A lady with a capital L

She was a lady with a capital “L”. Whenever and wherever she was, her first response to you was unfailingly gracious. She made you feel special and welcome and you wanted to be who she saw you to be. Visits with Pauline Oates soothed jangled nerves and smoothed out the rough edges.
Every Halloween we would take Megan dressed up in her costume to Wayne and Pauline Oates house for trick or treating. Pauline would come to the door and greet Megan, admiring her costume. She had a way of bringing out the best behavior in children and adults. We would have some “refreshments” served always on her best china because guests were special. Then we would be on our way feeling graced.
As an adult, one of Megan’s first jobs was in the medical school program Wayne had begun for ministers, pastoral counselors and chaplains. The completion of this circle was Pauline’s presence at Megan’s wedding and wedding reception. She stayed until the dancing ended and the we began to clean up, a smiling benediction presence for us all.
Pauline loved hats and wore them whenever there was an opportunity. She knew I shared that love and once she gave me a tour of her hat closet. Wayne had a special closet built for her with shelves to the ceiling, each holding a hat with a story. When Wayne was a young professor and money was scarce, Pauline saved her change from groceries each week to buy her first hat. Louisville did not have a hat store then so she traveled to Lexington to buy that hat. It was crafted in New York City by a famous hatmaker. She showed it to me and told me she still wore that hat and loved it. Whenever we saw each other at church or a party or any other function, we would nod and smile, each wearing our hats and perfectly happy.
The last time we saw her dementia had required her son to place her in a facility. Sitting in her chair, she greeted us just as she always did, smiling and kind. She had no idea who we were but her essential kindness and concern were still the outward signs of her gracious soul undimmed by the glaze of dementia.
There are not enough ladies like Pauline Oates in this world and we are the poorer for her absence among us. Never stuffy or overly concerned for her own self, she knew her gifts and was assured and competent. As a young seminarian’s wife, Pauline was both friend and stand-in favorite aunt for me. She was one of my teachers in the art of hospitality and I will remember her every time I set a table, serve a guest or wear one of my hats. God bless you, Pauline Oates for the gracious attention paid to everyone who was around you. I am still trying to live up to the vision you had of who I was and could be. Thanks for the memories...

Lent... Tradition

I stood at the ironing board ironing damask napkins, napkins that once were used by my grandmother and Michael’s mother. The easy repetition of ironing one flat square after another calmed my mind and set my spirit to roaming. Memories of family dinners with china and crystal and silver, family gathered around large tables, small children twitching, grace being said and meals shared with laughter as the whipped cream on the dessert. Over forty years of meal memories are settled deep in the fibers of this beautiful old damask fabric. Our family with children and grandchildren now gathers around our old round table and these napkins I am ironing (at last) are from the Christmas season when we shared several meals here at Sabbath Rest Farm.
In the early seventies, our church, Lake Shore Baptist Church became an active participant in the “Greening of America”. We read the book, took the ideas on many of our church retreats for all ages, had study groups, heard sermons... full court church press to get us to consider how we were living and using earth’s resources. One of the changes I made was to switch to cloth napkins. Preachers didn’t make much money so I had to be creative. I made some napkins, found some at sales and bargain stores, collected napkin rings, looked for permanent press napkins that didn’t need ironing and some fancy napkins that did. Our children grew up with cloth napkins in a ring by their plate. You kept your napkin at your place at the table for a week’s worth of meals (unless we had a really messy meal or you were messy yourself).
Cloth napkins became a tradition in our family. And this tradition links me to the families that came before us. My grandmother’s napkins are a beautiful soft old damask. The woven pattern reflects the style of her generation, her time on earth. Michael’s mother’s napkins are a crisper damask that irons up without starch to a sharp crease. The pattern on them reflects the thirties and forties. When Michael’s mother died, we shared her napkins, each of us taking some from her bountiful store of table cloths and napkins. She loved to set a pretty table. Tradition...
The tradition of Lent is one that has been passed down to us by all those families of Christians who have gone before us. Like the pretty cloth napkins that need ironing, Lent provides a time out to let our spirits roam, to reflect on times past and to prepare for times to come. Lent as a liturgical season is about as popular as ironing but it has some gifts for us if we will take the time to celebrate it honestly and with gratitude for all that has been. The past is always with us whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. We may react against it, revile it, revamp our history, refuse it, or choose to re-new it by giving thanks for everything... the good, the bad and the ugly... during Lent.
We could not be who we are, be here at all, without our pasts. The history that brought me to this place in time has been a gift and I am grateful... traditional Southern Baptist, Primitive Baptist, liberal(and I do mean liberal) Southern Baptist, United Church of Christ... all have been my teachers and homes for my soul in their time. During this day, I will give thanks for these traditions and the richness of their teachings that linger still in my faith practice. Considering where I have come from shines a light on where I am going. Thanks be to God for the process of Lent year after year.

Lent, March 2... an extraordinary ordinary day

Snow is falling again this morning covering the ground with white meringue frosting. Even after all the snow and ice we have seen this winter, it is still a beautiful sight. There is no wind so the temperature is a balmy 32 degrees. Unless the temperature falls, the snow will not be around long. Michael is on his morning walk with the dogs. They love to walk whatever the weather outside is.
Last night Barney did a good job guarding the henhouse. I heard him barking a time or two chasing some night time intruder away. Unless it is freezing outside, Barney prefers to sleep in his bed on the front porch keeping an eye on things. Once or twice a night he will patrol the perimeter to assure himself that all is well.
Mama and I spent yesterday in town. She had a doctor’s appointment so we bundled all our errands together and broke the day up with lunch at the cafeteria. Mama loves the cafeteria. She and daddy used to eat in cafeterias when white gloved waiters served your table. The sight of all the choices provides an image of abundance and an opportunity to try something new. After cruising through Aldi’s, Target, Goodwill, Ross’s, the garage door opener place and Shaw Gas, we were ready to sit for a spell at the doctor’s office, content to read our books until she was called back. Supper was a put together affair of leftover roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, greens and creamed corn. Mama makes the best mashed potatoes in the world.
Today I will be at home all day. Feeding the horses, donkeys, cows, dogs, cats and ducks will start my day. Mucking out the stalls and cleaning the house along with washing clothes will keep me busy while I wait for the gas man to make his delivery. This unusual winter has reminded me to be grateful for the gas heat I take for granted. Sometime today if I have the time, I need to do some mending and ironing. I only have napkins to iron and I find that a soothing occupation. Perhaps I’ll make myself a cup of tea and iron while I watch a little t.v. this afternoon.
A new baby is being born into the farm family. Candace and Rodney, Gary and Leisa’s daughter and son-in-law, are having a baby boy in May so I am beginning to contemplate what I can create as a keepsake for this new life on the farm hills. All the women on the farm will help her paint her nursery since she is moving into her grandmother’s home near her mom and dad just before the baby’s birth. I sit and look at the snow falling and think of new spring life stirring that lies underneath the white blanket. A flock of robins tiptoe through the snow in the front yard and their presence confirms spring is coming.
Michael and the dogs have come in. I must go and cook breakfast. Eggs hot from the hens with Farside Farms sausage are on the morning menu. I give thanks for the ordinariness of yesterday and today, the routine, the humdrum, the daily necessities of life that make up much of my life. They are gifts from God and I forget to say thank you. So here goes... cooking, cleaning and feeding, waiting and watching, life moves on through the routine of day to day living. Today I will sing along with the Psalmist celebrating the steadfast love of God.
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
For his steadfast love endures forever...
It is he who remembered us in our low estate,
For his steadfast love endures forever,
and rescued us from our foes,
For his steadfast love endures forever,
He who gives food to all flesh,
For his steadfast love endures forever.
O give thanks to the God of heaven
For his steadfast love endures forever. Psalms 136

Lent... Write a vision

Mrs. Dees, my fourth grade teacher, was relentless in her expectations of us in fourth grade English. We were to learn the rules of grammar and use them in our speech and writing. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, diagraming sentences, verb tenses... all were force fed into our resistant brains with tests every Friday to check up on our progress or lack thereof. Her red headed stubbornness stood her in good stead as we learned the rules of the road for writing. Our main writing assignment was to produce a term paper and she led us like lambs to the slaughter through the steps required to produce our literary masterpieces.
In that pre-internet computer age we were required to do library research with real books and take notes on small cards that we then filed in a small box. The gathered information was organized and we could pull specific information from our note cards as we wrote. Footnote form required author, title, date of publication and the publishing company, page numbers, etc. Our little files grew fat very quickly with some pertinent information and a plethora of extraneous material.
Twice a week we went to the school library where we were first taught how to use the card catalogue, a tall wooden chest with small drawers stuffed full of small cards organized under subject, author and the title of the books. Mrs. Dees kept a hawish eye on us trying to march us forward in our education. Our time in the library was spent perusing the Encyclopedia Britannica (the printed book form of Google) looking for sources and information, standing at the card catalogue writing down the location of interesting looking books, looking up said books, taking notes and fooling around when we could get away with it.
The vision for our term paper had to be outlined in proper form first and turned in. Our note cards were checked every two weeks to see if we had made any progress. Mrs. Dees made little marks in her brown grade book held together with rubber bands after each inspection and gave us our marching orders for the next two weeks. The term paper was due at the end of the six week grading period and if we had followed her faithfully in our work, the term paper would have been almost a painless production.
I did not follow instructions faithfully. It was the afternoon before the paper was due the next day and I flew into the office of McKey Tillman Insurance after school calling my mama’s name. Falling all over myself in word and deed, I told her of my predicament. The paper was due in the morning. It was written, sort of, but not neatly and needed to be typed to make a good impression. Mama sat up late that night bailing me out and I had a beautiful looking term paper to turn in to Mrs. Dees the next day. Mama did not edit or improve the content. That was mine alone and Mrs. Dees took me to task for not living up to my outline. I did not write my vision and the grade I received reflected that lack.
Habakkuk the prophet wrote these words from the Lord... “Write the vision; and make it plain upon the tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its time; it hastens to the end-it will not lie. If it seem slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” Lent is time for me to create an outline, gather my material, file my note cards and write my vision for this next year in my life with God. This time I will try to keep up with the daily work while I wait for the truth telling vision to come into being. I will read my Bible. I will pray. I will seek silence. I will look and listen for the face and words of the Lord as I finish writing my vision, my life’s term paper.
Thank you, Mrs. Dees for expecting me to do my best and being honest and kind when I missed the mark. You were one of my childhood faces of God and I am grateful for all you taught me.