Transfiguration and Miss Ruby

She was a tiny little old lady... white hair gathered up into a knot on the top of her head, a reminder of hair styles from her youth at the turn of the century. Her posture was perfect and she observed the etiquette rules of her generation. She sat erect in chairs with her feet crossed at the ankles, leaning slightly forward. Her face, wrinkled and soft, was punctuated by two bright eyes that saw beneath the surface, x-ray vision of the soul. The bread she baked for communion services was light and tasty, kneaded by hand, not machine. Born and raised in Plains, Georgia, she was the epitome of southern womanhood, gentle on the surface and tough as nails underneath. The fire in her spirit broke through when someone made snide comments about her friend Lillian Carter’s boy, Jimmy.
We became friends when Michael was pastor of her church. She was in her eighties then, still adventuring through life, white water rafting, going to Atlanta Braves games, listening to Pavarotti sing at two in the morning when she couldn’t sleep. Her gift to Michael was afternoon tea parties, a balm for his wounds as he lead a church that knew how to fight but not how to get along. Children adored her. Grown ups respected her and no one argued with Miss Ruby.
Her life had not been easy. She and her husband had three children, one son and two daughters. The son was killed in World War Two in Italy. After the war ended, she and her husband visited his grave. In an Italian hotel, far from home, her husband suffered a fatal heart attack. Her answer to this tragedy times two was to write a hymn, her doxology. Much to her delight, Michael had us sing her hymn in worship one Sunday.
We visited her and kept in touch after we left the church to move to Asheville. Life alone in her apartment gave way to life with one of her daughters. Her mind began to lose its edge but her spirit was brighter than before. Her daughters gave her a one of a kind birthday present... a seat behind home plate for a Braves game with a kiss from the pitcher as a cherry on top of that sundae. Hearing her tell us that story was the last time we heard her soft, southern voice. The next call that came was to tell Michael it was time to redeem his pledge to Miss Ruby made many years ago, to perform her burial service at First Baptist, Plains, Georgia.
Miss Ruby wanted us to stay in a restored fine old hotel in Americus, near Plains, so we did. The cemetery was full of her friends, neighbors and family. Miss Lillian was buried not too far away. She and Michael had spoken of how she wanted this service to be and he minded her one last time. The transfiguration of Miss Ruby was complete.
Born into a time and place in history that was by our standards poor and narrow in view, she transcended the constraints of her culture. It must have been something in the water in Plains that allowed Christian character to be formed in persons like Miss Ruby and Miss Lillian. All her life was a journey towards transfiguration, occasional brighter than light moments that illuminated a life lived lit from the inside out. To be in her presence was to see the dancing Light of the Holy shining through her merry eyes.
I read the stories of transfiguration in the liturgy for today and remember Miss Ruby. I didn’t get to see chariots of fire carry her to God but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they were standing by waiting to carry her home. I know she had moments standing on spiritual mountaintops when she was transformed by the power of God. The Light she walked in still shone brightly through those wise old eyes. Like Elijah, Elisha and Jesus, transfiguration was both a once in a lifetime experience and an all her lifetime experience. There was no separation of the two for Miss Ruby. I’m trying to remember and learn this lesson today, Transfiguration Sunday. I want to search and find the Source of all that has been and all that will be, let the Light shine on and through me, share the Light I find as I live my way towards transfiguration so that when I die, others will hear the rumble of chariot wheels rolling by. Please, Lord, let me be transformed by your loving light so that I may become more like you. Tell Miss Ruby I said hello.

Home away from home...

Jesus said, “If someone loves me and keeps my word, my Father will love them, my Father and I will come to them and make our home with them.” John14:23
So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:6
During the week in the wintertime, I feed our cows twice a day. When it is cold, eating and digesting the hay keeps them warm even in snowstorms. Without a generous supply of hay, they lose weight and can get sick from exposure. We have two kinds of hay in our barn now. One set of hay is from our fields. With the drought for the past two years, we have not been able to grow enough hay to last through the winter so we buy hay from someone else. It never fails. When offered the choice between hay from somewhere else and hay from home, they will eat the hay from home fields first. The taste of home...
When the donkeys and horses see the kitchen light come on, they nicker and bray knowing that I can hear their requests for breakfast. I see them standing at the far end of the stable sheltered from the winter wind. They stand nose to tail, snuggled in close, sharing body warmth. Little donkeys and big horses are all tucked in together standing in the first sunshine of the morning. When I bring them home after they have spent a day grazing on the Sound of Music Hill, Dixie will reach out and touch Junie B as they amble down the drive to the stable. The touch of home...
In my heart’s eye, I can see Cloverly standing in the midst of the grove of trees at the end of a long straight lane bordered by fields of green soybeans. When we go to Georgia, I can see the little brick house at the bottom of the hill on the left hand side of the road sheltered by tall pines. As I turn up Edna Roberts Road late on Thursday night, I can see the lights of home shining from the top of the hill calling me to warmth and welcome. The sight of home...
When I stand in the middle of the Cat Square Superette Parlor Dancing and Bridge Club Society Church, I listen to the laughter and gripes, feel the hugs and taste the tears, sing while Courtney drums, pass the Peace of God, share communion and feel at home with myself and with God. When I sit in All Souls Cathedral, I let the quiet holy of that place wash over my soul rinsing out the leftovers of the day and I am at home. Riding Junie B on the farm, leaning into the hills we climb, feeling the connection between our bodies, I sing out in pure joy and I am at home. The feel of home...
In the early morning hours, mama and I stood by my daddy’s deathbed at their home for over forty years. As I watched, the blood began to settle in the soles of his feet. I told mama, “It will not be long now.” We held his hands and talked. I told him mama and I would be fine. We would take care of each other. He could leave now and go on home. Gayle was waiting for him. And after a little while, he let go and slipped over home to God, out of his body but home with the Lord and my sister. Our final home...
Lent, as a liturgical season, will lead us home to ourselves and to God. It is a tradition that is both the same and brand new every year. The rituals remain the same but what we bring to Lent changes as we change. So every year I seek to enter in to my dark places, the places hidden from the Light, the errors of my ways. And in the journey through the dark valleys, I can see the lights of home waiting to welcome me with the touch of healing forgiveness. The way through darkness does not last forever, only for a season. After Lenten darkness, comes Easter light... death and resurrection help us grow towards God. I know by faith there are hugs and laughter and love waiting for me in the Arms of God when I walk through the doors of my final home. Home at last...

Lent, pancakes and benedictions...

Michael was a young college student when he was asked to become Lake Shore Baptist’s part time Minister to Youth. He wore a sport coat his first Sunday on the platform. Rhea Grey, the senior minister, took him aside and explained the facts of worship life according to Rhea Grey. As a matter of respect for the Almighty and a custom for ministers, he was to always wear a black suit, white shirt and dark tie, the Baptist equivalent of ecclesiastical robes. Worship took place on holy ground at Lake Shore and Rhea expected everyone to dress their best as an outward sign of courteous regard for the One we worshipped.
Years later, an older couple friends of ours, Ed and Mary Torrence, invited us to dinner. As we shared our worship back grounds, this equable affable gentleman looked at me and asked, “Why do we have so many people come to worship in less than their best? I don’t care if blue jeans are their best but so many people come dressed as if they were working in a barn or going camping. I know they dress better than that when they are going to a party or to work, even. I think God deserves the same courtesy.” We laughed and agreed we were dinosaurs about worship dress code... lumbering leftovers from another time. And yet...Worship is serious business. We are attempting to touch the untouchable, to speak to One we trust will hear us, to ask for guidance and hope in lives that often need direction and desire.
Rhea also taught the five parts of worship to Michael, the call to worship, praise, confession and forgiveness of sins, proclamation, and benediction. All were a part of every worship experience at Lake Shore. Whatever the setting for worship, these elements were always present. One college student retreat had students climbing an old low spreading oak tree calling out the Word of God to each other and God under the bright blue Texas sky. Proclamation was a different sort of sermon that day.
One of the elements of worship that I dismissed as less than for years was the benediction. In my little country church, the benediction was short and sweet because everyone was eager to get home to Sunday dinner. The sermon and the choir special were the highlights of worship, not the ending. Then I became a member of a church, Crescent Hill Baptist, where the minister used the same benediction every Sunday. As a young widow struggling to find my footing in this unwanted new world of mine, those words were the words of hope that I waited for every Sunday. Assurance that all would be well... I was loved... I was known... I was forgiven. Benediction, the utterance of a blessing, became living water for my grief stricken soul.
Lent is the benediction for my liturgical year of worship. It is the ending, the death that must come before new life can spring forth. Lent offers me time to hear old stories, be a part of old rituals, to consider the year past with all my mistakes and accomplishments, a getting ready time for what is yet to come.
Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, is a lovely paradoxical beginning for Lent. On this day, traditionally, sinners confessed and were shriven (forgiven) of their sins. In preparation for the restricted diet of Lent, certain foods in the pantry were used up. These ingredients were used to make pancakes, or doughnuts. Fat Tuesday, a splurge of food and feasting, precedes Ash Wednesday with the mark of the cross on our foreheads calling us to remember and let go. They are two sides of generosity... the generous feasting on food is balanced by the generous letting go of all that has kept us from God. And in the benediction of Lent, we know there is enough to go around... enough food for the soul, enough forgiveness for our sins, enough death that can bring new life, enough new life that can bring me closer to God.
I share this benediction, used by John Claypool at Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, with you, as a reminder to us all that the first word is judgement but the last word is redemption. Both are necessary but grace always trumps judgement. Lent leads us home, home to our truest best selves and home to God. Then and only then, can we know the joy of being blessed and live our new lives redeemed and loved.

Depart now in the fellowship of God the Father,
And as you go, remember,
In 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.

P.S. If you wish to hear John’s voice delivering the benediction, it can be found at an old address on the web from the 75th anniversary celebration of Crescent Hill Baptist. Crescenthillbaptistchurch.org/oldsite/claypool.htm

Ordinary time mercies...

Ordinary time... Life at the farm hangs suspended between winter and spring. The last brutal blast of snow, ice and wind shriveled my soul. Now the warmth has turned the icy soil to quicksand mush and carpenter bees hum around the leaning barn’s door. Next week it will be cold again, perhaps, and the cycle will repeat itself... frozen dirt to mushy dirt, harsh winds to soft breezes, barn cats burrowed in the hay bales to barn cats lazing in the sun on the tin roof... I get lost in the swinging doors of seasonal changes. I cannot find my balance. Ordinary time is anything but ordinary.
Carolyn and I were having a conversation Sunday night as our Homecoming group gathered. We both live with cyclical depression that is triggered by seasonal changes or stress. Over the years, we have learned to mark the changes that begin and end our times of hibernation of the soul. The end of winter is one such time for us both. Carolyn comes home from work, takes her supper, a glass of wine and a book to bed where she eats, drinks, reads and sleeps. In the evenings, I sit in a slight stupor (Michael would say not slight at all), read the paper, watch a little television perhaps, take a long hot bath and stumble off to bed to sleep dreamless until morning. Like Job, we live in a land where light is as darkness.
Ordinary time on the church calendar and ordinary time on our daily calendars... No holidays of note and no time off for good behavior, just getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark with faint glimmers of light around the edges of morning. What has God got to do with it, got to do with it? In this grey in-between time where darkness has not yet lifted and light not yet come, where is God? In this time of frozen cold and sweet thawing warmth, where is a God you can sit and rest awhile in? Lent is coming with all the heavy weight of darkness and death. I need some life and light and laughter.
Yesterday standing in soggy screenings at a horse stable watching a beautiful black Friesian horse, I caught a glimpse of God in that perfect creation. And I have an image now for ordinary time. Our feet are caught in the miry clay while our eyes are fixed on God. We pay bills, run car pools, cook meals, go to work and live with our feet on the ground, mushy or frozen. But, our hearts are yearning for that which lifts us up to higher ground. So God comes to us in the unexpected to interrupt our schedule of sameness... a funny dream, a joke well told, a baby’s smile, a beautiful horse, a breathtaking sunrise, a celebration of a life well lived. And for a moment, ordinary time is transformed into extraordinary time. We catch our breath in awe and adoration and we are transformed into beings of loving praise, once again standing on the solid ground of God's presence in our world and in us.
Our church group is getting ready for a Fat Tuesday party. We will make doughnuts from David’s childhood church recipe book. We will make Polish jelly filled doughnuts just like Sandra used to buy in Detroit. We will laugh and eat and the lights will be bright in the evening before Ash Wednesday. Life will swing once again from one extreme to another but God will be there both in the light and in the darkness. Carolyn and I know that. We rest in the solid assurance of God With Us because we have seen the Light and we remember. “We declare the wonderful deeds of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once we were no people but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy but now we have received mercy.” The mercies of ordinary time... Thanks be to God.