One of my friends told me she may start coming to St. A's because of the article about three Magdalene women in Sunday's newspaper. I've read several well-written essays about the ministry and the women, and Becca of course, but this one really drives home what kind of love it takes to do this heartbreaking, ever-struggling, absolutely crucial and Christ-like work. God's blessings on all women who hold up the hands of other women and who cannot give up.

When Becca reads the Gospel passage, she comes halfway down the aisle and, as she reads, she looks upward into the eyes of various people. I know it is true because you can see her adjust to look into the eyes of a child. I have no idea if it is planned or spontaneous, but last Sunday, as she read, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness," she looked into my eyes.

Annie, I know you like to hear, so I'll tell you as much as I can remember of the homily, which focused on the above phrase. She asked us what it meant to us to see two advent candles lit. Answers ranged from pious interpretation to her own counting of shopping days. She spoke of the cacaphony of voices that the image raised for her in this season. Then, she told us about a dream she had last week, of a woman dancing alone in a tavern. As she came closer, the woman asked her, "Who was it that kicked you out of heaven when you were a little kid?" (Likely this gives you chills, just as it did me. Well, tears in my eyes that increased, as you shall see.)

In her dream, she protested that she hadn't been kicked out. But she spoke of our spending entire lifetimes trying to get back in, and of cryng without ceasing for every pain we have ever felt or caused. To her, this dream was a calling voice in a season of dreams. The next day, a man came to talk with her. He told her that he loved God and his neighbor as himself but he was still desperate for something else. She told him that the wilderness is a place of blessing and revelation, to be honored, but that he was right to want more--to want the voice of God for his life in a way he could not deny. He needed to find, to be shown, the place in and for himself that answered his cry, in his human life, now. Later, she took a walk in the woods and heard the wounded-sounding cry of a red-shouldered hawk. She was unable to locate it, just the piercing cry out of nowhere.

She compared it to the crying of John the Baptist, who was not mad to live as he did, but who was a man who had woken up. He cried in an unmistakable voice, "Do not sleep through this season of your life." He cried this to anyone who would listen even for a moment. At a time when his country was occupied and on the brink of war, institutional religion and politics corrupt, he must have known the result would be his head on a platter. But he, like the man in her office, like the woman/girl in her dream, reached a moment in which the stone was rolled back from his heart-- and he knew that we are flesh! In the wilderness, he gave us voice.

Becca says to pray that we hear that voice, our voice, in the places we thought were numb, faithless, beyond the communion of God. She prays that we set our hearts free, whenever, wherever, if only for a moment. This is the God who offers comfort to his people and asks that we comfort ourselves, who helps us believe that the valleys will be made into high hills, or the hills made low where they need to be, in our journey of making our way back to ourselves, back to heaven.

I know enough about Becca's life and her ministries to understand how completely this is her sermon. But I have no idea how she knew it was mine.


posted by Sandy at 7:09 PM

People are beyond marvelous; who wouldn't want to try to write about them? Christmas brings out the color of Southerners: for one thing, it's louder. It may be like cell phones--something about that little rectangle to the ear makes some people think they're in a bubble, I guess. You know what I mean. You're waiting in line at Walgreen's and out of nowhere there's a voice behind you saying: "And then Jennifer was like, "you are just a little 'ho' and I was like 'no, no really; the alley was like totally dark'"......

I think with all the bustle of Christmas, people say more out loud of what they're thinking, and they turn up the volume. I love to wander almost anywhere this time of year and listen to people. On the way to the Parthenon entrance the other day, I met a small group of women, one of whom was looking over her shoulders at the others and practically shouting : "Sarah Cannon. Sarah! Cannon! Yes, you do know. You know!" They were halfway across the parking lot when I and half of West End Avenue heard the "How-dee!"

(Oh, Annie, by the way, you know how the cities across the country are having artistic/playful statuary all over town depicting one animal as a symbol of the city, like the cows in Chicago? Naples had alligators, and Lakeland had swans. I had just been wondering what Nashville would adopt, or if we'd just give up and use guitars. But outside the Parthenon, I saw a sign and small model of a red-lacqured catfish. It's a reaching a bit, all the way to my West TN stomping grounds, but I can't think of anything better.)

Overheard in one quick visit to a drug store yesterday:
a. Two men in uniform unloading a huge crate of pre-wrapped boxes of chocolate-covered cherries, just in front of check-out: One of them bellowed, "Buster said to me, 'Why don't you smile more?' Hell, just because I don't smile don't mean I ain't happy. I said when I'm working, I'm just concentrating on my work. Yeah, I'm concentrating. What's smilin' got to do with anything? Hell!"

b. One woman to another, strangers, at herbal remedies: "Honey, now, that black cohosh stuff won't be worth the money you'll pay for it. You'll wake up soaking the sheets every night. Listen, now, you go back there and get that girl, that pharmacist, to call your doctor up and put you right back on that Premarin. Can't believe everything you read in the paper. Breast Cancer. Pffff. At our age, we don't need 'em anyway."

c. 70+ woman, expensively dressed, checking out: "Looks like she's got some of it too. Let me see. In your basket. She's got it too. Old-fashioned hard candy. Well, if your wife got it at Cracker Barrel, I can tell you right now, she paid five times what she should. You go home and you tell her she's got no business buying it a place like that. She ought to know that. You people probably didn't get a thing for Santa Claus except hard candy in the old days, did you? It brings me back to my childhood too.
No, she just told you that. They don't ever throw in anything from the gift shop with the meals. Now you get that candy here; use your employee discount. What do they give you, by the way? Did you get my points down? Well, now, I want to wish you and your wife a blessed Christmas."

d. Another clerk, fortyish, female, freckled, to the same gentlemanly black clerk whose wife spends recklessly at Cracker Barrel: "What you think of my Christmas music? It's the best bluegrass carols album they ever made. Flatt and Scruggs? They make Christmas music? But, hey, I got Allison Krauss! Out in the truck! You wanna hear it?"

Happy Holidays!
posted by Sandy at 8:30 AM

Two parables about aging:

I went to Claire's the other day and bought some little Christmas-y hair clips, glittering red and green with candy canes and reindeer dangling. I wore them to church this morning. Afterward, I gave a check to a woman for tickets to Aida in February. She said, I like those things in your hair. I told her they were my version of wearing purple. She said, Hey, if you can do it. I said, It's more that I want to do it, and I'm old enough now.

Then I traipsed off to Bellevue Mall and watched the children playing and riding the traiin, and Ibought some Creme Brulee flavored coffee to bring home and mix with regular since I can't stand it too flavored, and walked everywhere. Then, it was 2:30 or so, and I thought I'd have lunch. Felt a little strange to be eating so close to where the man was murdered recently but I put that out of my mind. Now, here's the punch line first. I threw my lunch away. It's not just my mama's voice in my mind that makes me not want to throw away good food, but I did. I had told the guy to heat the pizza slice well, so he heated it until it was past cardboard and well into pressed-board. And I told the other guy Diet Pepsi, but he gave me Pepsi. And the man behind me in the line, who looked like Jeff Fisher but with hair dyed blacker, who had already made two overtures with no response, forced his teenaged son to sit with his back to a table full of cuties so that he could face me and leer while I struggled with that pizza (which, after all, was cold on top). So I just stood up and walked to the bin. A nice guy held the flap open for me, and I dumped it all and walked away. It felt good, and I wasn't one bit hungry.

The End


posted by Sandy at 5:28 PM