My Take On It

I have made it a practice to neither write, nor read, nor participate in the very negative vitriolic comments on the internet that relate to politics.  I make comments here, because so few people read my blog any more  (since the name had to be changed due to lack of use) that I do not think anyone I know is likely to read this.

Early on, however, after the 2016 election, when I did read some of the horrible comments posted by a particular relative, I noticed that my reaction was so strong, that I did not really want to be in contact with that relative any more!  And of course, that is not a good place for anyone to be.

Recently, I read a Facebook post by an acquaintance who has posted countless negative posts every day since the election, choosing Facebook to be her platform of political resistance.   She recently said something like this:  "I would love to be able to post pictures of cute puppies and kittens, but I believe that I have to fight, or else our democracy will be lost."

I found that an interesting position to take---that our democracy is dependent upon negative FB posts, resistance via comments on-line!  Clearly many people agree with that.   I do not.  I do not think such posts will change anyone's position on a particular issue,  but provide space and opportunity for the "different sides" to dig in and fight each other to the detriment of our national sense of community.

Some might label me a "coward" for not "resisting".  Others could say that my silence enables the downfall of our country.

But what I believe is that by not participating in Facebook political commentary, I am choosing not to be part of the chaos and disunity that our enemies wish to perpetuate.

My on-line silence is the way that I have chosen to resist.  I resist the temptation to attack my neighbors and friends, my countrymen and women.

This too is a viable choice.

Favorite Possessions

Special Project: Questions to answer--- What are your favorite possessions and why?

When I first read this question, I knew immediately what the answer would be.  I have never ever been one to be terribly attached to "things"--" material possessions."

I think the reason for my lack of attachment is the direct result of being a person who has moved countless times.   In that process,  one tends to discard those things that are not particularly treasured.

Prior to moving into this house, our retirement home,  I would say that I always felt transient.   I was transient as a child who lived in a parsonage (house provided by the church) which was not our own.   I was transient in my 20's, married to a military officer, moving frequently.   I was transient in my 30's, as a single parent, renting in a variety of places.  Then, in time, I was transient again, as a clergy who moved a number of times (into houses provided by the church).

In the middle of all those changes in status, there were serious losses.  I left a marriage and left behind possessions.  At one point, when I did live in a small house I bought (as a single mother), along came a flood and damaged beyond repair much of what I had.  Only the solid wooden items survived, which included a piano (from my childhood), and a carved wooden bar.  Most other things ended in the trash heap filled with mud.

Making many moves from place to place is hard on furnishings.  I never had any real quality items until we moved into our current house, when I furnished it with items worthy of our own home.   We did live in our own home for a period of 13 years, between my marriage to Gerry and my entering the ministry.  Those were the child rearing years, which are also hard on furnishings,---at least cheap ones.  We have gone through a whole variety of small couches over the years.  Our current configuration includes couches we bought for our retreat house, and a couch we bought for one of the parsonages we lived in.   A few years ago,  I did buy a full length couch for our current living room.

All of this is background information to get to the point of why I am not too attached to physical possessions.   Since experiencing a flood, and losing many of the photographs from my children's early years, I learned that everything else is replaceable, but not those!  Thankfully, I have accumulated quite a collection of photographs in the thirty plus years since.   So if there were one thing I had to try to save in the event of some great emergency, it would be my photographs.

In the cedar chest in the study, there are also family photographs of relatives from long ago.  I don't really know many of them personally, but I do treasure those which include my parents and grandparents.  There are also papers that include information about my family tree, which I am glad to own.

Now at this stage, in our own lovely retirement home, I love everything  about it.  I love the furniture,  the paintings, the dancing statues, the shrubbery we planted, the flowers, my coffee pot, my comfortable bed, my computer, my Ipad.

But to tell you the truth, deep inside, I still feel transient  (which of course, I am.)

Grandparent Memories

Special Project, Questions to be answered:  Do you have any particularly vivid memories of your grandparents?

Both of my mother's parents, Roy Yarbrough and Helen Jeanette Shepherd Yarbrough (known as Jessie, I believe)  had died before I have memories, so I had very few interactions with them.

I have many vivid memories of my father's parents, Ma and Pa Poole, as they were known.

They are on the far left in the family photo.  Also in the photo, all six of their children, and the assorted grandchildren.  I think this may be the only existing picture in which all the family members are present.

There were many family reunions at their house.  The first house in my memory is when they lived in the "tar paper house with a tin roof and a slanted floor".  That is a very accurate picture of their country, very poor old shambled house.

One of the daughters  (Dottie, farthest to the right)   was dating an important, sophisticated fellow, and Air Force Officer.  She could not take him to the tar paper house, so apparently some family members went together and bought a "normal house" for my grandparents to live in.   In that house, I particularly remember rousing, loud, competitive games of Rook,  which even the youngest learned how to play, a card game.

A feather tic---a mattress completely filled with feathers, so when you laid down on it, you sank down and were completely enveloped, like a big feather hug

Homemade coconut cake---Probably as long as I live, I will never again have cake like that...made with real coconut, made incredibly moist by the coconut water (presumably),  pure white layers with a delicious white frosting, covered in shredded coconut.  I have given up on searching for recipes that might replicate it.  But I hold a special place in my heart for my grandmother's coconut cake!

Grandma Poole's rope of hair--her hair was down to her waist or longer.  It was totally straight;  she twisted it into a rope.  I can still visualize her doing that.   Then she twisted the rope into a round knot at the nape of her neck in the back, holding it in place with a few bobby pins.  It looked like a coil of rope in the back.  She never had any other hair look besides that one, for her whole life.

Always old---from the time I knew them, they were already old.  I don't know how old they might have been.  Based on when they were born, and when I was born, they were probably already in their sixties as I was growing up.  They were very poor and worked very hard.  Grandpa raised vegetables and sold them.   I remember that watermelons came in the trunk load, or the truck load.

Ma Poole---She made cornbread out of cornmeal and water and fed all the stray dogs from far and wide.  They lived under the house and waited until the food appeared.   One of the most vivid memories  I have about my Ma Poole is that she had a bit of magic about her.  Whenever there was a wasp or bee in the house, she would not kill it.  She would catch it by cupping her hands around it and taking it outside to release.  She never got stung.   Really!!

I still visited my grandparents into my 20's, when they were into their 80's, when I went home once a year to Mississippi. By then, they were in an assisted living facility.  Pa Poole's health was bad, but his memory was sharp.  Ma Poole's health was fine, but her memory was shot.  When I asked her how old she was, she said something like--28.  And the good thing is, she believed it.

William Michael Poole and Ira Mae Wells Poole

Cross Country Trip

One of several questions posed to answer in a special project sent by daughter Victoria:  
What is your most memorable trip?

I choose this trip as my most memorable.  The primary reason this one is so unusual is because of the length.   It was a 28 day trip, the longest time I have ever been away from home!

It was a cross country trip of 6348  miles.  

Planning the trip was a primary occupation of my winter months, as Gerry went skiing.

As the notebook will attest. the planning was very detailed.   We started with two basic ideas.  We would make it as far as Seattle, Washington, because I had never been to either Washington or Oregon before. Gerry had been for a professional meeting, but that probably did not involve many touristy activities.  

We did not want to spend all day every day in the car, so our goal was no more than 4 or 5 hours of actual driving per day, so that we could do spontaneous sightseeing adventures along the way.  Of course, there were places which required several days to see.  We spent a couple of days in Chicago,  in St. Paul, Minnesota, in Seattle.   Because driving in cities and navigating our way around them was so stressful, in every case, we opted to leave our car in the hotel parking garage and do our sightseeing on foot!   We could see as much as we desired to see by that means.

I had gotten maps, travelers guides, and trip tiks from Triple AAA.   I had made reservations at every stop along the way, there and back.  I had to figure out how many miles we could drive from place to place, and then the easiest place to stay, relative to the highways we were traveling.  Most of our evenings were booked at the Holiday Inn Express, wherever we could find one.  We made some minor changes in our plans along the way,  but never had any difficulties with our reservations. They were either expecting us, or happy to accommodate us.  Our least favorite place was the place we stayed in Seattle.  

Memorable things---it took three days to drive across Montana!  When we drove Route 2, the northern route just south of Canada, from east to west,  we rarely ever saw another vehicle!

We saw many interesting things and had many interesting experiences, which included a visit with Gerry's professor from Iowa State, who was well into his 90's.

Here is a brief list of some of the things we saw/did:    rolling hills, agriculture, covered wagon, buffalo, lava cone, rivers, waterfalls, wild sunflowers, museums, tennis, old friends,  botanical gardens, deserts, sculptures, hotel rooms, cities, small towns, Native American memorabilia, bridges, dams, machinery, highways, roads, roads, more roads, blue sky.

How Life Is Different

One of several questions posed to answer in a special project sent by daughter Victoria:  
How is life different today compared to when you were a child?

I understand that this question is probably about life in general, society in general.  What major changes have I seen, etc?   The arrival of color television, computers, cell phones, of course.  So many conveniences today that I could not have imagined as a child.  A dishwasher, for one!  A dryer  (we hung the clothes outside on the line!!).

But I think I will answer it more in terms of how my life specifically is different.   There is a huge world of difference between being raised in Mississippi and living in New York!

Growing up in Mississippi,  I lived almost exclusively in small towns.  Since my father was the minister of the church,  our lives revolved almost exclusively around church activities and events.  In that culture, most everyone went to one church or another.  The church and the culture of my childhood are so deeply enmeshed that I cannot pull them apart.  For instance,  the "training" of the girl child was to be sweet, never assertive or aggressive,  and totally submissive.  This expectation was tied to the biblical story of Adam and Eve, and other biblical texts which supposedly demanded that submissiveness.   The way that was lived out is that the women were expected to wait hand and foot on the men.  The men would sit.  The women would serve them.

The revolution of the 1960's and the 1970's changed all of that for me.   Those were the decades of the sexual revolution, and women's liberation.  Women's liberation in particular was at the forefront of television talk shows, and books, and conversations among friends.  No longer would women "know their place",  but suddenly women are expecting to be equal, and are not willing to be submissive.

Probably the biggest change for me is that I am now married to a wonderful husband who has not one iota of expectation that I "serve him" or wait on him.  He values an independent partner who pursues her own path in life.  He encourages, rather than seeks to control.

Life is different today compared to when I was a child primarily because I have been liberated!   I have been liberated from living a "role".  I have been liberated from narrow views of God and theology;  I have been liberated from both overt and subtle expressions of racism.  I have shed any notion that a woman cannot be a clergy, or a president!

I am so so liberated, compared to the child I once was, both in thought and action!

I do believe that I have retained some of  the more positive aspects of my "training" as a southern lady.  I am very unlikely to be unkind, or aggressive.  I do not swear.  I would never take the Lord's name in vain.

Even though the fundamentals of it have changed,  I have kept my faith.   By that I mean that the essence of the Christian faith has to be rooted in love, rather than judgment.

Farthest Traveled?

One of several questions posed to answer in a special project sent by daughter Victoria:  
What is the farthest you have traveled?

My longest trip was from Washington, D.C. to Honolulu, Hawaii---4800 miles.    It happened in 1971 when my oldest daughter Brenda was six months old.   I was headed to Hawaii to meet with my then husband for R&R.  He was stationed in Viet Nam at the time.   I lived alone in the D.C. area.  This was not a happy time or a happy trip.   I am sure that I drove to the airport and left my car there so I would have a ride back home to our apartment.

I packed carefully with all the supplies that I needed, which I could carry, along with a baby, baby carrier, purse, diaper bag, for the 12 or more hour flight.   I needed baby formula, as I was not nursing at the time.  I needed disposable diapers.

Unfortunately, there was an issue with the airplane, and it did not take off at the expected time.  Some maintenance issue had to be dealt with.     It was one of those terrible situations where you are stuck on the ground for hours.  Fortunately,  we were still at the terminal, and connected by the walkway from plane to terminal entrance.   The time on the ground grew longer and longer, and in the end, lasted for 5 hours.  Needless to say,  I was in a dire situation, since when I arrived in Honolulu,  I would not know how to get formula and diapers immediately.   I also could not risk running out half way over the Pacific Ocean!

I left the airplane crying, carrying my baby.  Back in those days, airline stewardess were caring and compassionate.   One followed me.  I went to a phone booth to call and cry to my father, who could, of course, do nothing to help me.  The stewardess asked how she could help.  What did I need?   I told her, and the airline actually sent someone out to a drug store to replenish my supplies!!

One thing that I do remember is that as burdened down as I was by things that I had to carry,  not once did I actually have to carry all those things.  There was always someone who stepped up to help me, a woman traveling alone with an infant.

Another thing that I remember is taking a taxi to the hotel where I had a reservation.   And true to the trauma of the trip,  the taxi driver ran into the car in front of him.  All I recall is that they yelled at each other for a while,  but I don't remember there being a police involved.  Maybe it was a minor fender bender.

Eventually,  my infant daughter and I did connect with her father,  who had never met his daughter.   She was born while he was in Viet Nam.    Sadly,  he did not seem much interested---in either her or me. We were strangers.

In his defense,  I might be gracious and say that he had just come from a war zone, and was numb and unable to express emotion.

On the other hand,  now with 50 years worth of perspective,  I could just say that was his true nature.   It did not get much better when he returned home six months later.   It took a very long time to get re-acquainted.

I traveled almost 5000 miles alone with a baby.  That was my longest trip.  And my hardest.

The Brass Cross

Folks at the small rural church noticed a smeary spot on the brass cross that sat on the altar table.  The blemish was just beneath the horizontal bar of the cross.   Mel, a parishioner, volunteered to take it home and clean it.  He reported back to the congregation his efforts.  He   tried Brasso, which had been suggested to him.  That seemed to make matters worse.   He also tried tomato juice which was also suggested to him, but that didn’t help either.  The conclusion was that after 65 years, it was no surprise that the brass was showing its age.

When Mel had no luck removing the stain,  he looked into the cost of replacing the cross. The name of the company was on the bottom.  He was surprised to discover that that company was still in business. The cost of replacing that cross was nine hundred dollars, a cost beyond the church’s means. Even the cost of resurfacing it was five hundred dollars, also prohibitive.

Bob, a man in the congregation said to the pastor,  “Can you think of a good story about Jesus on the cross and that stain?”

 “What if we looked at it differently?”  the pastor asked.

 “How do you mean?”  Bob asked.

“Rather than thinking of that spot as a stain, think of it the hands of all the people, over sixty five years, who have reached out to be touched by the love of Christ.   Countless faithful people have touched that cross and lifted it,  just like Jesus was lifted up for all of us, and died for us.   He took on our sin, so that we could be made into new creations, forgiven and whole. We leave our transgressions at the cross, on the cross.

The stain on the cross is a collective hand print of all those who love him. Perhaps it is a good thing that the imprint of God’s people cannot be removed from the cross of Jesus Christ.   We are imperfect, and in that imperfection, we leave something of ourselves on the brass cross.

He is perfect and leaves something of himself in each one of us.”