If I Saw You in Heaven

Today as the year of 2007 ends, I think of my father. His birthday was December 31, and he would have been 94 had he lived and not been unexpectedly shot as he sat at a bar in the Mississippi Delta in 1976. I am also thinking of him because my sister Judy sent me an electronic photograph from the late 1950's of our broken family sitting at a dining table for Christmas. Judy and I were both teenagers. She stands to the left of the photograph while our mother, I, and Daddy sit at the table. Our cousins are in the background. My father looks straight into the camera without a smile with those piercingly blue eyes of his. He has on a reddish color shirt with a sports jacket. He looks wonderful. Yet today, if I could ask of him any question, it would be that in Eric Clapton's famous song, "Tears in Heaven," "If I saw you in heaven, would you know my name?"

Our parents divorced in 1950 while Judy and I were quite small. He wasn't as if we never had a father because we knew of his existence. He simply was not around us but infrequently. We were not his only family even. He had married a young woman while he was in high school because she was pregnant with his twin boys, Billy and Bobby. He never lived with her, but in those days, it was essential that children "be given a name." He met our mother in 1937, some six years after he left his first family.

Judy and I have thought a long time about the reasons for our father's lack of responsibility for his four children and subsequent wives he married through the years. We simply have no answers for his neglect of us all. Yes, he was from a home that itself was rather tragic (his mother died when he was a baby, the aunt who raised him evidently was strict and mean, his father indulged his every wish), but is that enough to explain what he later became: a compulsive gambler, a thief, an alcoholic, and a womanizer?

Through the years, our father was around mostly to get a handout from Judy and me. He always needed money in order to catch the next boat down the river for another six weeks job as a deck hand on the Mississippi. He often came to our houses either drunk, suffering from what we called "the DT's," or hungover. The photograph Judy sent represents one of the few times he was in none of those conditions; it is priceless for that reason.

We wonder what life might have been without divorce, if we could have somehow managed to weather the crises and stay together as a family. Would our father know us then in heaven?

Christmas in the Trailer

Last year my husband and I assisted in the task of feeding the homeless breakfast in downtown Little Rock. It was Christmas morning, and the group met at City Hall in order to feed the growing crowd but also to express the very real need for a permanent location. A year later the problem has been temporarily solved since the city has supplied a small trailer that sits near the Broadway Bridge where many of the homeless live. We arrived early yesterday morning with our cinnamon rolls in tow to a waiting crowd. Ms. Jessie soon arrived with the trailer key and allowed everyone to come in, sit in the chairs around the room, and wait for the other volunteers to bring the coffee, juice, fruit, and more food. I talked to Ms Jessie for a few minutes before the others arrived.

As I glanced about the chairs, I noticed several seemingly well-dressed men whom I assumed to be helpers. Later, as I saw them in the breakfast line, I realized they were indeed among the homeless themselves. Others were easier to identify: a young man who sat immobile without blinking his eyes and only occasionally twitching his right hand; a man without any crotch in his pants; and a tall man who delivered a wonderful prayer and blessing for the meal after singing quietly to himself, "Little Drummer Boy." Ms. Jessie also was telling me of some of the individual stories of the regulars as she pointed them out. "That blond woman thinks she has a chip in her head and that people are trying to do her harm. I just tell her to put a piece of aluminum foil over the spot, and that will protect her. One man was out of work and ashamed to go home for three months. Finally, his son found him and took him back with him. That couple over there get to have a king room tonight at La Quinta. Our group is renting fifteen rooms for them just for Christmas night. . . ." Although I tend to watch a lot of news regarding the homeless (I guess again I am interested because my father was always homeless himself), I was somewhat surprised to hear Ms. Jessie confirm what the newscasters tended to report. "About forty per cent of these folks are veterans, many are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and some are just down on their luck."

After breakfast, Ms. Jessie announced to all that, instead of going to the Economy Inn this year, they were going to a nicer motel. Everyone seemed excited about the upgrade and especially that the check-in time would be 8:30 this year, not 11 like last year. She passed around a bucket and asked that each one put some pennies, or whatever change or dollars they had into it, to help pay for the cost. I am sure she did not collect much, but her policy is to try to communicate the idea that one needs to try to help oneself, rather than to be a recipient only.

As a society, we still do not have any answers for those who are homeless. Many states try different approaches such as soup kitchens, temporary shelters, permanent apartments, jobs, and so on. The Bible says, "You always have the poor with you," and many use it as an excuse not to help at all; it should not be.

A Little Child Still Leads

In the busyness of the Christmas rush, our nine-year-old granddaughter, Caitlyn, called us the other night with some instructions. "Dress like people in Jesus' time, hold a small present, look down and then take a picture. You can bring them over to our house on Christmas Eve," she commanded quietly. I did not ask any questions since I am used to our creative granddaughter's imaginative games and role playing. The only aspect to her plan that I expressed reservations about was her command to do all this while we were on our knees. "I don't know if Pop B and I can get up again if we get on our knees," I responded. "O.K.", she acquiesced, "just stand then."

Garlan and I arrived at the Christmas Eve service at the church about forty-five minutes early so that we could reserve an entire row for the family who would be coming in: the other set of grandparents, my son and his wife and two children, plus a visiting uncle from Texas. As we all settled into the pew, I remarked to the one beside me, "Isn't Christmas a great time of year?" She responded by saying she preferred July 4 more and that her upstairs had boxes all over and was generally a mess.

Later, we went to Caitlyn's house. In the midst of many ongoing, and often animated, conversations about politics, sports, and movies and in the spirit of the evening, many drinks being poured, I noticed a small creche to the left of the dining table. It contained a little doll baby wrapped in a blanket. Surrounding it were four pictures: Caitlyn's four-year-old brother, Charlie, carrying a staff; her father dressed as a shepherd, her Pop B dressed as a wise man carrying a candle for Jesus; and me, dressed as a woman of Bethlehem holding a small tin of fruit for the Christ child.

Once again I raised the usual question to myself: Isn't this what Christmas should actually be about? Isn't it Jesus' time to be honored with gifts, not ours? A little child still is capable of leading us to where we need to go.

Just as We Were

It is an old Baptist joke that we sing "Just as I Am" in church every Sunday but then we leave just as we were. I often think about that hymn even though my husband and I have been regularly attending an Episcopal Church in downtown Little Rock for the past year. There is no altar call there each week. What replaces it, however, it seems is, in some ways, much more meaningful: communion. Communion has always been a time to reflect upon the events of past days, confess sins, and be renewed into the full fellowship and grace of God. I have been observing a young man (his name is John) who is blind as he receives the wafer and the wine from the priest. He sits alone on the first row, center, of the church pew and waits until his turn after everyone else has already moved forward to the front of the church.

I often wonder who his family is and what his background is. I think of the irony of those of us who have our sight and still remain spiritually blind, except on Sundays, of course. I think of another old Baptist hymn we have loved through the years: "Amazing Grace." Its lyrics are, "I once was blind but now I see," and I begin to imagine what heaven will be like for this young man. If we take Jesus at His word, John will be able to see again; he will have a perfect body and be able even to see God face to face.

In the meantime, we all continue to live in an imperfect world where those in poverty continue to struggle, those in poor health begin to fail even more, and those who are addicted to alcohol and drugs struggle to break old habits. Many of us open our eyes each day but still do not see the needs of those around us. We walk out of the church, cleansed of sins, but just as we were.

Replaced by Rudolph

We talked on the telephone last night (or rather listened) to our two-year-old grandson, Cole, as he played. We already miss him from his trip home to Arkansas from Seattle two weeks ago. Since it was already December when he arrived, we decided to scurry around, buy the Christmas tree, put out the little Victorian village, and decorate the mantle. He was happy with his new found ability to use the remote to turn on the tree and the village. He seemed to like most of his presents, but he was happiest, however, to receive the classic Burl Ives' DVD on Rudolph. For the several days he was here, we frequently heard him request to see the movie. This action is a bit unusual because of his parents' decision not to allow him to watch television at home. In fact, the family gave away their television sets several months ago.

I think of how quickly we Americans become addicts to the small screen. When I was growing up in the Mississippi Delta in the early 1950's, we simply could not afford to buy a television with our waitress mother's salary and tips. In spite of that, I became a television addict by going back through the alley behind our apartment to Judy's and my good friends' (Lila Lee and Patsy) house. They had a television that was always turned in the afternoons to the Mickey Mouse Club. I was usually incensed, and often cried, if they were away from home when it came on. I loved the Spin and Marty series and especially loved watching the popular Annette Funicello as she pranced around looking ever so cute. It was not beyond me if Lila Lee and Patsy's dad was in a bad mood, often indicated by his cursing, to simply try to look through their windows to see the program.

I hope I haven't created the same kind of addict that I was in Cole. After they flew back to Seattle on the 5th of December, I did not get my daily phone calls from Cole telling me what he was eating every day. I waited patiently, and when I finally got another call, my daughter told me every time she suggested calling Mom B and Pop B that Cole simply replied, "Rudolph."

Seeing Through the Fog

Little Rock has recently had a series of foggy mornings in December. Since we live just north of the Arkansas River, I guess we are more prone to get fog than other places throughout the city on chilly days. I gaze out the back door of our house, which overlooks Pinnacle Mountain to the far west, a ridge of trees to the South, and an ample amount of horizon each day. I often cannot see the mountain. Since our Bible Study group has been studying the Old Testament this fall, several of us in the group have been wrestling, like Jacob, with the theological idea of immutability. The Bible tells us that God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow; yet we cannot see through the fog to see how this can be true.

What is troubling somehow to us is that God seems to be constantly trying new techniques to get the attention of those He created. For example, after the original sin in the Garden of Eden, God expels the couple out of the Paradise He created. As time goes on, He decides (after the first murder followed by many other sins) to destroy the people with a worldwide flood. When Noah and his wife and children survive to begin again, the cycle repeats itself. The Hebrews soon find themselves in slavery in Egypt, but they are soon free thanks to the leadership of Moses and his brother Aaron. When the people disobey, like Moses, who struck the rock instead of just speaking to it to obtain water, God punishes Moses by not allowing him to see the promised land. When Saul uses his reason and saves some of the best booty from a war, instead of killing all women, children, and animals, Saul loses the favor of God. When David sins with another man's wife, breaking one of the ten commandments, God allows the child born of that union to die. God gives humankind over 600 commands to keep in the Old Testament.

When we get to the New Testament, however, God has an entirely different persona. It appears that He has learned we humans simply cannot keep all of the laws precisely that He has set down for us. He becomes the God of love with the sacrifice of his only Son for the sake of the people. Christ reduces the previous 600+ laws down to two basic ones: love God and love our neighbor.

I do believe that God has always intended the best for us from the beginning. He wants to love us and to have an unbroken fellowship with us. In that respect, we see that God has had an unchangeable goal throughout the centuries. It seems, however, that his methods of reconciling us to Him are very changeable. Why can I not see through the fog to the majesty of the mountain more clearly?

Happily Ever After

Even though I knew it was coming (after all, we all know "there's no gettin' out" of the mob once in) it was still sad to see the demise of Adriana on The Sopranos. One of the critics described her as the only truly genuine sympathetic character on the show. I agree even though she, like all of us, had her vulnerabilities--her addiction to drugs and alcohol. She did, however, truly love her man Christopher. She longed to move into the witness protection program with him and live happily ever after. It just wasn't to be.

For several years the viewers of The Sopranos had agonizingly followed Adriana's tortured life as part of the family. We simultaneously wanted her to get her proposal from Christopher, along with a big ring, but we at the same time felt she deserved better. We wanted her to be able to have a child with her man because, it seems, the true legitimacy of a mob wife is gained only by becoming the legitimate mother of a mobster's child. We watched Adriana repeatedly support Christopher through his bullet wounds, his own addictions, and his volatile, often violent and abusive, treatment of her.

Yet, Adriana made a choice when the FBI puts the squeeze on her--go to jail essentially for the rest of her life or become an informer regarding Tony's activities and hope to get protection at a later date. She made her fatal choice by choosing the latter option. From this point on, it was just a matter of time until she too was whacked. Still, the scene was chilling with the television viewers' watching the last scene of her crawling on all fours in the woods. Thankfully, the director spared us a final look of her face as she was off-camera when Silvio fired two bullets.

Is it possible for one to ever fulfill the dream of living happily ever after, or is the idea reserved only for fairy tales? Life is too complicated to believe fairy tales can happen.

The Missing Plates

Several years ago a television spot featured a large family setting the table for one of their meals. The point was to say there was always room for more children within a loving family. I believe the sponsor of the commercial was a church, but I do not remember for sure. Today, as Christmas approaches, I think about children with AIDS who are still at the table and many who are not.

In 1996, I met two children as part of a RAIN (Regional Aids Interfaith Network) team I had joined. At the time they were five and six and had already lived all of their lives infected with the AIDS virus. They had evidently contacted the disease from their mother while she was pregnant. She did not know of her own condition until they were born. She used to say frequently to me, "I can understand why I have AIDS, but why did God allow my children to have it?" I had no answer to her question.

Some decade or so later, we have both good news and bad news relating to the fight against this disease. The good news is that the total number of cases worldwide is down to 33 million. The bad news is that this decrease is not necessarily a result of saving more people, but simply the result of originally overestimating the numbers.

The two children I got to know with AIDS have been among the fortunate ones. When diagnosed, they were able to get into a research program in Maryland. They have flown out from Oklahoma once a month for treatment. Today they are both flourishing due to the many new advances in drug cocktails that inhibit the virus. They are seemingly healthy teenagers, ages 16 and 17.

Many children in the world, especially developing countries, however are not so fortunate. We need to keep the AIDS fight on our agenda and not let it slip away to a once-a-year commemoration on Dec. 1--or many more families will not be able to set plates at the table any longer for their children.

With Strings Attached

The Scripture reading today in my daily devotional book, Our Daily Bread, is the famous love chapter, I Corinthians 13. I have been thinking lately about the verse that reads, love "does not seek its own." I was reminded of this verse after hearing a good friend this past weekend speak of the Blessings Baskets that her church gives to the poor and needy each Thanksgiving. She said that each recipient must listen to a sermon, giving the plan of salvation, before he or she receives the free basket. I began to wonder, "Are we attaching strings to our love when we make such a requirement?"

Jesus taught that we should love God and love our neighbors. It is laudable that many charitable groups give to the poor not only for Thanksgiving and Christmas but throughout the year through manna centers, shelters, and other places. Since it has been popular in recent years to ask, "What would Jesus do?" I find it difficult to believe He would put conditions on people for food, healing, or comfort.

On the other hand, I think of my father who was killed in a homicide in 1976. Since he was often homeless, hungry, and poor due to his addiction to alcohol, he often stayed at Gospel Rescue Missions throughout the South. He, like my friend's church above, was required to listen to a sermon before he received a place to stay or food to eat. When he died and my sister picked up his sparse belongings, she found a Bible that smelled just like he always did: of booze and cigarettes. Inside was an Open Windows devotional book open to Acts 16:31, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved . . . ."

Perhaps the combination of sermon with food and shelter isn't so bad after all.

The "Ah S***" Moments of Life

We hear so much on the news these days about those who are battling addictions. The latest, in addition, to the ones we have seen repeatedly on television such as Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, and Lindsay Lohan, now include Marie Osmond's sixteen-year-old son. She confirmed last week to Larry King that, indeed, her son was in rehab. Addiction problems though are not just a concern of the very young people of the world.

One of my acquaintances recently shared her life story with a few of us. Since her husband had been addicted to alcohol, she had been active in Al-Anon for years. After his death, she began to drink more and more herself. After counseling with a mutual friend, she was given a booklet to read entitled "The Functioning Alcoholic." After reading it, she said, "Ah S***" and soon joined AA.

My own addiction to a prescribed medication came while I was in my mid-twenties as a young professional and mother of a toddler. I developed a back problem, went to a general practitioner, and was given Valium. The physician assured me it was the mildest of muscle relaxers and posed no health problem or possibility of addiction. When I decided to get pregnant again, I knew that I had to wean myself from this drug; though it kept me very calm and my back problem had disappeared by then, I instinctively felt the drug might cause harm to a developing fetus. I was four months into my second pregnancy before I was able to reduce the dosage day by day until I was completely off the drug. Later, medical studies showed that the drug was very addictive, and many fetuses had been harmed by it. Thankfully, mine was not among them.

I do not know what solution is available for those who battle addictions other than family suport, rehab, and God. If the Osmonds can fall, there is probably no hope for the rest of us. I am afraid that those "Ah S***" moments will continue well into the future.

Present Tense Only

This morning I walked north on my walking path. The NPR station I was listening to told me it was 59 degrees, the sky was overcast, and the fallen leaves crunched under my feet. A scent of nuts and impending rain was in the air. Since it is Thanksgiving week in America, it is hard not to think early about the truly bountiful blessings of the harvest. Every day I need to remind myself to be grateful for retirement and for the privilege of being able to live in the moment.

I have become recently aware of this concept through a couple of incidents in my life. One occurred in a telephone conversation with my two-year-old grandson Cole. I asked him a question about a recent event with his godfathers. His mother quickly replied, "Cole has no concept of the past or present, only what is happening at this moment." I have also heard an acquaintance, Ann, speak several times of being asked by her husband Sonny to live in the moment with him. He was dying of lung cancer and would often ask her to put away the busyness of her life just to lie in the bed with him and enjoy the present.

I think we often spend far too much time thinking about both the past and the future. We tend to linger over the times we made an inappropriate comment, we intentionally caused a breach in a relationship, or we agonized over other actions. We also tend to think a lot about the future, whether or not we as retirees will have enough money to live well until death and, hopefully, be able to leave a little to our children and grandchildren.

I always like the Scripture that talks about not worrying about the future. It reminds us that sparrows do not, so we should not as well. Living in present tense is the important choice for us to make as we are thankful this week for our blessings: an intensely beautiful world which we are to care for, a family that loves us, and bountiful food to eat every day.

Hope and Freedom

Our spiritual formation class this fall has been studying and discussing a video series entitled Living the Questions. The ideas are intriguing, especially when we discuss the three major theologies of the Bible: the exodus, the atonement, and the priest (or redemption) models. One of the speakers on video this past Sunday was an African-American scholar who focused on the first model: liberation theology. She has now realized that, instead of being a story focusing on God's great deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt, it is much more complex. It is complex because she is now thinking of her ancestors, who likely were those whose first-born children were slaughtered during the passover and who were drowned in the Red Sea. What was their perspective of the plagues, she wonders.

When we think of the Hebrews in slavery during their time in Egypt, it is easy to see why they needed to be free. Who would like to do hard, physical work every day for impossible-to-please taskmasters and given onions and leeks as a steady diet? Moses was to lead his people to a promised land of milk and honey. In the forty year process of being in the wilderness while trying to arrive at their destination, they were given not only the ten commandments but also a multitude of other laws that they were expected to keep. The people mumbled and grumbled and disobeyed so much that the second generation was given the privilege of living in the new land but not the older generation, not even Moses.

The Buddhists evidently believe in the idea that until one loses hope, he or she has no freedom. How can this be? Some would even say that disobedience is the true foundation of liberty; the obedient must continue to be slaves. In other words, as long as we are tethered to God's laws, we have no real liberty. It is only when we become self-actualized and empowered that we can be truly free and, therefore, bring help to others who are oppressed.

I am not able fully to wrap my mind around these new ideas, but I am intrigued and challenged to think more deeply about the exodus and the concept of liberation theology.

Restoration Babies

I have been interested lately in the topic of restoration. For example, talk show host Nancy Grace recently gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. Avid watchers of her show are familiar with her life story, that she lost her fiance years ago to a violent crime. That event was instrumental in her choice to become a prosecuting attorney. She did not marry and thought she would give her life instead to the pursuit of justice for crime victims--that is, until love intervened in her life again.

Our Bible study group has also been reading about unexpected babies in the Old Testament. Many examples abound where women were barren, and God surprised them with babies. Among those are Sarah, Abraham's wife; Rachel, Jacob's beloved wife; and even Lot's daughters who tricked their dad with drink in order to lie with him and conceive.

My friend Meera also shared with me a similar surprise sent to her brother and sister-in-law. Her brother was born with a congenital eye disease and his now-wife was a widow (a very difficult situation for a woman in India). In their forties or near, they married and thought their chances of having a child were quite improbable. A doctor's x-ray revealed a wonderful surprise: an eight month fetus who would be born shortly thereafter to middle-age parents and grandparents in their old age.

On a personal level, I have to admit also that, when our daughter told us she was gay, one of my first thoughts was that she would never be a mother. I was wrong as well. In the age of fertility clinics, our baby grandson was born in the summer of 2005 and is a delight to the many people who surround him on a daily basis.

Believers, of course, attribute these unexpected babies to God's restoration. I love the idea that God can see into our souls and address our deepest needs.

Communal Differences

This week the Arkansas Baptist Convention has been meeting to review its beliefs regarding baptism and communion. Since I have been a member of the Southern Baptist denomination for over fifty years, I am always interested in the latest discussions, especially now that I have been attending an Episcopal church for the past year.

Essentially, many Southern Baptists believe in "closed" communion, that is, only members of that particular church can receive what they refer to as the Lord's Supper. In addition, they also believe that, if one wishes to move a membership from one denomination to another (Methodist to Southern Baptist, for example), he or she must be re-baptized. They refer to baptisms in other churches as "alien" baptisms.

These views differ from the ones I am now observing in the Episcopal church. Episcopalians believe in infant baptism as an indication that the child is born into the community of the church. Later, as one reaches adolescence, the church teachings are "confirmed" by the child. He or she is then received into church membership. Episcopalians also believe that young children can participate in Communion even before confirmation.

I guess I am now beginning to prefer the latter beliefs. Southern Baptist always tend to say about one another's faith this cliche: "Well, only God can know one's heart truly and if he or she is really saved." If we cannot know another's true beliefs, what do we have to lose by allowing that one to be baptized early or to take communion--to signify the love and support of the larger church community? Episcopalians also believe that God chooses the time and place for baptism. That baptism takes place in infancy for "cradle" Episcopalians, but for others, it comes as adolescents or adults. Russell Crowe, the actor, has just announced his intention to be baptized into the church when his younger son is. He indicates that his parents did not direct him into a particular faith but let him choose for himself. He has now done so.

I often wonder how God perceives all of this arguing here on earth over various interpretations of the Scripture and His will. Southern Baptists have always believed their way is the "correct" way; Episcopalians have a more modest view of their infallibility when interpreting their theology. They believe there are questions that can only be answered by God Himself, not humans.

The Player

The Old Testament story of Jacob and Esau has always been a bit annoying to me. Jacob, whose name means "deceiver," swindles his brother's birthright and blessing from him and then has the gall after he flees from home to wrestle with an angel from God. I have always thought before as I heard this story, "Who in the heck does he think he is--to wrestle with God and then have the nerve to ask for a blessing yet again?" One of the aspects of the story though that I have missed is his persistence in not letting go of God. While Jacob is definitely a player, he is a needy one.

As I think about the many people I have known through the years, many were very close to God until, as the cliche goes, "the going gets rough." It might be an unexpected early death of a loved one, devastating personal financial losses, the breakup of a marriage, or any number of other causes that make us rethink our relationship with God. Jacob, it seems, had a choice to either let go of the angel (God's representative) or to keep hanging on and expecting a blessing to follow. He chose the latter.

I remember a conversation with my daughter after she lived in Los Angeles for three years. She basically came to a point where she agreed with Celie's belief in The Color Purple that, no matter how hard one tries, it is impossible to live without God. It seems there is something to be said for one's tenacity in hanging on to God in spite of the negative events in life. Who knows what blessings may still lie ahead?

A Ram in the Thicket

Our Bible study group last week at church struggled with the Old Testament story of Abraham, who after being childless for one hundred years, was finally sent a son. His name was Isaac. Yet the irony of the story is that God tells Abraham to take his son up to a mountaintop and sacrifice him. Some read the piece and suggest that Abraham came through the test by God splendidly since he was willing to do so. Others say, "No, Abraham failed because, while he could debate the saving of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah with God, he would not debate the sacrifice of his son."

To me, the real interest of the story is the ram in the thicket, a sacrifice provided when God tells Abraham at the last moment not to kill his son but kill the animal instead (I am aware that animal rights' activists will not like either choice). For me the story is much more about God's grace, instead of Abraham's obedience and faith.

As I reflect upon my life, I think of many instances where a ram in the thicket has been provided. Some are small suggestions of grace, and others are much bigger. Two examples will suffice. Ten years ago one of my best friends and I got into a silly argument that escalated into telling each other everything we had always hated about each other. She listed four items on her list while I had just one, but it was a devastating attack. We have not seen each other for a decade. Last January I sent her a copy of my two books, one a family memoir and the other a spiritual journey. I heard nothing for nine months. Last week I received an invitation to her only daughter's wedding. She extended, while not exactly a ram in the thicket, an olive branch.

A larger example of God's providing a ram in the thicket involves finances. A number of years ago I got a call from a friend who said she and her family were coming to visit for a week. My husband and I were absolutely without funds even for groceries. At that time an acquaintance called to ask if I would sell my piano. I did gladly and, therefore, was able to buy groceries for the upcoming visit.

Our conservative denominations among us believe in the literalness of the Scripture while more liberal denominations believe that it is more symbolic and metaphorical. I do not have a problem believing in both and that the Scripture has many applications for our lives today.

Cricket Choruses

I am happy that fall has finally arrived for a number of reasons. Among them are not having to turn on the overhead fan every time I sit down at the computer, being able to open the blinds without worrying about the heat of the day encompassing the room, and not hearing the ever-singing crickets and katydids making their incessant noise in the grass and trees. It is only now that I can appreciate the sound of silence outside my window. I recently, however, got an entirely different perspective on cricket choruses.

One of the aspects I most enjoy about attending the Episcopal church now is that the theologians have simplified belief into two major tenets: creation and incarnation. All of the worship within the church tends to focus on these only. As a congregation, we do not worry so much about sin and everlasting punishment or the coming Armageddon. The hymns, creeds, and sermons are much more positive within the Episcopal church.

A recent example from our Bible study group reminded me of this great gift to us. We were reading Flannery O'Connor's famous short story, "Revelation," when we came to the concluding paragraph of the piece. It is where Mrs. Turpin has had the great revelation where she sees many souls ascending to heaven. The final paragraph states, "In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah." Our Bible study leader then played a cd where someone had intentionally recorded crickets singing on a warm Southern night but had slowed the speed considerably. I was amazed that the cricket choruses sounded like a well written symphony written in praise to God. Actually, the idea of a musical order of the universe has been inspirational in the history of the human mind for thousands of years. Pythagoras, a early Greek philosopher, even spoke of it. I am just now beginning to think of the implications of the idea.

I hope never again to complain about the sounds outside my window on a summer night and see them as annoying but will, instead, listen carefully the cricket choruses. Perhaps they are singing in praise to God.

Baseball in Heaven

We had only been home from our vacation in Seattle less than a week before my son asked us to babysit our two grandchildren here in Little Rock. We always love going over to their house and playing with the children for a few hours. I keep encouraging our son to have a date with his wife every week.

On this particular fall evening, nine-year-old Caitlyn (as she typically does) already had an agenda for playtime. We would light candles, sit in her room, and think about someone who had died. It seems that, since Caitlyn has been attending a private Christian Episcopal school, she has enjoyed playing "church." She often has her prayer book, reads various and sundry prayers to her brother, and preaches. On this night, since Episcopalians pray for the dead, she wanted to ask questions to someone who was no longer on earth. We decided upon her mother's grandmother as a possibility. Caitlyn, Charlie (her four-year-old brother) and I sat in the candle-lit room, took a flashlight to shine in our faces, and asked her deceased great-grandmother a question. I asked, "Are you happy where you are?" She then passed the flashlight to Charlie. He was thoughtful for a few seconds and then asked, "Do you play baseball in heaven?"

Caitlyn and I laughed for a moment but then assured Charlie that he had posed a good question. My mind immediately went to my grandmother, who raised me from junior high school through high school. I used to love the stories she told me about her childhood during the time I lived with her, especially about her love for baseball. Since she had two older brothers, Bud and Dell, she loved to play baseball with them on warm summer Southern evenings. Unfortunately though, since she was a girl, she was responsible for rocking her baby sister, Elise, every night to sleep and always had to miss the game she loved the most. I can still hear her mimicking her mother's voice, "Ethel, Ethel, come inside and rock the baby."

My grandmother has been gone for almost thirty years now, but I am now wondering also (along with Charlie), "Are you playing baseball in heaven?" Somehow, I think she is. I know she deserves to be.

Pecans and Fireflies

It was a late September autumn evening in Seattle when my husband, daughter, and her partner, Sheri, arrived to hear writer Alice Walker read from her latest children's book entitled Why War Is Never A Good Idea. We arrived early at City Hall downtown so that we could be assured a seat for the event. We took our places dutifully, made small talk with those around us, and waited for the doors to open. We were greatly looking forward to the evening since Alice Walker has been a favorite writer of ours since the wonderful Color Purple was published.

I was surprised when Alice Walker came unto the stage in that she had a quiet, small voice and also that she looked very young and attractive. I guess I had expected her voice to be as strident and booming in person as it is in her activist writing. I also had forgotten that she was my age, not the ancient matriarch I had also imagined in my mind because of her spiritual insight and wisdom.

After the reading, the audience was promised that Alice would sign copies of our books. We could also have a brief time for pictures and/or questions. My question for her as I waited for her to write an unrecognizable signature in my book was, "Do you ever miss anything about the South?" I knew that she was raised in Georgia, had left rather early in her life, and came back only to participate in the civil rights marches of the 1960's. She at first said, "No," but then she revised her answer and added, "No, I take that back. I miss pecans . . . and I miss fireflies."

I guess every child who has been raised in the South could also share Alice Walker's memories. My aunt Elise was blessed with a number of old large pecan trees in her yard. Since she was a widow, she and her son, David, would gather the pecans from the ground every fall, shell them, and put many away for baking in the future. They also sold all the extras in order to get their Christmas money. As for the fireflies, Southern children often have to be coaxed inside at the end of long summer days by mothers who are more threatening than encouraging. Chasing, catching, and bottling fireflies was often a competition to see who could gather the most. It was almost a magical light as the various jars glowed after darkness descended.

The South has so many more attributes, however, than these two. It is sad that--perhaps because of the racial discrimination in her time--Alice Walker remembers only two.

Reflections on Being In Country

We have all been inundated recently by the movie and television productions featuring wartime situations--most notably, of course, has been Ken Burns' most recent fifteen hour documentary entitled The War. My husband and I have been taking some time to reflect on what it means to have a war fought in one's own country. Thankfully, the United States has been spared this atrocity since the Civil War. Even though World War II has been over some sixty years or so, we still argue with each other about the use of the atomic bomb to end it. Today as our volunteer soldiers fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are once again in country with its resulting devastating effect upon citizens and the environment.

Occasionally, my husband and I also debate the draft vs. volunteer army idea. Is it morally right, I ask him, for our soldiers to be paid (and not very well at that) to die for us while many other young people claim to dislike war but do not have a personal stake in it? I know that, like all wars, it is taking a toll on many there with their extended service obligations. This stress simply increases the likelihood of violence while in the service or out. The film In the Valley of Elah (based on a true story) starring Tommy Lee Jones features such violence between men and within families.

Frankly, I cannot imagine any of our U. S. cities ever resembling Dresden (from the fire bombings in World War II) or Hiroshima (from the atomic bomb). The horror would be too much even to contemplate. Sometimes I hear around here the cliched argument, "If we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here." What will it take to take the soldiers out of country and bring them home again? Was General Douglas McArthur right when he said something like, "War means going through hell, but you can't stop; you have to keep going"? Will we really be in the Middle East until 2013?

Cole the Giver

It is always fascinating to watch the development of a child, especially as language skills become a tool with which to communicate. Our two-year-old grandson in Seattle, Cole, is now discovering the world which lies before him each day and is now able to tell us his thoughts, needs, and desires. Many of these center, not necessarily on himself, but on others. He loves to give gifts in the only way that he can at his age--he chooses the creations of nature to take home to his many adoring relatives--two mamas, two daddies, five grandparents, a nanny, her boyfriend, and many cousins. His favorite gifts are flowers (which he chooses from a plethora of possibilities within his yard and patio), rocks (both small and large), and leaves (especially now that fall has arrived and they are gold and red, in addition to the usual green). I have been thinking about what makes one child a giver and another not.

I talked to my sister, Judy, recently about the subject. She tends to think it comes by heredity. She credits our alcoholic father, who would always open his wallet and give one half of anything he carried in it if there was a need. Since she is four years old than I, I do not remember this aspect of his personality. I remember more the times when the tables were reversed, and he came to our house, even after I was married, to ask for money.

I tend to think the act of generosity and altruism is simply due to personality temperament. If we follow the old labeling system from the past, there are four personality temperaments: melancholy, sanguine, phlegmatic, and choleric. Three of these seem to be self-centered, all but phlegmatic. This temperament tends to show a child who can fit in with many types of diverse people; he has many friends; and he thinks of others more than himself. I believe Cole falls into this category.

Regardless of the source of generosity, I hope Cole's will continue it as he gets older. I hope that he will consider volunteer work as an elementary student and continue it as an adult. He is, after all, Cole the giver.

When Love Goes Bad, Revenge is Good

One slow September afternoon recently while in Seattle, my husband and I walked across the street to watch the film Rocket Science. Basically, the plot centered on high school students on a debate team. The star of the movie played a character who, in spite of his stuttering, was selected by a key debater to be on the team anyway. The girl who selects him basically has her own agenda in mind, apparently not his. As I described the film later to my daughter, I said, "It was similar to Napoleon Dynamite but realistic. In this movie, the boy gets the girl, not in the usual way, but through revenge." In fact, near the end of the film, the boy states the line, "When love goes bad, revenge is good." It seems that in modern society revenge is the preferred method for settling scores. I am wondering whatever happened to Jesus' advice about turning the other cheek.

During the past week, for example, we have been inundated once more with two stories of high school violence. One was carried out with the perpetrator shooting two students and two teachers in a "success" school before turning the gun on himself. The other was planned, with investigators making a large discovery of weapons in the home of a fourteen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania. Again, as a society, we ask how bullying of these children can lead to such a horrific result. Evidently, for both boys, the warning signals were clear for weeks.

I am sure as the investigations both are conducted many details will be revealed about the personalities of these boys. I will predict, however, that both were marginalized early on in their lives because of differences, perhaps obesity, personality quirks, attention-getting behaviors, or hostility. One can only wonder what might have happened if someone had reached out to them early and with love. Revenge should never be the selected option.

For All the Brianas of the World

It was an idyllically beautiful September day in Seattle. The park where my husband, daughter, and I had taken our two-year-old grandson Cole had a clear view of the city buildings, in addition to being outlined in the early morning light by an array of autumn trees gently showering down their leaves. I watched as Cole swung high in the kiddy swings and thought how blessed this child was to be loved and adored by two mamas, two dads, five grandparents, a nanny, her boyfriend, and a host of cousins and other relatives.

I did not notice the little girl who hovered around Cole and Kimberly for a while. I wondered for a moment if she could be alone in the park, but then I noticed them: the caregivers. They were young but seemingly hung over. She was a bleached blond young woman, and he was an African-American with baggy pants. Both seemed to be smoking pot. They were stirred from their reverie only slightly to hollow at the child once, "Don't do that; that's not your stroller." The child bragged to us that she had chocolate milk with her as a treat. I asked her what she had for breakfast, and she seemed not to know if she had eaten breakfast. Kimberly started feeding both her and Cole some Elmo crackers she had brought along with her. The girl seemed ravenous and ending up eating the majority of them. She said her name was Briana.

I would like to think that Briana was an isolated case in Seattle, but I am not that naive. Having felt somewhat neglected myself as a child being brought up by a mother who was often absentee due to her work schedule, I tried to imagine Briana in fifteen years. Would she be able, perhaps through some mentor, to get herself on track and move to a productive life? Or would she become one of those who sit in front of drugstores and theaters asking, "Can you spare some change?"

Panhandling in Portland

I have been to a lot of cities in the past ten years across the United States, but I have never noticed teenagers and young people panhandling. In the past it has always been what has become the usual stereotype: older men or women carrying plastic bags full of their stuff around with them as they either move around the city by bus or settle into one spot to panhandle.

On a recent trip to Portland, however, I noticed quite a few, young people sitting in front of drug stores especially asking, "Can you spare some change?" When my husband and I returned to our home-away-from-home, Seattle, I decided to look for more young panhandlers. I found them downtown in front of a large movie theater. One of them, a young blond woman, was there on at least two trips downtown. Our last trip before we left she was there, but as we exited the theater, she got up and went away with a young attractively-dressed man in a business suit. The policeman who was passing by did not seem to notice anything amiss. These experiences made me think about the motivation of those young people. Could they not get jobs, or is it simply more profitable to ask for handouts (or to give oneself sexually) every day?

Having watched some television shows in the past on the subject, I know the usual explanation is that these young people are runaways and are many times drug or alcohol addicted. If underage, they cannot legally work and have to panhandle to eat. The ones I observed did not fit this pattern and were well above the age to work.

I think of my own family's experiences when I was a toddler and beyond where my mother and father seemed to be always homeless. My father could not keep a job for a number of reasons. In spite of having a winning personality, he simply could not keep his hands out of the till to support his gambling habit. Thankfully, we had a number of relatives who took us in during the years: my mother's cousin Mary Margaret from Mobile, her half-aunt Elise from the Mississippi Delta, and other various and sundry friends and relatives. In the 1940's, it was rare for a woman to work outside the home if she had a husband. My mother followed my father around the South, always looking for a relatives to stay with first, or if that failed, a room or small apartment to rent by the week for our family. We never stayed on the streets though my father did his share of panhandling through the years to help us get by.

As usual, I do not have any answers for this social problem of young adults. I know that a number of churches and charities do their best to provide shelter and meals for the homeless. My father's favorite was the Gospel Rescue Mission, located in several states. He never minded listening to a sermon in order to get food and a bed for the night. As he lived though, he died: homeless and shot three times along a Mississippi highway in August of 1976. I would like to think that the fate of the young panhandlers in Portland and Seattle could somehow turn out differently.

Treading Water

My husband and I never meant to be treading water in the second year of our retirement. Unfortunately, we are one of the many families throughout the United States who have become caught up in the housing debacle. How on earth did we get here financially we often ask ourselves when the plan was to be debt-free at the beginning of our golden years? We have just reviewed the latest statistics that indicate the sale of existing houses has decreased by 21.5% in one year. Foreclosures are predicted to top two million soon. The stock market has reacted negatively to this news within the last couple of months, fearing a possible recession if Americans quit spending.

It began in the summer of 2005 when we put our dream house on sale. We knew we wanted to live near our ever-growing grandchildren in Little Rock, and we were also looking for a house that had a master bedroom downstairs due to my husband's spinal stenosis. We did not hesitate to purchase a home that had all of the desired criteria a year ahead of my retirement date. Our realtor assured us that our old house would sale within two or three weeks. At the end of six months without an offer, we took it off the market for some recommended upgrades. We put it back on the market after another six months all spruced up and ready to go. Again, in our new six-month realty contract, we got no offers.

We are currently maintaining two houses, paying taxes and insurance, for both. Our savings has depleted. We think we can stay above water for one more year. After that, it appears that we will sink--we and another two million families just like us.

Becoming Blondie

I am sure women all over America are writing blogs today in response to the news from Texas. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, it seems, is now offering a new undergraduate degree in Humanities with a concentration in Homemaking. The school is hoping to have fifteen women enroll this fall in the program. Many of us are wondering if we need to return to the days of Blondie in the comics, who for years was a traditional homemaker taking good care of Dagwood, Cookie, Alexander, and even dog Daisy.

My own experience straddling the cultures of feminism and traditional homemaking has had its share of conflict through the years. I consider myself a married feminist though it has been difficult through the years as a member of a conservative Baptist denomination to combine both interests. Feminism as a concept is often seen as anathema by those groups.

I do not think I could have been otherwise, however, since I was raised by a strong, independent single mother who worked a split shift as a waitress six or seven days a week, paid the bills each week (though often needing credit), and made sure my sister and I were both in school and church at the appropriate times. By the time the feminist movement arrived in the United States, I had already been married ten years and was teaching junior high English. It did not seem like a leap of faith to combine both ideas in my mind.

I think of my own training in high school in homemaking. It was under my teacher's supervision that I learned the basic rudiments of cooking, setting a proper table, sewing (I even wore the first jumper I made), and good nutrition. Though I have been a professional career woman for over forty years, the lessons I learned in Home Ec have been helpful in establishing my own home.

In other words, I don't think the new undergraduate program for women at Southwestern is necessarily a bad choice for women. After all, we feminists have fought for the past thirty years or so to advance the idea of choice for women. Also, we realize that our roles are not always static within a long marriage. For me, I have moved from being a traditional homemaker to being a career woman to being a retired homemaker again. Even Blondie made that choice in the comics as she herself has moved in recent years to being a caterer. My only suggestion for a woman at Southwestern who is considering the program is to perhaps combine the concentration with a professional choice as well like business administration.

Classes in homemaking will not be able to teach a woman everything she needs to know anyway about the home. She will still learn through trial and error. My husband can testify to that when, the first week after we returned from our honeymoon, I made a pot roast with vegetables. My husband seemed to be enjoying the meal until he realized I had not scraped the carrots.

So Long As There Are Plums to Eat

Memoirs and autobiographies still tend to be my favorite genre of literature. I have always believed there is something wonderful about the frankness with which they are told. Mary Karr's Cherry has been lying on my "to read" bookshelf for seven years. I saw it last week and pulled it down since I knew it would be a quick read. The memoir fits into what we describe in literature as bildungsroman. It is the story of an adolescent girl who moves from elementary to middle school to high school in her small town in Texas. On her journey, she learns much about herself.

On the way to adulthood, at one point Mary becomes distraught because she no longer has the interest of the boy she has admired since childhood, her best friend has rejected her friendship, her family is quite dysfunctional, and other peers believe she thinks she is smarter than they. Mary responds to the situation taking pills by the handful. Ironically, they only make her sick, and her parents believe her to be suffering from an intestinal illness. Her father drives from Texas to Arkansas to buy her sweet plums because Mary says that is the only food she could possibly eat. When she tastes the plums, their sweetness and juiciness dripping down her chin, she snaps out of her depression. She decides that "so long as there are plums to eat," and someone who cares enough to bring them, she will live.

Obviously, there are many reasons for adolescent suicide attempts like Mary's. In my thirty-five years of teaching, I have had two former students to commit suicide; both were boys. Research tells us that girls tend to be unsuccessful in their attempts and often are just seeking attention from family and friends while boys tend to be the more serious, and therefore successful. The first boy who took his life by hooking up an automobile exhaust line to the car window was like Mary--rejected by peers and adults. The second, a senior in college, was distraught over the impending death of his mother. To an outsider, both seemed to have been greatly loved by their families. What is the impetus then to cause such an action?

Former President Bill Clinton in an interview about his brother Roger's addiction indicated that people tend to become this way because of one of four reasons: they are hungry, tired, lonely, or angry. I believe these are possible reasons also for adolescents who choose to commit suicide, especially the last two. Once again, the need presents itself for responsible adults role models to come forward, recognize the symptoms, and do their best to intervene. Only then can there be more "plums to eat" in the future for these young lives.

Having to Dig Your Own Potatoes

I have been waiting anxiously for several weeks for the film Becoming Jane to arrive at our art theater here in Little Rock. It finally arrived last Friday, and my husband and I were able to attend the comfortably filled theater for a matinee yesterday afternoon. The film, of course, is loosely based on the life of writer Jane Austen. It vividly contrasts the fiction she created in her famous six novels with the reality of her life as the daughter of a minister. At one point in the movie, Jane's father tells her (as she is considering marrying for money versus affection), "Nothing destroys spirit like poverty." Jane's mother had already noted that, in choosing affection over money in her own choice of husbands, "I have to dig my own potatoes."

The idea of making such a choice in American society strikes us as being very dated today, but then this movie was set some two hundred years ago in England where class has always been paramount in the minds of its citizens. Jane Austen's novels are filled with this theme: money decisions must always trump heart decisions. After all, back then one had to think of his or her immediate family as well as oneself for future financial comfort.

Is the idea that poverty will destroy one's spirit a key idea even today? Sociologists suggest that the best way to ensure a solid marriage is to have financial security. Studies also show that money arguments, not conflict over sex or children, are the key reasons for the breakup of marriages. I suspect, while we all wish we could live happily ever after on our love for one another, many people still debate the same type of choices that Jane Austen's characters made. In her fiction, her characters (like the prostitute in Pretty Woman) got it all: both love and riches. In reality, Jane Austen never married and died at age 41 of Addison's disease likely. She got neither love nor riches. I am sure she continued to dig her own potatoes until the end.

Becoming Little Children Again

I am almost always challenged each Friday night when I watch Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS. One of the guests on last night's program was Martin E. Marty, the author of The Mystery of the Child. He reminded the audience that we tend to think of childhood characteristics as a negative as we age. We especially see these negative characteristics in old folks as they refuse to allow anyone to assist them in their daily activities such as eating, walking, or dressing (my 90 year old father-in-law), They become childlike in their responses to family members and accusatory even in conversations with their loved ones.

Martin E. Marty, however, believes these childlike characteristics can been viewed positively if we focus on the unfolding, flowering, open nature of humans as they age. He stated that the highlight of his life is still yet to come. This view impresses me as a marvelously optimistic view of the aging process.

We often ponder the verse in Scripture where Jesus tells us to become as little children if we expect to inherit the kingdom of God. By that He does not mean to assume the negative characteristics but the positive ones of being open to the mysteries of life. For example, children are prone to ask many questions to adults at a young age. If, as adults, we can retain this same spirit of questioning, we can still learn and flower way into old age.

A Role Model--Elvis

My husband and I got an unexpected surprise on our trip last weekend to the Mississippi Delta and hills. We realized that it was the 30th anniversary of Elvis' death. We had already planned to visit a relative and spend the night in Tupelo on Saturday, August 11. Elvis was born in Tupelo in January of 1935. When we arrived at Doris' apartment, she picked up the newspaper and began reading to us about all the activities planned in commemoration of Elvis' death. There was to be a small mobile replica of Graceland that traveled around the country, a singing that night, and lots of events at the original house. We could also expect to see some 850 guests from England who were in Tupelo especially for the event.

Since we had lived and worked in Tupelo for a couple of years in the late 1960's, we were already familiar with the town and area. Garlan was a student at Itawamba Junior College where he rode a school bus by day to attend classes, and I worked for an insurance company as a claims clerk. Our food budget was $15 a week, so we ate a lot of potatoes, beans, and cheap cutlets from the Big Star grocery store. One of my husband's friends, Charlie, sometimes would take us to a movie since he knew we could not afford to go.

By the time we lived there, Elvis had already reached the height of his singing career most likely(the Beatles were currently the rage of the world), but we still liked to drive around occasionally to see the little house where he lived with his Mama and Daddy as a child. Just driving by to see the abject poverty into which he was born somehow gave the two of us hope that one day we would also have some upward mobility in American society. If a poor boy could move from rags to riches, what could we also do with a college education?

We were not alone among countless other fans who loved Elvis for different reasons. My grandmother, whom I lived with as a teenager growing up in the Delta, also liked Elvis. She always, until her death at 84, talked about how much Elvis loved and respected his Mama. She was brokenhearted herself when he died just a year and a half before she did.

On this day, however, we parked across the street from the little house of Elvis' childhood. There was a convertible jalopy beside us with the inscription "Loving You" on the back. The house was flooded with people in line, a large camera was mounted near the front porch to capture the size of the crowd, and a gospel group was singing Elvis' favorites. We took a quick picture to remind us of all that Elvis meant to people in the Deep South especially, and we left the next visit until later when the weather was cooler and the crowd was thinner.

Reviving Larry Brown

My husband and I have long been fans of Mississippi writer Larry Brown. We were saddened to learn in the fall of 2004 about his sudden death of a heart attack while he was still in his early fifties. Therefore, we were both quite interested in reading his unfinished last novel entitled A Miracle of Catfish. We just recently ordered it from Amazon since we knew we had an upcoming trip to the Mississippi Delta and hills ourselves and wanted to check the novel out for its authenticity. We were not disappointed.

Brown had no formal training as a writer and served for a number of years as a captain in the Oxford, Mississippi, fire department. Yet he was always "spot on" in his characterization of the Mississippi character and dialect. The novel featured three main characters, a little boy named Jimmy, his daddy, and an old man named Cortez. Cortez is the one who establishes a catfish pond on his land and gets to know Jimmy quite by accident. Since most novels educate as they entertain, we read of each step of the catfish adventure--the preparation of the area, the buying of the small fish to place into the pond, and the feeding of the fish by night. We also read anxiously when Cortez' tractor overturns into the pond, intertwining him, until Jimmy saves him by calling 911 and brings Cortez a rubber tube to breathe through until help can arrive. We follow the description throughout of Jimmy's uncaring red neck dad who impregnates a girlfriend, takes away Jimmy's favorite toy, his go cart, and gets arrested for carrying open beer in his car in a dry county.

On Friday, August 10, my husband and I headed toward Mississippi on a blistery 106 degree day to spend the night with our friends, Beverly and James, on their farm in the Mississippi Delta. We were both interested the next morning when James offered to take us out to his new catfish ponds and show us the operation. We had already heard the night before about the phone possibly ringing in the night if the fish needed more oxygen. We watched as James filled his truck with catfish food and drove around the pond with it shooting out into the pond. In some areas, the fish ate the food greedily, but in some they seemed uncaring. We met three children, all related to James, who live nearby. One was William who was going into fourth grade this school year. He had been riding his four wheeler back in the spring with the other children on another when the two small vehicles collided. William was knocked breathless to the ground. His sister Susanna, a little older than William, had viewed a CPR demonstration in school that year and knew immediately what to do: she pounded on his chest until he began breathing again. He suffered several injuries including a concussion and a bruised spleen, yet he lived because of his sister's quick response.

Driving home the next afternoon, we were startled to see a black revved up pickup truck pull out of a side road in front of our car. Since the highway was four lane at that point, there was no danger, but both my husband and I looked at the driver as we passed. He had curly black hair and a scruffy black beard and was not wearing a shirt. "Jimmy's dad," we both thought as we looked at one another, convinced that writer Larry Brown had indeed been revived again.

One Thousand Splendid Lives

On C-SPAN 2 the other night, writer and radio talk show host Garrison Keillor was speaking at the American Library Association Conference. He made the point that we read in order to have more lives than one. I could not agree with him more. I am sure in my lifetime I have lived at least a thousand splendid lives (though some were not so splendid) as I have identified with the complex literary characters who were protagonists of fiction.

As a young girl who was fascinated by biographies, I was Marie Curie working in the laboratory diligently with her husband Pierre to discover polonium and radium. I was Abraham Lincoln who struggled with the issues of keeping the union together and the possibility of freeing the slaves. I was Lou Gehrig as he uttered his famous words in Yankee Stadium, "I am the luckiest man alive" after disclosing his battle with ALS.

As a young woman, I centered my reading on Gothic literature by Victoria Holt or perhaps Charlotte Bronte. I was always the woman running along the cliffs of the English countryside being pursued by the man who might be either my murderer or my hero. Thankfully, it was always the latter in these formula pieces.

As I became an English major in college, my reading shifted to the heavy, complex pieces with far more complicated heroines. My favorites were Anna Karenina who threw herself onto a railroad track because of her affairs and Madam Bovary who could never get out of debt and who also chose suicide as an escape.

My latest identification with a literary character is Cormac McCarthy's The Road. This fiction piece won a Pulitzer Prize this last spring. I cannot say that I enjoyed the struggle of a father and son in a post nuclear world who were doing their best to survive as two of the good people left on earth. I can say that the novel was so well written as to be spellbinding. It is precisely this identification with characters that compels us to imagine our own actions in such a world. Would we kill to protect ourselves and our food, or would we acquiesce to circumstances and simply give up?

It is these and other questions that keep us reading and essentially living one thousand splendid lives and counting.

The Transformative Power of Art

I had been wanting to see the German film The Lives of Others for several months now. Somehow my husband and I had missed it at the art film house several months ago when it was playing, so I was quite happy to see its return this week to our $1 theater in Little Rock. Its basic premise raises the question of whether or not it is possible for anyone to truly change. To test the thesis, the film's writer features an East German STASI agent in the early 1980's who is given an assignment to spy on a stage writer and his lover actress in order to test their loyalty to the government. The character's name is Gerd Wiesler, a lonely man with no other life other than his work. As the film progress, Wiesler discovers a compelling narrative in the lives of others and experiences the transformative power of art.

The film uses a quote early on that basically states Lenin could not have carried out his plans for the revolution had he listened to Beethoven too often. The power of that sentiment is almost heart stopping in my opinion. I attribute my own awakening to the power of art to a bout with the red measles when I was around eight. My sister Judy and I had spent a good two weeks a dark apartment without reading anything in order to protect our eyesight from possible damage. The morning I was able to emerge like a cocoon from this environment, I noticed the magnificent colors of spring, most notably the true yellow daffodils, the green grass, and the azure sky. I had never seen anything more beautiful. I believe music, art, films, and books have this transformative power upon us. Essentially, many of us are blind, living in a darkened world, until we begin to rise like Phoenixes from the ashes of our dull lives to see the beauty possible through art.

For the character of Wiesler, the transformation comes not only from a realization of the rich love shared between the playwright and his love as he spies upon them each day, but also from the Sonata for a Good Man played one night by the playwright. Wiesler changes from that point on to become a protector for the couple, even to the point of giving up his own career mobility, by withholding information from the state. So, yes, the answer to the initial question is an affirmative: art can change a person's life.

Too Heavy for Mercy - A Tale of Two Jessies

Two stories have been in the news this week which have led me to think more about the nature of crime and forgiveness. One is the murder thirty months ago of little Jessie Lunsford in Florida, who was buried alive by the murderer, and the other is Jessie Davis, the pregnant mother, who was recently killed in Ohio reportedly by her lover, Bobby Cutts. I have noticed two opposing views from the affected family members. Patricia Porter, mother of Jessie Davis, stated that she will not harbor hate for the perpetrator, "I feel like if God can't forgive Bobby Cutts, then he can't forgive any of us." On the other hand, in asking for his daughter's killer to receive the death penalty, Mark Lunsford stated that some crimes were "too heavy for mercy." My question is, "Does God find some crimes too heinous to forgive?"

One of the perpetrators I have always had difficulty with is Ted Bundy who killed numerous women in the Northwest over a number of years, often posing as a clean cut young man who needed help from the women because of an injury. The night before his execution he requested a final interview with psychologist James Dobson. In that interview, he spoke of his newly found faith in Christ. I shutter to think that I will see him in heaven dressed in white and singing with the angels.

What is the evidence that God forgives all sins--if asked to do so by the sinner? One verse and one example will probably suffice, although many others might be also cited from Scripture. The verse we are most familiar with is from I John, Chapter One, Verse Nine, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And, yes, that adjective is correct: all. That means even murder of an innocent child or a helpless woman. The other most well-known example is that of the thief on the cross who is given a promise of Paradise by Christ even as He himself is being crucified.

In our own imperfection as Christians, but in our striving to become more like Him, we struggle with sins that are seemingly "too heavy for mercy." We long to pronounce the worst punishment possible. But then we realize--He is God, and we are not.

Eyeing Tammy Faye

Tammy Faye Bakker Messner was in the spotlight in evangelical communities for the past thirty years or so. I always felt she and her husband at the time, Jim Bakker, were not genuine in their faith. All of the showiness of their PTL network and program did not fit in well with my ideas of Jesus' model and ministry. I have learned, however, through observing the couple in recent years to eye them now with respect--and even admiration.

We are taught, of course, that difficulties breed faith--true faith. I believe this to be true although very often, for myself, I wish the learning curve did not include any hardships. For Jim, the lessons of humility, and poverty, came after the uncovering of his affair with his secretary, Jessica Hahn, and his subsequent stint in jail for his unsavory business deals--mail and wire fraud--connected with Heritage USA, his theme park. For Tammy Faye, I suspect Jim's trials were also her trials. In addition, she was diagnosed with colon cancer in the mid-nineties. Later, she told the world her cancer had returned and that she was now suffering from lung cancer.

It was only after the rejection of the conservative evangelical community for the crimes connected to their ministry that both Jim and Tammy Faye began to see. They saw beyond their requests for donations to their ministry to the heart of the people of the world. Jim denounced his previous prosperity theology that he had formerly preached so diligently. Tammy Faye, in particular, was drawn to those who were outcasts and who were marginalized in some way by their respective communities. Gays especially were drawn to her, and she accepted them full hardily.

The cliche, "better late than never," seems particularly ironic for this couple. To their credit, both of their children seem to be solid in their faith. Their son Jay is a hip young tattooed evangelist who preaches to the biker crowd, and their daughter is a young mother, and singer, with several children.

The eyes of the world watched with horror last week as Tammy Faye made her final appearance with Larry King on CNN. She was a mere sixty-five pounds, woefully wrinkled, and gasping for every breath. Her eyes, however, were fully made up. We saw her for the last time. Even Larry, a Jew, was moved enough after her death to comment that she was now in the arms of the Lord.

If You Do Love Old Men

I have been thinking about the behavior of old men a lot lately for two reasons. One is that our family had a short reunion in Bella Vista, Arkansas, about a week ago, and my ninety-year-old father-in-law came down for it. Another is that I have been reading Virginia Stam Owens' story about her grandfather entitled If You Do Love Old Men. I have been amazed by all the similarities in behavior between the two.

My father-in-law has been rather senile for years now repeating the same old stories about his love for baseball and seeing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as a young boy. In addition, he frequently loses his bearings while trying to find a bathroom in a restaurant, and he also is developing some paranoid tendencies such as repeatedly obsessing over a single idea in his mind. Likewise, the protagonist in Owens' book is much the same--showing complete lack of sound judgment by wanting to "trade" his place with acreage in Texas for a three-room shack. I have also spoken by e-mail to my friend Meera who tells me that her paternal grandfather also shared these "old men" behaviors. Her theory is that inactivity breeds an inward psychological focus on the past.

Since the title of Owen's book is taken from Shakespeare's famous play King Lear, I have to admit that I have always felt a lot of sympathy for the "old man" as he raves to the storm and lightning regarding his daughters' neglect of him. It is true that the two daughters ignored him after receiving their share of Lear's estate. While we can never condone their actions, we can at least understand them in light of the old man's confusion and paranoia.

I wish there could be a medical answer for the families who care for their aging parents. Often, as in these three examples, the body is still relatively strong, but the mind--as Meera states--is transitioning to a better place. In the meantime, we must be patient and remember that, as medical science extends the number of years for all of us, we will be there ourselves one day as well. And that's a real wake-up call.

"Go home and be old"

Marilynne Robinson's Gilead features a key character, the grandfather of the narrator, who has a moment with God and believes God tells him, "Go home and be old." The grandfather had been a preacher and political activist for war during the Civil War. His son, in contrast, had been a staunch pacifist. I have been thinking lately about whether or not it is ever o.k. to just sit on one's front porch and do nothing for the rest of one's life.

On the one hand, as I reflect upon my thirty-five years of teaching in both public and private schools, I am tired. It is as simple as that. For years I have taught toddlers in Sunday School; worked with the Girls in Action at various churches in which we have been members; hosted backyard Bible clubs in the summer; taught a number of special studies for adults; hauled students around for various competitions, readings, and performances; cooked numerous breakfasts for student gatherings; visited the sick in hospitals; and counseled students extensively for both personal and academic reasons. Since retiring to Little Rock, I have worked briefly in a homeless ministry and a food and gift shelter at Christmas. I have hesitated to become more involved in these projects, I suppose, because of selfishness. I enjoy my new life and freedom to do what I want when I want, without being restricted by a heavily marked calender.

On the other hand though, I realize that I probably have more to give to others. Indeed I write in this blog "Rocking Chair Reflections" frequently about the need to be more of an activist in society. Can I be true to myself if I talk the talk without walking the walk any longer myself? Perhaps I have not found the right ministry to involve myself in. I will continue to reflect upon these questions.

Navigating Through the Flotsam of Life

Since our book club completed Marilynne Robinson's Gilead in the spring, I have been anxious to read her first novel, written some twenty-seven years ago now, entitled Housekeeping. It focuses on the story of two sisters who must, of necessity, navigate through the flotsam of life in order to survive.

Their grandfather, a railroad man, dies in a spectacular train accident in which the train sinks entirely into a glacial lake. Their mother deposits her small girls, Ruth and Lucille, on the front porch of the surviving grandmother's house and drives her car off a cliff. For a while the grandmother is able to care for the girls; then she dies leaving the care of the girls first to her own maiden sisters who cannot cope with two growing girls and later to the care of her youngest daughter, who is a transient. As the girls move into adolescence, Aunt Silvie's actions and neglect become increasingly bizarre. She collects magazines, cans, and bottles in the house as well as thirteen or fourteen cats. How can these girls survive in this maze of neglect?

It seems the younger girl, Lucille, is awakened to the fact that redemption comes in the form of education. She sets upon a plan for herself to sew her clothes, comb her hair, and leave home to live with her Home Economics teacher. Ruth, on the other hand, succumbs to the waywardness of her Aunt Silvie. Together they burn the old house down, catch a train, and resume a life of wandering.

Once more this story reminds me of the hundreds of children in our society who also live their lives as if they were "minimally existent." They are neglected by their caregivers, live solitary lives, and either become hopeless like Ruth or at best develop a plan to escape like Lucille. Again I am reminded of the importance of adults who care for and mentor these neglected children. Let us seek ways to assist these children through our volunteer efforts but, most importantly, our love and concern.

Divorce or Murder?

Many of us have been following the case of the preacher's wife, Mary Winkler, who shot her husband in the back, leaving him to bleed to death, and then took her three children on a vacation to the beach. What could have been the motivation for such a violent act we asked?

Another lesser known case of murder took place in Olathe, Kansas, back in 1982. Here the husband and wife slept together until an intruder cruelly bludgeoned the husband to death and left the wife unconscious. The case remained unsolved until recently when investigators reopened the file. The investigators put on trial a former student of Mid America Nazarene College. It appears that the student and the wife, an employee of the college, were emotionally involved with one another. They plotted to kill the husband, claiming it was the work of two African American intruders.

Although the two cases have more differences than similarities, i. e. Mary Winkler was a victim of sexual and physical abuse of her husband, Matthew, and the wife in the second case simply fell in love with someone else, they share one important similarity. Both families were members of very conservative evangelical churches where divorce has been considered anathema. In other words, in the perpetrators' minds, they would rather murder than divorce. In fact, Mary Winkler repeatedly told her father, with her head in her hands, "No, Daddy, I can work it out."

What legalistic rules are there in these churches that give wives (and their lovers) such a notion? Yes, the Bible speaks of wives' submitting to their husbands, but taken in context of the whole New Testament passage, it means to love their wives and to submit to them as well. Yes, families are important in the Scripture, and God has given many examples of His mending of families that have been torn asunder such as Adam and Eve, David and Bathsheba, Job, and Lazarus. The Bible also states in the book of Psalms that "God placeth the solitary in families."

Does that mean then that there is never a reason to leave one's spouse? Of course not, since the divorce rate in America already attests to the fact that many Americans take marital commitment too lightly and sometimes divorce on a whim. We need, however, to review our teaching in conservative churches and amend any impression that would convince spouses to stay together after adultery or physical and sexual abuse. It is o.k. to leave; it is certainly healthier.

The Best of Us and the Least of Us

I suppose it was inevitable that I write about the issue presented in Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko. While I was determined to go into the film with an open mind regarding the status of health care in the United States, I (and many of the audience as evidenced by the applause at the end of the film and comments such as, "Republicans, go right as you exit the theater") quickly joined in and acquiesced to Moore's viewpoint.

As typical in a Moore film (and I have been a fan of his since Roger and Me), he presents a number of people who share their stories with anecdotal evidence of their health care plight. Among the most poignant of these were two: a woman who pays over $100 for her medicine in the U.S. but pays only $.05 for it in Cuba and a couple who, after working years in separate careers, must sell their house and move in with a daughter. They now live in a room in the basement with the daughter, three children, and a husband soon to be deployed to Iraq living upstairs.

In regard to my husband's and my own budget for health care, we also fall into the group of people in the U.S. who are fully covered by health insurance but, nevertheless, are drowning in our retirement in health care costs per month. We pay out of pocket a minimum of $800 for Medicare coverage, supplemental insurance to cover deductibles, coverage for prescription medicine, my health care portion from my previous employer, dental insurance, cancer insurance, co-pays for doctors and medicine, and long term health care insurance. This figure amounts to around 30% of our monthly income.

The stats for America today says that an average man lives to be around 75 and a woman to 79.
I am not sure we can afford to live that long.

"We did what we needed to do."

I have been thinking about marriage today for two reasons: first, it is my husband's and my 42nd anniversary; and second, we saw the movie Evening on Friday afternoon of last week. I believe the reasons for marriage have changed significantly from the 1950's and 1960's until now.

The movie we saw featured an all-star cast including Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. We watched as the dying protagonist goes back in her thoughts to the time of her youth. Her best friend marries a man she does not love, yet she goes on to have three children and a good life with him. She herself also does not marry the man she has a brief affair with due to her desire to have a career and also the guilt she feels when her best friend's brother is killed. She, likewise, lives her life out with two husbands and two daughters and a mediocre singing career. When the best friend returns to say goodbye to her dying friend, she comforts her by saying, "We did what we needed to do." In other words, women during this time period (and mine) often did what society expected: get married, have children, and take care of husband and home.

I have to admit that when I married at age 20 I was also one of these women. My grandmother, whom I lived with for five years while I was in high school, gave me this advice upon my wedding, "Keep a clean house for your husband." At that time, I had no thought of having a career in teaching; I did want a degree but only "to fall back on" in case some catastrophic event happened to my husband. In the mid-sixties, however, our society was about to burst upon cultural changes that no one could have predicted: the influence of opponents of the Viet Nam War, the changing role of women into a new role as feminists, the advent of the hippie movement, and the marches for civil rights in the South. Indeed, just three years after our marriage, my husband and I were caught up and influenced by these cultural movements. No longer would we as women announce, "We did what we needed to do," but instead, "We did what we wanted to do."

I guess as we age we do think more about the choices we made while young. Sociologists frequently ask couples a favorite question, "If you had to do it again, would you marry your spouse again?" For me, it has been a good decision and a good life.

Bollywood in Little Rock

My new friend Meera invited me to attend my first Bollywood movie this week. The film arrived Monday night from India and was screened to an audience of around one hundred I am guessing. I have heard of these movies and seen clips of them in the past, but this was my first experience at viewing an entire film. Since it blended the genres of comedy, martial arts, musicals, and drama (especially focusing in on social issues in India), I wanted to analyze its appeal to the audience. It is not hard to understand why it is popular.

The film Sivaji featured a somewhat aging lead actor paired with a comedic partner and a young, beautiful actress as a love interest. A "formula" film, it showed Sivaji in elaborate musical production numbers with many dancers and singers. In addition, the martial arts sequences were just as elaborate and choreographed, especially the one that took place in a music shop when drums were bonging and cymbals were clanging. The comedy was physical, showing Sivaji dancing wildly around the bathroom after eating a plate of hot peppers and later scratching himself unmercifully after applying various remedies to supposedly lighten his skin. The drama was also affecting as Sivaji rolled down his luxury car window to hand money over to a young woman and her child begging on the streets of India.

Even though the film was not sub-titled in English, I could follow the plot without difficulty. Why does such a film appeal to the wildly cheering audience? I believe it is because Sivaji represents the dreams of all of us. Who has not longed to leave the life of a bus conductor, for example, to become a movie star and producer like Sivaji? Who has not yearned to be rich and to marry the most desirable spouse in the world? Who has not wanted to be seen as the life of the party with a fantastic sense of humor? Who has not wanted to look out into the world and help those who struggle to obtain basic services such as health care? Who has not longed to be a hero, who with his strength and vigor, is able to defeat a bevy of opponents?

Like our American films of Rambo or Rocky, we long to escape for a couple of hours from our own world of reality to imagine we are far more than we ever will become. It is for this reason I believe that these films will continue to attract large audiences in both India and America.

The Sopranos' Swan Song

I have only been a fan of "The Sopranos" since its January inception on the A & E television network. Not one to be an avid viewer of any series, I have surprised myself with my addiction to the show. I figure that, in June, we are about one-half way through the series since Meadow was 15 at the beginning of the show and is now 19. I could not resist, however, listening to the ending of the series with the immediate analyses on June 11.

Many theories are floating around about the meaning of the blackout scene as Tony and his family sit in the diner. These include the idea that for Tony and crew life simply goes on. Others, however, insist upon moderating the conclusion to have Tony wake up after a long nightmare to express to his wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, his astonishment at dreaming he was a mobster. My favorite, and the one I agree with, is that Tony was killed in the final scene by an unknown assassin; "After all, the best of us never see it coming," one critic said. This conclusion is the most logical, rather than a scenario where he and his family live happily ever after in a witness protection program. After all, Tony is a killer, and sometimes justice can take place on earth. Critics have often commented on the Shakespearean allusions in the series, and I would like to add another comparison to that of King Lear. I believe Tony represents the same type of royalty, albeit Mobster royalty, that Lear does.

Shakespeare begins his famous tragedy with a scene that shows Lear at one of his most prideful moments. He is demanding loyalty and expressions of love from his three daughters. They give him their fealty generally, but one does not utter the words Lear expects. As a result, two daughters are given his kingdom early, and one daughter is disowned. The climax of the play follows the traditional five act structure, and in the middle of the play we see Lear, along with his clown, raving to the heavens about his daughters' mistreatment of him. It is at this point when the audience realizes with horror that Lear has lost his sanity. By the time the play ends, he has ironically realized that the only daughter who loved him was the one he disowned. She and he both die at the play's conclusion.

Likewise, Tony when the series begins is building up his power in the state of New Jersey. The previous mobster Jackie is dying of cancer, and his own uncle, Junior, is becoming weak and irrelevant. Tony demands absolute fealty from his captains and frequently tests their loyalty by having them "wack" the enemies or traitors. One by one as the series goes on, the knights around Tony die. By the series' end, he has an uncle who is so senile that he doesn't remember his days as king of New Jersey; Junior simply replies, "That's nice" when Tony reminds him of his previous power.

For the final scene in the diner, the door opens, and Tony looks up only to have the television screen go blank. Many questions remain, and many have argued writer David Chase has simply left the series open in order to screen a big film later. I tend, however, to agree with Carmela earlier in the series when she says, "Everything's going to end, Tony." I believe it has for this character though we hope for Tony that his daughter Meadow lives (after all she is parking the car and has not entered the diner yet) to become the professional she dreams of being and can somehow make up for all the evil Tony has committed.

Wouldn't It Be Nice . . .

National Public Radio last week featured a story on the need for recognition that young generation X'ers must have in the workplace. Sociologists tell us that this need has resulted from their parents' constant reinforcement of their children--telling them how special they are, suggesting that all team players receive a trophy regardless of skill, and making sure they know they are the best and brightest children of all times. Psychologically, I think part of this focus is a result of our own generation of war babies or baby boomers not getting this recognition themselves. I know I did not.

My son recently told me in a phone conversation that he was given a plaque at work for recognition of his contribution to the company. Our daughter, who recently left her job at Microsoft after several years, also received frequent recognition and bonus money for her work ethic and projects completed. For myself, however, after working for over forty years in the fields of clerical work and teaching, I do not have a visible reminder of any contribution I made. After finally cleaning out our garage since our move to our retirement home a year ago, I found no evidences of plaques or trophies for me. Our generation, it seems, was just expected to come to work, be loyal to the company (or school in my case), and do our jobs competently. Otherwise, we were let go. The idea of a monthly or even yearly recognition was non-existent.

As I reflect upon the two positions, I believe I would have benefited by the old proverbial pat on the back. I think it says to an employee, "We value the work you are doing for us year after year." Would it have been nice for my generation? I have to reply "yes."