Of handwipes and hallelujahs...

I am beginning to feel like an alien in my world... the only living human being who doesn’t routinely use sanitizing hand wipes on her shopping cart. From Sam’s to Ingle’s to Bed Bath and Beyond (I”ve always wondered where beyond was in that name), there are dispensers at the door of sanitizing wipes for your hands and the carts. Grizzled old timers and young trend setters alike stop to conscientiously wipe themselves down, free themselves from germs before they enter the hallowed germ free halls of shopping.
I know, I know... I hear the nurses and doctors reciting the statistics of germs passed along on our hands, flu and other nasty bugs we can pick up on those shopping carts. But the truth of the matter is we are surrounded by germs everywhere. Sometimes I think it was God’s way of making sure our immune systems developed as they should. And other days, I admire the marketing ploy that has convinced us to buy all these little plastic canisters full of individual wipes to preserve our health. What happened to soap and water and common sense? Just because it is new and improved doesn’t mean it is better and worth it.
The real reason it bothers me so, though, is the implications of this cleanliness ritual. We no longer seem to trust our world, its ability to nurture us, to care for us, to provide what is needed. Our bodies have become not temples for God’s spirit but fortresses to be defended with hand wipes. Our companions in Sam’s are not neighbors but potential sources of illness and disease. Those who don’t step up to the plate, or the wipe dispenser, are viewed with disdain.
Somehow we humans can take a perfectly good creation and ruin it with overuse. Antibiotics... literally a life saver... we use them too much and suddenly the germs they destroy adapt and are immune to its effects. Immunizations... again life saving possibilities until we begin giving all newborns a plethora of shots for diseases before they leave the hospital. Food... once a delight and a pleasure, is now seen as a controlled substance. You can’t eat too much or too much sugar or too much fat. Food became fast, we slowed down and we became fat. It wasn’t the food’s fault.
God created this world and pronounced it good. We have forgotten that, I think, because we have isolated ourselves from this world. Sitting in air conditioned houses with all our windows closed, riding in air conditioned cars with our windows rolled up, riding through our neighborhoods instead of walking, buying food that we did not grow from countries far away, avoiding the eyes of those we pass by, living in places where ambient light wipes out starlight. We have forgotten how to walk barefooted on the Ground of our Being and we are the poorer for it.
So I will continue to pass up the hand wipes so generously offered and take my chances. I will celebrate the world around me as a good and precious gift not as a field of germs and death. I will eat with a grateful heart and grow as much of my food as I can. I will be sensible about my health but not obsessed with protecting my body. It is a temporary creation anyway. I will remember that God created this world good and so it is... good and beautiful and bountiful. And I will give thanks for all who share this blue space jewel with me whether they sanitize their hands or not. They are my neighbors and as I love God, so do I love them. Now if you all will excuse me, I am going to go play in the dirt a little while and sing hallelujahs while I pick bugs off my potato plants, pull weeds in my flower beds, muck the stalls and swat flies. Have a lovely day in this world of ours... germs and all.

Of Roses and Rainbows...

It has been a sad week in many ways. Walking down to the stable last night to put the horses and donkeys to bed, my soul was dragging. A friend has died from cancer and another friend is waiting for test results that could be bad news. In BCD days (Before Celeste Died), I would have called Celeste and asked her to pray with me for these friends. We had an agreement that allowed us to call, ask for prayer and know that we were heard and loved as we prayed for each other and those we loved.
Prayer, believing in the power of prayer, is like sex in the olden days. Everybody wants to know about it but no one wants to own up to actually doing it. God forbid we should desert our belief in the rational long enough to let the irrational sneak into our daily lives. Pastor Pat used a quote from Wendell Berry Sunday morning in her sermon that nailed this double standard. A paraphrase... We stumble and quibble over the miracles in the New Testament like turning the water into wine but ignore the miracles that surround us everyday like seeds that lie underground, grow towards the light, are watered with rain and produce food. Miracles abound and we take them for granted in their “dailyness”.
I have for years believed in prayer for no good reason at all except I believe in a loving God. In my belief system, love is balanced between “just because” and “just do it”...passive and active. God loves me just because I am and because I am, I love God and love my neighbors. Prayer is the verbal and non-verbal expression of faith and belief that a God of Love will hear my heart, will care about my needs, and will answer one way or another. Sometimes there is no answer and sometimes there are no answers for what happens in this imperfect world. Children shouldn’t die before their parents from cancer or starvation. Good people shouldn’t have to bear the same burdens as those who serve themselves without consideration for others. Life is not fair and God knows that. Nevertheless, sometimes there are answers to prayer for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
For years I have found evidence of God’s answers to my prayers in strange ways. In my darkest times, God shows up in rainbows, roses, the faces of small children laughing, old mountains worn smooth by generations of time, sunsets and sunrises. Last night as I walked to the stable, Michael called from the deck, “Look up, Peggy!” And there it was... a double rainbow. Beautiful, bright, fleeting assurance that God is still in covenant with us, still present in our times of trouble, and all will be well even when all is not well. I walk to my front door where I have planted roses in memory of Celeste, breathe in their sweet fragrance and give thanks for all the gifts of love that have come my way. Most of all, I am grateful for my tears, a leaking heart, that connects me to the Heart of God that is broken for us all everyday. Thanks be to God for laughter and tears, love and light, rainbows and roses, life and death. It is all good.

Celeste...jumping for joy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday flowers...

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