Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

I’ve been struggling. Can I say that out loud? I think so. We’re among friends:) I took five years to write my first book . . . and I’ve had a little less than a year to write the second one. The first one was for pure pleasure. I wasn’t even thinking about getting it published when I started. The second one is different—deadlines, expectations, self-doubt . . .

The biggest problem? I didn’t know what the book was about. I had characters I loved, a time and place that fascinated me, and a clear idea of what was going to happen. What I didn’t know was why. And the why is everything—in stories and in life.

Finally, it came to me—this book is about redemption and grace—and not just the soul-saving Redemption and Grace with a capital “R” and a capital “G,” but the daily kind that we receive from God and give to each other. And I want to explore the idea that the hardest person to forgive will always be ourselves.

There’s a scene I’m trying to recreate—something I once saw at a gospel music tent in the Mississippi Delta—so I’ve been listening to a lot of black gospel to capture the spirit of it. Music, for me, has always held redemptive power because it bypasses your brain and goes straight to your heart. It’s so easy to let external distractions interfere with the direct communication we were meant to have with God. For me, music clears the static and helps me feel the faith that even I can’t understand sometimes. Straight to the heart. No detours.

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Most mornings, I wake up so early that I didn’t even set an alarm for the royal wedding. Sure enough, my eyes popped open around 3 a.m., just in time to join Oprah and the Clooneys at the church and wait for Harry and Meghan to arrive.

Southern Living posts regular stories about the royals on our website and Facebook page, and we can count on complaints in the comments. Stop it with the royals, Southern Living! Nobody cares!  But here’s the thing. Thousands of people click on those stories and share them. Somebody does indeed care about the Queen and her kin. Witness the throngs of admirers who lined the streets of London yesterday, camping out for hours, maybe days, to get even a fleeting glimpse of the bride and groom—not to mention those of us “across the Pond” who were glued to our TV sets.

Why?

In Britain, I’m sure there’s an appreciation for shared history and tradition at work. And over here, there’s the novelty of it, since we have no royal family. But I think there’s something else—beauty.

We’re all drawn to it. We all long for it. We’ll stop our day for an hour to experience it. And I’m not just talking about the designer dresses and color-coordinated fascinators. I’m talking about our need to believe in the beauty and power of love, which a wonderfully fiery minister talked about during the wedding. And we want hope for the future—all those cute little members of the wedding party trying hard to behave like small adults instead of running up and down the church aisle, which is what they probably wanted to do. We want to believe things can go well, that it will turn out all right in the end.

True hope for the future, of course, doesn’t lie with page boys and flower girls. But they can remind us that it’s there. And ultimate beauty in the world doesn’t come from a bride and groom—even a royal one. But maybe they just reminded us that it’s possible.

[Image @Pinterest.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

Dave and I are living in a Little House on the Prairie situation right now. I’m sure our new neighbors are wondering if the temporary clothesline strung across the back deck is our idea of garden décor. (Our dryer conked out last week, and the repairman hasn’t come yet.) And then our kitchen sink developed a clog that’s somehow connected to our dishwasher, so it overflows all over the floor if we try to use it. We've called a plumber, but for now I’m washing dishes in a tinfoil roasting pan and dumping the water in the yard.

I thought of Mama as I took wet towels out of the washer this morning and hung them on our makeshift clothesline—something she would NEVER do on Sunday (but my ox is in the ditch, Mama—I forgot to get them out last night, and they’ll mildew if I don't hang them up!)

I had a drying rack in college, but I haven’t hung clothes on a line since I was a child. People talk about sense memory and muscle memory—that motion, once so familiar but long forgotten, of holding a cluster of clothes pins in my hand and making a little flap around the line with the top of the towels—it all came back to me this morning.

I could see the way my mother used to do it, wearing an apron with a big clothespin pocket and draping rows of bed sheets over two or three long clotheslines that ran parallel to each other. I liked parting the sheets like a stage curtain and walking between the rows, hidden away by the work my mother was doing overhead.

Somewhere along the way, Mama took to heart that thing about idle hands being the devil’s workshop. Her hands have never been idle. And I know there were many times, as a young wife and mother who also cared for her mother, when she fell into bed exhausted at night. But homemaking looked creative when she did it. Watching her garden and can and bake and sew—of course all that was hard work—but as a child, I didn’t realize it. I was too busy watching, with fascination, everything my mother knew how to do. And it’s not just her way with the domestic arts. She can also fish, swim, and handle a firearm. (The latter comes from growing up with an older brother who took her everywhere with him. We were talking one day and I said, “Do you realize you’d be a completely different person if Uncle Chick hadn’t raised you?”)

I’m sorry, Mama, that I have towels on my clothesline on Sunday. But I’m hoping to offset that violation by giving thanks for you, for all the days we’ve spent together, and for all the times I’ve wondered how on earth you learned to do everything you know how to do. Thinking of you, with much love and gratitude, this morning. Happy Mother’s Day!

P.S. I didn’t forget the Key lime pie you requested from Publix.

Sunday Morning Serenity

I spent yesterday with an amazing book club at a great little coffee shop called Heavenly Grounds. (Thank you so much, Sue and Amy, for inviting me.) That morning of coffee and conversation has me thinking about how we communicate with each other (or don’t).

Spoiler alert—this is not an original thought I’m about to share: People say things to each other online that they would never say sitting across the table in a coffee shop. And vice versa. We take care, when we’re face-to-face and eye-to-eye, in way that we don’t when we’re typing into a computer screen. Why? Because when we’re looking at each other, we immediately see the impact of our words and our tone of voice. We see the joy or pain they bring the other person. We have to deal with our own embarrassment when we realize we just said something thoughtless or stupid. We experience, in real time, the consequences of our speech. We can’t “unfriend” somebody sitting two feet away from us—not painlessly, anyway, with the click of a button.

In Luke 6:45 (NIV), Jesus says, “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Oh. My. That one stings. There’s a direct connection between what’s in my heart and what comes out of my mouth? On Highway 280 during rush hour traffic? Or when I get that umpteenth email at work, pitching me a “great story” about a new hotel in Switzerland? (What I want to type: “What part of SOUTHERN is unclear to you?” What I actually type: “I’m so sorry, but Switzerland is out of our editorial territory.” Or I just hit the delete key.)

Words matter. How we treat each other matters. Spending personal time with new friends yesterday made me realize I haven’t been doing that nearly enough with some of my old and dear ones. I haven’t called as often as I should. Or met them for coffee. Or sent them a card. I always have a good reason for not doing those things (and by “reason,” I mean “excuse”). But I need to do better. Because words matter. How we treat each other matters.

[Image by Ian L. at Freerangestock.com]