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.

Let's Make a Deal...with God

It isn’t safe to bargain with God...

I sat in worship yesterday listening to Pastor Pat preach on the talent parable. With her characteristic sensible humor she pointed out the one talent man’s sin was not in having only one talent. His sins were fear of failure and comparing himself to the others who had been given more talents. Paralyzed by his fear, he didn’t use what had been given to him but buried himself underground and what he feared, his master’s wrath, did indeed come to pass.
As she preached, I watched Mary with her two young children in the row in front of us. Pastor Pat had asked the church to help Mary. She is moving into her first apartment and has nothing so anything we can give will be helpful. We are cleaning out the farm house this week because Jeannie’s twin sister is moving in with her furniture. I have a set of dishes and glasses down there I was planning to move up to our house. The glasses are a really pretty purple and I had a special place for them in my glass cabinet. The dishes have fruit on them and would be a fun addition to my entertaining stash.
I decided to play the Gideon Game. Gideon had been doing the Lord’s bidding and gotten his people into a world of trouble by pulling the altars of his neighbor’s gods down. Now there was going to be a war and God wanted Gideon to lead the charge. Gideon had been called by God but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go and he wanted to know the battle would succeed. So, he set up a mechanism to make God prove he was serious. Gideon laid out a fleece on the ground and had God wet the fleece while keeping the ground dry during the night. That wasn’t enough for Gideon. The next night, he wanted the fleece dry with the ground wet. God was patient but consistent. Read Judges 6 through 7 for the end of the story.
I bargained with God. It went like this... O.K., Lord... I hear you. I have much and she has little. I can help. But I really love those pretty purple glasses, Lord. Let’s make a deal. I’ll ask Mary what her favorite color is and if she says blue or green, I’ll keep the glasses and give her the dishes. If she says purple, you win and she gets the glasses and the dishes. So after worship, I make a beeline up to Mary and ask... You see the ending already, don’t you? Her favorite color is purple, of course. I swear I heard God giggle. So now the farm family has purple glasses, dishes, pans and other kitchen stuff, a bedroom set, and a sofa for Mary to help her with her new start. God has multiplied those purple glasses through us all.
So this week I will be figuring out how to get a sofa, a bedroom set, pots and pans and dishes to the church so Mary can see her new home taking shape. When the Housing Authority calls with her new address, she will carry a part of our hearts with her. When she sets her table for her first meal in her new home and puts those pretty purple glasses on her table, I hope she sees the love that surrounds her... God’s love and our love. Watch out when you make a deal with God. You might have to keep your end of the bargain.