colors tumbling all over themselves as it lay in a thirteen foot square… a quilt for the inside of the high barn made of outdoor material. One of our friends, Linda Urquhart, who with her husband had recently visited us, made this beautiful expression of joy as a surprise gift. She named it “The Barn Dance”. We will hang it this week and it will brighten the inside of the barn just in time for our barn dance this Saturday night. Linda and Grant are coming so she will get to see her work of art in place. An extravagant gift, given from a generous heart, created by hand just for us… it takes our breath away.
Generosity is one of the most winsome of the virtues for me. In teaching our children to share, we are really trying to teach them how to be generous with what they have been given. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus used a litany that illustrated the gifts of generosity. Judge not and you will not be judged. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you in the same measure. An open hearted, open handed, open to love spirit is to my mind, the hallmark of a generous soul, one who gives without any thought of repayment.
Sunday morning, World Communion Day, Pastor Pat reminded us that Jesus sat at many tables and shared meals with many people. She spoke of the importance of family meals, meals where we share more than food, where we lay down who we are and embrace those who sit with us to eat bread and sop the gravy off our plates. When Jesus ate with Levi, the reviled tax collector, it was a communion meal, open to all those who were considered to be unclean, unfit, undesirable. In short, it was a table where we have a place saved for us. For none of us, no matter how good we look on the outside, are righteous enough to earn a place at the table. Jesus’ generous heart, his ability to bless and call forth the best we have to offer, caused Levi to turn around his life and can do the same for us. Generosity in all its forms leaves love and warmth in its wake.
Dear Lord, let me be generous this week. Help me to see places and people who need something I can give. Let me give with a laughing heart as I remember the riot of quilt colors that came out of that plain brown bag. Remove the spirit of judgment in my soul and replace it with forgiveness. Help me forgive myself as well as others so that I may come to you with a clean heart and open arms. Amen.

Bring ye all your tithes into the storehouse...

Bring ye all your tithes into the storehouse…
There were certain immutable unchanging rituals in our little Baptist church… twice a year revivals, the Lord’s Supper once every three months, immersion baptism, once a month business meetings, and once a year Pledge Sunday in the fall. We sang “Bring Ye All Ye Tithes into the Storehouse”, listened to Brother Kannon exhort us to give a tenth, passed in the little promise cards and moved on to regular church the next Sunday. There were no long, drawn out campaigns, special speakers or programs, just a simple guilt inducing sermon and pass the plate, please. Everyone did what they could and we managed. I remember the year Daddy got upset with the Southern Baptist Convention and asked Brother Kannon to keep his tithe in our church. They had a long discussion about the why’s and wherefore’s but his request was honored. The Baptist tradition of priesthood of the believer can get messy sometimes when the believers don’t all believe the same things. In this season when the hay is in the barn and the garden has been harvested, I am choosing to tithe my blessings. I began counting them this week and they are as plentiful as the weed seeds in the pasture.
I give thanks for the perfectly beautiful dew laden spider webs in the maple tree by the barn. In the morning as I walk down, they sparkle and remind me of the paradox of simplicity and complexity in nature, and my life. When a strand is broken, the spider reweaves the web, repairs what is broken and moves back to the center to wait. When the web in my life has broken in the past year, with God’s help, I have been able to restore the broken strands and I am grateful.
The cool morning air gives the horses and donkeys extra get in their get along. They come out of the stalls racing and kicking the kinks out in joyful abandon. I laugh to see the little donkeys’ legs move up and down, straight kneed, as they race to the hay pile. Junie B stops to give me a little love nip and nudge on her way to the pasture and we stand with my head laid on her neck, breathing in the sweet scent of horse. For that one moment, all is well in my world and I give thanks for the love of animals that enriches my life.
Michael and I sit on our bedroom deck moonwatching. It is so close that if I climbed the dead locust tree, I believe I could reach out and touch it. The silver light streams over the world we see and rests on us in benediction blessing. I count our blessings… forty three years of marriage, three children, seven soon to be eight grandchildren, a life together that has not always been easy but has always been good, a homeplace here in these old mountains with friends who are family, and the abiding presence of God in our lives.
Autumn is my season of remembering…remembering those I loved who have died, the warmth of the summer season of work and play, the laughter and tears that came my way, the blessed gift of my life as I enter the season of old age, and the memories of my journey towards God that began so many years ago as a little child at church. I tithe my memories and my gratitude is endless. Thanks be to the Great Gift Giver, the One who brought me into being, the Love that has never let me go. I pray that I will be as generous in my gratitude as God has been generous in my life. Let me live my life, God, with open hands and open heart, able to receive and give in equal measure, balanced in grace and gratitude. Amen.

Fifty shades of mountain grey...

Fifty shades of mountain gray…
It was gloaming, just after sunset and yet still not dark, when I began the drive to Tennessee over the “new” four lane highway. It had been a rainy afternoon and the pavement glistened. Mountains rose from seas of clouds, dark grey islands in the sky surrounded by pale lavender pearl gray mist. In the distance, row after row of mountains rippled, a blue gray ruffle next to the darker brown gray sky. As the road climbed the tall mountains, I drove into a cloud on top of Sam’s Gap, the highest point, and was wrapped in its lovely light blocking opacity, a pale grey quilt of air and water. I drove through the gap and began the downward slide towards Tennessee as the cloud quilt lifted. On my right, the large luminescent full moon played hide and seek on the mountain as it began its journey through the night skies. Now I see it…now I don’t. So close to the earth, so perfectly round, the moon cast its’ spell of bewitching light on and in and through the clouds, changing dark grey to fifty different shades of mountain grey.
Spring and summer are the seasons of sunlight, warmth and new growth. Autumn and winter honor the moon, its’ cool light illuminates the darkness within and without. The moon seasons call me to a deeper understanding of my search for light in my life. The shortened exterior time of light leads me into my interior darkness, a time of reflection that cannot come when I am surrounded by light. In these seasons of darkness, I am reminded of all the many ways God comes into my life.
Bible verses learned as a child…The Lord is my light…Thy word is a lamp to my feet…God said, “Let there be light”… Arise, shine, for thy light is come… I am the light of the world… give me assurance of God’s light in my life even when surrounded by fifty shades of mountain grey. There is something I can do, a way to be that can connect me to the Source of Light in my life, a baby born into darkness that brought light to my world, a reflection of the Eternal Light in a man named Jesus. Like the moon playing hide and seek in the mountain tops, I lose sight of my light from time to time. But if I wait, if I keep on looking, like the Wise Ones of old, I will follow the light that is a pale reflection of the one whose Love Light wraps me in warmth and holds me close to the heart of all being.

Her name was Stephanie...

As I sat in the waiting room while mama had a CAT scan, I heard her crying. I looked over my shoulder and saw her sitting by the front door, head bowed, hands in her lap. I entered the valley of indecision… Should I leave her alone? Should I go to her? Back and forth I argued in my head until I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I stood and moved towards her. What do you say to total stranger who is in distress? I settled on “Can I get you a cup of tea?” She lifted her face towards me, her cheeks streaked with tears, told me she had not been able to keep anything down for 72 hours and thanked me for asking. I sat down in the chair next to her as words and feelings began spilling out in an unquenchable flood. For the next thirty minutes, I was a chalice, the receiver of her lifeblood, as she told me her story. In the midst of her recitation of illnesses, an anguished cry came from her soul. “I am only 46. I don’t want to die.” For that, I had no words. All I could do was hold her hand and pass the Kleenex. Mama came out as the nurse came to get stephanie. She hugged me, hard, thanked me for listening and I promised to pray for her. Sometimes at the end of our ropes, prayer is the knot that helps us hang on. It was all I could offer in the moment so I am praying for her.
The name Stephanie is of Greek origin and means a crown or garland. It is also related to one of the first Christian martyrs, Stephen, who was stoned to death. Some of us wear our suffering like a crown and are readily identified. Stephanie’s struggle, her pain and fear were visible and it was easy for me to reach out to her. Most of us, however, walk around with interior tears, invisible struggles, and buried broken hearts. For those of us who weep on the inside, the phrase “How are you doing?” is a loaded question that rarely comes at an opportune moment.
Dear One, You remember the feel of tears on your cheeks, the pain of a breaking heart and the solitude of despair. Help me this day to be your voice, your arms, your hands as I move among your children who are in need. Bring someone to me, too, Lord, so that as I give, I might learn the lesson of letting others care for me. Thank you for the complexities of life and death, for our comrades who make the journey with us and for your everlasting love that holds us up when we can no longer stand on our own. Amen.

I think I am becoming a child of mixed race parentage...

I think I am becoming a child of mixed race parentage…
The concert Sunday afternoon was lovely…African American spirituals, old hymns and a lovely contemporary Requiem. One of our daughters by choice was a part of the group so we showed up to fill the family pew. At the end of the concert, the singers launched out into a rousing gospel song, the kind that sets your feet tapping and your hands clapping. It was great fun and all the white people in the church were enthusiastic participants. That scene has been looping through my soul this week and I have been mulling over what it was that hooked me.
As many of you know, I am part of an African American Presbyterian church. Many times I am asked what it is that draws me to this Body of Christ and I think I have a piece of the answer. I am there because God is working on me, helping me become a part of a people who know the meaning of suffering and dying in their bones, their DNA. As a white child of the Deep South, dark skinned folks surrounded me but unlike The Help, my family didn’t have household help of any kind. My experience was limited to Sunday afternoon porch sitting while listening to the singing at the AME church across the road. It was a benign patronage, the recognition of our differences without much appreciation for the commonalities.
Now, every Sunday, I am a part of a choir and a community who are both much the same as I and yet very different. The music we sing is regular hymns and rocking gospel. The song at the end of the concert is a part of my new worship reality. Word theology is not nearly as important as the theology of experience. Martin Luther King Sunday happens every Sunday for me as I feel my soul’s way into a new way of being.
Pastor Pat preached on the Lazerus story Sunday and she gave me a new appreciation for Thomas, the doubting one. She reminded us that when the disciples were worried about Jesus’ safety if he traveled to Mary and Martha, Thomas was the one who was willing to go with Jesus and die in Bethany if that was what it took to save Lazerus. In a small way, I am laying down all my previous worship experiences and needs, my life as a white Christian, so that I might become a part of the extended Family of God. It is not always easy but it is always good.
I am being adopted into a family that is teaching me again how to lay down my life for all God’s children. It doesn’t happen just because you mean well but it happens when you show up, over and over, for choir practice, Bible study, Room in the Inn, women’s groups, gospel sings, worship on Sundays, parties in the home and the hospital. Thanks be to God for my family at Calvary Presbyterian/Berry Temple Methodist. They love me, Sunday morning hats and Southern Baptist can’t quite get the beat me, and I love them. I am beginning to hear and feel a little of the African American dance towards God. Who knows? Maybe one day I will be able to cut loose and join in!

The five G's of my life

It has been an interesting week full of the usual… mucking and feeding and cooking and a birthday party for farm family and choir practice and bill paying (not much cleaning)… as well as the unusual… preparing to share why and how I write with a book group of friends. All week I have been chewing my writing cud, looking for themes, considering the causes, reflecting on the reasons I write what I write and why I write at all. So here goes, my journey down memory lane, the roads taken and not taken.
My family valued reading, education, and ideas. We were comfortable with the world of words and our family games were word games…crossword puzzles, Reader’s Digest Word Power. Interestingly enough, words connected to feelings were often in short supply but the language of ideas, history, science, the Bible, literature were part of our daily lives. We had no television or telephone so our evenings were spent reading, our noses buried in a book or magazine, occasionally coming up for air or a snack cozily wrapped up in a world of our imagining.
My love of words, the power of words, the endless possibilities in words began there, in my childhood. I loved hearing my Grandma cuss. She never used the cuss words everyone else did. She invented her own. “Dog bite it!” was her favorite. My mother’s Virginia accent gave an exquisite slightly foreign flavor to her speech, especially words with “ou” in them. My father’s family had the middle Georgia twang drawl and words with a different sound. Spoken words have an audible richness that is impossible to convey in written words. I loved them all.
As an introvert who did not learn the language of feelings, I have always had difficulty speaking up unless strongly provoked. Even then, tears and chin quivers could make what I was trying to say unintelligible. Writing feelings was easy. I could take my time, be precise in description, not have to deal with an immediate response and be on the defensive. The written word allows me to soar and stumble without feeling the pressure of immediacy and face to face response.
Even so, I could not have done this in my twenties and thirties. I was not enough myself. Caught up in the loving mayhem of having and raising a family, I had precious little time for reflection between homework, soccer, piano lessons, leading retreats, breastfeeding, endless conversations beginning with the word “Why?” , church responsibilities, part time work, shopping for food, planning meals, cooking meals, cleaning up after meals… all the outward work that accompanies family. Many days were spent moving from one task to another simply trying to keep up. And for a person with ADD, that is a special challenge all by itself. Those years were years of brewing, simmering, melding the ingredients of my life into a savory stew and I now have time to stir the pot and see what floats to the surface.
I began my public writing as a spiritual exercise. My calligraphy, a source of creative joy, had dwindled, my art classes at UNCA had ended and I had no steady outlet for my need to “make all things new”. So I began a small daily journal and shared it with a few friends via e-mail. The first time I pushed the send button, my heart stopped. To put my most protected self out in the ether, to be read by friends and others, scared me to death. In the midst of a crisis, the loss of a church community that had been a central part of my life, writing helped me speak my truth. Begun in anger and grief, fueled by feelings of despair and desperation, writing gave me distance from the struggle, a perspective that was tangible. And then Cindy came, showed me how to set up a blog and there I was, out in the world of anonymous internet relationships. So I was launched as a writer.
For a year or two, with the help of another friend, I danced around the idea of publishing my work. It never happened and this week, I figured out why. My introvert self could not bear the pressure of so much exposure. My ego needs are met in other ways. Being on Oprah and a part of Oprah’s book club has never been high on my bucket list. That’s one reason. I feared my ADD self would be driven to distraction by the demands of the process and I would lose more than I would gain. That’s another reason. I am a private person in many ways. Michael says he learns more about me through my writing than any other way. My river of life lives underground and when it comes up into the light of day, it cannot stay there without drying up. The business of my writing is the development of my soul, the enrichment of my spirit and the art of worshipping the One who gave me life. Sharing what I write is another spiritual exercise that pushes me beyond my comfort level, makes me vulnerable to others and their response.
Through the years I have learned that facts, logic and reason are not my forte. That arena belongs to others like my good friends Thomas Askew and Mark Kurdys. I am a feeler, a translator of feelings, an interpreter of my experiences in life, my encounters with all that is holy and transcendent in the muck and mire of my daily living. I am a mystic who believes in science and facts and reason, who sees the limits of both knowledge and feeling, who recognizes my limits and celebrates them. I am comfortable floating in the Sea of the Great Unknown and feel no need to be anchored to anyone or anything beyond the Loving One who is my buoyancy, my unsinkableness, my everlasting portion. I write because it is one of the gifts given me and it is the tithe I owe my God. And in the act of writing, I give thanks for the five “G’s” of my life… guilt, grace, grief, gratitude and God. It is more than enough. Selah.

Church...Alternative and Otherwise

Born out of bewilderment, grief and anger, the book group has met monthly for over thirty years now becoming a family of faith and foundation, one for all and all for one.
They were among the best and the brightest in our church. Young families, aspiring professionals and at home moms, educated, faith seeking, willing to work for the kingdoms sake within and without the walls of Kathwood Baptist Church. Their creativity was matched by their commitment and it was an honor to be a part of their community. Other darker forces were at work within those walls, however, and eventually they drove Michael to resign suddenly and without warning leaving a hole of anger and grief among the group we loved so dearly.
This gifted group of individualists, bound together by experience, did their thing with flair, style and grace. Once a month they meet in a home, share a meal, discuss the book under consideration, check in on how everyone is doing and church happens. They have reared their children together worrying over all who have gone astray and rejoicing in their return home. When illness comes knocking at the door, they show up right behind the doctors. They laugh (a lot), they cry when necessary, they stay open to the possibilities of God in their midst and they are the Family of God for each other. I grieve the loss of our being a part of this community but I celebrate their wit and wisdom, their continuing commitment to God’s work, and their gracious inclusion of us in the family circle.
Pastor Pat preached from Mark a Sunday or so ago, told the story of Jesus and the disciples attempting to flee the crowds for some rest and relaxation by boat. The folks saw where they were going and ran on ahead. Others joined them and by the time the boat docked, there was no rest for the weary. Jesus must have caught a nap in the boat because he didn’t have a hissy fit at the sight of the multitudes of seekers. He waded into the water of all those souls in need and did his thing with flair, style and grace. Pat reminded us St. Augustine said we are restless until we find God. And when we find God, she said, sometimes we need to run ahead so we might be in place to touch God when She shows up.
The book group ran on ahead. Not waiting for God to come back to the same old place, they ran ahead to a new spot along the shore and God showed up every month for thirty years in the laughter and tears, the learning and lessons of Life creating a place of healing and hope for those who gathered there.
Thanks be to God for the steadfast love that binds us together. When all else fails, it calls us to run ahead, to keep on keeping on, to not forget and not give up, to go where we need to go to be healed. Help us run and not be weary, Lord, when you whistle from afar off calling us home before the night falls. May it be so, please?

A tame life... God on a leash

Most days I lead a pretty tame life and am able to keep God on a leash. Every now and then however, something powerful comes my way and I am reminded that my life is not tame and I do not have God under control.
This week has been the week of the bears. We have two different sets roaming the farm, one a mother with two cubs and another larger bear with a teenager. Usually they eat nuts and berries with an occasional pass at Jeannie and Tim’s birdfeeders. This week was the week of the chicken coop and eight of Michael’s chickens were on the menu.
Michael came home from work Thursday night and went to put his chickens up. He was gone a long time and when he came in, he told me five of his chickens were missing. I hadn’t heard anything unusual during the day and we figured whatever it was came during the night before he got home. When we surveyed the damage we saw the fence was bent over and the small back door to the coop was knocked cattywampus with the hinges hanging loose.
The next day, Leisa and I were in the living room playing…we were decorating for the fall season… when she heard a chicken squawk and Marley began barking. We ran out on the porch and saw the bushes by the coop shaking. Running down to the chicken yard, we looked over the fence and saw two bears, one large one, very very LARGE one. They were both eating chicken and crunching the bones. Three more chickens had met their Maker. Michael came and we herded the remaining chickens into lockdown inside the coop until a solution can be found.
Raw power, strength untamed in the shape of a bear sent my spirit reeling as I looked over the fence in my own soul. I am not comfortable with power. It scares me. Naming and claiming my own power has been a lifelong uncompleted journey with side trips to the carnival of passive aggressive behavior. People with power do not scare me particularly thanks to my Virginia grandmother. She gave me a strong dose of where I come from, who my people are, and instilled a feeling of pride in my family’s past. That inoculated my spirit and kept me safe from those who claim power based on money, background, accomplishments or religion.
Dealing with my internal power, the power that is a reflection of the God who created me, is an altogether different matter. It is easy to hide my eyes, to refuse to see the power that lives within my soul. If I claim this power and name it, then, I will have to be responsible for using it, wisely or otherwise. If those who believe in reincarnation are right, this is one of my unlearned lessons waiting for my next life.
If I cannot believe in my own power and strength, how can I believe in God’s power and strength? Or is this one of those paradoxes so common in life? I have to believe in God’s power before I can claim my own. It seems to me it goes both ways and one way without the other is lopsided. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
God’s power is beyond my ken. I cannot fathom its limits or its potential. Anne Lamotte was right. I should wear a crash helmet when I pray. If I am a reflection creation of God, my power is present in ways I cannot fully understand or appreciate. But it is there nonetheless, waiting for me to discover and use it for God’s good. Help me, God, this week to stop running from myself. Lead me to a dark cave, a place and a time to listen to you, to find my full self, my power-full self so that I might be a force for you. May your force be with me as I flex my wings and seek my strength. Amen.

Cat feet grief

Grief has a way of sneaking up on quiet cat feet, sinking its claws into your heart when you least expect it, leaving you for a moment back where you started in tears and sorrow.

On my drive home after choir practice Tuesday night, I began naming and praying for my women friends. One is newly separated and her husband just moved out. Another younger friend is struggling to find balance in work, family and self. One friend I haven’t seen in awhile, my age, is on my lunch list. Four friends are living with husbands who are experiencing a slow slide into infirmity. I gave thanks for one who is building a new home, excited to see it coming up out of the ground, looking forward to a fresh start. As I prayed through my list, tears began to flow, surprising me, catching me unawares.

As I sorted through my feelings, examined my heart, I named the source of those tears. I was missing my sister, wishing I could call her, put her on my lunch list. Even now, thirty two years later, I yearn for a place in time for the two of us as old sisters, sharing laughter and stories about growing up with Tommy and Shirley Calhoun. Perhaps if Gayle had lived, we could have worked out our differences, become friends, cared for each other as my mother and her sister do. In this season of the year, the time of year when she died, I remember and mourn the loss of possibilities for her life.

I also give thanks for her presence in my life. She was my little sister, blonde, curly haired little sister. A thorn in my flesh who taught me how to live with my opposites, she was a bundle of stubborn determination, quicksilver laughter and a faithful friend to many. Thoughtful of others, she sent cards and letters to those she loved, remembering them in writing. She, like my mother, could take my daddy on in a battle of wills and win. I was a wuss who knuckled under.

Grief is a forgiving teacher. It returns to help you learn new lessons as the years pass. There is never an end to the wisdom that can be gleaned from the grief experience. Sometimes the lessons we learn result in action. One friend whose son died has channeled her grief and anger into a new organization. Uninsured, he received inadequate medical attention for his cancer and died as a result. She now campaigns for all those who are unable to access good medical care, working through her grief to save others from death. Sometimes the lessons learned are the ones that help us open up to the suffering of others, to be more in touch with the universal grief we all experience sooner or later. I have learned the language of grief and am grateful for the lesson.

The twenty second Psalm describes one broken by sorrow… heart melted like wax… a beautiful image for grief. Once your heart is melted, a new heart can come to be, one that is filled with gratitude for the gift of life however long or short it may be. If we listen and learn from grief, we can savor life, taste its sweetness while we mourn its losses. With grace and perseverance we can place our feet on level ground, the Ground of All our Being, while we are being redeemed. Thanks be to God who continues to relieve the troubles of my heart and restores my dancing feet. Amen.

Oh the wonder of it all...

Popping pills in the mouth of a pissed off donkey was not a part of my skill set until this week. Twice a day Shirley must take four antibiotic pills for her injured eye. Pills wrapped in bread liberally covered in sugar (Mary Poppins was right) makes a tasty package. The upper eyelid is still very swollen but the lower eyelid is back to normal. After dosing the eye with antibiotic ointment, Michael and I walked back up the hill to the house. The rainclouds were gathered over the far mountains but none seem headed our way. Jason the weatherman keeps on promising rain will come but so far it seems to come everywhere but here. The ground is hard and dry. Plants are dusty and toughened by the last of summer’s heat. Grasshoppers abound, leaping in joyful abandon as you walk through the yard, all shapes, colors and sizes. The bear has made a visit to Tim and Jeannie’s house leaving bent bird feeders and big footprints behind as evidence of its passing. Flocks of wild turkeys fly up from the overgrown hay field when Woody bounces in to chase them. The young ones are almost indistinguishable from their parents now, nearly full grown. The old white turkey survives still, against all odds. Color is beginning to appear early this year. Some trees are already turning red, yellow and brown. Leaves are dropping and the smell of summer’s end will soon be replaced by autumn’s tangy sharp scent. We are poised at the top of the ferris wheel of seasons awaiting the descent into fall and winter, holding our breath under the blue full moon, learning to live in the darkness that is creeping back into the long summer’s day. Oh, the wonder of it all… No matter how many times I feel the season’s change, the mystery and miracle of it still makes a thin place for my soul to touch God’s creation energy. We who live in this day and age know so much about the “how” of things but the “why” is still as elusive for us as it was for the Psalmist. In our acquisition of knowledge I fear we may have lost our capacity to recognize the miracles that surround us, the Mystery that cannot be known. To God who by understanding made the heavens, for God’s steadfast love endures forever, to God who spread out the earth upon the waters, for God’s steadfast love endures forever, to God who made the great lights, for God’s steadfast love endures forever, the sun to rule over the day, for God’s steadfast love endures forever, the moon and the stars to rule over the night, for God’s steadfast love endures forever. The call and response of the 136th Psalm remind me of the bedrock truth of all creation. In climate change and polar ice cap melting, God’s steadfast love endures forever. In hurricane floods and summer drought, God’s steadfast love endures forever. In season’s change and darkness descending, God’s steadfast love endures forever. In the wonder of it all, the mystery and the miracle, God’s steadfast love endures forever. Amen and amen.

Tell it to Jesus...

Some days just do not go as planned… Yesterday, for some strange reason, I decided to feed the cows first. Woody jumped in the Kubota with me and we headed towards the pasture. The new calf, Little Ferd’s first baby, was running around with his tail held high in the air. I fed them sweet feed and watched them for awhile, counting heads to make sure everyone was there. Tilly is beginning to look old but she can still clear a path for herself to the feed trough with that regal crown of horns. Sassy is as sassy as she has always been and Biscuits and Gravy (so named because she is milk gravy creamy white with red and black speckles) was anxious not to miss a morsel of feed. Sitting with the cows always slows me down, quietens my internal discourse, and connects me to my childhood. When I got back up the hill to the house, I walked down to the stable to muck stalls and put out hay for the donkeys and horses. After feeding Bud the Barn Cat, I let the horses out then opened the donkey stall. My stomach lurched towards my throat as I saw Shirley’s face. Blood was gushing from her eye, the upper eyelid was hanging and the lower eyelid was ripped loose. I quickly put the donkeys in the small holding pen behind the stable and ran up to the house to call the vet. An hour later a nice young man drove up and we went to work on Shirley. He gave her some happy juice, deadened her eye and began stitching her up. She stood patiently, a little drunk, as I held her head up for surgery. Two hours later she walked towards the pasture, wobbly but in no pain. I, however, was coming down from my ER high and beginning to feel the aftereffects. Michael called in the afternoon and I tried to tell him some of the details but his vagal nerve response kicked in (and a waiting client) so I cut it short. Mama came to check on Shirley and me but she stayed up at the top of the hill and called down to me. I called Diane but she was on her way to meet a friend and caught in traffic so she was distracted. Leisa was sympathetic but by then I had realized the gory details were not particularly appealing to those who were not there for the ordeal. Where could I go to lay down all these feelings and the worries? As I sat and drank my afternoon cup of hot tea, an old hymn title came to mind… Tell It to Jesus. I went to my piano, opened my old hymnal and found it. As I played and sang those sweet words from my childhood church worship, a calm settled over my frazzled self. In the singing, tears began to flow, not just for my fractured day, but also for those I love who are struggling with illness, old age, the death of a beloved grandchild, uncertain futures. “Are you weary, are you heavyhearted? Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus. Are you grieving over joys departed? Tell it to Jesus alone. Do the tears flow down your cheeks unbidden? Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus. Have you sins that to men’s eyes are hidden? Tell it to Jesus alone. Do you fear the gathering clouds of sorrow? Tell it to Jesus, Tell it to Jesus. Are you anxious what shall be tomorrow? Tell it to Jesus alone.” Dear One, Thank you for listening to me yesterday… all the gory details, all the memories of other emergency runs. For those I love who are in the middle of their own fractured lives and sorrows, hear the prayers of their hearts, oh Lord. Make me in your image, one who hears and loves and lifts up when life is more pain than pleasure. Amen.

Glad reunion...

As we walked up to the museum entrance, the small group turned to look and then began to laugh with arms outstretched for hugs. Friends not seen for fifty years…high school friends… gathered for their reunion in Birmingham, Alabama. Many of Michael’s school friends were in class together for all twelve grades, living in the same neighborhood, some even a part of his life since his birth. And now, after lives well lived, aged like fine wine, they began a two day journey of reconnection, a journey fueled by loving remembrance and gratitude for the present. I was an interested bystander, one of the spouses spending time waiting, meeting and greeting, observing the process. Name tags with senior pictures helped the identification of changed faces and bodies. The jockeying of earlier reunions for status and appearance seemed to be reduced by the passage of time. No one escapes unscathed in the aging game. Everyone put their best foot forward. Hair dye, a toupee or two, new clothing, carefully applied makeup and other gilding of the lilies highlighted the specialness of the occasion. But the one image that overrode all other images was the sight of these people, long separated, hugging, laughing, talking, sharing their lives with one another in glad reunion. Michael spent time with Carol, his girl friend in grades three through six and in high school. They were able to have some time to talk about their shared past, remember the good times and apologize for old hurts. Cheerleaders gathered, bouncing around and for a moment, it was as if they were once again teenagers in the halls of Banks High. Everywhere I looked Saturday night, I saw happy faces, heard the roar of the past and the present merging in Alta Dena Country Club as remembrances flowed like a river of time. When the commotion overwhelmed my introverted soul, I walked outside to sit in a swing and watch the moon rise over the golf course. The darkness of the night was broken with pinpoints of light, homes around the course, and the moon rise lit the sky with a pale glow. As I listened to the party inside, I began to imagine the glad reunion I believe comes when we die. Wonderful as this gathering was, I imagine the final reunion will be one of perfect love and joyous recognition. I know this by faith not by any demonstrable experiment or testimony. A new study is being funded to determine the reality of the afterlife. The scientists promise a fair, unbiased result. This amuses me no end. How can one prove or disprove a reality from which we have few return travelers? Near death experiences and death experiences are all subjective, peculiar to the person who lives through their own death and no one has yet returned after a burial to confirm or deny the existence of the afterlife. It has been and will continue to be an article of faith, knowledge through mystery not defined by rational thinking. Just as the Banks High School Class of 1962 gathered everyone into a loving embrace regardless of their place in the class, so will God gather us up in his loving arms when we breathe our last. “Fear not”, Jesus said. “I go to prepare a place for you and where I go, you will go also.” How that happens, I do not know. When that happens, I do not know. But my heart knows my soul, my essential self will be gathered up to God and have a glad reunion with all who have loved me and whom I have loved. Thanks be to God for love incarnate, love that will not let me go even in the cold waters of death… love that sustains and seeks to be my final resting place…home, sweet home at last.

Keepers of the flame...

She came out on the porch with a stack of folders and papers, sat down in a rocking chair and began to shuffle through the magazines, articles and typewritten pages. Our conversation, liberally laced with laughter, rolled on as she began to pass around different sheets of information. One sheet, a program from a weekend gathering of Baptist students, was covered on the back with our individual contact information… names and addresses(no zip codes) carefully written in our best handwriting… a record of our first meeting as a group. We passed the sheet around and remembered the flame of youth represented in those carefully inscribed signatures. Courting stories, marriage and divorce stories told with laughter and tears kept us rolling along on the conversational river. Another typewritten sheet was pulled out with numerous handwritten additions of spouse’s names, dates, new addresses and phone numbers. Stories of Tim’s death and funeral, Viet Nam, professional and personal pursuits were accompanied by saved magazines, articles, pictures and newspaper stories. Our lives since our first meeting were held in those black folders, those stacks of yellowed typewritten papers, carefully gathered together and saved for this moment. Mary Lynn is the keeper of the flame for our Cherokee work camp family. Even in the years when we were distant from each other, raising families, marrying and divorcing, working, living our lives, she kept the cards, letters, articles and pictures that came her way, gathering us together even when we were far from each other. And on that tin roofed porch with rain as a musical accompaniment, we warmed our hearts and souls around the fire of remembrance. Those not present were held in loving arms of unspoken prayer as we shared what we knew of their current stories… new marriage for Donna and Francis, spouse’s health struggles, retirement, family reunions in other places… and they were a part of us, absent in body but present in spirit. I look at the picture my sister Catherine sent me last night, six of us laughing, side by side, older and weathered by life, and give thanks for the keepers of our flame of family. I give thanks for Mary Lynn who keeps the memories of our lives together and apart bound up in folders. I give thanks for the God who brought us together all those long years ago and has kept us to this day. In Isaiah 43 I read… Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. This weekend I was reminded once again to whom I belong, to whom we belong. The God who was in our coming together as a family, the God who walked with us as we passed through the fires and rivers of life, has been and is even now the keeper of our flames. The One who loves us, has loved us all the days of our lives, sat with us on the porch this weekend and is waiting for us to come home. Thanks be to God for all the tender mercies, the saving graces, the memories bound up in folders and printed on yellowed papers, the love and laughter of my work camp family. A-men… A-she.

Benediction from John Claypool

I sat in the congregation, worn out with sadness, weary of my sudden entry into the world of grief and adulthood. He began to speak the words of benediction and tears came to my eyes as that Balm of Gilead bathed me in the certainty of God’s presence in my wrecked world. I was not the only one who found solace in those words, who held on to the assurance that all would be well because redemption was in process. When his trial by fire came in the death of his young daughter, those words delivered at the end of worship, broken and tentative, had power and peace still. Years later, those words of benediction, delivered by another voice in my daughter’s church, lift me up from the miry clay and set me up once again on the solid rock of God’s love. In my heart I hear John’s voice, measured and deliberate, as he blesses us upon our going out after worship. “Depart now in the fellowship of God the Father. And as you go, remember... by the goodness of God you were born into this world, by the grace of God you have been kept all the day long even until this hour. And, by the love of God fully revealed in the face of Jesus, you are being redeemed.” Depart now... We cannot stay in one place forever. A pilgrim people in our faith and in our daily lives, we are called to leave the safety of the known and launch out into a world full of people who need us and whom we need. The fellowship of God the Father... The image of God as father is not in vogue today. Other words have taken its place but none convey for me the same sense of strength and safety that a true father gives his children. A father is the one who calls his children to reach deep within and transcend self imposed limits, to keep on trying when all seems lost, who catches you when you jump off into the deep end and sink under the water, who laughs with and at you as you find your way in the human comedy of life. And as you go, remember... “Don’t forget”, God says in so many ways. Do this in remembrance of me, our reminder to celebrate Jesus’ life and death and resurrection as we share a meal. Our memories help center us when we lose our way. I remember when God loved me through Walt and Mary Lynn, Brother Kannon, Mrs. Tyre, my grandma, and many others who have been the faces and arms of God for me. On rare and wonderful occasion, the warm, all pervading and enveloping Presence of God has wrapped around me, and the memory of those times sustains me when I am lost in the dark clouds of unknowing. I remember. Goodness of God...I have known a few people who were genuinely good. They weren’t boring one dimensional plaster saints, just so good they shone. Their faces reflected this and when I was with them, I felt bathed in their goodness. I want the wonderful gift of life I received to reflect the goodness of the God who was a part of my coming into this world. Grace of God... After sixty five years, I am beginning to see the protective hand of God at work in my life. During the struggles, the sins, the hurt and the losses, there has also been joy, accomplishment, gains, and celebration. I am always upheld by the grace of God whether I am aware of it or not. Wonderful, marvelous grace that is greater than I can ever imagine...grace that supplies my need and lets me soar with the eagles. Love of God fully revealed in the face of Jesus... I am a Christian and in the face of Jesus, I see God’s love. God loved us enough to become as we are, to risk it all to be one of us, to try to help us glimpse the Love from which we are created. You are being redeemed...It never occurred to me in my youth that redemption was a process. “Once saved, always saved” was one of the tenets of my Baptist upbringing. I sang “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb” and felt safely secure among the company of the saints. Now in my old age, I value the process of redemption that has continued all my life. Right now, sitting at the beach with my family, listening to the grandsons noisy play, I am being redeemed. This morning as I watched the sunrise over the ocean, I was being redeemed. Each day that I live with conscious awareness of God’s goodness, grace and love, I am a part of my redemption, my transformation to a fully realized Child of God. I depart now in the fellowship of God my Father and as I go, I remember... By the goodness of God I was born into this world and by the grace of God I have been kept all the day long, even until this hour. And by the love of God fully revealed in the face of Jesus, I am being redeemed. Amen.

Grace notes...

Grace notes…. One of the first embellishments I learned in my piano lessons were grace notes…the tiny little black note just before the important note…that added a simple flourish to the melody. There was no complicated fingering or difficult timing, just a simple little note. My life is full of grace notes these days and they pop up everywhere. Sitting in worship Sunday morning at College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C., the announcements included recognition of our youngest grandson’s birthday. When his name was called, the church’s voice said “Ahhhh!” with delight. He is a much loved child of God in that congregation. Michael Ussey’s sermon on one of Jesus’ imperatives, love your enemy, was thoughtful and funny as always. The talkback time after the sermon was a reflection of the healthy relationship between pastor and congregation. Sharing of inner struggles with forgiveness, questions about religion that fosters remembering wrongs done, statements of hard won forgiveness for those who took the life of a child… a grace note reminder that good church is possible, not easy but possible. A friend of mine and her husband are living with the daily subtractions that come with Altzheimer’s. Each day is a challenge for them both with one increasingly more responsible for their lives together. It is not easy…painful and funny, frustrating and clarifying, complicated and simple… but the grace notes give strength for the journey. An invitation to preside at a family wedding, a nephew’s gift of a cruise with them, loving friends and family who show up, the main melody of their life is enriched and supported by these grace notes. Our summer is full… a beach trip with all fourteen of the family, a new granddaughter in July, Michael’s fiftieth high school class reunion, my work camp family gathering, the grandsons coming to Camp Nana PopPop for a week. Grace notes abound in the present and in the future. Even when the melody of my life is in a minor key, grace notes abide and I am grateful. The reminders of God’s goodness and love surround me in the loving welcome I receive from Junie B, the sound of Bob White’s singing in the field, the half grown baby turkeys trotting after their mother, the calves running down the hill in gleeful abandon with their tails raised high, the wildflowers blooming in riotous profusion, sweet warm blueberries straight from the bush, Wiley the cat curled in my lap as we sit on the porch swing together. Thanks be to God for the grace notes, the unexpected appearance of God in the world when I do not expect it. Gratitude and grace… they are twined together in my heart… the honeysuckle of my faith.

Where two or three are gathered together...

“The kingdom of God is wherever you find the people of God.” I used to watch the little old ladies taking notes at Crescent Hill Baptist during John Claypool’s sermons. Now I am an old lady taking notes. Yesterday Pastor Pat had a phrase that caught my soul’s ear and I have listening to these words trying to remember the kingdom of God’s appearance in my life these past weeks. Last night God was present at my kitchen table as we shared tomato soup and cheese toast with David, Dianne and Tracy. Friday night, my kitchen table was surrounded by more kingdom kin as Sherry cooked for us. Friday morning, the God of Creation was with Leisa and me as we took a plein air painting class. Standing in a pocket park, surveying the spring beauty surrounding us, trying to translate that beauty to our canvas, God was present in the laughter and groans as we soared and sailed through the application of paint to ourselves and the canvas. The kingdom of God was present at Room in the Inn, a traveling shelter for homeless women, last week. Leisa and I took card making supplies to the church, helped women make and mail cards to loved ones. I sat at the piano and began to play some old standards. A young woman came to stand by me, her eyes red from weeping. “Do you know ‘Eidelweiss’?” she asked. As I played, she sang. We talked a little. She was a trained singer, just separated from her husband and on the street for the first time in her life. God was there with us in that holy moment. Every time I worship, wherever I worship, however I worship, God sneaks in and surprises me through children singing or a hug from Miss Mamie or a word from God through the voice of Pastor Pat. God shows up and my heart leaps in joy. Sometimes folks have said to me “It is so good of you to be a part of that church” as if I were doing a good deed. The truth of the matter is I am needed and I am loved. God is in my presence there and God is in the people who are members of this particular part of the kingdom. I am the one both blessed and blessing. Perhaps that is the secret to the presence of the kingdom of God... blessers and blessees part and parcel of the body of Christ. We play Musical Chairs passing around the seat at the head of the table making sure everyone has a turn., share and share alike. My mother tells the story of being so frustrated with me as a little child because I seemed to have no sense of self protection. The neighbor boy would take my toys and I would never protest, just hand them over with a smile. Some worry about my sense of naivete and innocence leading to my being hurt. I plead guilty on all counts but it is the way I am hardwired. As the old hymn says... Make me a blessing... and let me be blessed as I stand in the midst of the kingdom of God all the days of my life.

Uncivil Religion

It was a lovely neighborhood, young families like ours, older neighbors who had already raised their children, and across the street, Doug and Daryl. In the midst of this Conservative Orthodox Jewish Catholic Baptist enclave of a neighborhood, they lived openly as a gay couple. They watched our kids, shared their home for neighborhood parties and were a part of us in all the important ways.
At the seminary, gay and lesbian students were beginning to find their voices. The AIDS illness and death of a Baptist minister’s son helped this group come together as they formed a care team for his family and for him. Michael and I had known this young man since he was a teen struggling with his sexual orientation. Because of his involvement with this family, Michael became a safe haven for these young people of faith who were searching for a solid rock upon which to stand as Christians.
Our home was their home. They were our friends, our teachers, our babysitters, but most of all they taught us how to be courageous and honest when faced with condemnation and abuse. We celebrated their finding love and life partners even as we grieved their inability to receive the same kinds of blessings and affirmations Michael and I took for granted as a married heterosexual couple... and I’m not talking religion here... I’m talking about civil rights.
Forty years later I had so hoped we were beginning to understand the differences that divide us. Sexual orientation not as some arbitrary choice made from malicious desire to undermine the fabric of Faith, Family and America but as a result of complicated origins of genetics and life experiences. Why in the world would one “choose” to live beyond the pale, subject to scorn and satire, if one truly had a choice? We are born blue eyed, brown eyed, blonde and brunette, male and female, Caucasian and African American, straight, gay, lesbian, transgendered and we all spring from the Image of our Creator.
And now we are voting in North Carolina on a constitutional amendment to protect marriage.
From my perspective, marriage does need protection but not from an assault mounted by gays and lesbians. The divorce rate among Christians, fundamentalists, moderates and liberals, is indistinguishable from all the other groups in our society. Spousal abuse finds a scriptural foothold in misusing and misquoting the scripture that admonishes women to be submissive to men. We need to be proactive in our Christian work with marriage, providing support for couples and families in our churches, not reactive, drawing lines and erecting barriers to keep the Samaritans out. Most of all, we need to be very, very careful how we use our own particular faith to buttress our civil religion. It didn’t work well for the Puritans and that is how the Baptists came to Rhode Island.
I remember how it felt to join a Congregational church and be looked down on because I was a Baptist. I remember when Baptists scorned Catholics. I remember churches that would not allow you to participate in the Lord’s Supper if you were not a member of that particular church. I remember preachers preaching against the granting of basic civil rights to African Americans, using the Bible to support their stand. And now I worship in an African American church where I have never been made to feel like an outsider. How I wish we could all behave not like Christians because our track record for loving the alien is lousy, but behave like Jesus who never turned anyone away... adulterers, tax collectors, Romans, women, children.
I am proud of my daughter Alison and her husband David who are a part of a courageous faith family, College Park Baptist. This church was the site of a community gathering Monday night, 650 people from Greensboro, pastors, rabbis, men, women and children who stood up to say no to this infringement on our individual rights as citizens of the United States of America. Ron Paul, where are you when we need you? Where is the liberty and justice for all in this amendment?

Tell me the old, old story...

I grew up spending time on front porches surrounded by story telling adults. “Little pitchers have big ears” was one of my Grandma’s sayings and in my case, that was certainly true. Grandma told stories about her opera singer mother and her visions of the dead. Uncle Harold told stories about Granny Grunt who stole little children, snatched them up under her apron and whisked them away from their home. Daddy told stories about the practical jokes he and the other men played on each other at the paper mill where he worked to support our family and his farm habit. One day Daddy went to pick up his tool box and someone had screwed it to the floor. Story telling, like joke telling, was an art form, highly individual, practiced until the stories became little jewels. Even though you might know what was coming when a story was repeated, it never failed to charm and delight you in the telling.
I am reading a lovely book by Gail Godwin titled “Evensong”. It tells the story of an Episcopal woman priest, her husband, and their various families. One night she is called out to the hospital to be with a woman, a tourist, whose husband has died. She sits with her until the local undertaker comes and then gives the woman a ride back to the inn where they were staying. As they ride, Helen tells some of her story to Margaret, the priest. Helen says she feels lost from God now. Standing next to her husband in church or in life, his faith provided a safe place for her, a God umbrella, and now it was gone. Much to her surprise, Margaret finds herself telling the story of her losses... a miscarriage and a mother who left her when she was six. And then Helen asks a question... “Where do you find God in this?” Margaret replies that in the telling of their stories, she feels changed, names the changes and says she feels God in that process.
In my childhood church we sang “I Love to Tell the Story” (A flat major) and “Tell Me the Old, Old Story” (C major) frequently. We were taught how to tell our faith stories, give our testimony, and exhorted to do so with friends and strangers. As a new Christian at the ripe old age of twelve, I practiced witnessing (telling how I was saved) until I made a pest of myself. Thank God my friends were long suffering and my family was patient.
The Bible is God’s story told by human beings who lived their lives losing and finding their way back to God. I love the stories about those characters... all of them far from perfect, who laughed and loved and sinned and repented, eventually (or not) getting the punchline of the joke or the moral of the story. One of the reasons I love Jesus is the stories he told filled with people I recognized in my own life. Our little church had a Mary Magdalen, a Prodigal Son, a Good Samaritan and we all knew who they were. Those were and still are true stories in every sense of the word.
Writing is for me another way to tell my story, my story and God’s story. I work out my own salvation in the telling and hear from you sometimes pieces of your own stories in response. Margaret was right. We stand on holy ground when we tell our stories to each other and resurrection comes calling in unexpected ways. We all stand under someone else’s God umbrella and stories help us recognize the arms of God in the persons sitting next to us on the front porches of our lives.
Dear One, I never tire of hearing the stories told by your children. They keep me laughing and weeping and learning.Thank you for this most amazing gift of life and love and loss. I am grateful for all the stories I hear and all the stories I tell but most of all, I am grateful for your presence in my life. May it always be so. Amen.

Waiting while being washed in the Blood of the Lamb

As far back as I can remember, my heart has yearned towards God. I began wanting to join the church when I was nine years old. My father would not let me until I was twelve because he wanted me to be sure I knew what I was doing... the age of reason for Baptists. I remember walking the aisle and shaking hands with Brother Kannon, telling him I wanted to become a Christian and join the church. He asked the age old question... Do you believe Jesus died for your sins and are you willing to confess Him as your Lord and Savior? My feeling memory of that time of public confession and baptism is one of rejoicing. My church family welcomed me warmly, my parents were proud and I was on my way in the joy of my salvation, to paraphrase the Psalmist.
That was over fifty years ago and I am so grateful still for a place and a people who taught me about God, loved me into the kingdom of God and helped me identify some of the gifts I had been given by God.
During this Lenten season, I hear old familiar words and my church sings the old “blood” hymns. My heart skips back to my beginnings in the faith and I ponder the new wine skins for the wine I now drink as a Christian. There is still so much depth and richness in the old words for me... sacrifice, death, resurrection. During this holy time, I find myself being washed in the soul cleansing Blood of the Lamb every where I turn.
As I sit with my Gratitude Group, I find myself speaking of this season of my soul as a transition time, a fallow time. I have not been writing or creating art. It is as if I am holding my creative breath...waiting. Good social worker and pastoral counselor that they are, Cannan and Mary ask all the right questions. Are you angry? Depressed? Weary? None of these apply. I am waiting.
Too often we rush from one thing to another. We go from work to home to children to church to work to laundry to work to choir ad infinitum and we forget the value of waiting. Our culture is programmed for instant gratification and we have all bought into the rightness of immediate satisfaction. Lent is a season of waiting much like late winter and early spring. Resurrection does not come quickly or without some struggle.
The wind skips through the clover and leaves waves of multicolored greens in its wake. The time of the robin and bluebird is nigh and the pussy willow buds turn silver grey green. Red bud and pear and peach and apple trees blossom while oaks and maples and beeches stand bleak and barren, anchored in a sea of brilliant green grass. All creation is holding its breath as small signs of the new life coming burst forth into glorious bloom.
I am waiting, Lord, becoming your dwelling place once again as I breathe in the joy of a new salvation. I trust in resurrection, Lord, and I know you are at work in me under the surface of what can be seen. I will wait on you and dream while I am waiting for new life to come. Thanks be to God for the gift of waiting.

I was a stranger...

They arrived late, nearly nine o’clock at night, two strangers who were spending the night with us. They were participants in Dianne’s soul collage card workshop who needed a place to stay since the farmhouse was not available. I teased them as they came in and took their shoes off at the door... “You must have grown up on a farm and been raised right,” I said. Jay smiled as she handed me two bottles of wine as a hostess present. “I was raised on a farm in Vermont and loved it.”
The next morning we ate fresh eggs and sausage for breakfast before the farm tour. Michael tucked them in the Kubota and drove to the Sound of Music Hill to feed the cows. The girls got “slobbered” as they fed the cows bread and a good time was had by all. Feeding the horses, donkeys and chickens was the icing on the cake for them. They came in giggling and happy, ready for the day.
After the workshop, they came back up the hill to gather their things together to leave. As she hugged me, I saw a flash of sadness cross Jay’s face and I wondered... Michael and I stood and waved good by to them, telling them to be careful, come back, we loved having you visit. They drove off on their way back to their lives in another city.
Later I asked Dianne about Jay and the sadness I saw in her face. She is a successful business woman who owns several businesses with her husband. When you first meet her, her bubbly laugh is the first thing you notice about her and yet... Dianne told me she is struggling with caring for her parents, one of them an addict. This farm has become a place of solace for her, a shelter in a time of storm. She will be back for another workshop and a time of healing, no longer a stranger but one who belongs to us.
One of my friends asked if it was scary having complete strangers in our house. I hadn’t even thought of it that way. They had a need I could meet, it was helpful for my friend Dianne with her workshop, and I enjoy having our house full of people. Michael’s dad loved to recite a poem about a man readying his house for a visit from the Master, Jesus. In the busyness of getting ready, he turned away people who came to his door with needs. At the end of the day when the Master had not come, he was confronted with the reality of having turned Jesus away in the form of every person who had come to his door that day.
My house wasn’t spotless but they did have clean sheets and towels. The food was plain, not fancy. The fire was warm, our welcome was genuine and the words by our front door spoke for us. “Let the guest sojourning here know that in this home our life is simple. What we cannot afford, we do not offer, but what good cheer we can give, we give gladly...So while you tarry here with us we would have thee enjoy the blessings of a home, health, love and freedom, and we pray that thou mayst find the final blessing of life... peace.”
I was a stranger and you took me in...

Ferdinand...the Gentle Giant

I had long been dreading this day...

In the morning as I stood at the sink, I would look down at the stable and see Ferdinand stretched out in the sawdust under the run in, his massive head resting on the ground. I would stand and watch him thinking, “This is what he will look like when he is dead. Is he dead?” Then he would stir, lifting his head up, and I could breathe again.
When I went down to do my morning routine at the stable, Ferdie would wait while I fed Bud the Barn Cat first. If I took too long, he would go into his stall and wait for his breakfast. The problem was he was too big for me to get in the stall to feed him. His rump filled the door. So we would do a little dance. I’d rattle the feed bucket, he would ponderously turn and come outside to me, I would slip into the stall and pour out his feed in the corner, wait for him to come in, scratch his ears, pat his back and slip out. I loved that old curly haired red bull.
Twenty one years ago, mama and daddy drove down to Mr. Ragan’s farm in North Florida to buy a bull. Mr. Ragan specialized in English Shorthorns, a multi-purpose breed, that daddy liked. They chose a solid red boy with a long straight back and a curly mophead. For fifty dollars, Mr. Regan and his son Ben delivered him, and Ferdinand the Gentle Bull became a part of our family. Daddy hand fed and petted Ferdinand until he became a gentle giant. Our family picture book has pictures of children sitting on Ferd’s broad back, legs sticking straight out to the side, grinning in nervous disbelief. One of my favorite pictures of daddy has him sitting on his heels, squatting down in front of Ferd, holding the feed bucket while Ferdie eats his fill.
We had moved to Sabbath Rest Farm when daddy found out he had myelofibrosis. It would eventually kill him so he began to make preparations. He sent Ferd and a small band of cows to us as our starter herd. For eight years, Ferdie worked hard and we had a regular crop of calves every year. When he ran out of steam, we brought him up to the horse pasture for retirement. I fed him sweet feed twice a day and he had all the hay he could eat. He was my 2000 pound dog. Tim and Jeannie could see him from their home resting in the pasture nestled up next to the fence under the pine trees. When the weather was bad, he had a stall in the horse barn for shelter.
Yesterday morning, I went out to feed and muck. Ferd had not eaten his supper so I went looking for him. The pasture was empty and a section of the fence was flat on the ground, posts broken. I called Michael to alert him and we began walking the woods looking for Ferd. After an hour or so of searching, we found him stuck in a narrow ravine, unable to move and near death. Sometimes animals sense the approach of death and go off to die alone. Ferdie had never tried to go through the fence before so I am choosing to believe he was answering an invisible call, a signal that his end was near.
As I sat watching old Ferd, tears streaming down my face, I knew he needed help. Our rifle is a twenty two and I feared it would not do the job so a neighbor came bringing a larger caliber gun. I couldn’t bear to be there so Michael and Kenny did what needed to be done. I went to mama’s house, sat with her and told stories about daddy and Ferd. Leisa and Julie came to keep us company in our grief and as women have done for centuries, wept with us.
We will bury our old bull near the leaning barn, in the midst of the comings and goings of cows and humans. His gentle spirit will live on in our hearts. We returned to Mr. Ragan’s farm last November to pick up our next shorthorn bull, Little Ferdinand. I am working with him, gentling and preparing him to live up to his namesake. The evening after Ferd’s death, Fanny went into labor. To everything, there is a season...a time to die and a time to be born. Always, always there is new life, resurrection in the midst of death. Thanks be to God.

Simple gifts...dirt

My sister and I had some grand and glorious tea parties in the front yard of the old farmhouse in Clyattville. Mama would give us a pan and off we’d go. We carried out our tea set, an old tablespoon for mixing and a vase. Carefully mixing South Georgia sand and water, we would get our mud just right for shaping tea cakes. Laying them out in the sun to bake, decorated with poke berries, we then gathered flowers for our centerpiece. Every tea party is a special occasion and special occasions demand a floral centerpiece. We sat with our pinky fingers extended just so and pretended to be ladies of high fashion as we conversed elegantly with dirt under our fingernails.
Now my hands get dirty, really dirty, everyday. Hay is dirty. Cows and horses are covered in muck and mud. At night I scrub my hands and nails with a small brush to remove the accumulated dirt. I have found myself looking at other people’s hands for evidence of dirt. Not many folks seem to get their hands dirty anymore. Most of us no longer have jobs that dirty our hands daily. We live in a world that is cleaner, more sterile, than it has ever been before. And I find myself wondering what we have lost in our clean hands society.
Dirt reminds me I am of and from the earth. No amount of scrubbing with hand sanitizer can remove me from the essential ground of my being. Ashes to ashes…dust to dust… Adam brought into being from the fertile ground returns to the ground when he dies as do we all. While we live on and in the earth, we gather dirt under our soul’s fingernails. Life is not neat and tidy for most of us. There are unforeseen mud wallows that bog us down, keep us mired in the clay. The dirt that bogs us down also grows poke berries and turnip greens, altheas and roses, tomatoes and trillium. If we can see and listen, there are gifts in those muddy days, Gifts of the Spirit.
Our family is wading through a mud wallow right now and I am looking for those gifts. Yesterday I found one in the sermon, words that caught my ear, words that I wrote down and brought home. The preacher was reading the story of Moses and the Children of Israel in the wilderness. The Egyptians were hot on their heels and the people were complaining to Moses bitterly about the dangers of freedom. Moses’ response was, “Do not be afraid. The Lord will fight for you. You have only to wait and be still.” So today I am being still and waiting in the mud wallow, waiting for the Lord to fight for us, waiting for the presence of the Holy One to come for me and my children. And as I wait, I pray. What else is there to do, after all?