Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

There’s an image in my mind that will never go away.

A few months after Hurricane Katrina, I was riding through Biloxi, Mississippi, with a friend and Southern Living photographer, both of us stunned into silence. I had never seen anything like it. Recent footage of Laura’s damage brought those scenes back to me in unsettling detail.

Back then, we all watched daily images of New Orleans and the floods and the horrific loss of life, but for reasons I’ll never understand, the TV cameras rarely aimed at the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which got obliterated. Because of that, I had a hard time making anybody believe me when I tried to describe the totality of the damage.

Katrina’s storm surge, when it hit Mississippi, was 28 feet high. The whole beachfront—30-plus miles of it—was just erased. It was hard to know which town you were in because the only visible landmark left standing was the Biloxi lighthouse. The few buildings that remained had been blown out by the wind and the water.

And as we slowly drove through all of that, I remember looking out my window and seeing a woman with a dazed expression, standing in what used to be her yard I guess, with huge fallen trees all around her, the house badly damaged. It’s strange but I can’t remember whether she was holding a rake or a broom. I just remember watching her absently move it back and forth, this handheld tool that was no match for the enormity of the destruction all around.

It warms my heart to see friends in Mississippi posting words of encouragement to hurricane survivors in Louisiana and Texas because they’re living proof that there’s an “other side” waiting, once the storm passes over.

Maybe we all need to be reminded of that, given what I often see on Facebook: smiling faces with sad eyes, or at least, very tired ones. Right now, most of us probably have days when we feel like we’re trying to sweep up a hurricane with a broom. We’re way out of our depth and we know it. And I think we have to give the storm that is 2020 its due. Accept that we can’t repair the damage overnight but that eventually, everything will be renewed. There’s an “other side” waiting—we just have to give ourselves time to get there. And we aren’t traveling alone.

Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything by prayer and supplication,
with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 4:6-7

Sunday Morning Serenity

This morning I was looking for a Scripture passage I could only partially remember, so I went to BibleGateway and typed in “gathered together.” There were 148 results.

There’s an awful lot of gathering together in the Bible, which explains why we miss it so much when we can’t do it. Gathering together is not just an important way we communicate with each other—it’s an important way we communicate with God.

Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20

We’re hoping to return to church soon, but we’re still erring on the side of caution. And while I’m spending Sundays at home, I’m thinking back on a million moments of churchgoing, missing even the things that used to aggravate me. I thought my memories might spark some of yours:

That time we held a two-hour business meeting to discuss how to change the bulletin, eventually voting to leave it as is.

A church cleaning day when my cousin Kathy and I decided to dump Tide into the baptistry and give it a good scrubbing, but then we couldn’t get the suds out. For months, we held our breath in fear of bubbles at every baptism.

The way my Aunt Rosalie used to corner us at the entrance to the fellowship hall to make sure we knew where her apple dessert was. Also, her mischievous sense of humor and the way she and my cousin Richard used to tease each other.

Vacation Bible School cookies and Kool-Aid.

The “lis-ten, sit, down” and “lis-ten, stand, up” chords that were always part of the Bible School music I had to learn to play every year.

The peaceful way an older gentleman in our church used to close all his prayers with “and when we reach the end of life’s journey . . .”

My Great Uncle Clyde’s practice of giving the Lord specific direction when he prayed for the sick: “We ask that you bless Sister Green, room 304 Brookwood Medical Center . . .”

My maternal grandmother’s justification for sketchy church attendance: “I am not a Baptist. I’m a member of the Christian Church.” Also the way she would rummage through her purse all during the sermon, which would send my Aunt Joyce absolutely into orbit.

Kids in homemade angel costumes at Christmas.

Christmas cantata music all marked up: Hold 4 counts. Sally sings here. Don’t rush this part . . .

Responsive reading. (Boldface, lightface, boldface, lightface)

Seventies youth choir. (“I Wish We’d All Been Ready,” “Pass It On,” “Part the Waters”)

Ice cream suppers.

Right hand of Christian fellowship.

“Blest Be the Tie”

Sunday Morning Serenity

My mother’s favorite hymn is “Blessed Assurance.” Probably a close second is “For the Beauty of the Earth.” I never connected those two before, but this morning when I was sitting on the porch of the Story Shack, having the coffee that is required to make me human in the early hours, both songs popped into my head.

Right now, there’s nothing I find more assuring than the beauty of the earth. I think it’s because I feel so removed from everything else. For my parents’ safety, as well as our own, Dave and I have been keeping our social contact to a minimum, which doesn’t often bother introverted me, but every know and then I get this overwhelming sense of disconnection.

That’s when I go outside. And it gives me assurance. The earth was so beautifully and divinely engineered that it has survived everything we’ve put it through, though not without serious and lasting damage. It has rebounded in our confinement.

Years ago, my friend Art and I were on Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River for Southern Living, guided by a Cajun fisherman. As we glided past centuries-old cypress trees, he said something I’ve never forgotten. He said white men once accused Native Americans of being uncivilized, but native tribes lived on this earth for hundreds of years without leaving a footprint, so now who’s uncivilized? (He put it a little more bluntly than that.)

We so often judge other people in relation to ourselves, when we should see them—and ourselves—as part of something far bigger.

My parents get that. They sit on their back porch and talk about the critters that come and go as if they know them personally. Because they do. There’s “that lizard with the stubby tail” and “that hummingbird that won’t share the feeder” and even “that wasp that stays on the railing all the time.” They share their back-porch world with the lizard and the hummingbird and the wasp, maybe because they know who was there first.

Me? I’m looking out the door of the Shack, watching for that big brown rabbit who has been turning up lately and hoping he feels welcome in the overgrown shrubbery at the edge of our yard.

Another Mama favorite that’s speaking to me this morning:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,
from whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth.
He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:
he that keepeth thee will not slumber.
Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is thy keeper:
the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
he shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in
from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalm 121

Sunday Morning Serenity

Yesterday I went to the mailbox expecting the usual ads and bills but instead pulled out a card from a dear old friend who took the time to write the sweetest message. In a nutshell, what she said was, “Sometimes I think you need reminding that you matter.”

My. Goodness. When is the last time I took the time to do something like that? I made an immediate commitment to mail at least three cards this week "and this time I mean it" because it was so uplifting. And so unexpected. And given my general state of self-absorption these days, undeserved. But I’m so thankful for it. And for her. And for all the friends I can’t hug right now.

We might think the people we love don’t need to hear that simple message, but they do: You matter.

That sweet card moved into “God is trying to tell you something” territory when I opened Biblegateway.com this morning and read the verse of the day:

Are not five sparrows
sold for two farthings,
and not one of them is forgotten before God?
But even the very hairs of your head
are all numbered.
Fear not therefore:
ye are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-7

So much in The Big Bad World devalues human beings—from violence to mean Facebook comments. We daily devalue each other, and that’s not how we're meant to be. If God values each of us—not just humanity in general but each one of us in particular—then we should value each other.

And if there’s a silver lining to all the social distancing and quarantining, I hope it’s that it teaches us to value each other—to treasure the simple joy of a hug or a handshake or a backyard burger shared with friends and family.

My prayer, this Sunday morning, is that distance makes us value togetherness and celebrate the gift of community.

[Image by Aleksandar Momirovic @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

I guess this year has made all of us a little philosophical. We've definitely had more time to think. This morning, I've been thinking about my job and what a big part of my life it has been. Southern Living has been a life-long enrollment in continuing education, and I'm not just talking about all the talented people who took the time to mentor me over the years. Every story—the story itself—was an education, but a few will always stand out—one in particular that I've written about before but it's on my mind this morning.

When I met Pastor Shirley Caesar, she was wearing jeans and a blue sweater, her hair pulled back with a headband. She looked about 20 years younger than she actually was. (And no way was she going to allow photographs of her in blue jeans and a headband.) There was some confusion about her schedule. She wasn't sure why I was there with a photographer. (Art Meripol, was that you? I'm picturing you there for some reason, but it has been so long ago I can't remember.) It was lunchtime, and she hadn't eaten. She was busy. Why was I there again? She said she could give us 30 minutes at best. A couple of hours later—after a long lunch during which she told me all about her childhood beginnings in gospel music, all the famous soul singers she got to know when they were getting their start in gospel, and the evolution of gospel over her decades as a singer and minister—we came back to her house and sat down together at her white grand piano. She showed me some chords I had never seen. I couldn't believe I was sitting at the piano with Shirley Caesar, whose music I had known since I was a kid. 

She told me about all the things she had to do that day and it made me tired just listening to her. I asked her how she kept up that pace. Didn't she ever want time just for herself? And that's when she said: "We aren't put here to do what we want to do; we're put here to do what needs to be done." Then she changed into her glitzy stage clothes, hair, and makeup so we could get our pictures, and we went on our way. Shortly thereafter, I returned to the piano bench at my home church—something I thought I would never do.

It's strange when you think about it—how someone I met only once could lead me, with just a few words, back to the service I was called to. As much as anything I've ever experienced, that afternoon demonstrated, for me, that God really does put us in each other's paths. I had jumped at the chance to interview Pastor Caesar because I wanted to hear about her music. But in the process, she reconnected me with mine.

Another sign of our strange times—being physically separated just heightens our awareness of how spiritually and emotionally connected we are. 

I'm thankful, this morning, for the ties that bind.