Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

Years ago, my dear friend Jeanetta gave me a black canvas messenger bag that I absolutely love. It has lots of pockets and compartments and goes with everything, so it accompanied me on many business trips when I had to travel for work. As soon as my mother helped coax me back into music at my home church, the messenger bag quickly became my music bag. I've carried it to and from church and choir practice for at least a decade. It has never missed a Christmas program or Good Friday Communion or Harvest Day (homecoming). And it has transported everything from Gaither standards to John Rutter's beautiful Requiem to wonderful old Sacred Harp songs, with their amazing harmony and powerful lyrics, to "Operator," which has a solo part that my Aunt Boots totally rocks. (Remember when the Manhattan Transfer sang it on the radio? Operator, information—get me Jesus on the line . . .)

The best songs I've carried in that bag are ones I couldn't wait to share with our choir, new discoveries—sometimes of very old music—that I knew they would love. It's strange, the transformation that takes place when you sing a hymn, as opposed to playing it. I tend to choose songs based on melody and harmony first, but once singers come into play, and the words come to life, that music really takes off—almost like it's separate from the singers and musicians. But of course, that's not true. They're its channels. When everything aligns the way it's supposed to, God can use music, I believe, for a kind of straight-to-the-heart communication that just doesn't happen any other way.

At some point, I noticed that some of the songs in the Baptist Hymnal are from a much older hymnal called Southern Harmony. Any song from that old book will be beautiful—words and music—you can count on it. When our choir was first getting started, we had only about seven people, and we couldn't sing anything terribly difficult. One day, as I was looking through the hymnal in search of "the choir special" for the following Sunday, I stumbled onto "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need," from—you guessed it—Southern Harmony. I thought the words and music were just incredible. So did our choir and congregation. "My Shepherd" has become a standard for us, I think because it speaks to so many of our deepest human needs—for comfort, courage, strength, consolation, communion. Several friends this week have made me think of this song. It has a permanent place of residence in the music bag:

My Shepherd will supply my need; Jehovah is His name;
In pastures fresh He makes me feed beside the living stream.
He brings my wand'ring spirit back when I forsake His ways
And leads me, for His mercy's sake, in paths of truth and grace.

The sure provisions of my God attend me all my days;
O, may Thy house be my abode, and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest while others come and go;
No more a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at home.

From "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need," lyrics by Isaac Watts,
based on Psalm 23  

[Image by Leland Davis at Freerangestock.com]

Charlie Bird, Where Are You?

Daddy and I had a little time to visit late Sunday afternoon, while Mama was off helping with Vacation Bible School. (Their theme is "The Wild West," and she has been stressing over how to create cowboy-themed refreshments. I told her it's all in the name. Kool-Aid becomes "Texas Tea,"  and hot dogs become "Bunk House Dogs." It's all about language.) Anyway, Daddy asked me why I've never written about Charlie—not Charlie the horse (may he rest in peace) but Charlie the bird. (One more digression, and then I'll focus. Daddy names everything Charlie. It is his very favorite name. When my baby cousin Dane was toddling around, Daddy would look at him and say, "Now, ain't he the cutest thing in the world? Reckon why they didn't name him Charlie?")

Back to the bird. Years and years ago, a baby bird fell out of its nest—near my parents' driveway, I think. Daddy being Daddy, he initiated rescue procedures. The bird wasn't injured—no broken wings or anything—he was just too little to fly. Until Daddy reminded me, I had forgotten that we had to wait for him to grow up a little before we realized he was a robin. I say "he" because Daddy named the bird . . . Charlie. Of course. He made Charlie a nest out of a plastic margarine bowl and put it in the window sill in the kitchen, I guess so the little bird could see out and watch the big boys fly around the yard, thus learning how to flap his wings. At first, we hand-fed him tiny pieces of bologna dipped in water. It took him a little while to catch on, but soon he would see one of us approaching his nest and pop that little beak wide open. As he grew bigger, he graduated to fishing worms (Daddy's effort to acclimate him to his natural diet.)

We would cup Charlie in our hands and pet him and help him out of his butter-bowl nest so he could hop around on the kitchen table. Then one Sunday, we came home from church and he was on top of my old upright piano. Mama, Daddy, and I all said it at about the same time: "Charlie can fly!" Soon he was flying all over the house, so we took him outside and gave him a gentle toss up in the air, and away he went—but just for a second. Those first flights were short hops, as Charlie did a turn or two very close to us and quickly returned to the safety of his family:) But we kept it up, and his flight plans became more adventurous. With every takeoff, he flew wider and higher circles. For several weeks after Charlie moved outside, we could go out into the yard and call him, and he would fly down from wherever he was and light on the nearest shoulder. 

Eventually, though, the call of the wild called Charlie, too. He stopped coming when we called. No more flapping of wings as he sailed down from high in a pine tree to greet us. But that's how it should be.

Epilogue: My mother is a certified "bird lady." She sets a full buffet for them on her deck every single day. And when I watch them nibbling away at that bird seed, I like to think they're Charlie's friends and family. I like to imagine him telling them, "It's a family-owned place, and the food is great, but you better get there early to beat the crowd."

[Image by Dwight Tracy at Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

I've had cause, this week, to think about the end of life. Some of our family have been researching my Great-Aunt Effie, who died in 1919, when she was only 28. My friend Robin pointed out how interesting it is that a life so short, lived so long ago, still affects us today. My paternal grandmother, who lived into her nineties, used to say that life is very short, even if you live a really long time. The older I get, the truer that gets. Life is so precious. For all its calamaties, this earth is so beautiful and wonderful that I can't fathom leaving it, and it breaks my heart when someone I love has to go, sometimes far too soon. (When you love somebody, it can be "far too soon" even if they're in their nineties, like Granny.) But that's only because this is all I know. I can't imagine anything more wonderful because I haven't seen it. Yet.

I just finished the Gospel of Mark, and I never noticed this before, but the answers to some of our own tough questions got recorded, thanks to religious leaders who were trying to prove Jesus wasn't the Son of God. They were hurling what they thought were unanswerable questions at him, but he answered them all—and, in the process, answers us. According to the law of Moses, if a man dies with no children, his brother must marry the widow and produce children so that the widow will be cared for and the family line will continue. The Sadducees had put together a riddle of sorts, about a woman who marries a man with seven brothers. Her husband dies before she has children. One by one, each brother marries the widow and dies, but she never has children with any of them, and she eventually dies herself. The question for Jesus was, "At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"

Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage;
they will be like the angels in heaven.

Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?
He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
You are badly mistaken!" Mark 12:24-27

When I'm confronted with a life cut short, like Aunt Effie's, when I catch myself thinking "it's just not fair that they don't get to live any longer—or that all of us have to die," I'm going to try and hold onto what Jesus said: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.You are badly mistaken!

More on Aunt Effie

Once Mama and I got our cousin Jimmy on the trail of Aunt Effie, it was only a matter of time before more information started coming in:) Jimmy is intrigued with genealogy and has done some amazing work in tracing the Wyatts—Grandme and Aunt Effie's family. (His father was their baby brother.) He sent me this picture of Aunt Effie with Beverly Lee, whom we have heard was her beau. Jimmy also contacted the Shelby County Historical Society and found several documents about Aunt Effie, including an announcement about her position at Chelsea High School, published in the Shelby County Sun on October 3, 1912:

The Historical Society even had Aunt Effie's obituary, which appeared in a paper called The People's Advocate on June 26, 1919. I think the paper might've gotten a couple of facts wrong—we're reasonably certain she was only in New Mexico during her illness, not Texas or Mexico—but we won't fault them too much for that:

And just one final bit of information that will probably be of interest only to my cousins. Jimmy identified all the young ladies in the group portrait I posted earlier:

Far left: Alvie Garrett Thompson (married John Thompson).

Next to "Miss Alvie," in the blue dress with red scarf: Ora Nixon, daughter of Clark and Nanncy Nixon. Aunt Nanncy was Big Daddy Wyatt's half-sister.

Standing, in yellow, Aunt Effie.

To the right of Aunt Effie, in green dress: Evie Garrett Sumners (married Ernest Sumners).

Far right, in blue dress with sash: Icie Wyatt McCranie, "Grandme."

 

Little girl kneeling in center: Lou Garrett Perry (married Arlon Perry), daughter of Wiley Garrett and Sally (Sarah) Wyatt. Aunt Sally was Big Daddy's sister. 

[Hand-tinting in portrait by Tina Evans Cornett]  

Many thanks to Jimmy. Here's one of my favorite pictures of him with my mother. (They were big buddies when they were kids—still are.) Left to right, that's Jimmy, Uncle Bud, Mama, and Uncle Chick.

 

Daddy Says: "Don't Give 'Em Any Money"

On Father's Day, Daddy had this bit of wisdom for parents of grown children:

If you want your kids to spend more time with you,
don't give 'em any money till you're ready
for 'em to go home.

Sunday Morning Serenity

My fondest memories with Daddy usually involve outrageous behavior on his part—and a wonderful disregard for "the rules." It was probably against the rules to wade in the big fountain at Eastwood Mall when I was a little girl, but Daddy was keeping me entertained while Mama shopped, and my feet got tired, so he took off my shoes and socks and plopped me over in the splashy water to cool off a little. It was fabulous. When I was a little older—probably 11 or 12—I had to spend a couple of nights in Children's Hospital for some tests. Between the fear factor and an easily nauseated stomach, I couldn't eat a bite of hospital food. So Daddy went out to this swanky steak house called Gulas (which I don't think is there any more) and brought me a T-bone in a takeout box. Scha-weet! When he and Mama were building their house, he came driving up to Grandme's, hauling all the insulation—ALL the insulation—in a Pontiac sedan. He looked like Ricky Ricardo that time Lucy and Ethel packed the car for the trip to California and only left him a little bitty peep hole right in front of the steering wheel. Fast-forward to graduate school at Baylor. Daddy was bringing me something in the pickup—I can't even remember what—but he thought he needed some extra weight in the truck—you know—ballast of a down-home variety. He arrived in front of my apartment, with hay swirling out of that pickup, yelling "Jed Clampett's here! Jed Clampett's here!" This was followed with, "I knew if I embarrassed you, you'd help me unload just to get me inside." He's a study in contradictions, my "June Bug." On the one hand—steady as a rock. Absolutely reliable. Always there when you need him, without fail. On the other—total loose cannon. You just never know what he might attempt. (He is very proud of the fact that he can move objects many times his body weight, given a few ropes and pulleys and gizmos. Objects like, say, my old piano.) Sometimes I think Daddy's great life lesson to me is that anything is possible. At least, that's how he always makes me feel whenever my courage falters. Daddy is the king of "you'll never know if you don't try." I am blessed this morning with a father who not only enourages me to color outside the lines, but thinks it might be a real hoot to write on the walls:) Love you, June Bug! And very thankful for you.

'An Affectionate One Unseen'

After our family pilgrimage in search of Aunt Effie, my parents decided to go to the cemetery and visit her grave. Mother had never been able to make out what was carved in her headstone, so she took a piece of paper and a pencil and made an imprint she could read. It's such a beautiful verse:

Dear, you are not dead to us, but an affectionate one unseen.

Searching for Aunt Effie

Aunt Effie has always broken my heart just a little bit. She was actually my great-aunt, Grandme's sister. My mother is her namesake (Effie Nannette). This portrait came from a black-and-white that I borrowed from Mama many years ago. I asked a wonderful photographer friend, Tina Cornett, to copy and hand-tint it for me. That's Aunt Effie standing in back, in the yellow dress. Grandme is on the far right, wearing a dress with a wide blue sash. I'm pretty sure the other girls in the portrait are childhood friends, including Mrs. Alvie Thompson on the far left. The photographer probably posed them this way, but I think it's interesting that three of these ladies are looking at my grandmother, who seems to be lost in her own thoughts, while Aunt Effie is looking down from above, like an angel watching over them.

She was in her late twenties when she died of tuberculosis. Many years later, when Grandme was in her 90s, my mother asked her if she would change anything about her life if she could. And she said, "I wish I'd been more like Effie." That surprised us because Grandme never talked about her sister very much. Mostly, she talked about farming and her beloved hero and father, "Big Daddy." So we've never known much about Aunt Effie except that family members who knew her always described her as being very kind and feminine (Grandme was a tomboy:) and a devout Christian. She attended the University of Alabama and taught school in Chelsea, Alabama, but her teaching career was cut short fairly early because of her illness. Her doctor recommended that she go to New Mexico, where the dry air might help her recover. Big Daddy took her by train to the National Sanatorium in Alamagorda and stayed out there with her. He took a job with the border patrol just to have something to do and turned his farm over to his sons while he was away. At some point, Aunt Effie was apparently moved to a Methodist sanatorium in Albuquerque, judging from the addresses on family postcards that Mama found and saved when I was just a child.

The postcards inspired a trip that I took yesterday with Mama, Aunt Grace, and Aunt Patsy. We had learned about the University of Alabama's W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, which has Corolla yearbooks dating back to the 1800s. Some of Aunt Effie's postcards had pictures of buildings on campus and a postmark of 1913 or 1914—like this one to my grandmother, postmarked July 1913:

Dear Icie,

This leaves me fine. I got me some very low heel pumps and my feet haven't given me any trouble. Was glad you liked your dress. We are to have an entertainment the 4th, and I'm to wear tan and blue. So I got me a cute little tan trimmed in blue ($3). I think it very cute. I'm having a nice time. We had a rain here last night. If I could see you I could tell you lots of funny things. Love Mama for me. Tell Papa hello and all the others. I'll write a letter when I can.

Effie

At the Hoole Library, we found a wonderful (and wonderfully patient) archival access coordinator named Donnelly, who refused to give up as we went through yearbook after yearbook with no success. Finally, Aunt Patsy started going through a course catalog Donnelly had given us. When Aunt Patsy found something about "Summer School for Teachers," we remembered that all of Aunt Effie's postcards from UA had summertime postmarks. A little more searching took us to a listing of students for the 1913 summer session, and there she was: Effie J. Wyatt. So we think she probably didn't get a four-year degree but instead went through a couple of summer sessions to get her teaching certificate. We couldn't find her in the 1914 listing, but her postcards indicate that she was in school that year, so . . . another mystery to sort out.

What strikes me so much now, looking at the correspondence between Aunt Effie and her family, is how close they must've been. There's so much affection and "wish I could see you" in those postcards to and from Alabama. It seemed understandable to me, thinking she was away for a long time. But the summer session only lasted six weeks. Apparently, even that was a bittersweet separation, as Aunt Effie seemed to be enjoying school and yet missed her parents, brothers, and younger sister.

That longing for family gets almost too hard to read, once she becomes ill and the letters from home are addressed to "Nat San, N. Mex," rather than the University of Alabama. This one from Grandaddy McCranie, Aunt Effie's brother-in-law, is my favorite—but also one of the most heartbreaking:

My Dear Effie,

How's the girl today? Hope you are feeling fine and dandy. I am all OK enjoying life and having a good time always. Sure wish I could see you. Seems you've been away an age. You take good care of yourself so you can come back. Write me when you feel like it.

Love,

Guy

Say you sure have a sweet sister.  

When it became clear that Aunt Effie couldn't recover, Big Daddy brought her home from New Mexico. She died in June 1919. But she is not forgotten.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Humans have been human for a long, long time. For ages, we've struggled to overcome our own selfish impulses and heed the divine call. Right now, I'm reading the Gospel of Mark, who wasn't one of the 12 disciples but who traveled with Paul on his first missionary journey. Even though this is the shortest of the Gospels, written in a rapid-fire style that moves quickly through the events of Jesus' ministry, it still includes repeated instances of humankind—including the disciples themselves—just not getting it. For example, James and John, the sons of Zebadee, ask Jesus if they can sit on His right and left in His glory. "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" (Mark10:35-38). You don't know what you are asking. I have to wonder how many prayers I have prayed that brought that same response from God. You don't know what you are asking.  In Chapter 9, Mark records how a father brings his demon-possessed son to Jesus for healing. The man tells Jesus that he had first taken the boy to the disciples, but they were unable to heal him: "O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?" (Mark 9:19). They bring the boy to Jesus, and the father says, "But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." And Jesus replies, "'If you can'? Everything is possible for him who believes." (Mark 9:22-23). Oh. My. Goodness. Someone actually said to Christ, "Help me if you can"? Who on earth would do that— approach God with such a shaky faith riddled with doubt? Who would ever say to God Almighty "if you can"? Who would . . . wait a minute. I think I might've done that a time or two. In fact, I know I have. To be clear, there's a big difference between saying to God "if it be Your will," versus "if You can." The first is an expression of submission, the second of doubt. So what's the cure for doubt? Keep reading Mark: "Immediately, the boy's father exclaimed, 'I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" After Jesus drives out the boy's demon, His disciples ask him why they were unable to do it. And Jesus replies, "This kind can come out only by prayer" (Mark 9:29). I think I might have a few "demons" of that stripe myself—the kind of doubt and fear that can "come out only by prayer." And so I'll go to church this morning with the words of an old song running through my head: It's me, it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer!

Sunday Morning Serenity

Inertia is the enemy. If I were remotely crafty, I would cross-stitch that on a sampler and prominently display it in our home. There's a difference between stillness—taking a moment to be quiet and calm, to listen and be aware—and inertia—which, on a personal level, is the inability or unwillingness to move in any direction—backward or forward. If I think about it, I can attribute most of the unhappiest periods in my life to inertia, to a sense of feeling "just plain stuck." Kristin Armstrong talks about that in her wonderful book Work in Progress: An Unfinished Woman's Guide to Grace. She attributes inertia to fear, and she's right. Most of the time, when we can't get ourselves moving, it's because we're afraid—afraid of making the wrong choice, afraid of looking foolish, afraid of failure, afraid of rejection, afraid, afraid, afraid.

Dave and I have been in a rut lately. Once work started coming in, which we both needed, we were suddenly working all the time. I'd go to the Story Shack, he'd go to his shop or the tennis court, we'd convene for lunch and supper, then get up the next morning and do the same thing all over again. We couldn't remember the last time we had friends over, which we had hoped to do this weekend, but by Thursday I was still covered in work and couldn't imagine getting the house clean in time, so I bailed on that idea. But I told Dave I thought I could at least take time for a day trip, which he's been wanting to do for a long time. So we set out yesterday morning in his 53 Chevy, with a couple of Diet Cokes and a road map on board. My one request was that we go someplace neither of us had been before. We rambled down to Lake Martin, took a two-lane highway out of Dadeville, and ended up in Tuskegee.

An old Southern Living habit prompted me to get on my smart phone and look for off-the-beaten-path local restaurants. We ended up in a tiny little soul food place called The Coop—a chicken joint. The whole dining area was about the size of my living room (which isn't very big at all), with communal seating. Fourteen dollars bought us collard greens, yams to die for, black-eyed peas, creamed corn, and enough chicken wings to put us to roost. While we were there, an African American family came in—they were in town, no doubt, to tour the university, as their group included adults of two generations and one teenager with that I-can't-believe-I'm-traveling-with-my-parents look. One of the men in the family had spotted the Chevy outside—an instant conversation starter. We ended up visiting over lunch and wishing each other safe travels. Just an ordinary day. But not really. That visit would've been impossible in Alabama—or at least unlikely—40 or 50 years ago—in my own lifetime. Now it's not even a big deal.

The world can change for the better, but it takes movement—and the belief that change is actually possible. WE can change for the better, but it takes movement—and faith enough to believe that, even though we can't see our final destination off in the distance, we can begin the journey, knowing that we're in God's hands, and everything will be okay somehow.

Dave and I would've missed out on something pretty special if we had stayed home and stuck to our typical routine yesterday. And I'll admit, we were a few miles down the road before I forgot about checking email. But that one little change, just a one-day break, made us remember what it's like to enjoy each other's company, not just collaborate to pay the mortgage. And I hope, the next time I'm juggling deadlines and an overloaded Inbbox, I have sense enough to remember who and what I'm working for. 

[Image by Lindsay Niles @ Freerangestock.com]