story of a family
Transcription
story of a family
f a o y r o St Family by M iriam S. Lind Your great-grandfather, J. S. Shoemaker, was the recipient of my first writing efforts, and it is he who is most responsible (because of his interest and example) for my life-long habit of “writing things down.” Contents Prologue 7 Hill Journal 1956 23 Hill Journal 1957 47 Hill Journal 1958 75 Hill Journal 1959 101 On the Corner 1961 128 On the Corner 1962 156 On the Corner 1963 186 On the Corner 1964 216 On the Corner 1965 246 On the Corner 1966 279 On the Corner 1967 310 On the Corner 1968 340 On the Corner 1969 380 On the Corner 1970 414 Prologue W hen I was a child in Idaho, one of the great events of our family’s world was the semi-annual Communion Sunday. Then N. A. Lind from Oregon would come to our little church at Filer. He would preach, and I liked to hear him preach because he would invariably cry at some point or another, taking out his big white handkerchief and wiping his eyes, blowing his nose. That, thought I, is the mark of a real good preacher. N. A. Lind baptized me when I was nine years old (infant baptism!) but it was years before I met any of his seven sons. I was nineteen the summer I first saw Millard Lind. With a friend I was visiting Hesston College and at the evening meal in the dining hall I saw a slight young man wearing an intense expression and blue and white striped overalls. He paid no attention to me. And I paid little more to him, but a friend told me that he was N. A. Lind’s son, Millard. In the spring of 1940, at Goshen College, I saw him for the second time. The Hesston Chorus, directed by Paul Erb, gave a program in the Goshen Chapel Hall. I read the names of chorus members, came across this one, and introduced myself. Neither of us was impressed with, or long remembered, the other. The following year Millard came to Goshen to join my class—the juniors. I noticed that he worked hard. Verna Oyer and I often watched him as he walked into chapel, and she was forever pointing out his “beautiful eyes” and how awful it was that he didn’t wear a tie. I learned to know more about him on late evenings in the library where I worked and he studied. I thought he had crazy ideas, and since I liked people who were crazy, I enjoyed talking to him. As the year progressed, we two happened to be placed on some of the same committees, and in the course of committee work (?) became quite supportive of each other. Millard would carry my books home for me, and en route we did our planning, plus some extra talking. Once we went boating (which I’ve never liked)—Millard furnishing the pop (which I have never been able to enjoy)—to discuss committee work, of course. But no dating. I had just washed my hair one evening, and it hung stringy and halfdry around my shoulders, when a knock came on the apartment door. There stood Millard. “Will you go with me to the operetta at Parkside School on Friday night?” This operetta (Jack the Giant-Killer) marked the Story of a Family beginning of an interesting friendship-courtship. It wasn’t the “love at first sight” kind, but rather something that slowly grew and changed form. “I don’t want a wife,” Millard used to say, “I want a comrade!” And so we were comrades without actually realizing the euphemistic implications of our word-choice. Gradually, however, we realized even this, and Millard didn’t say any more, “I don’t want a wife” because he did want one, urgently. At this point we began to make plans. They were many, and they changed often, but finally they pointed to one date—April 17, 1943. April 17, 1943 The leaves were not yet out, and though spring was in the air, everything was drab. Why didn’t we wait until June—the “marrying” month? Why didn’t we wait until his school and mine were over? Why didn’t we wait until we had a little money saved? Why didn’t we wait until Easter Sunday? At least until Holy Saturday? I don’t know, except that Easter (April 26) was the latest that year that it had been since 1886, the latest it would be in our lifetimes! (My table of Easter dates recorded information up to the year 2013—and the latest Easter recorded was April 26, 1943). So, at eight o’clock on Saturday evening, April l7, Rosemary Miller and Verna Burkholder (now Dana Troyer’s wife) began receiving guests into the Kulp Hall Social Room at Goshen College. Neva White and Inez Snyder received the gifts and Edwin Alderfer and Clayton Beyler ushered the guests to their places. The guests having arrived—about 80 of them—the doors were closed at 8:30 when a sextet (Barbara Esch, Thelma Miller [Groff], Dorothy Snapp [McCammon], Mary K. Oyer, Warren Leatherman, and Roy Roth) began singing “O Holy Saviour.” During the singing of the hymn the can dles at the fireplace were lit as Patricia Sieber held the candle from which Esther Hess and Phyllis Yoder lit theirs and those at the “altar.” Besides the candelabra, ferns were the only decorations. S. C. Yoder read Psalm 121 (“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”). Following this, a prayer was offered. As the sextet sang “Send out Thy Light 8 Prologue and Thy Truth,” the minister, Paul Erb, the best man, Ralph Hernley, the groom, Millard, and the bridesmaid, Miriam Stalter [Charles], all took their places in front of the fireplace, and I came in with John, my brother. The wedding service, which we had written (taking some things from the Mennonite order of worship, some from the Book of Common Prayer), was read, with Millard and me responding by repeating from memory the following vows: I Millard take thee Miriam to be my wedded wife and do plight thee my troth till death us do part. I Miriam take thee Millard to be my wedded husband and do plight thee my troth till death us do part. Following the “pronouncement” the wedding guests repeated with us The Lord’s Prayer, and the singers, with Barbara Esch as soloist, ended the ceremony with “O Perfect Love.” Congratulations followed; punch and cake were served at the table arranged by Louise Yoder (who served the punch). Myrtle Kolb, presiding at the cake, and Helen Wade [Alderfer], Rosemary Roose, and Naomi Brubaker helped to serve the guests. After I had changed into my “going away dress” we were riced and cheered, and made our way to Elkhart, Room 209 in Hotel Elkhart where we enjoyed a “honeymoon” of a day. April 17, 1943 - April 17, 1944 Until my school was out, around the first of May, I went on teaching at North Liberty, coming home weekends to my mother’s apartment at 1810 South Main, or what was known then as “Shoup House” (situated somewhere around the site of the present College Union). Here Millard and I had a bedroom and bath, and a little storage room to ourselves, and we shared mother’s kitchen and living room. In May the apartment in Silas Hertzler’s basement at 1625 S. Main was vacant. This was a compact, one-room affair, and as soon as we were squared away, we began to invite guests in. The summer was full: I worked at Kline’s Store part-time, Millard was College Gardener! In August the two of us had charge of two weeks of Boys’ Camp at Joe Brunk’s cabin in Michigan. Among our boys were Jimmy Miller, Delbert Erb, Ronald Graber, and Jerrold and John Keith Miller. I cooked—or tried to—and 9 Story of a Family Millard directed the boys’ activities. We were both raw recruits, and camp was new to the boys, so we all suffered through it together. When fall came we both started to school again—Millard in the last year of his ThB course, and I taking some Seminary courses to help out in what I thought would be my lifelong role of “minister’s wife.” About the middle of November food began to have no appeal for me, and we knew that sometime in the next summer we would be having our first child. We continued with our schoolwork, and in January Millard started as supply pastor at Kouts, Indiana, driving down and back each Sunday—a ninety-mile trip each way. Soon after this we moved back to the South Cottage apartments with mother. Among those we enjoyed as guests before we moved were: Mother, Liz Hernley, Esther Hess, Neva White, Howard and Edna Zehr, Nelson Springer, Roy Roth, Mary Oyer, Ivan Lind, Arlene Sitler, Myrtle Kolb, Mildred and Elta Yoder, Paul Erb and family, Lena Hostetler; Mary Byler, Ruth Martin, Hazel Schrock, Beulah Litwiller, Elsie White, Robert Kunderd, Helen Cutrell, Ralph Lehman, Nancy and Catherine Hernley, A. E. and Stella Kreider, Viola Zehr, Eldon and Louella Risser, Christine Weaver, Ruby Hostetler, Mildred Britsch, Carolyn Byler, Florence Roth, Lois Litwiller—and others. Important events of the year included: The birth of Ralph’s and Liz’s Rodney Kent on May 30, 1943. The visit of Ruth, Little John, and later, Robert, Reist, in March, 1944. When April 17 rolled around, I could just barely squeeze into my wedding dress, but I posed for a picture. Mother and Liz cooked a delicious anniversary dinner for the four of us—creamed chicken and biscuits, with the trimmings. April 17, 1944—April 17, 1945 The last of May, 1944, Millard was ordained a minister at the Hopewell church at Kouts. Paul Mininger was the presiding bishop. D. A. Yoder preached the sermon. Though the meeting was solemn, what took my attention was the fact that they twisted my husband’s hair in the process of laying hands on him, and made him look silly. As soon as school was over we moved to our new home—a house in the little crossroads of Boone Grove. It was fun arranging our few pieces of furniture around the rooms, three downstairs and three upstairs. Since my doctor was at Goshen we decided that I would go there to wait for the baby. Before I left, the Kouts women had a baby shower for me, and in the long weeks that followed one of my most pleasant pastimes was arranging and rearranging the saques, kimonas, and blankets, washing the new diapers, and making a few tiny kimonas with “my own hands.” About 10 Prologue July 1 I left for Goshen, hoping that within a few days the baby would come. Days turned into weeks, and it was on a hot evening toward the last of July when we knew the time had at last come. At ten o’clock we went to the Goshen Hospital (standing on what is now the parking lot on Fifth Street, behind the Presbyterian Church.) In the sweltering heat of the next afternoon, around five o’clock, I heard the first cry of our son Dan Michael. He weighed 9# 1 ½ oz., and was well filledout, only faintly pink, and beautiful in every way. The remainder of the year was filled with new experiences for us both. We were parents! Though the world might be shaking around us with continued war and continued rumors of wars, though meat and sugar were rationed, though the dollars never managed to more than reach—what did it matter, compared with the wonder of The First Tooth of Danny Lind! Millard spent most of that summer painting the Boone Grove Church and other houses in the community. I would put Dan in the baby buggy and push him over the rough roads, across the tracks, to the church to watch our breadwinner (and to mitigate the loneliness of the square house). Each night we read together a chapter from our Greek Testaments or, later when Danny started his nightly yowl, an act or scene from one of Shakespeare’s plays. Millard’s first wedding was held in our home and I had that place shining for the occasion. A neighbor gave us flowers. Everyone was excited—so much so that the bride, bridesmaid, and preacher’s wife all forgot to cover their heads—unthinkable in those days. No one else was there, however, to witness our mistakes. In the fall of 1944 Millard started working for Dick Randall in his small printing office in Valparaiso. Christmas found us with a guest who stayed with us for six weeks—Millard’s mother. Danny enjoyed being dandled, and we learned such standbys as “Creepy-crawly little mousy” and “Reide Geile.” On Christmas Day Millard’s brother Wilbert, doing his C.P.S. service at Alexian Brother’s Hospital in Chicago, came to visit us, and my mother also spent a week of the holidays with us. In March 1945 we moved into the house near the church, right outside Kouts. It was a sort of ramshackle place, and we had only three rooms, but one was large. That spring we bought a calf to raise for beef, and Danny enjoyed it as a pet. On April 12 of that year Franklin Roosevelt 11 Story of a Family died, and we remembered it as a day when we had uninterrupted classical music on the radio. When April 17 came, we were busy entertaining company from Goshen and so did not celebrate our second anniversary in any special way. Some of the guests in this year’s book were: Paul Miningers, John Koppenhavers, Neva White, Rodney and Liz Hernley, N. A. Lind, Marcus Lind, Mother Sieber, Paul Erbs, Chauncey Birkeys, Emanual Birkys, Lester Hersheys, J. C. Wengers; Harold Bender, Edwin and Helen Alderfer, Thelma Miller and Weyburn Groff. April 17, 1945—April 17, 1946 The first important family event of this year—June 12, the birth of Ellen Elizabeth Hernley. On November 16 came the next big news—David Henry Reist. But for us the Event of the year happened the next spring, only five days before our third anniversary, when our Friday’s child was born. Jonathan Shoemaker Lind emerged shortly after midnight, April 12, at the Goshen Hospital. He weighed about 9 pounds and 2 ounces, and looked as if he would be dark-eyed like his father. Jonathan and I came home from the hospital on our anniversary, and Danny, 20 1/2 months old by this time, proudly pointed to “Ha-ha-hon!” when visitors came to see. When Jonathan was almost four weeks old, we took him to church for the first time, as we had done with Dan. Millard worked hard this year in his church, trying to make a living on the side. We lived from day to day, frugally, though most of the members of our church had more than plenty. We didn’t have any bank account, and we had few possessions. But we had faith, shared interests, our family, and in our weather-beaten shack we felt rich enough. Small things gave us extraordinary pleasure. I wonder if there was a happier family on earth the day we brought Jonathan home to the little grey house, made clean and ready by Millard, and explored with delight by Danny who had almost forgotten that there was any home besides Grandma’s. Among the guests who helped to make life interesting this year were Levi Hartzler, Paul Mininger family, Mrs. J. D. Mininger, Miriam Stalter, C. B. Shoemaker, J. Glenn Widmers, N. A. Lind, M. C. Lehman, John Koppenhaver, Mother Sieber, Liz and Ellen, Paul and Alta Erb, Clayton and Elsie Sutter, Louise Leatherman, D. D. Miller, Allen Erb, Ralph and Lila Miller, Harold and Sadie Yoder, Paul Friesen, Laurence Horst, Ivan Lind, and Harry Mishler. 12 Prologue April 17, 1946—April 17 1947 In June of 1946 we moved to Hebron, Indiana to a tiny nest of three rooms in a house otherwise occupied by Mrs. Gyles Aylesworth. (Mrs. Aylesworth never forgot that she was a Daughter of the Revolution, and when her membership in that august body was confirmed, it was her crowning day!) Over the moving period we appreciated the help of my sister Ruth, who with David and John spent a pleasant week with us. Ruth was nursing David and I was nursing Jonathan, who refused ever to take a bottle. So one day when I had to go to Valparaiso Ruth was wet nurse for “Noffer.” He gave her one surprised look, but went on to enjoy his dinner. Millard began working this year for the great Salesman, Mr. Mallett, and one day a week he went to Goshen to get some more courses toward his B.D. degree, and to teach a course in Greek. Then came the intimation of something new. The year before, Paul Erb had said to me one day, “I wonder if Millard would be interested in curriculum writing since Edward Yoder has died.” When I had mentioned it to Millard, he admitted that when he had heard of Yoder’s death the thought surfaced: “Someday I’ll be taking his place at that job.” Months passed and nothing came of it, so we put it out of our minds. Now Scottdale contacted Millard, asking him to write a year of lessons. We worked together—I typed on the old rattle-trap, pasted, and cut. Millard wrote and studied and sweated. Then came the invitation to come to Scottdale permanently. Our fourth anniversary found us wondering how much longer we would be at Kouts. In the meantime we went on with our work. Our two boys went on with their growing; we made plans for a garden. We bought a new gas range! (Up to this time we had been cooking on a two-burner kerosene stove.) Pat and Mike, who had spent two weeks of the summer of 1946 with us, made plans to be with us again this summer. This was the year my mother broke up housekeeping, living with Aunt Stella while Amos was abroad. Her visits were bright spots in our sometimes dark struggles to do our work, earn a living, and feel sure that we were where we should be. Some other guests of the year were H. S. Bender, Jonas Birkys, Christ Goods, Elaine Sommers, Howard Zehr, Ruth, John, and David Reist, Ralph, Liz, Roddy, and Ellen Hernley, John, Viv, Pat, and Mike Sieber, Joe Hoy and wife, Lester Glick, N. A. Lind, E. M. Yost, Mr. and Mrs. George Lapp, Clayton and Elsie Sutter, Daniel and Dorothy and Elmer Mireau, Dr. Maurice Burkholder and family, Mrs. Silas Smucker, George and Glenn. 13 Story of a Family April 17,1947—April 17,1948 By May we were definitely “thinking Scottdale.” The church had released us, and in the last week of July we went to look around Scottdale for a place to live. We found nothing, and decided to build. We made plans, then returned to Hebron. When the big Mayflower moving van came, the last of August, for our few odd sticks of furniture, the tomatoes of our late garden were just ripening—a beautiful crop. I hope someone was able to enjoy them! En route to Scottdale we stopped for several days at the Wooster, Ohio fairgrounds where our General Conference was in session. I took care of Jonathan, and Danny went with his Daddy. One time when Millard was busy talking to a preacher friend, he reached down for Danny’s hand—and it wasn’t there. We searched frantically for him, but in the huge milling crowd it was hopeless. Then over a loudspeaker came a message: “Donny Lind is looking for his parents.” Of course we rushed to the Information tent. There was our lost boy, sitting on John Horst’s lap, smiling his characteristically sunny smile. At Scottdale we set up housekeeping in a tent in Liz and Ralph’s back yard. Immediately Millard and Lawrence Hawk began building up on the hill in the cornfield. There were chilly, damp mornings in the tent, but inside the Hernley house it was warm and there we ate our meals. However, winter was coming too fast. And so we decided that the boys and I should go to Texas for several months to visit the Reists, and come back to a finished house. (How unrealistic can one get?) Dan and Jontie were good on the long trip to Texas, but I didn’t enjoy the trip at all. In fact, all the time we were in Texas, food didn’t taste good to me; something about my pregnancy upset my eye-coordination so that I could not read without becoming ill, and the whole world looked drab. But there were a few bright spots. Liz, Ellen, and Rod—also my mother—came down several days before Christmas, so we had almost a family reunion on Christmas Day. Ivan Lind was also in the community, and when 20-month-old Jontie spotted him he cried “Daddo” and ran to him. One day over vacation we—the four Sieber women, with Bob, our chauffeur—took off for Mexico, leaving the six children with Mama Reist and Annabelle Stoltzfus. We enjoyed a fabulous, inexpensive meal at a famous restaurant just across the border, and walked through the market, wishing we could buy more of the pottery and basketry. I settled for belts for the boys! The day after Christmas the three Linds headed for Pittsburgh and Millard. Jonathan didn’t know his dad, but Dan was soon talking to him, standing up between us on the front seat of the car as we drove home to Scottdale. His first words were spoken softly, sort 14 Prologue of hopelessly, “You dint get me a wagon, did you, Daddy?” (One of those long-standing promises!) Millard had to say no, but assured Danny that the promised wagon would soon be his. (It was.) While we had been in Texas, Millard was working hard on the house, but it was still far from finished. During January we lived on in Ralph’s house; but now Liz was soon due to come home, so we had to move. Moving day came the first of February—and with it, a blizzard. But that didn’t keep our friends from the Publishing House—A. J. Metzler, Lowell Hershberger, David Alderfer, Ford Berg, and C. F. Yake, from packing our furniture from tent and barn up to our new home, which was really more like a big cold barn. We were living in two rooms—the long living room and the kitchen (no partitions). No lights. No running water. No bathroom. It was a blue Sunday that followed our moving day. We huddled round the little oil-burner (installed because the P.H.—which held the mortgage— didn’t think it wise for us to invest in a furnace at this time, just one of the shortsighted policies they insisted upon in our case.) The living room was full of the jumble of our junky furniture and other belongings… and thereupon our first visitor, John Horst, called to extend official pastoral blessings. In the spring of 1948, shortly before our anniversary, Millard was away from home, and Ralph volunteered to fix a bolt on our back door. I went into the unfloored side of the house to get a screwdriver, stepped on the end of a board, and plunged toward the basement some ten feet below. Fortunately I caught myself on a projecting board, and though we were all scared, no one was hurt, and we could laugh about it afterwards. By this time Millard had started work in his little office at the Publishing House, and was serving as temporary pastor at the East Scottdale (Kingview) Sunday School. Since we were expecting a new baby in June, we saved our money, scraped it together, and put flooring (pine!), partitions, and ceiling in the west side of the house. By this time we were beginning to feel that we lived in a house instead of a barn. Our first guests (besides Liz and Ralph) in our new home were the Lawrence Hawks (our builder and his family). Next we celebrated Jonathan’s and Ruby Plank’s second birthdays by having Marvins and Ralphs as guests. Our anniversary guests were the minister who married us five years before, and his wife: Paul and Alta Erb. April 17, 1948—April 17, 1949 In May we finished the floor, partitions, and ceilings on the West rooms. The last of May my mother came, anticipating helping us with the new baby. In June came electricity—now we could use our own old washer! 15 Story of a Family Now we no longer needed to light the lamp! The boys had fun snapping the lights on and off. Running water was yet to come to us this year—and with that, the added luxury of a bathroom that “worked.” The one really important event of the year was the birth of the 9 pound, 13 oz. boy, Timothy Christian, who came to us on June 23. But poor Tim got off to a rather bad start. His grandmother, who had come to help care for him, was ill herself, and to try to feed and care for Tim and for her too was more than my milk supply could keep up with. Without realizing what was wrong, we nearly starved Tim. (By our sixth anniversary, however, he was a sturdy baby, walking everywhere and charming us all with his curly hair, bright blue eyes and teasing ways.) In August we took a trip to Camp Eden in Michigan where Millard had an assignment to speak at Farmer’s Week. (Note: For most of the years of living together as a family, our only vacations were those made possible by Millard’s “speaking engagements” which guaranteed travel expenses!) When we returned late at night, we found Uncle Lloyds in our beds. We were glad to meet some of Millard’s family, and the boys liked the way Uncle Lloyd washed them. Soon after we returned, Grandma Sieber had to go to the hospital, and anxious days followed. Ruth came from Texas, and when my mother was well enough, they went together to Texas by air. Before Grandma left, she sat in the chair by our picture window, holding Dan on her lap. The other children, as usual, would wiggle and run away, but Dan was happy just to sit there. (This picture of my mother sitting there, thin and pale and gentle, with sunny Dan nestling in her arms, is an unforgettable one for me; it was the last that I saw her alive.) That was September. The winter months went by—and just before our anniversary, I was driving home from town one day. I looked down a bit, so I could lay the toppling Timmy on the seat. When I looked up, the car was going through a hedge and was headed straight for a tree. Whammo! We were grateful that no one was hurt badly. Tim suffered a little shock, I had lots of bruises and the blackest of black eyes—two of them. Dan and Jon were unharmed—but I knew it would be a long time before they trusted me at the wheel again. Some of our guests this year: John C. Wenger, Clayton Sutters, Mrs. Sem Eash, Claude Culps, Joe and William Werts and John Stovers, Ralph Hernleys, Betty Weaver, Uncle Lloyds, Lowell Hershbergers, William Ettling, Paul Conrads, Joe Slatters, Harvey Bauman, Clair and Anna Bomberger, Paul Mininger, Katherine Royer, Norma Hostetler, Ruth Carper, Orval Shoemakers, Nevin Millers, C. B. Shoemakers, A. J. Metzlers, Milford Pauls, Verna Zimmerman, J. L. Horsts, Nelson Kauffman. 16 Prologue April 17, 1949—April 17, 1950 This year marked two fundamental events in our family life—the beginning of a life, and the ending of a life. By Christmas we knew that a new baby would be coming in July. And soon after Christmas, in February, Grandma Sieber, who had been living with Uncle Dans in Idaho, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. My greatest grief on losing my mother (I felt it at the time of her death, and feel it now, years later) was the realization that our children would never know her. Some of our guests this year: Frank Brilharts, William Ressors, Ernest Bontragers, Ralph Hernleys, Mary Lillian Long, P. A. Friesen, Paul Erb, Nolan Books, Robert Garber, Ernest and Barbara Garber, N. A. Lind, Sam Millers, Howard Charles, Betty Weber, Bernice King, Elva Yoder, Margaret Jantzi, Don Snapp, Ivan Moon, Allan Eitzen, Chester Shanks, and Glen Kings. April 17,1950—April l7, 1951 One warm Sunday evening, July 23rd, Millard started looking quickly for someone to stay with the three boys so he could take me to the hospital. Ralph and Liz were in Cleveland, for Rodney had just had an operation. Clara and Lowell Hershberger had gone to church. But Thelma and Viola Hawk were home, and they came up to stay with the boys. They didn’t need to stay long, for after about an hour and a half, Millard came back with the news. It was Big news, the biggest yet in our family (10 pounds 4 oz.)—Matthew Charles Lind was born. Matthew was given his dad’s initials, and so has something special to live up to—or be saddled with. When he was about three weeks old, Lloyds, Gilberts, and Wilberts surprised us one Saturday evening. The excitement was over Wilbert’s coming marriage to Rhoda. And so, several weeks later, we packed up baby Matthew, the three big boys stayed with Aunt Liz, and we saw Wilbert and Rhoda married “in East.” Millard preached the short wedding sermon, and we attended the reception at Melvin Lauvers in Akron. It was a treat for us to get to know the Linds better. Besides, Lloyd and his boys put new roofing on one side of our house, and Lloyd bought a hot water heater for us—now we could take a real bath! 17 Story of a Family For Millard and me the years suddenly seemed to be going more swiftly: September 1950, and down the road went our firstborn son, in his new blue jeans and bright shirt, carrying his shiny lunchbox. His back straight, he seemed not to care a bit that he was leaving us! In February, on Valentine’s Day, Roberta Susan (soon to become “Susan”) was born to Ruth and Bob. Some of our guests this year: David Alderfers, Paul Erb, Harold Baumans, Simon Gingerich, Lewis Martin, Frank and Suzanne Bishop, J. J. Brenneman, Orlo Brennemans, Alvin Rogies, Aaron Stoltzfuses, Roy Roth, Elaine Sommers, Edna Beiler, Lloyd, Mary, Pauline, Clifford, Margaret, and Norman Lind, Gilbert, Iola, Harold, and Lois Lind; Wilbert and Rhoda Lind, Homer Kauffmans, Henry Hernleys, Ivan Moon, Edwin Alderfers, Jonathan Hostetler. April 17, 1951—April 17, 1952 Our guest list for this year gives us a little idea of the good times we had in our home: Lois Yake, Allan Eitzen, Elaine Sommers, Paul Siebers, Bernice King, Betty Weber, Ruth and Elva Yoder, Nelson Springer, Edna Beiler, Lois and Jerry Kreider, Warren Leathermans and Arthur Leathermans, Lowell Hershbergers, Marta Quiroga, Wally Peterschmidt, Chauncy Birkys, Paul Yake, H. F. Reists, Clayton Sutters, Ford Bergs, Beulah Stauffer, Isla Zink, Hazel Gingerich, Edgar Metzler, Stanley Yake, Virginia Ann Brennemen, Ida Showalter, Violet Harmon, Shirley Yoder, Pauline Swartzendruber, Don Snapp, Omar Stahls, Paul Erbs, Delbert Erbs, Nevin Millers, Floyd Brunks, Ellen and Lena Coffman, Cleason Bender, John E. Lapp, Arnold Spisso, Pauline Graybill—and others. They recall, among other things, our week at Chesley Lake in Ontario where Millard served as an instructor for an MYF workshop. En route we saw Niagara Falls, and watched a ship go through the locks. But the name of the Person of the Year is not on that list. He came one chilly Monday morning, November 5, and his birth was hailed by the eager brothers who had a good name all ready for him—James Joseph. James was from the beginning a merry little fellow with bright dark eyes and dimples. James Joseph’s coming introduced us to a very special person— Pauline Swartzendruber, who came from Michigan to help us. When it was time for her to go home, we felt as if there was a death in the family. In September of this year, Uncle Bob had been seriously injured in a tractor accident. He was in the hospital for weeks, but recovered with few lasting effects from his injuries. 18 Prologue April 17, 1952—April 17, 1953 In the spring of this year the “company” started coming. First came my brother Charlie with his wife Imogene, and Sally and Jerry. They spent six days with us, and a month later Bob and Ruth and family came. It was fun to get acquainted with cousins, some for the first time, like Sally and Jerry Sieber, and Susan Reist; and some all over again, like John and David. In June Wilberts came with baby Daniel, and everyone had a good time. Rhoda told snake stories from her Africa experiences; Wilbert took the boys for a picnic. Several weeks later our schoolmates, Verna Oyer and Genevieve (Warner) Lehman spent several days here. Genevieve’s four daughters, Anne, Becky, Katie, and Lucinda, are just the ages of the four oldest Lind boys. Lehman girls and Lind boys had great fun, and their mothers talked both nights until 2–4 A.M. August brought us the McCammons: Don, Dort, and Julia. Pauline S. stopped in for a quick visit. Margaret and Clifford and a carload of friends surprised us on their way to E.M.C. September first came, and we watched our second son clutch his lunchbox and go down the road with his brother and cousins, his brown eyes dancing in excitement. It was only several weeks later that Clara Hershberger, a special friend of the boys, and our neighbor, died suddenly. On October 30, Millard and Tim left for Oregon, where Millard would be engaged in Bible Studies for six weeks. Tim had a good time being the only son of his Daddy for awhile. He stayed at Grandma Lind’s, too, and that was fun. But the thing we could hardly wait to see was his new pair of glasses. We were all excited the night Ralph and Liz took us to Pittsburgh to reclaim our lost family. It took Tim several days to get used to playing with a lot of boys again, but we were glad to be reunited as a family. While Tim and Millard were in Oregon, Aunt Stella Kreider visited us, and it was almost like having a grandmother in the house again. By the time April 17 came around again we could hardly believe that we had been married ten years. We celebrated our anniversary by getting a baby sitter for the children and taking Ralph and Liz to Crawford’s in Connellsville, remembering that Ralph was our best man at the wedding ten years ago. Other visitors this year included Lois Winey, Hilda Carper, Norma Jost, John A. Hostetler (courting Beulah Stauffer), Charles and Esther Hess, Edgar and Ethel Metzler, Harold Bauman, J. C. Wenger, Martin Hershey, Irene Fretz, Florence Snyder, Harvey Snyder, Paul Roth, Daniel and Mary Hertzler, and Anna and Stanley Yoder. 19 Story of a Family April 17, 1953—April 17 1954 The guest list for this year includes the Dewey Yoder family, who with Ralph and Liz helped us celebrate Tim’s birthday, Allan Eitzen and his mother, the Paul Blossers, C. B. Shoemakers, and Omar Stahls. Then came the Glenn Esh family, here to “marry off” Hazel Gingrich to Henry Mast. The Ford Bergs came to celebrate their anniversary and my birthday—July 19. Joanna Andres, Willard Klassen, Edwin Alderfers, Daniel Hertzlers, Mable Erb, Edna Wenger, Leah Kauffman, the storyteller. Grandpa Lind also came, and took Jon along on a trip to New York state, convincing him of the wonders of Oregon along the way. (When he returned, he asked Millard, “Daddy, why does everyfing gwow biggah an bettah in Oregon?”) From August 28—September 1, our house was turned into a three-family apartment, or hotel, with a room for each family: The Charles Kreiders, the Warren Millers, and the Linds. December brought Oregonians—the Alfred Nofzigers, the surprise visit (typical Lind fashion) of Uncle Marcus and family, Clifford and Margaret. There were the New Year’s guests—the Ralph Hernleys and Kenny Hieberts here for a grand recital (see program opposite) the programs for which were typed by Dan and Rod. There was the visit of Anna Yoder’s mother, of cousin Norman Lind, en route to his 1W service in Iowa from a visit at E.M.C. And Jan Glysteen, plus notebook, also visited us. On July 31 a new playmate for the Lind boys, Roger, was born to Ralph and Liz. Then came the morning of October 2. Our friends at the Publishing House and all over the country were glad when they heard about it, for it was something new for the Linds—a daughter and a sister, Sarah Elisabeth—a “perfect” baby, 9 pounds and 6 ounces, and featuring a pair of lovely brown eyes, among other special fixtures. And our Pauline came again to help us. (I had warned her that if we couldn’t get her here any other way, I’d have another baby, and she’d have to come.) One of our fun things this year was a Sunday afternoon project which involved following the waterways: Jacob’s Creek to the Youghiagheny, to the Monongahela to the Ohio. Our eleventh anniversary was a time of celebration for the entire family. I read the preceding history which I had hurriedly scrawled—we all dressed up in our best (I in my wedding gown, and Sarah in her little, white “best” gown). I cooked a good dinner (for a change) and it was topped off with a beautiful high white anniversary cake—a gift from Liz, decorated with apple blossoms. Ralph took some pictures of us, and we decided to repeat the performance every year, if we can. 20 Prologue April 17, 1954—April 17 1955 One day in May we were burning some trash in the fireplace outside. The boys gathered around to poke sticks in the fire. I went to the window and called to them, asking them all to get away from the fire. Everyone ran—everyone but Timothy, of course, who was an obedient boy, but who always had to do the forbidden one more time to show who was master of his life. I went back to my work, and a few minutes later I heard screams. I thought they were “play” screams and so I did not run, but Millard, who was working in the garden, did. Timothy was afire, and by the time Millard reached him and put it out with his hands, he had a badly burned knee. Millard rushed him to Dr. Marshall, who cleaned and dressed the burn. For weeks after that Tim wore a bandage. The first two weeks he had to stay in bed and go to the Doctor every day to have the dressings changed. Throughout the summer the doctor watched carefully, expecting that a skin graft would be necessary. But by late August it was apparent the knee would heal without surgery. We were glad that he was not “all burned up to ashes” as he put it in a prayer soon after it happened. In June Marcus surprised us—a little—with an announcement of his marriage to Leah Kauffman. In July the family took a little trip through Ohio and Indiana, stopping with the Kreiders in Wadsworth, the Liechtys in Archbold, the Birkys at Kouts, and the Kreiders, Buzzards, Springers, etc., at Goshen. Tim stayed with Ralph and Liz. In September our third son clutched—not his lunchbox, but his lunch money, and went down the road with brothers Dan and Jonathan, cousins Rodney and Ellen, and friend Jimmy Cutrell to board the bus for his first day of school. He was fortunate to be able to start school in the brand-new schoolhouse which the boys had used for several weeks in the spring, but of which Tim’s was the beginning class. In October Don Liechtys visited us for a day and a night; in their honor we invited the Erbs and the Pauls for dinner the day they were here. Our Thanksgiving guests this year were the Orie Cutrells, who were living in the back two rooms of the Hernley house, and the Allan Eitzens. We had a good day visiting, getting out the manger scene, making fruit cake, and preparing pomanders. From then on to Christmas we concentrated on our family Christmas program, which the boys gave on Christmas eve and which was fun for all of us, even though I was sick. During the fall and winter Millard taught a class at Johnstown once a week, and one at the Publishing House also. I enjoyed the stimulus of a cell-group for the first time, and met a fascinating new friend, Arlene Heath, who in turn introduced me to some of her friends, particularly 21 Story of a Family Esther Levin. We together began to attend the Great Books Group in Mount Pleasant, and the stimulation of new friendships and new thoughts was a great joy to me. Among additional guests this year: Milford Pauls who helped celebrate Tim’s birthday, Stanley Yoders who helped celebrate Matthew’s birthday, Eugene Herr, our new pastor at Kingview, Kenny Hieberts, Louise and Bonnie Leatherman, Dan and Mary Hertzler, Guy Hershberger, Levi Hartzler, Howard Zehr, Paul Erbs, Don Masts, Eitzens, Cutrells, Alva Yoders, Lowell Hershbergers and Sarah Lehman, David Schlabachs, Chauncey Birkys, Hope Kauffman, and Naomi Smoker. April 17, 1955—January 1, 1956 This was the year of the Transcontinental Tour for the Linds, in mid-May, having secured the release of the boys from school several weeks early, we all piled into our little green, two-door Chevy and headed for the west. Contrary to what we had expected, the children were all exceptionally good travelers, and we managed to make very good time each day. Besides seeing all their mother’s old homes, schools, and haunts, and the Idaho relatives, the same kind of treat waited in Oregon for the children, but this time it was their father’s country and people. His “secret place” was looked for, but not found. Ours was a six-week tour—again made possible by a church appointment of Millard’s. The calendar year ended with a special Christmas: the Texas Reists were with us. And now the family history continues in “Hill Journal” and “On the Corner.” 22 Hill Journal 1956 January All during Christmas vacation we hoped for snow as a special treat for the visiting Texas youngsters. And all during vacation we were blessed with fine Texas weather! But Pennsylvania arrived the day after the Texans left—and such sliding weather! The supper hour is committed to animated discussion of the finest sledding paths and which sleds perform the best. (It turns out that the littlest, oldest, unlikeliest sled goes the fastest and farthest.) The boys burst from the table in great agitation and fall upon their sledding with renewed passion. When it is time to be called in for bed they feel it a gross injustice. Don’t we know that there is still good sledding and the snow might melt tomorrow? But they fall asleep at once, their cheeks still glowing from the after-supper play. (And the snow is still there, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.) There is always beauty for free here on our hill. When hill upon hill lies before our eyes, all iced with snow, one needs only to go to the window to be rich. But not all beauty is free. One thinks of this when one sees and hears the record collections of some of our friends. The wardrobes, cars, gadgets, furniture, and fine houses of the well-off leave me cold. But music! Though ignorant of its technicalities, I am deeply hungry for it, and find myself longing for its touch upon my day. Often we thank God for those few friends of ours who can possess their greater wealth with a light touch; and we offer special petition for other friends who seem to have clutched at this blessing and are all tangled up in it. God knew that we could not have borne the responsibility and the temptation of affluence! There is a prayer that I love—said to be a favorite prayer of St. Francis de Sales: “Yes, Father, Yes, and always Yes!” The child is another free source of beauty—all year ’round! Sometimes one forgets it these days when the little ones are cooped up inside more Story of a Family than usual. (This year we have only three at home, but it seems less peaceful than when there were four.) We have come to believe that living with children is one of the more rigorous of Life’s disciplines. (There are days, I tell myself, when I’d pay money to be working away from home!) We agree with what many working mothers of small children say—that they can be nicer to their children if they are away all day. But if I were to work away from home, think of all the discipline I would miss! And all the rewards of discipline! In any case—I’m glad I wasn’t at a desk or on an assembly line or in a schoolroom today. Among other things, I would have missed the mutterings of our bright-eyed “Andrewshek” as he watched the cardinals from the window. “They are magic birds. They’d have to be magic—that red!” And later, “Does the cardinal know he’s a cardinal, huh? He prob’ly thinks he’s jus’ a plain ole bird, not magic a-tall.” Sometimes when I lay out my day before Him in the mornings, and ask guidance in the choice of what to do and what to leave undone, I get the feeling that by all means those bedroom windows are to be washed. Wistfully I wish that my conviction would be directed toward reading that new devotional book, or visiting a friend, or writing a letter—anything but washing windows! But my friend Arlene has a different approach. As she washes her windows she prays, “Lord, wash my windows so that Your light can reach those dark corners of my soul!” (I’ve tried Arlene’s way—and it helps! She says she got it from a book.) One book a week is what I aim to read. But a book I return to again and again, and read slowly, underlining, and learning something new each time is Day’s Autobiography of Prayer. This one book has affected in me a conversion in the understanding and use of prayer. I would call it my “Book of the Year” selection—for a number of years now. Speaking of books, one thing that has made all this snow so pleasant is that we don’t go anywhere evenings unless we have to. So we’ve had 24 Hill Journal 1956 some good stretches of family life. And when we speak of family life, we usually mean reading together in the evening. By the time we get around to reading the new Christmas books this year (San Francisco Boy, by Lenski, and On the Banks of Plum Creek, by Wilder) Mister Nine says, “I’ve read mine three times already, but go ahead, I want to hear it!” These days I’m re-learning the 103rd Psalm. In my childhood I learned it in the “loving kindness and tender mercy” version. Now it is rigorous mental exercise to substitute “steadfast love and mercy.” But it means more than ever to me as I tax my memory with its repetition—at the sink, in bed at night, or just here sitting at the desk and looking out on the January hills of our home— Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, Bless his holy name! TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when Eleven quietly leaves his arithmetic, puts on his favorite Robert Shaw record (“He Watching Over Israel”) and returns to his work—without a word. February We lay snug last night and listened to the February rain on the roof. And oh, the difference in the sound of a cold rain and a warm rain! But cold or warm, rain on the roof in the dark of night or early morning is one of the loveliest of sounds to be heard. (When I know that I don’t have to get up and take care of the furnace.) Report cards! Can it be? Half the school year gone! Mister Seven’s report card was a puzzle to us. Up to this point, the grading in our school has always been done in multiples of five—with 100% possible only in spelling. So Seven comes home with a string of 98’s, the gap between his oversize front teeth exaggerated by his grin. Nine and Eleven cast dark looks at Seven. They have never heard of teachers who give such grades! And we ask—Why these 98’s? Seven doesn’t seem to know. Then Seven’s friend’s mother calls up—is it true that our child has a rash of 98’s on his report card too? What is the explanation? Is this all a big joke? And we ask Seven again: Did anyone else get them? “Oh, yes,” he says, “EVERYBODY but a couple. Well, three of us did, anyhow, or I’d say about ten.” Enlightening. We finally figure out that they were doled 25 Story of a Family out as a special treat for good behavior, and we have again that sneaking feeling we had as youngsters, that this grading business leaves much to be desired. The kitchen walls are covered with all shapes and sizes of valentines: from Four’s pasty version of a valentine man to Seven’s ingeniously constructed cow of brown paper hearts (hastily thrown together when he realized he’d forgotten his parents in the rush of addressing forty valentines for school); to Eleven’s carefully executed lacy delicacy of paper doilies, ribbons, and bows; to the lovely “store” valentine with so meaningful a message which came from a dear Canadian friend of mine. “And did you learn any valentine songs when you were in school?” the children ask, after having sung all theirs, in turn, for me. Fortunately for my self-respect, I can remember one or two. They seem delighted with these museum pieces. As we near the beginning of Lent we discuss the idea (at family council) of going without desserts. Since we usually have a simple dessert at dinner (supper) the plan agreed upon is to put the amount saved by going without into a small bank, and to use the money for our Christmas bundle fund. The next day Mister Nine comes home from school. “I didn’t eat my dessert today!” he announces righteously. “But we agreed this was not to apply to your cafeteria lunches; they’re already paid for!” I remonstrate. “What was your dessert?” “Well,” Nine grins sheepishly, “Well, it was really a doughnut. I ate that. But we had cottage cheese salad and I don’t like that; so I pretended it was the dessert!” Often in the Quiet Time I feel dull and utterly incapable of making any effort Godward. The words I have just read in the Bible seem mere words, my prayer perfunctory. When this dryness descends, then I search what I have read for one phrase to carry with me during the day: one token flower to “hold lovingly” as one saint has said—to recall and examine as I go about my work. Inevitably this one “flower” gives a grace to an otherwise dull day, no matter how barren my “feelings.” One day it was, “Look to him and be radiant!” Another day it was just the phrase, “His steadfast love.” And all during that day I asked Him to surround and uphold my dear ones, my neighbors, the members of my church and prayer groups, and those whom I would recall as being 26 Hill Journal 1956 in need of God, or His comfort, or His provision, to uphold them all with this steadfast love. Another time it was the refreshing RSV translation of II Corinthians 1:20 — “All the promises of God find their Yes in him.” Today was so dull—and then the robins descended! I hadn’t written a poem in months, but I couldn’t resist a bit of verse on this occasion. Where is that seed catalog—? But first I must get these Baby Books up to date—and this mending pile must be reduced to make way for the inevitable work that grows out of seed catalog dreaming! TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when a certain young lad shyly comes and shows his mother the s-p-e-c-i-a-1 valentine he has bought for that s-p-e-c-i-a-1 sixth grader of the opposite sex. This affair has been going on for several years, but never before has he ventured into the realm of the Hallmark card! March On our hill we know nothing about the lion and the lamb of March. We do observe, however, that March comes in with a kite and goes out with a bag of marbles! Perhaps when one has never known personally the love of a father one is especially susceptible, but no beauty can so move me as the relationship between a loving father and his children. I stand at the big window and watch the six of them—not man and boys now, but all boys— attempting to fly their kites in the lower corner of our acre. And suddenly life seems too big; the place where I stand seems holy ground. And there is only prayer. “I wish we had more babies,” Mister Five said the other day. Our bright-eyed “Andrewshek” misunderstood the wish for the reality, and ran to me in excitement. Embracing me, he begged in that endearingly serious manner of his, “And when we do have our new baby, will you let me call her SPOT? Spot, like the Dog-That-Cameto-School?” Last night our prayer group met again, and again we experienced that exhilaration of being two or three—or eight or ten—together—plus 27 Story of a Family the Other in our midst. We sang together—and how that singing unites and lifts! Though in our “youth” we enjoyed singing in college choruses and quartets, there is a spiritual quality in this singing together that transcends any experience I have known. We observe searching silence— together. One by one we bring our petitions, and pray together, audibly or in silence, for one concern at a time. Knowing how disciplined living can emancipate one from the tyrannical power of things and people and one’s own self, we agree upon certain procedures which we try to follow in the days between our meetings—and find that such procedures, faithfully followed, really do open the door for God. We share our failures and our insights, our prayers, our reading experiences, and witnessing opportunities. We study a given topic from a book agreed upon by the group (just now it is Discipline and Discovery, by Albert E. Day). And we can feel our minds and our souls stretching in growth, and new meanings springing into the timeless words—Prayer—Love—Grace! After having experienced a number of years in various “cell” or “prayer” or “study” groups, denominational and interdenominational, and having come to the overwhelming realization that God has used these groups to make these the richest years of my life so far—I wonder why ministers in our church are not more generally taking advantage of this movement. Far from promoting exclusive cliques, the prayer group principle is widely adaptable to any local program, and if rightly used, can be the means of spiritual enrichment far beyond its apparent boundaries. I always feel a little frustrated when I go to empty Mister Seven’s pockets. Today the current “find” was absolutely amazing. All I could do was lay it out in rows and point to it. “I know all about boys and their pockets,” I sighed; “but tell me, where did he get the stuff?” “Aw, Mom,” Mister Nine explained for his younger brother, “that’s just the junk he got when he traded off his squirrel tail!” Speaking of junk—there’s our back yard. Spring is pushing. One sees the ears of the tulips and the spears of jonquils. Also—a recently constructed “shack,” a mighty tangle of rope and clothesline wire, an old broom, tin cans, bricks, cartons, rocks, chains, a broken-down soap box racer. Cleanup day is imminent; one of these Saturdays we will descend on this yard. And for a few days it will look as if respectable people live here! 28 Hill Journal 1956 Once I read a letter which ended, “And now, if you come to visit us, we’ll have a model farm to show you.” To show! What an emptiness. One of my pet peeves is going to visit people and then being herded around to see their possessions. It’s about as spiritually satisfying as a proposed “visit” where the host watches television, and the guest, for want of better employment, watches his host. “Andrewshek,” like many three- and four-year-olds, is all engrossed in growing up. When Mister Five asks me, “Why do children have birthdays?” “Andrewshek” quickly replies, “So to be big!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when Little Missy pulls my head down and lays her cheek against mine, crooning in that dear two-and-ahalf language, “We is good little f’ends, isn’ we?” April And now it’s April. Mister Nine is ten, and has bought himself a dog, to replace the ill-fated Jeff, our red cocker. Jeff was the children’s Christmas gift, and victim of a passing train. His going caused deep wounds that even yet are not healed—in the one boy who loved him most of all. It would be disloyalty of the grossest sort for him to buy another dog so soon. But he has contributed fifty cents toward Frisky. “That entitles you to the front right leg,” Mister Nine generously concedes. Even so, Jeff is not forgotten soon. As “Andrewshek” said wistfully the other day, “When God makes a new world, maybe we can buy back Jeffie!” Maybe. But in the meantime we have Frisky. The new acquisition is a mixture of Airedale, wirehaired terrier, and dog—but he’s a mighty cute mixture, and we all like Frisky. The plowing of the garden is, for us, an occasion for the leaping up of the heart as surely as Wordsworth’s daffodils! The leaves of the trees in the wood behind and in the woods on the surrounding hills are not yet uncurled; the earth is still bare, but there is a promise in the very air. And here and there the earnest of the promise—green fields of winter wheat defying the changes of April. And there’s “More forsythia!” call the children, as we drive the country roads. The plowed garden in spring—an avowal of faith in the promise of the Eternal One whose summer and winter, seedtime and harvest—shall keep unfolding as long as the earth remains! 29 Story of a Family “But how can I beat people to be big?” “Andrewshek” wonders, that dear little scowl puckering his forehead and accentuating the piercing quality of his brown eyes. I am tucking him in for the night, and so I try to explain that we are as we are, and will grow only as fast as we are supposed to grow, and that God has made us in such a way that we can grow to be so tall and no taller. There isn’t too much we can do about it, I remind him, but it’s a good idea to eat your good food, and get lots of sleep and rest. “Andrewshek” scowls still, and the question still shines in his eyes. Then Mister Five, Theologian in the upper bunk, offers sagely, “You know, J. J., the Bible says, ‘It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.’” “Oh,” says “Andrewshek” in a small disappointed voice, but with acceptance and understanding. Easter morning on our hill has begun in the same manner for years. The children awaken us with “The Lord is risen!” and wait with grins for our answer, “The Lord is risen indeed.” Or vice versa. (But they are happier if they can beat us to it.) The day advances to include sunrise services for the older members of the family; a festive breakfast containing at least these three specialties: hot cross buns, eggs, and singing. Then church again. And intermittently all day, the eggs colored on Saturday are hid and rehid until by Sunday evening they are crushed and unappetizing. Good for salads and sandwiches, though. Also as creamed eggs for Monday morning breakfast! One of the surprising things I have learned recently is that one’s ability to memorize does not vanish because of age, but more probably deteriorates through disuse. For I am finding that the discipline of learning a psalm a month, and a new hymn every two weeks is not at all an impossibility, even with such mediocre mental equipment as mine. And it gets easier all the time! How wonderfully, indeed, we are made! And that reminds me of Children’s Meeting last night. Our evangelist is one of the most agile storytellers we have ever heard—he keeps our little brood interested not only in the meetings for children, but all during the sermon. Mister Five confided today, “He preaches the best stories I ever heard.” We parents who shrink from these object lessons that leave the children with a remembrance of the object, but a blank where the lesson is concerned, appreciated especially his children’s meetings. Tonight he told them he had brought along from home a special tool to show them—a 30 Hill Journal 1956 tool which could be used for a comb, brush, washcloth, rake, shovel, dipper—(only a beginning of the list he gave the children) among other things. After arousing the curiosity of the children and adults to an almost unbearable pitch (I’ll confess I was thinking, Now how can he make the Bible fit that description?) he brought his hands out of his pockets. His text: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The wordless adoration in the eyes of Seven when he is presented with an unexpected gift—a box of colored BandAids for his Doctor Set. May May Day—and that old ache-in-the-throat returns. And I wish for all the world that I could share the day—just once more—with the person who helped most to make May a month of Enchantment for the child who was me. Someone has said that a homemaker’s success may be measured by the moments of happiness that she gives her family. If this is true, my mother was a whopping success. Of necessity she had to work away from home; so we often came from school to an empty house. That’s bad, they say. Though rarely she might have done so, I can’t remember of her reading to us—a must for mothers these days. Many were the spankings administered to me by her lithe hand—I know that, even though I can’t recall any specific one. Her formal schooling extended to the eighth grade, and while she kept her mind open, reading and growing all her days, she persisted to the end in the ungrammatical “he don’t” and “they done.” But in Love—ah, there’s where she ran off with all the degrees and honors. And now May is here, and I think of that love so often. I thought of it last evening as I stood at the door watching the sun making a glory of the western sky-bit visible here and there through the thin woods behind the house. For it was on the eve of May Day that we three girls were always to be found busy with May baskets. Not for us these cheap cornucopias of construction paper! May baskets called from our saving places all the hoarded boxes of various shapes and sizes, and from our heads all the 31 Story of a Family ingenuity which nimble fingers could bring into being. Crepe paper was cut and scalloped and curled and lapped to resemble the flowers of spring, and each basket was a creation, not a reproduction. (Just now I wince as memory gives me a flash of our dining room on such an evening—the long table full of baskets finished and baskets in the making; flour paste in an old zinc jar lid; scraps of yellow and green and rose paper littering the worn linoleum. I can see the naked bulb hanging from its cord in the center of the room, the old treadle machine over by the window, the worn armchair beside it. At the angle of my knees I feel the edge of the high bench behind the table. And as it all comes back, I know that never in all the House and Home magazines in the world will there be pictured such a beautiful dining room!) Then we would fill the baskets with popcorn, candy, and blossoms— always apple blossoms—and in the desk, we would flit from house to house, creeping to the door, laying down the basket, knocking, and running wildly away—all the while shivering with excitement at the possibility of having been seen! Coming home to our own doorstep we would find that our friends had been busy also—and then came the guessing, “This looks like Lois’s . . . that’s Lucy’s!” And we would dig deep to find the slip of paper which would confirm our guess, or surprise us. Several years we tried May baskets with our children. Somehow— what is lacking? Friend Husband suggests, “Now be truthful—did your brothers go in for this sort of thing?” All of a sudden I appear very foolish to myself for trying to duplicate that dining room scene way back there, substituting three boys for three girls. Yes, so many things in May remind me of Her. There’s May Day, and the last day of school—when she always made me a new dress for the Picnic. A new dress—and her famous potato salad which was expected at any picnic a child of hers attended. And there was her birthday (far more important to us than Mother’s Day, which she had to share with all mothers—good and bad). Today, on Her birthday, I had to think of how she loved gardening. And again I wished, as I often have done, that she had bequeathed to me some of that affinity for the soil. But—affinity or not, I did finally set out the lovely BigBoy tomato plants that I’ve grown from seed in flats by the big window. Also the special Nearestto-White and Giant-Chrysanthemum32 Hill Journal 1956 Flowered marigolds. Their foliage is rich and hearty. The maples were in full leaf, and the garden soil was warm and friable as I set the plants out in rows. I almost enjoyed it! May 25, and there was a heavy frost last night. My lovely plants are all shriveling, black from the breath of Jack. The first time I could raise indoor plants without danger of having them pulled out by little hands— and a frost destroys them! My neighbors cluck sympathetically, but I sense they are really thinking, “Don’t they hear the weather reports?” (As a matter of fact—we don’t. For fifteen years we’ve been trying to get into the habit of listening to a radio, but with such a family of bookworms, we’ve given up trying.) TO KEEP AND PONDER: The quick tears in Mister Ten’s eyes and his small, strained voice as he answers our offer, “Wouldn’t you like to go to Boys’ Camp this year?” with “I like it at home pretty well.” June “The Hut” is the current craze among the ten-year-olds out our way. We have dimly thought at times that we should be supervising the construction a bit more closely. Today verified our misgivings. There was a fire in the hut—which could have been tragic, but was only painful to our Mister Ten. He went bawling to the doctor’s office, waving his arms, and hopping up and down outside while we waited. But coming back, with beautiful white bandages to the elbows of both arms, his face was radiant. “Oh, I love this!” he cried. “I’m glad it happened the day before school was out—now all the kids will see!” His brown eyes were a study in pure joy. “Oh, I love it, I love it! At last I’ll have something to tell my children!” And Ten’s mother understood—remembering the coveted broken arm which she never did get. In these days when reading is stressed as so important a part of a mother’s duty to her child, what is happening to storytelling? We hope parents aren’t forgetting the magic of those most precious-of-all stories — “When Daddy Was a Little Boy” and “When Mother Was a Little Girl.” Dinner tonight was special—the dessert being a rhubarb pie from our good neighbor-relatives. “This is the best pie I ever tasted!” bursts out Ten. Eleven, enjoying every crumb and longing for more, neverthe-less 33 Story of a Family reproves his brother with a stern glance and adds, loyally, “Yes, it tastes just like yours, Mom.” Most unforgettable acquaintance of the month for me was authorillustrator Lois Lenski, whom I met yesterday at State Teacher’s College, where she was speaking at a Social Studies Workshop. I felt I had never seen such transparent honesty, goodness, and understanding in one person as I saw in this woman. My one reaction to her person and her message: “She is the kind of person I would like to be.” Seven is Eight today. Only one gift he wants, and for that he goes with Daddy in the car on his birthday morning. He chooses it himself—a lovely white rabbit, a doe—to be company to Rags, his brown buck. “What is her name?” I ask, for I can’t bear to have babies or pets or dolls or stories unnamed! He reflects, and his big blue eyes go dreamy behind his specs. “Snow White” he says reverently—and with finality. This week I have reread, for perhaps the fourth time, Two Women and a War. We have no desire to build up a large library of unread books, or books requiring only one reading. Our policy is to wait to buy a book until we are certain it will bear rereading or lending. Attractive as long rows of book sets appear in the living rooms of some homes we have seen, we are contented to buy books for their contents, and not for the “atmosphere” they can create in a room. “I’m bigger’n—” is a topic of serious consideration between the two youngest at our house. It is taken up every day, and often many times in a day. “I’m bigger’n you are.” “Well, I’m bigger’n Jan an’ Ginny.” “Yeah, but I’m bigger’n David.” On it goes, on and on—until it ends inevitably with one or the other saying, “I’m bigger’n anyone in the whole world ’cept Daddy an’ Mother an’ God an’ Jesus.” “Yeah,” answers the other, fully contented. And mother, listening, smiles to be placed in so rare a category. 34 Hill Journal 1956 June is lush from our window. People who come to visit say “Now I can see the sense of a picture window with a view like this!” They say it invariably, whether they come in June, October, or January. And though we are in a chronic state of mild embarrassment over our rather wild back yard, we are never ashamed of God’s canvas opposite our hill! TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment in church when Almost-Eight, now daily aware of his coming birthday, eyes the mother-to-be down the bench, leans over and whispers lovingly to his own mother, “I know Someone who was nice and fat eight years ago!” July Family reunions were a novelty to us as children. I was twelve before I ever attended one—for we grew up in the Wild West, away from our relatives. Reunions still fascinate me—and this year we were especially happy to be included in the family of our Lebanon County cousins on July fourth. Happy, that is, until the evening before, when one of the tribe developed nausea and fever. Consequently the whole pack came down with the notserious, but inconvenient “virus.” And we could only hope we’d be invited again sometime. Today I read that ordinarily one makes no new friends after the age of forty. We told ourselves that in this matter we hope we will not be “ordinary.” We want to be open for friendship right up to the moment our hearts stop beating! Just this week I have been made aware of the reality of a friendship which has slowly flowered from casual acquaintance. And I wonder—what manner of cultivation was at work here to produce so beautiful a flower—before my very eyes, and yet I did not see it! And being without know-how, either in the raising of roses or friendships, I can only accept it unquestioningly, as one accepts a flower from the hand of a child; lovingly as one takes each day, a gift from the hand of God. We admire people who have a sort of perpetual open-house, where folks are always coming and going. For some reason, perhaps laziness, perhaps an innate bent toward introspection, this is a virtue we have not quite achieved. But we do feel enriched by the guests that occasionally are ours. Yesterday a missionary couple shared soup and concerns with us. We are especially glad when these Princes of God come into our home. They give meaning to those six little banks and to our Missionary Map. 35 Story of a Family Our new map project differs from our former one, now defunct, in that we are using only the pictures of those missionaries who have been in our home. This makes us try a little harder to get our “bids” in when the various missionaries stop in town. So far this year we’ve enjoyed only three missionary families—but our fall missions program should yield us some additions! It keeps raining three, sometimes four, days out of a week. “And me with a broken-down dryer!” All one needs to do is to write down a pout like that to realize how undeservedly fortunate he is. Someday, I tell myself, why not take your basket down to the creek, and try to teach yourself, by washing clothes as millions of women still do, that we live like kings up here on the hill? The black raspberries are hanging on now—luscious fairy cups, each tiny cell filled to bursting with sweetness. We have berries on our morning cereal. Berries for dinner dessert. Berry cobblers for supper. No one gets tired of them. When the welcome Sunday afternoon guest drops in unexpectedly the supper menu is—berries and milk. The green beans, too, are hanging thick, and today the boys picked, cleaned, and put into jars, nearly two bushels of the tender vegetables, our family’s favorite. Lazy mother—all she needed to do was to prepare the jars and process the beans. The boys enjoyed it—after all, this was only the first day. In fact, they enjoyed it so much that they offered to go help the young mother over the tracks and up the path, with her bushel. On their homecoming they announced, “We didn’t do as many for her as we did for you—and she gave us cookies!” July is a big birthday month for us. Thirty-five has become thirtysix, five has become six, and eleven has become twelve, all within a few days of each other. (To say nothing of neighbors and relatives and friends’ birthdays!) This year our former neighbors were our guests on their daughter’s and our son’s birthday. Years ago these two had celebrated together. This year, her mother made the cake for our son, and we made the cake for her. The unveiling of the mystery cakes was a great occasion, and one of those moments of happiness which the two children involved will likely remember a long time. 36 Hill Journal 1956 Today I read again “The Simplification of Life” from Kelly’s A Testament of Devotion. I could feel the lift of spirit-wings as I read, and I thought I must run outdoors crying to anyone who might hear, “Oh, read this book! You can’t help but be different!” My second reaction was, “And how is it changing me?” TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when flatfooted little “Andrewshek” pads out from his bed and begs “Sit by my door, Mommy, so to keep the scary dreams away.” August Because the breadwinner plans to go to school this fall, August has been our month for some major operations on the family budget. We hadn’t known there were so many possibilities—we thought we were living frugally! To be sure, we always knew we were cutting the peelings thick when it came to haircuts. Since both of us were convinced of our lack of manual dexterity, we decided to retain the services of a barber as a semiluxury. But this year, the semiluxuries have the knife to the throat— so— Few people would understand if I were to say that learning to cut the five boys’ hair—even imperfectly—has been for me a spiritual victory. And yet it was. Finding that one can do what he knew he couldn’t do is one of life’s most exhilarating adventures, I do believe. Small Daughter brought us up short today. “Please, Minka, pick up the book.” We gave the order gently. Her reply— “No.” More firmly, then, “Minka, the floor is not the place for your good book. Can you put it on the shelf?” “No.” Again, rising, and adding to the emphasis, “Minka!” Miss AlmostThree cast a baleful look in our direction. “Okay,” she sobbed, “but don’t say to me, ‘That’s a nice girl’!” (We didn’t!) The three big boys came home today after five days on the farm of our Springs friends, and the house suddenly seems bursting with noise, alive with long legs and arms. We are instructed that a garden tractor 37 Story of a Family and power mower are absolute essentials for our acre; that the next time we get chickens we must get Leghorns; that a Farmall tractor is not to be excelled; that at least three of our family will be farmers and, above all, that “Mother, you were wrong! Those kids do too fuss about working, and their mother does too have to nag at them to keep them on the job!” We always think we will keep a list of the books we read together in the summer, and we never do. But the summer has been full of good reading experiences. Today, in the heat of mid-August we finished our Lenski book—“Prairie School”—and were furnished with enough authentic blizzardry to air-condition our warm living room. The first day of school is looming—and Six, in his characteristically hoarse, low voice, reminds me that “His” day is coming up. For he remembers that we have a family institution concerning Boys-aboutready-for-first-grade. One day he is to be taken to a neighboring town, where we will buy his “school things” and tip it off with a sundae at the corner drugstore. Fourth in a line of small straight six-year-olds to go through the family ritual, this current boy was specially favored—since we combined a necessary trip to Pittsburgh with His Day. And the sundae was eaten by Mother and son, with mutual pleasure, in a big Woolworth’s Store. In our Prayer Group we have learned one new hymn a month. At times it seemed to take a bit too much effort, but we continued to learn them. Tonight, at our meeting, we sang together all the new songs we had thus learned. Most of them were from our Songs of the Church. I felt afterward that perhaps we should have shared some of our experiences with these hymns. I, for one, could have said that canning was made bearable to the tune of “The Work Is Thine, O Christ,” and that in the moments of waiting before the services began “Dear Shepherd of Thy People” always helped to prepare my mind. Then there were the times when the fullness of life overwhelmed and I found myself bursting into “Praise the Saviour, Ye Who Know Him” as I went about the ordinary duties of the day. TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when Six runs breathlessly into the house, the sweat streaming from his sopping butchcut hair, down over his temples. He throws into my lap a bunch of mint leaves he has torn from their bed down by the stream, together with a grimy note (printed 38 Hill Journal 1956 with the help of his next-oldest brother) bearing the words, “I love you.” All this followed by the explanation, “That’s because of That!” September The years when we send a child to first grade are always more exciting than the odd years. This year Number Four Boy left us, erect and confident. He had beamed to be the subject of prayer at the breakfast table—the special “Going to School for the First Time” prayer that each child gets only once in his life. But now he offered us a nonchalant peck at the door and flew to join his brothers and the rest of the crowd at the bus stop, his new blue jeans and red shirt flashing like the foliage of a bright bird in the morning sunshine. Coming home, slightly wilted and bone-tired as anyone could see, his only comment, “You have to sit so long at school!” Tonight we were reading the next-to-last Laura Ingalls Wilder book. Pa made a pun, and Laura explained that while Ma never thought Pa’s puns were funny, she always had to laugh at the way Pa looked at her when he made one. “Just like you are about Dad’s jokes!” grinned Twelve. We all laughed, however, when Miss Almost Three began her literary (?) career with a pun at the supper table. “Oh, I won’t eat this!” she cried, as she pushed a minute brown particle to the side of her plate. “It’s a bug!” “Why, no, Honey,” we said. “That’s just a tiny piece of hamburger.” “Well,” she replied saucily, “ham-buger!” After days of canning when I think I can’t wait to stretch out on that bed, it’s hard to be sympathetic with youngsters who are sure that sleep is a waste of good playing time. Even the new scholar, though so tired he is pale, resents the curfew: “Now listen, everybody,” he announces. “I gotta new rule. Anyone with three blisters on their hand don’t have to go to bed.” Softly then, in a tone of mock discovery, “Why, look, I got three blisters!” My good friend Lois writes that she loves to can. But she is one of those Born Homemakers, I tell myself. And it’s true, she does have the knack. But deep down, I know I could love to can, too—if I wanted to. 39 Story of a Family I suppose it’s a common human failure to love to achieve, but to despise the steps by which we achieve. Those rows and rows of varicolored fruits and vegetables on the shelves are a thing of beauty to me. (I only wish I had exerted myself to fill the last empty space.) But only rarely did I actually enjoy the work involved. I keep thinking wistfully that I will have a soul again and will start to Live—after canning is over! And while I say it, I say to myself, “Now that’s an example of poor stewardship.” Much as I dislike canning, however, I can’t make myself say, “I never want to see another jar!” I remember someone who said that—and who never did see another one. Canning notwithstanding, I did finish reading The Nun’s Story today. I bought it for Arlene, but I wanted to see if it was good enough to send. I like it so much that I loaned it to two more friends before sending it. And I knew it to be one of those books which I must buy for my own library. It is an uncanny literary ability which can make the reader feel as if all this has happened in his own soul. My private theory about gift giving is probably foolish, but I cling to it: viz., I don’t like to give a gift to someone unless I myself want it so badly that giving it away is a struggle. It was hard to send off that book, much as I love Arle! Sometimes I’m convinced that our two youngest are the arguingest pair in the English-speaking world. They are so different—the fanatical, mechanically minded boy-child, and the soul-of-domesticity girl; perhaps that is part of the reason for their lack of rapport. Anyway, a dozen times a day I am appealed to: “Am I a dummy?” “Am I a little girl?” “Am I stupid?” A dozen times a day I smile and say, “No, you’re a wonderful girl!” And a dozen times a day the little hands go on the hips and the little chin juts forward with the Last Word: “See—Mommy DIDN’T SAID!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when Missy, watching the dressing of Big Brother’s wounds, whispers—with tears streaming down her cheeks, “Oh, don’t hurt my little friend!” 40 Hill Journal 1956 October These are the crisp bright days of blue and gold. Morning—and down the lane struts the colorful Ringneck, croaking his hoarse, harsh greeting to us hill-dwellers. At noon we walk down for the mail, the little children stopping to pick up sticks and stones and varicolored leaves; Frisky bouncing playfully in and out of the fields, flushing pheasants; and I—trying to match my thoughts with the various beauty surrounding us all. Perhaps there is something to be said for occasional solitude. One of the disciplines of a certain prayer group is to observe a “personal retreat” once a month. Two hours spent alone—absolutely alone—once a month! I thought of that today as I took a leafy path into the woods at Laurelville, leaving the children to play by themselves among the loved, familiar rocks and rills of this beautiful campground. Only fifteen minutes of “Salute thyself, see what thy soul doth wear” and I realized the wisdom of such a practice. “For God alone my soul waits in silence” might be a good tonic for that malady which so many mothers seem to enjoy, and yet complain about most of the time—“busyness.” How many words are wasted in a day—a week—a month—a year—I wonder, on this favorite complaint, favorite excuse, favorite topic of conversation among housewives. I no longer remember who pointed out to me this truth—but I have lived to appreciate it, and to bless the person who passed it on to me—that the real reason people talk so much about being busy is that it gives them a feeling of self-importance. That is why one rarely hears a truly humble person complaining of being “so busy.” (And though I know I’m not truly humble), I have, because of this insight, removed the phrase “too busy” from my vocabulary. Strangely enough, since then I have rarely felt harassed or pressed for time. Long ago, in my student days, I burst into the crowded day of a great and good man with an apology for interrupting a busy schedule. That man not only put me at ease, but taught me “plain Christianity” when he pointed to a chair, smiled, turned up his palms, and drawled leisurely, “I have all the time there is.” The man of the house is taking a few days off to paint the walls of his domain. He has many helpers. I marvel at his patience as one after 41 Story of a Family another takes his turn at slapping (slopping) on the paint. Four paints steadily for an hour, and weeps and wails when he must give up his brush to Eight, who wants to paint his rabbit hutch. I try to match the Man’s patience when they all come in with big brown blotches on face and neck, in hair and even in the curlicues of their ears. The turpentine and the patience give out about the same time. Little Missy and her mother were admiring a new baby today. Coming home, Mother suggested, “It would be nice for you to have a baby sister, wouldn’t it?” Little Missy pondered that. She was tempted—almost, then replied, “Well, I don’t think I need one, cause you an’ me are sisters, huh?” Eight has made a collection of leaves for his father’s birthday—first gathering them, then shellacking, then carefully mounting them in a wallpaper-covered notebook which he has made. “Have you a child,” asked a friend of ours, “who seems innately unselfish?” I knew what she was talking about. Our drawers and hearts are full of the small spontaneous tokens from this child—a steady stream of them since his babyhood. And always they are the creations of heart and hands—never mere moneybought baubles! TO KEEP AND PONDER: Those rare occasions when father and mother together make the rounds of the sleeping children— “To see if they are covered” and, one suspects, inwardly to renew those unspoken promises made to each child at his birth. November Our little Princess today has need of consolation, for it is her big brother’s fifth birthday, and though she has only recently officiated with queenly aplomb at her own third-year rites, yet somehow her brothers’ birthdays seem to come oftener than hers. She stands at the window and gazes disconsolately out into the cold rain. “Someday,” she murmurs, “I’m going to grow to be a BΙG Mommy, and I’ll have BIG hands, and I’ll SMILE to Daddy.” She pauses then adds as an afterthought, “And I won’t suck a sniggeret like the town lady. I’ll jes’ chew carrots.” 42 Hill Journal 1956 My friend Arlene and I both have copies of Fellowship of the Saints—a fine anthology of Christian devotional literature. Consequently, hardly a letter passes between us without “Have you read...on page...?” This week I felt compelled to cite her to Evelyn Underhill’s “The Place of Will, Intellect, and Feeling in Prayer.” This, I wrote, is the kind of reading that makes difference! But does reading make a difference? A friend at a meeting last night said, “I get discouraged about writing, because I think—who’ll read it anyhow—and if they do, what difference will it make?” Then she turned to me. “Do you sense a cooperating audience when you write, or do you just write to express yourself?” I had to admit that at one time, in fact for many years, writing was for me primarily a form of self-expression. But it has since become an act of faith. If I didn’t believe that someone, somewhere, even only one person—is a better, richer person because of something I have written, I don’t think I could make myself take time from the duties which to me are less exacting than writing. Advice is cheap—and too many of us give too much of it needlessly. But one line of advice I never feel apologetic about giving is— “You should read this book!” My missionary friend, Lois, said one evening, “You should read Eugene Nida’s Customs and Cultures. Weeks later, while browsing over a shelf of books which our pastor had placed at the back of the church, I saw the book, and I took it home, not really believing that “An Anthropology for Christian Missions” could be highly interesting to me. But it was. In my enthusiasm, I included a few words about the book in a letter to a friend. Several days later an airmail letter came, asking if the book could be sent her immediately. “This is an S.O.S.!” Weeks later she wrote that she had used the book as a basis for her talks on “America’s Forgotten Children” to a convention of over 3,000 church women. And so it goes—the endless ripples from the tiny pebble: One person says—“Have you read—?” and in time thousands have had the opportunity of gaining sharpened insights into a common concern. 43 Story of a Family So I am never apologetic when I say to a friend, “You should read…” And though we book-lovers are often charged with being overenthusiastic, perhaps our emphasis is necessary to remind those whose reading habits are underdeveloped that reading is indispensable to those (including “busy” homemakers) who would grow as Jesus grew—in body, mind, and spirit. Mister Ten and I were riding to town together last night. “What an unearthly cackle!” I protested at one of his outbursts. “Well,” he drawled, “you can just be glad I didn’t curl up my lips in a shrewd evil grin.” After noting the effect of his words with satisfaction, he admitted, “Got that ‘shrewd, evil grin part’ from the Hardy Boys books, an’ the ‘curled lip’ part from that last dog story.” Today we are making fruitcake—Marjorie’s recipe, with coconut and jelly added to the usual ingredients. As we prepare the fruits and nuts, we talk again of the joy we had as we visited our friends yesterday. “We went to Thanksgiving at Debby’s house!” chants Miss Three. Twelve isn’t sure which was best—the fun or the food. “Especially that dressing,” he recalls, and his eyes go dreamy. Then our thoughts move ahead to Christmas. Miss Three listens, then, dimly, she seems to grope toward a forgotten pleasure. Finally it comes out in words—“And can I play with The-House-of-Joseph-BrokenHead?” Indeed she can, and from its yearlong rest on the shelf, we bring the crèche, including the headless Joseph. TO KEEP AND PONDER: Those moments when this wife becomes one with all loved women of all time, whose husbands look across the table at them and repeat that obviously false (yet somehow true) nonsense, “Do you know you’re the loveliest woman in the world?” December December means one thing on our hill—Christmas. Each year it seems as if Christmas begins a little earlier. Each year we try to think of new solutions to some of the problems posed by the modern world’s “spending” of the season. We here in our little corner of the universe don’t try to make any sweeping reforms—but just to add our little bit of leaven to the 44 Hill Journal 1956 dough. This year we decided on two ways to express what we feel about Christmas. We would make gifts, where feasible, and we would open our home to our friends during the holiday fortnight. The boys are working with their tongues hanging out, trying to finish the scrapbook for Grandpa and Grandma. Each has a certain number of pages to fill, and so they are plastering on works of art, descriptions of hobbies, snapshots, stories and pictures of their pets, samples of their collections—and even some fruitcake. We are waiting for “Gimme” to appear this year. But for some reason, everyone seems so caught up in the spirit of giving that there is no evidence of the demon. We used to wonder if there were any children in the world more selfish than ours—especially at Christmas time. “What have we done wrong?” we would say. But for some mysterious reason things are different this year. “We’re just growing up, I guess,” is Twelve’s suggestion. Anyway, all the hoarded allowances have been carefully allotted for this and that gift. The buying has been done independently and in secret— and with Christmas still over three weeks away the unused crib back in Dad’s and Mom’s room is already piled with odd packages, clumsily wrapped and taped, showing evidence of much fondling, investigation, rewrapping and retaping, while being the subjects of much whispering and hinting. Mister Ten, adding a few more to the pile lets out a whoop and cries, “You know, Mom, it really is funner to give than to get!” Later, as I am washing dishes, I hear him practicing on the piano his simplified version of “Joy to the World.” After the second phrase he stops out of sheer exuberance and turns to me, eyes luminous—“Don’t you like that! Such a spring to it!” Christmas greetings! They overflow the place, it seems. Here is the long yearly letter from the friend in Canada whom I have never met—but whom I know better than I know some of my neighbors! Here is a warm, loving note from the music teacher of my childhood, from a Sunday-school teacher of my adolescent years, from dear aunts and cousins, brothers and sisters, college and community friends. Here also, are the photographic contributions of families who have made a habit of sending a picture greeting each year since their marriage. 45 Story of a Family Unconsciously we sort the mail in this way: two-centers on one pile, three-centers on another, form letters on another. And we come to some conclusions: (1) That a personal word on a 2-cent postal card would mean much more than a name on an ever-so-beautiful commercial greeting. (2) That, though some form letters are superbly readable, and we do love the people who send them, and appreciate their problems in trying to communicate with many friends—still, we wish someone would publish and circulate to pastors and missionaries and others who must (or who feel they must) use form letters, some pointers on how to make such letters “speak.” (3) That habit has a way of keeping names on a Christmas card list long after the binding ties have been dissolved. But all in all—what warmth and beauty reach down into our hearts with the appearance of each of these white envelopes! We’re not quite ready to throw the custom to the winds. The great joy of the season was our Open House. Each evening people have come, friends who were somehow not too busy for a little unscheduled fellowship. I’m sure they have no idea what benediction they laid upon our family as they came and went. We played together, sang, talked, and drank punch, while the children whammed rhythm band instruments in the back room. Gifts were few at our house this year, yet everyone said the same thing—“Just what I wanted!” Followed by hugs and kisses and vocal affirmations of love. The three boys were the Wise Men at the church program. I watched them standing shiny-eyed with all the other children—(and our own dear Minka like a little red candle herself) and I hoped that there would always be children’s programs at Christmas. Inside, deep down, was the warm memory of my own happiness as a child participating in the annual Christmas program. Today my friend “across the tracks” and I wind up the season with a visit over cups of Japanese tea and Fortune Cakes, sent by her sister expressly for us to enjoy together. As we sit, talking and drinking the delicious tea, the children beg for Fortune Cakes, and giggle over their 46 Hill Journal 1957 fortunes. Only little Andrewshek seems mystified. We read to him his Fortune: “You will have great power over women.” “Oh,” he whispers, and shuffles away, with big brown question marks for eyes. TO KEEP AND PONDER: That treasured note from a friend who herself does not celebrate Christmas, and yet who has given so freely, so lovingly of herself. I read again her closing lines, quoted from Gibran: “And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.” And I whisper, “Shalom, Esther!” Hill Journal 1957 January “He giveth snow like wool”—a lovely phrase! But, carried in on the boots, clinging to the pants, and stamped about on the floor of the utility room, all resemblance of our January snow to wool disappears in a matter of seconds. We like it anyhow—and wish there would be enough for good sledding. It falls, then thaws. Great muddy ruts develop in our road. The ruts freeze. And who goes over this road without silently or audibly grumbling against that road crew? They’ve been in the process (theoretically) of surfacing our stretch for the past five years. Still it remains an ordinary country road—gravel, to be sure, but narrow and full of chuckholes. “I always clamp my teeth together, to save wear and tear on them,” says Ten, as we negotiate the corduroy ribs at the corner just before the bridge. The poor old Chevy can’t clamp her teeth. She just rattles. Today, thinking of our Tall One, I was led to make French fries and hamburgers for supper. That’s his favorite fare, and when he sniffs the promise of such a meal, invariably he comes forth with one of those rare bursts of affection followed by the highest praise a teener can give an unpredictable parent: “You’re swell, Mom!” Smiling back at him, I realize that at the present there is no more concrete way of showing him affection than through food for his bottomless pit! “Forget not to show love” was the verse in one of his first little books. Opposite was the picture of a child in the process of showing love to a little 47 Story of a Family old lady. I recall now the earnest way this same Tall One, then hardly two, leafed the pages, repeating in his high, soft voice all the verses perfectly— until he came to this one. Then he would falter, look up at me quizzically, and proceed uncertainly—“Forget not to give flowers to Grandmother.” Today I’ve been thinking about this little bit from the Bible—“Forget not to show love.” I think of what my friend Dorothy says: “you can’t show love without loving; but it is possible to love a person without showing it”. I think, too, of the many times I have forgotten—or worse, refused—to show even the fraction of the love I feel. I think of the way love blooms about the house when I remember to show it—in the sincere compliment; the unscheduled kiss or pat; the pressure of the hand; the quiet care of tucking-in time; the serving of a favorite dish for the loved child or husband. My young friend Betsy has finally sent the children’s prayer I asked for: O Lord, Help us to serve Thee faithfully today, To learn quickly, To think clearly, To work diligently, To play fairly, And to be friendly to everyone. Amen. I think Mister Eight will like this. Six confided today, concerning a little friend, “We’re good friends now—he doesn’t even bite me any more!” His younger brother, not to be outdone, added, “He’s almost my friend—only—(in a small voice) he still bites me a little!” Our friend has recommended a book,—Douglas Steere’s On Listening to Another. The book begins with an analysis of the role of the listener— human and divine— and concludes with a description of the Quaker form of worship. I have found it speaking to me—to me, one of the world’s worst listeners. I need to learn to use the “receptive sea of silence”—God knows! Thinking of this today recalled the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer—that “real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue, comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness.” My resolve: to attempt not so much to “hold my tongue” as to experience genuine spiritual stillness— deep down at the source which feeds the tongue. 48 Hill Journal 1957 Miss Three stopped asking questions (and answering them—in case I didn’t) for the space of a few seconds today, after which she came, grinned up at her parent, and piped, “We were silent, weren’t we, Mommy?” We have a mouse in our house. But ah! the snare of having reared our boys to be bookworms. In their fierce book-bred compassion for animals, they go about unsetting all the traps. The result—we have many a mouse in our house. Oh, well, “I think mice Are rather nice!” Today the mailbox produced a letter of appreciation. (I have a strong feeling that to some, God has given a special Ministry of Appreciation!) This was from a friend whom I have not seen since school days—over fifteen years ago! As classmates we were never much in each other’s company. But in the intervening years, particularly the last two, there has blossomed between us a rich sharing via post card, infrequent letters, and frequent prayers. I read her kind words again— AND I PRAY: O Father-God, Initiator of all real friendships, I thank you for this friend—for the growth of her spirit, for the influence of her devotion on my own, and for the rich love we share in Christ. Help me to grow to be what she thinks I am! And bless, with her, all those who join her in the Ministry of Appreciation. February February—month of love! And tonight Esther and Gertrude took me to hear Mary Morris’ “Great Love Scenes from Literature.” Listening to the young students interpret passages from the Bible, from Shakespeare, and from a long list of poets and playwrights, one very humanly longed for the presence of “the man in her life.” We take each other so for granted, we husbands and wives. Here our eyes would surely have met in the dimness of the hall and flashed “That’s us!” as the young man read, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments…” Today, the anniversary of Mother’s home-going, I find the beautiful words of John Baillie, in his evening prayer for the seventh day, taken from A Diary of Private Prayer: “I rejoice in the dear memory of [my mother], 49 Story of a Family knowing that, though [she] has passed into mystery, [she] has not passed beyond Thy love and care.” Somebody has said that it is easy to feel compassion for one who is dead, “safely pigeonholed in history”; it is simple to feel deeply concerning “great causes”; it is a small matter to weep over the fate of characters in a book. But the measure of our compassion is the measure which we expend on that particular person, right here, right now, who is in need of it. And that is just the place at which we try so hard to escape action on what we feel! “Her concern for me,” writes my friend Arlene, “shows as plainly as a white slip sticking out of a short black skirt!” “Andrewshek” sidled up to his mother today with this question: “Why is the world still round, and the water don’t fall off?” A good question. His mother sent him scuttling to the study for an answer from his father! Our shower for Alice was one of those things that didn’t quite “come off.” Our plans were well laid. The refreshments, we thought, were quite lovely—just the kind Alice would like. But when the baby comes the night before the baby shower, it does put a crimp in things. We were so happy for Alice, though—a little girl! As we visited the next morning in the antiseptic atmosphere of the hospital, there was the pull of many memories within. Somehow, I can’t go into that maternity wing without reliving, at least briefly, those deep experiences which accompanied the birth of each of our children. As I was standing at the window of the nursery, looking at Alice’s tiny daughter, the day of Minka’s birth crammed itself into my full heart. There was her father, leaning over with shining eyes, and saying those words, repeated five times before, but still new, “I’m so proud of you—so proud!” And there was the mother herself, repeating inwardly, again and again, the words of another mother: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” All this searing beauty returns in the familiar surroundings and when some mother has a new baby, I argue with myself—“Shall I go and subject myself to it, or shall I do the easy thing—write a note?” Today the Bruch record came, and we are basking in beauty. Why does he speak so to me? He may not be a top-rank composer, but—! As 50 Hill Journal 1957 I listen to the cello solo I am reminded of Shakespeare’s words: “Strange that a few sheep’s guts can rend the soul out of a man!” Tonight the man of the house took out time to help discuss— seriously—what I’ve tried to bring up a hundred (?) times, but with no outstanding success: “In the event of death…” We both agreed that we would want burial to follow as soon as possible after death, omitting the “viewing” process; that burial should be followed by a memorial service at the church; that included in this should be much singing (by the congregation) of the great hymns of the church, and a message of Christian faith, sounded on the note of joy and hope, to be given by the pastor of whatever church we are attending at the time. Last night we finished the final book of C. S. Lewis’ Narnian series for children—The Last Battle. “And the water stood in our eyes”—as old John Bunyan would say—as we sensed in the magnificent figure of Aslan, the Lion, the real presence of Jesus Christ. “How strange,” I confided later to the boys’ father, “that for the first time in my life I should almost ache with longing to see Him—face to face—and that when I read of Him in a child’s fairy story, and He described as a romping lion!” The scene of the judgment gripped us all, and Mister Six cried angrily, “I wish Jesus would make everyone love Him!” There was a silence, then Mister Eight answered soberly, “No, I don’t, ’cause then we’d be just like animals. You have to be a person to make a decision, and I’d rather be a person.” Thinking today about the boys’ “theological discussion” I recall that these are ordinary boys, not the “gifted children” one hears much about these days. Yet their insights have added much to their parents’ growth. Often in the past I have berated myself for my failures as a parent, but today I am inoculated with courage as I remember our closeness of last night. AND I PRAY: O God, we thank you for the delightful community of souls you have given us—right here in our own home! Help us to remember that these are not ours—to have, to use, to manipulate, to hoard, to exploit. Remind us daily that we are honored to have, for just a few years, “God’s men in our keeping.” Help us to hold them lovingly, carefully, but with a light touch—as stewards, not as lords. Amen. 51 Story of a Family March With the cold March winds whining about the house corners and rattling the naked branches against each other, how one longs for spring! For the forsythia on the hillsides again—for the redbud, the wild plum, and the thickening buds in the woods down by Jacob’s Creek. And how one longs for the day when these little folks can be out, hair blowing, bootless, snow-suitless, capering on the lawn! Verily, I am winter-tired. We love to watch Mister Eight and his Minka. A special bond has existed between these two, even before Minka’s brown eyes opened on the world, when her brother knew this new baby was going to be the sister he wanted. This morning, schooltime, bespectacled “Lefty” knelt and embraced his pet. “Honey-dear, I didn’t get my kiss this morning!” “Oh, yes, you did,” Minka cries seriously. “Don’t you be-member?” “That’s right! I did kiss you, Honeydear. But let’s kiss again to make sure!” Minka and “Lefty” have a game between them called “Denefit and Bessert.” (To date none of the rest of us can figure out the significance of Lefty’s choice of names, whether it be for a rabbit, a game, or a person.) The game: She slides down his tummy off the divan. He reaches down, saying, “O Dear, now I must go down and fetch my little old woman)” And this, repeated many times, is the essence of “Denefit and Bessert.” Yesterday was Pittsburgh day. Never do I go into the massive Carnegie Library and Museum without a sense of awe. This time the morning was spent in the music library, with earphones and a stack of records. After hours spent with Bruch, Mozart, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Frost, I removed the earphones, and peering frantically about the great recordlined room, the thought kept recurring: “Ah, God, so much to experience, and so little time for the experiencing!” Then came the boys’ father with the heartening news that the car had broken down! Later, sitting in one of the immense halls of the art museum, waiting for the tow-truck, I felt sick at the thought of what this added expense might mean—unaware of the beauty all around me. But, ah, the wonders of the subconscious, which stores away for us what we are unable to assimilate consciously. For when I awoke this morning, there in my mind’s eye, instead of the inevitable repair bill, were the graceful lines of the replica of the Parthenon which I had unseeingly seen yesterday; and like a song the words of Keats, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever…”! 52 Hill Journal 1957 Today the mending, the darling daughter, and the mother of the family betook themselves to our friend Alice’s. We delighted (mother and daughter) in the new baby. Minka watched her being bathed, and held her to give her the bottle. Those brown eyes shine, and her mother knew what refrain we should be hearing for days: “I fed the baby! I fed the baby!” Meanwhile, her mother will be remembering the meeting of spirit with spirit and bread broken together in thankfulness—bread which was more than bread! Wanted: a book of bright sayings written for the use of people-whodon’t-know-what-to-say-when-all-the-other-women-are-talking-aboutspring-house-cleaning. I mourn my deficiencies of the housewifely virtues to a friend who, trying to be kind, assures me that God needs all sorts of people! Friend Husband, though, saves the day: “If I had wanted a nester,” says he, “I would have looked around for one.” Mister Six’s girl friends keep ringing him up. “Smitty,” I say to him, “how can you have so many girl friends? Why, a different one calls almost every day!” And that young man, fresh and cocky from the first-grade classroom, but serious as can be, replies, “Oh, I stay with one until she likes me good enough, then I go to another one.” Our friend has given me a book to read: Eric Fromm’s The Art of Loving. Though not written from a “Christian” viewpoint, it is, nevertheless, one of the most meaningful treatments of the subject I have yet read. From its pages I have copied many gems in my notebook, and one hopes that a few seeds have taken root in the deep places of the heart. “Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose,” I read, “does love begin to unfold.” And, “To love someone is not just a strong feeling. It is a decision, a judgment, a promise.” This book excites me with the possibilities of love— given plenty of spirit-room. One feels its pervasive effect in our home relationships; it must be shared with my reading neighbors—this book! But some days I take it up with a kind of horror. To myself I say, “Oh, no, do you have to subject yourself to that ruthless self-exposure again!” But I do, knowing that God, who is wise, as well as loving, will shield me from seeing more of myself in one exposure than I can bear. AND I PRAY: O my God, and the God of all growing spirits, I thank Thee for the green shoots which are made to spring in the human soul. I thank Thee for sending into our lives people and circumstances which 53 Story of a Family demand of us a decision to grow in this… and this… And I, who desire to grow into the likeness of the Christ (yet in my humanity continually resist growth), I ask Thy power to help me to abandon myself to that desire: to “commit myself without guarantee.” I would be love as Thou art love; help me to take the risks and the suffering which loving implies. Amen. April Now it is April, and the essence of many past Aprils seems distilled in this particular one. All the heart-rending greens and yellows and pinks and whites in the peculiar combinations that mean April: all the intimations of life beginning. What lovelier month is there for beginnings than this one—when the green wheat carpets the hill opposite our window, and the buds are fattened, ready to burst? And we here, on our hill, we are especially partial to April. Our marriage began in April. One of our babies was born in April, and I have thought ever since that if one could choose one’s own birth month, mine would be April! Lovely April! But she is deceptive. And today marks the third of days unseasonably warm—so warm that summer dresses sprout, mowers hum, screens are going up, and the boys are asking to swim in the mudhole. All this—when we know very well there are still some raw winds and cold rains ahead of us! And little Minka, tousled from sleep, staggers out of her room, sits down in a block of sunlight on the rug, and sings softly to herself as her mother gets breakfast: “I’m sitting in the sunshine, helping God; I’m jis’ sitting in the sunshine helping God.” Bless her, she is, at that. She has started my day right! Is there anything quite so hard as asking forgiveness of another person? Nothing, I thought this week, except asking forgiveness of a whole group of people, one by one! Because of some things that were said in our cell group the other night I found myself in that position. I think I had always imagined—and experienced—that confessing makes the burden lighter! But after repeating it six times over, I was only terribly impressed with the seriousness of speaking without charity. What had been at first a comparatively light burden, gathered weight as each door closed behind me. At the same time, in spite of the condemnation and depression, there was an experience of an almost tangible “Presence” (as our Quaker friends would say). And as I struggled on through this week, I now understood and lived what Barbour wrote: “The Lord’s goodness 54 Hill Journal 1957 surrounds us at every moment. I walk through it almost with difficulty, as through thick grass and flowers.” A friend divulged a funny “absentminded-professor” joke at our table tonight. The lady of the house smiled wryly. “I used to laugh at those jokes,” she sighed. “Now they’re too commonplace to be funny!” The latest incident happened only a few days before, when the man of the house came out from the telephone with a blank look. “I can’t find their phone number!” “Whose?” “Why, Bill—uh—oh, just a minute.” A sheepish grin pulled down the corners of his mouth, and he went back in to make his call. Later he explained that he had been hunting in the directory for “parras”—the top word on his Hebrew vocabulary card pile! These days I am using my list of “The Two Hundred Stories” for the children’s nap time. I would like to get on with these stories, beginning with my father’s and mother’s childhood, and stretching on into my twelfth year. But every day Andrewshek says, “Tell about when your daddy died!” and every day Minka begs, “Tell me about when you got your mummy the dishes with the yellow flowers on them.” Will I ever get through my list? I keep thinking I must write these out for the family… Easter Sunday—and the little family lines up at the rail to watch the giant United Airlines plane slowly rise from the ground—with Daddy in it. Mister Six pales as the plane takes off, and tears stand in his eyes, while the other five caper to ride the escalators. Sometimes Smitty’s devotion to his father is frightening. Anyway, I suddenly feel more close and tender with him than I have felt for a long time, and I think, “Child of Mine, what would you do without your father!” Dear God, let him have his father as long as he needs him! And now Ten is Eleven. Strange about children. You ask them their age. But even if you ask them the day before their birthday they are never the new age. Nor a nice “ten-and-a-half.” No indeed! They remain a nice round age until the day they qualify for the next nice round age. Today the birthday boy was engrossed in his celebration—everything just as ordered. His favorite boy friends, his favorite foods (all the French fries, hamburgers, chocolate milk, cake, and ice cream they can eat), his 55 Story of a Family favorite pastime (“messing around”—which in this case included frying eggs over his Sterno stove down in the pasture). And while he is enjoying his day of kingship, his mother is enjoying it in a different way. She is remembering. But she is quickly snatched from her reverie concerning the fat little boy with the alert dark eyes who lay, that April morning eleven years ago, in the crook of her arm. For now he is dashing in and out of the house, brimming with that intense enthusiasm which has characterized him from babyhood, but that—goodness knows!—takes more patience these days. I smile at his fleeing back, hold my ears as the herd thunders past behind him, and remember the suggestion of Fromm, that it is not particularly virtuous to love a baby—the test of mother-love being the measure of love one has for the growing child! AND I PRAY: Dear God, it is our son’s birthday, and I want simply to thank you for him. When I think of how we rejoiced at his birth, and what great things we envisioned for him, then I marvel at my lack of patience with his sensitive, intense personality. Help me to accept his uncanny reproofs with good humor and gratitude. And bless his twelfth year with fun and growth—and with the love and understanding of good parents! Amen. May May—all the sweet odors of springtime; the inviting stimuli of gardening time! Yet the man of the house bends over his books, the call of the newplowed soil lost to him this year. And the woman of the house, as always, is able to enjoy it all only from the distance of seed catalogs and poetry. Valiantly the big boys rake and plant and hoe, taking advantage of their dad’s current (and their mother’s perennial) lack of interest in gardening, to have 4-H gardens of their own. The little fellers are gardening too. What are they planting? Gourds, pumpkins, and watermelons! Lefty used up all the garnered charm of his nearly nine years in trying to secure permission to bake some cookies today. “No, I think not … you’ve had too many sweet things lately.” “Well, shucks,” he whined, “I could use salt instead of sugar, couldn’t I?” He does love to bake, and though I try to keep out of the kitchen when he’s at work, it is sometimes good that I’m not too far away, for he has a flair for innovation. The last time he made cookies—with the help of Smitty—we overheard, “Well, it says baking soda, but we don’t have any 56 Hill Journal 1957 that I can see; so we’ll just leave it out.” Later, “Doesn’t vanilla smell good! Let’s put a whole lot in. The more, the better!” Today I stopped by to get some information from an old friend, and we chatted for a while. Then suddenly it was not chatter, but fellowship, on that level to which so few of us find time to open ourselves. We talked of prayer, and shared our experiences of growth in that area. “I suppose,” he smiled, “that some good people would be scandalized. But I scarcely ever pray any more in audible words—and yet prayer is more meaningful and important to me than ever.” I told him how hard it is for me to say to anyone, “I’m praying for you,” because of the abuse of the phrase to mean, “I am mentioning your name when I pray.” And so I have an understanding with people who know me, and when I say, “I will be thinking of you” —they know. As I left, my friend said in his old, winsome way, “Think of me sometimes.” “Oh, but I do, often,” I cried. And God knows it is true! Is there anything so delightful to the little feminine heart as a new pair of shiny black slippers? Today Minka was the happy one, and to note the reaction of her five brothers was a revealing study: Speedy, edging into his teens, looks up at the shoes from the bowl of cereal he has prepared for himself as an afterschool snack. “Oh, Minka, those are nice shoes!” He gives her a warm smile. J. S., all legs, stumbles in from school. “See my shoes!” cries Minka. That gleam, peculiar to eleven-year-old boys, leaps into the boy’s brown eyes. With a grin he grabs a shoe and holds it behind his back, —giving it up quickly when he sees that tears are near. Bespectacled Lefty lopes in. When the shoes are presented, he drops his school papers indiscriminately, kneels on the floor, embraces his darling, kisses her, and caresses with his own special words: “Oh, my little Honey-dear! What lovely shoes! Now you will be my little Princess, won’t you? So shiny and black! And look at the Jewels on them! They sparkle like your eyes.” (More kisses, squeezes, and ejaculations of pleasure…) Smitty, carrying the world on his shoulders as usual (ever since his responsibilities began nearly seven years ago), passes by with, “Uh-huh. Where’d you get ’em?” Andrewshek takes one look, turns to me, and howls, “When do I get some new shoes!” And the girl-child hugs her shoes, pats them, and continues to walk about the house with slippers in her hands and stars in her eyes. 57 Story of a Family The boys are enjoying the power mower. At first their mother was careful and troubled. Now she doesn’t bat an eyelash. She is grateful for their father’s free hand with the boys, for she knows she is not nearly so wise in the matter of giving freedom. She remembers the words of a psychologist who said, “Better let him break a leg falling from a tree than break a life by being tied to Mother.” My mother’s birthday … and the thought struck me today, as I wiped my hands after washing dishes, how much my hands resemble hers. But only in size and shape. My first vivid memories of church are of sitting next to her, my hands on her lap, holding hers, pushing the protruding veins to one side, then watching in fascination as they sprang back into place. But her hands were of a different texture from mine—rough on the palm side, from much manual labor; soft and thin-skinned on the back, like nothing I have felt since. All her motherhood is focused for me in the memory of the touch and the gestures of those hands. I recall how nice—how really nice it was to be sick, for then she would often come and lay her hand on our foreheads; and when vomiting was the order of the moment, always she held her hand firmly on our heads as we heaved away. I remember too how lithe, how sharp that hand, when spanking was administered. I used to envy the children whose mothers used paddles and hairbrushes and switches. I was pretty sure Mother’s hand was next to a razorstrap in effectiveness! Will someone explain to me what makes love flower in a family, all of a sudden? In spite of full and trying days, tensions within and without, quarreling among children and occasional vindictiveness of parents, stresses between husband and wife—yet underlying all is some fine unity of love. It is expressed in the spontaneity with which little sister jumps out of bed, bounces over to biggest brother, and delivers a “smacker.” “Thanks, honey,” he smiles, and continues eating. It is expressed in the delight with which Andrewshek presents his daddy with the lost hammer; in the tears of the two boys as they defend their older brother in The Case of the Nasty Bus Driver; in the cheerful rearrangement of Father’s plans when Mother must unexpectedly leave. I think of these signs of love, and I pray: Loving Father, when I think of the manner and quality of your love, that love which accepts as children those who are not worthy even to be as one of your hired servants, then I see that we, in our little family, have 58 Hill Journal 1957 only tasted. We have tasted, though, and we hunger for more of that love which is patient and kind, constructive and other-seeking. May we, all together, grow up into love. Amen. June At five this hot June morning the boys lit out for the fishin’ hole. Now at that time of day, we can only answer them in groans and stupid snatches from our dream world, and it took us awhile to figure out, when we finally awoke, why the house was so quiet. A few hours later they returned, dusty, dead-tired, and—radiant. Thirty-one sunnies! “Fishermen clean their own fish,” the mother reminds them. And they cheerfully do so. Since it’s too hot for a fish-fry today, we are freezing them for a later treat. Last night was our farewell fellowship supper for our pastor and family. These suppers are always a great joy, and of course this was special. The friendship quilt was a real achievement. Ordinarily these flower-laden, many-hued gardens of color leave me lukewarm. But this was rather remarkable, so much clever talent and original thinking and— we know—love, went into it. A little of the brightness goes out of life when these dear friends leave us, but then, it only means that our arms are stretched out to include a bit more of the world—since they must include whatever place and people our friends serve when they go from us. Andrewshek apparently found time a bit heavy on his hands today. “Mom,” says he, “you still have fourteen towels left in the closet.” Sometime later, I go to get one, and, folding and refolding, I understand how much fun he must have had counting them. A little later the fan goes off suddenly (it’s terribly hot, but I have vowed to ignore the weather as a topic of conversation) and, after investigation, we find that a great tangle of fine wire has caused the belt to slip off. When I come up for wire cutters, Andrewshek watches me brightly. “Did you see any wire in the fan?” he eagerly inquires. I bore holes through those brown eyes to the snappy little spirit behind them. “Yes indeed. I saw the wire. Can you tell me who put it there?” “Not I!” A look of angelic purity lights up his face. Then I remember my old tactics. “Andrewshek,” I smile casually as I turn to go to the basement, “when did you put the wire in the fan?” “Yesterday,” pipes a small, relieved voice. 59 Story of a Family Today our friend Dorothy brought a cake over—a “peace offering,” she called it—for some little Bible school mix-up. The boys couldn’t see the sense of such an explanation—nor could their mother—and the cake was cut and eaten to the tune of “Isn’t she nice!” “Aren’t they kind!” “It’s the best cake I ever ate!” And I thought again, as I have before—it’s a shame people can’t hear that spontaneous, informal thanks of children which comes after the slack-mouthed, expressionless staring and the perfunctory “thank you” delivered on the spot. One comfort—givers who are also parents usually understand! The first week of Bible school is over, and seventeen little seven-yearolds have taught me much this week. Already I think of them as mine, and want to follow them all their lives! Impossible, I know, but in the meantime, as I am trying to give them my best, they are making eternal gifts to me. Being a teacher, nurse, and housewife all at once, though, is exacting. I’m tired—throughout. I’m like Andrewshek with the mumps: “Everything hurts everyplace.” “Oh,” chirps our little lady of three-and-one-half. “Are these the clothes I wore long ago when I was a child?” Lefty is nine today. His gift—a little camera; his eyes behind the specs—stars. His cake—as ordered—chocolate with chocolate icing to be served with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce. Later we hear him murmuring to himself, “This is the best present I ever got. This is the best birthday I ever had!” And this—even though he has but one little gift so far; even though we couldn’t invite the friends he wanted because of the illness of the little children. His day was crowned when he was allowed to mix and bake and serve pancakes to the family for supper. He spilled three fourths of the batter on the floor and—as his mother looked on with anguished eyes—his father whispered to her, “I’m proud of you for being so gentle!” To which his mother replied, grimly, between clenched teeth, “Birthdays have to be happy!” Tonight, preparing for Bible school tomorrow, I found these lovely words in Phillips’ translation to Philippians: We shared together the grace of God. I had to think of all the people who have contributed significantly to my spiritual growth—who indeed have shared with me, through the years, the grace of God. Before me passed a procession of these characters, beginning with my own mother, brothers and sisters; ministers, teachers, 60 Hill Journal 1957 and friends of my childhood and early adolescence—how much I owe them! Friends—professors and students of college years sharing, always sharing. My own household, husband and children, sharing continuously, with a silent, imperceptible spiritual osmosis. The unique sharing of that first cell group—and all the subsequent experiences with individuals in the prayer groups which have followed, even to the present. Those unexpected, “surprise” sharers—my Jewish friends, that Sister on the train, the little amateur actress. Neighbors, pastors—I reflect upon these, and others, with love. I remember the words of Albert Schweitzer: “I always think that we all live, spiritually, by what others have given us in the significant hours of our life.” And I pray: O God, I thank You tonight for the great and undeserved blessing of spiritual friends and counselors all along the way of life. I know that even the small growth of spirit which has come to me has been “thanks to their prayers and the resources of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Help me to take my place with them as with “God’s children; blameless, sincere, and wholesome, living in a warped and diseased world, and shining there like lights in a dark place.” Amen. July July came in today and plumped itself down rather hotly, and then it rained. It rained—and where are those seventeen little seven-year-old angels whose praises I was singing last week? “Only four more days of Bible School,” reminds Friend Husband, with a sweet smile—from his Ivory Tower! At last we are getting our road. We park our car over at our neighborsacrossthe-tracks, trudge up the path with boxes and bags of groceries, and are rewarded in seeing the white strip of stone stretch farther and farther, on down the hill to the corner, and out of sight. Road making, by the way, provides many hours of instruction and amusement for the boys. Some, even, that we would gladly dispense with; e.g., the language of the construction gang! Invitation to Pilgrimage (Baillie) lies here on the desk—a daily invitation in itself. My reading lately has been desultory and disconnected. So today I get on with this book which I began so long ago. In my notebook I copy: “There is an old saying, ‘Be careful what you seek, you may find it.’ And some who have sought God only as a complacent ally of their own ambitions have found Him a consuming fire.” 61 Story of a Family After delivering a wet kiss, Minka giggles, apologizing, “That was a little bit juicy, wasn’t it?” Tonight at Esther’s apartment, I found myself suddenly, and quite to my inclination, a listener. As she showed me pictures of her brothers and sisters, and told me of them, it almost seemed that this was my family. With the plate of dewy fruit between us, plenty of good hot black coffee, and the warm personality of the room in which we sat, I found the time slipping away remarkably fast, and myself becoming more involved every minute—my life with the life of my friend. Driving home alone, late, I thought of the words of “The Prophet”— “Your friend is your needs answered.” And my heart answered silently, “Yes!” The big boys have a passel of new books to read, and the slightest interruption seems almost a physical agony to them. Ordinarily sociable, today they were quite otherwise when a friend from down the road knocked, asking them to come and play. While the boy waited at the door, I trudged back to their room to announce the visitor. “Oh no!” whispered the usually compassionate Speedy. “Dirty Skunk,” muttered Secundus under his breath. Their mother, it must be confessed, had to smile. Actually, both expressions meant the same thing— “I can’t be bothered now—I’m reading!” but Secundus always makes it so much more interesting. His typical answer when asked to do an unscheduled task, “Aw Mom, that’s dirty of you!” (always followed, however, with a great grin). Ah me, I wish I had the services of a child psychiatrist to study each of our children. I have a sneaking suspicion that I laugh when I should punish, ignore when I should laugh, and punish when I should ignore! Today another milestone rolled around for me. I tried to think back to ten years ago, twenty years, thirty years; to imagine how those days might have been spent. To have those days given back in their details would supply much that these sketchy and intermittent journals, and the even more sketchy memory, has lost. It would reveal the child, the young girl, the new mother—and perhaps one could see more clearly the links between the stages! One can only guess what those three days might have held for me. But I can recall with thankfulness the “dear and faithful dead” and friends and family very much alive, who today complicate my life with love and responsibility. As I thank God for all those who have made my years a pilgrimage of joy, I remember the words of Max Muller— 62 Hill Journal 1957 “The past is ours and there we have all who loved us, and whom we love as much as ever, ay, more than ever.” Two swift days, full of reminiscences, exchange of ideas, and Christian fellowship are now gone into the past. Our friend, who had not visited us since school days, has reminded us again that God is not idle outside our denominational walls or even our Protestant walls. It is a joy to see growth in grace, to recognize the fruits of the Spirit on trees in other than our own little orchards! Smitty is seven, and the chief delight of his birthday has been in finding the twenty-odd coins which his brothers have hidden, treasurehunt style, all around the house. At bedtime he reaches up for a final hug and sighs, “I’m glad you were thirty years old when I was born.” “Oh?” “Yeah. ’Cause now I won’t have to always be stopping to figure out how old I am. All I’ll have to do, when I forget, is ask you how old you are, and take thirty away from that, and then I’ll know how old I am. Makes it much easier!” This was one of those periods when I have felt put upon, misused by friends and family, tired of doing more than my share, in short, very very sorry for myself. “Poor me!”—as the old spiritual goes. Then this morning I read the verse, together with others of Psalm 103: “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.” Now again, I read it—and I read no farther; and I pray: O my Father, I thank Thee for this…that when we are in those deep morasses of self-pity and bitterness, that when our finitude hangs like a stone about the neck, when the living of this daily round seems a treadmill…then Thou knowest. Thou knowest, remembering of what frail stuff we are made. Thy totals are gross totals—everything added, all taken into account. Realizing anew, this morning, the wideness of the divine mercy, the coldness and bitterness melt away, and I am ready, through grace, to meet a new day with love and faith. Amen. August August is here, dry and dusty during the day. But at night—ah, what is lovelier than the insect orchestra one hears these warm, still evenings. Minka, leaning against me in the summer twilight, whispers, “It must be almost night, for I hear the night sounds.” 63 Story of a Family “And what are the night sounds?” I ask our Princess, stroking her Alice-in-Wonderland hair. “They are all those little weeks and keeks that you hear,” she whispered. Our prayer cell met again tonight—and, with our new group, the unity is just beginning to be noticeable. We find ourselves more involved with each other; rapport springs up between people who would not have thought themselves to have much in common. It is the same old miracle happening newly before our eyes, I tell myself, and, knowing that the Spirit moves where it will, I do not ask for this, or that, to happen. I mainly pray, “Lord, in this, as well as in other relationships in which we are involved, lead us and teach us and surprise us!” From past experience, I know He will! These days the book on the bedside table (my side) is a novel by Enid Bagnold, The Squire. She does have the oddest style, full of surprises, and all stickery with ordinary words coined in extraordinary ways. But beyond this is her uncanny gift of expressing in words the thoughts and feelings—even the vaguest of them—characteristic of a mother. I can read only a little at a time, she’s so insightful; then I must come up and gulp for air, having seen in words, for the first time, some of my most formless emotions as a mother. Just home from an unexpected weekend attending the funeral of an uncle, I am reminded of the ways in which joy and sorrow are linked, all along the way. A sad occasion, but still, joy in the meeting of loved relatives and friends. Then there were: the long ride over the turnpike, during the silent hours of which nagging problems were untied in prayer and commitment; the brief stops with relatives along the way; the hurried phone call to a former member of our prayer group (and the joy of it still alive within, reminding one again that there is nothing equal to Christian fellowship); the home-coming—seeing the Family again with eyes that are not jaded—looking at one’s children as if you really saw them—and one’s husband! I think—only two days have passed, and yet—such heights and depths! And I remember Blake’s words: Man was made for joy and woe And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go. 64 Hill Journal 1957 The inseparable character of joy and sorrow inherent in the nature of life itself! To believe that, and accept it as such, this is, indeed, to “walk safely” through the world, undismayed by the extremes. Today we were included with the picnic crowd at Pete’s, and it was a special joy to fellowship with people in our own community with whom we do not often eat. We admire this family which has brought with them to our town such a spacious, old-time hospitality—and we wonder why more of us don’t do this oftener—ask our friends to bring their picnic baskets and eat with us in the back yard! Today we had elderberry pie—thanks to J. S. who uncharacteristically screwed up his eleven-year heroism and on his own initiative picked them and cleaned them while I was gone the other night. In spite of the fact that someone would have to repeat Grandfather’s opinion of elderberry pie (eating it is like crunching flies’ heads) the cry was “Seconds?” Tonight Friend Husband was reflecting on his friend. “You, know— he disturbs people—but he helps them. Why, in some ways he reminds me of Jesus!” The words seemed to shock him a little. Concurring, I could only smile, “But why not? Shouldn’t we Christians remind each other of Jesus? Aren’t we supposed to be ‘little Christs’?” Relatives and friends, “piles of them” as J. S. says it, have made August a most enjoyable month for us. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, friends of friends, Sunday-school classes, from as far away as Somalia, from as near as nextdoor, they have come and broken bread with us, and accepted our accommodations with good grace. When we asked our good neighbor-across-the-tracks-and-up-the-lane for the use of her freezer to help us prepare a bit of food ahead of time, she responded in more than Biblical fashion. In turn she asked each member of our prayer cell to contribute something to her freezer for us. “Love in action!” beams the Head of the House. And because of the real love which, we knew, prompted the gifts, no food ever tasted better or went farther! As our last guests of the season drive out the lane, we realize how much each one of them has added to the structure of our family life. I vow again that I shall go out of my way more often in order to share our home. And I pray: Father in heaven, we remember that Christ was often a guest in humble homes while He lived here, and through Him we thank You for 65 Story of a Family the increased joy and understanding and love which is ours because of those who go in and out of our home. We are grateful that makeshift beds and ordinary food, smudges on the windows and dust on the shelves, have never seemed to mar the quality of our fellowship. We thank You most of all for Your Presence with us (whether over a cup of tea or a spread table), that strange and vital alchemy which transforms ordinary conversation into communication of spirit with spirit. Amen. September Labor Day at our Hill-home is usually spent laboring as usual. But today we took a sudden notion to go swimming, family-style. Though unbearably hot and sticky at home, the pool was cool, the breezes fresh (and we had it all to ourselves). As we left home the boys’ father got into the car and sharp-eyed Lefty cried, “Hey, kids. Look! Dad doesn’t have his cards along! Yipeeee!” At which all took up the chorus— “Yipeeeee! Dad left his cards at home!” It was a day to remember, for when had they, in the past year, ever seen their father go anywhere without a stack of Hebrew vocabulary cards to fill any odd moments of time which may fall to him! With the cards were shed his cares; all the old smile wrinkles around his eyes were in use again. And six children said, in their six different ways—all through the afternoon hours—“Isn’t it fun to be together and to have Daddy really with us! And don’t we do more fun-things than anyone else in the world!” Today I read from Psalm 37, and had to pause at familiar words viewed with a sudden new insight. “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart,” was the reading of the fourth verse. And I thought—yes, it is true. For when one does take delight in Him, deep down, one’s desires are changed! Minka spotted in church today a round cherubic face peering over his mother’s shoulder. “There’s our baby!” she gasped in pleasure. Ever since we kept him last weekend she has felt possessive of him. Well, we all have. We enjoyed him so—and the household seemed to have a new center for a few days. The man of the house enjoyed it all, and grinned at his rattled wife as the hands of the clock raced past the normal time for leaving for church— “You forget what it’s like to get a baby ready at the last minute, don’t you!” 66 Hill Journal 1957 Overheard from the nursery this morning: Minka remonstrating with her visitor, “No! No! Don’t do that! Mothers and daddies don’t fight!” A clear-cut little testimony, we hoped, to what she has seen and heard concerning mothers and daddies. From Job 29 came my “thought for today” this morning. Somehow, I had never before read this wonderful chapter with these eyes! As I read it, I thought—this is the kind of person Jesus was when He walked among us as man—and it’s the kind of person His followers are supposed to be! Job says, among other things, that he “smiled on him who had no confidence.” I thought—Oh, we want to do the big, stuffy, important things, and if we are disqualified or unqualified for them, we sulk! But here is a beautiful service which the most graceless of us could give: to smile on those who have no confidence! Meditating, I remember with gratitude all of those kind and greathearted people who through the years have smiled on me when I had no confidence. Every poem or article or story I have ever written, or will write, is surely the harvest of those smiles. One more apron string cut—snip! Andrewshek, bless him, took around his own plate for the first time at tonight’s potluck. He followed the line of boys, sat with the boys, returned for seconds with the boys. Seconds, a friend told me, with a twinkle in his eye, included four large pieces of cake which were devoured steadily and completely, far from the clucking of the mother hen. We now have only one little chick left, tagging around with us at potlucks. But she too is growing, and she too will follow in the steps of her brothers (only somewhat more daintily, we hope). Ah, I feel old, old tonight. Bring me my shawl and slippers! Speedy ordered shoes today—or rather, we ordered them together— size 12AAA. I sighed, not only at the price, nor at the beginning of another set of special-shoe headaches. But—the poor boy! All his life he will have to hear them say what his mother has had to hear most of hers: “Aha! A good understanding!” Or, worse yet, “You’re a poet and don’t know it—your feet show it—they’re Longfellows!” I shudder to think how much nonsense is perpetuated from generation to generation. Would that wisdom might be so easily handed down! The very nicest day of the month, I decided tonight, has been today—a leisurely day spent with the dear uncle and aunt who have never before been in our Hill home together. As we women mended and shared, and 67 Story of a Family enjoyed each other, I realized again how much we of different generations need each other. And I hoped that someday I could give as much in one day to a daughter or a niece as was given today to me! Before she left, Auntie gave me a packet of my teen-age letters to her. As I read, I was by turns amazed, chagrined, and heartened. At least, I sighed, as I put them away for future reference, there is no more doubt in my mind as to whether or not I was a typical adolescent! Our family project for the school year is singing together. So far our little informal sings have resulted in the increase of spontaneous musicmaking around the house. The big boy goes oftener to the piano to try out a new hymn or an old favorite from the Golden Book. Little sister oftener puts her favorite hymn-songs on the record player, and sits singing along in her small red rocker. And even I worry over the recorder (while Father holds his ears), or find myself suddenly breaking into “Mighty God, while angels bless Thee!” over the dishpan. And I pray: O God, I thank Thee that the man made in Thine image is a singing soul. I thank Thee for great hearts who have in past ages poured themselves out before Thee in words and music— “in tones almost divine.” I thank Thee that there is no burden too heavy to be lightened by song, no joy too piercing to find some expression in music. To all who are overburdened by sorrow or by joy, grant, O God, the healing, the revealing ministry of song. Give them this day bread for their bodies—and song for their spirits! Amen. October Depend upon it, this Mister Nine will always be the one who will go out spontaneously and bring back Beauty into our house. Today it was a flare of yellow and brown October leaves, arranged in artless, lovely lines in a brown jug. He has shellacked his gourds too, and they are spilling out of a horn of plenty on top of the bookcase. Today’s reading was from a little Quaker pamphlet, The Inner Islands, by Winifred Rawlins. The author speaks of the inner problems of women in their mid-forties who find their creative drive frustrated in one way or another. The children have left or are leaving the nest; or as in the case of the childless and unmarried, drives which one had thought were quite well harnessed sometimes become mystifying in their intensity. Into my notebook, for present knowledge and future good, goes the following insight: “I believe that the most rewarding and mature way of rechanneling 68 Hill Journal 1957 passion is the development of tenderness, and that this is true for both men and women.” The little daughter’s birthday was celebrated yesterday with grownup friends,—one of whom shares October 2 with Minka. Our fellowship at the dinner table was brief, it being prayer-meeting night; but the time spent was quality. More than ever we are convinced that what we need is not more time for living, but rather, more discipline and dedication in purposing that we shall do all we can to increase the quality of each moment of life. But the lazy will not pay the price—how well I know! The “Asian” flu has caught us in its clutches. All eight of us at once! A friend of the family asks the mistress of the house, via telephone, “And how about you?” To which, in mock stoicism, that lady replies, “Well, I’m sick too—but I can’t be sick, so I’m not sick, I guess!” Today, the order was closet cleaning. This is always a great experience, once one gets at it—a vital link with the past (in this particular closet) and a time for the exercising of will power. This time an old piecemeal journal of the beginnings of our family was found. The big boys howled with laughter as they read their recorded prayers and “bright’” sayings. Mister ’Leven, on his way to the neighbor’s tonight, stops to kiss his mom. She takes one look and cries, “Go back and wash your face!” He returns, seconds later, makes an exaggerated motion of dodging her, then turns and waves at the door; “Bye, Mom—won’t attempt a kiss—they’re disastrous!” The coloring of the trees is begging description this week. From our window it is really the loveliest (we think) we’ve seen. Or is it because it is from our window? Most of the color is of yellow, golden, orange, brown derivation. Very little reds—yet the contrast of the golds and greens seems a more stirring combination than even the most vivid reds. But the leaves are disappearing swiftly; today a cool wind is loosening them; before the gusts they twirl across the lawn in a little death-dance all their own. In a magazine today I read about eight states of mind which keep one mentally fit: 69 Story of a Family (1) expressiveness (2) acceptance of love (3) reverence (4) creativity (5) realism (6) self-esteem (7) normal aggressiveness (8) adventurousness And how does one go about acquiring these desirable states of mind, someone asks? Well, I make a beginning on number 8 today by a sheer act of will power. For women who enjoy sewing, it would be no particular adventure. But for this inept seamstress it was at least equivalent to a scared child voluntarily running out into the dark! To make the commitment by buying the material was the initial plunge. Then a person couldn’t turn back, having spent the two dollars. Actually it took so little time to give so much pleasure. The result was two bunnies, a panda, and a lion romping around, where once had been four quite ordinary children. Then, with this assortment of animals in the back seat of the Plymouth, plus a couple of clowns and a leopard picked up at various neighbors, we were off. Trick or treat being the established custom in these parts, we did not want to disappoint some of the good aunts and grandmas who always prepare, with full cooky jars and extra candy or apples, for the knocking of these strange children at their doors. So each child had his empty bag for expected booty, and little bags of treats to leave with the children whose homes we visited. Now, late at night, the four happy children, divested of their animal personalities, are sleeping. I look at their blissful, faces, and the bulging bags carefully deposited beside each bed, and I pray: Thank you, dear Father, for the innocent and lovely pleasures of childhood, which are a reminder to us grownups, who have sometimes lost the lilt of living, that real happiness is easily given and costs little. Help us that, in our earnest desire to make our children good, we may not fail to make them happy. And in our concern for their happiness, may we use good sense in remembering that the making of happy memories is within reach of the slenderest parental purse! 70 Hill Journal 1957 November November! The new bulbs went into the ground today, and I thought, “What changes will have taken place in our world, in our community, in our family, in our individual souls? What changes, and what growth, by the time we see these again?” Later, after watching our neighbor-across-the-tracks planting his bulbs carefully, measuring the depth of each imbedded bulb, I walk home disconsolately. Hope we have lots of snow this winter—to protect our bulbs which, I’m now sure, were not planted deep enough! Smitty has written his first letter to grandmother. I tell him his writing is much better than his mother’s at age seven. Incredulous, he, until Mother actually produces from the closet her first letter to her grandmother, some thirty years ago. Smitty, not-on-your-life going to reflect on Mother’s writing skill, draws his mouth down to try to disfigure the smile of satisfaction which involuntarily plays there. “It’s pretty good, though,” he says loyally, “for thirty years ago when things were olefashion.” The last few days have been gray enough to match the dull November landscape. No desire to read anything worth while; so sorry for myself; no interest in other people; no desire to think or grow; my mind dwindling to pygmy proportions! Friend Husband would say, “You need a book.” (To him, a book is practically a cure-all!) But I recognize this as one of those dry periods which even the saints speak of as inevitable. And they have taught me to “wait them out,” without becoming unduly anxious. Particularly I remember today the sharp words of Baron von Hügel: “There is nothing so radically mean and deteriorating as sulking through the inevitable.” Of all the baby showers I’ve helped with, I think perhaps tonight was the nicest. The dramatization of Nora Oswald’s “The Cycle of Woman,” in spite of no rehearsal, went off without a hitch—well, almost. The guest of honor sang the solos in her lovely, clear soprano; the tiny baby boy (who pinch-hit for the baby girl we needed), the nurse, the little girls, the teenagers, the bride, the grandmothers—all made it an evening for the memory. 71 Story of a Family “It would make me so happy,” Minka whispered as her mother stepped out of the car with her usual “Now-be-good-I’ll-be-back-soon” formula. “What would?” “To look in the window at the doll dresses!” She turned up wistful brown eyes. Her mother hesitated, then nodded to her, and together they walked the few steps to the little apron shop where the exquisite handmade doll clothes were being displayed. Just a few minutes of shinyeyed “oh”ing—then with a blissful sigh with never a “I wish I…” she skipped back to the car. Tonight was special: a potluck at which the women of the three churches met to eat with the WMSA National Committee, here for their annual (I guess) business meeting. We shared bread and that which is more than bread together, at tables. Coming home to Friend Husband, I was unable to answer more to his “How was it?” than the heartfelt “There’s nothing like Christian fellowship!” The congregation surprised us this morning when they, through Brother David, announced that the Harvest Home offering of foods was to be a gift to the Acting-Pastor and family. One friend said, “I told my husband, just watch their faces when the announcement is made.” The boys could not believe that all this bounty was for us. At home, there were exclamations of “Steak!” “Real Butter!” “Jelly!” “Oh Boy!” And above all came the excited, “Popcorn! Popcorn! Enough for all winter!” From a small book containing free translations of parts of the Dead Sea Scriptures, inspiration has come this week; and to read is to be compelled to share. For one friend I copy a few lines which seem made for her blithe spirit, and send them to her via mail. On another page I find words about offering as a tithe, the “skilled music” of the lips. It seems almost a dedication of a friend’s voice, and I call, via telephone, to tell her. I show Friend Husband and Our Friend the lines about the deep, deep truth set firm in the heart of man. And I myself rejoice with the unknown writer of the ancient Qumran Community, that the Almighty has put my spirit in the “bundle of life.” On a day like today—when the first light snow lies like a lovely promise of the bounty to come; when a note from a friend warms the utmost corners of the heart; when a new door of service surprisingly opens; when the housework goes smoothly and the children seem contented and 72 Hill Journal 1957 resourceful; when one feels the presence, for a sharp, sweet moment of one of the “beloved dead,” on such a day a little song sings itself over and over within, and I pray: “O Lord, I am not worthy; O Lord, I am not worthy of all Thy mercies And Thy truth Which Thοu hast shown unto Thy servant. December December first: The children beam with pleasure as we light a fat red candle at dinner tonight. Lefty jumps up and flits from switch to switch, turning off the lights. No one has said a word about Christmas, but Andrewshek, just a blur of brown eyes at his corner of the table, whispers, “Let’s sing Silently Night!” After dinner Lefty washes dishes (nine-year-old style—call it “washing” if you wish) to the tune of carol after carol, sung in his true, sweet soprano. In the living room, meanwhile, we hear the husky rasp of Smitty’s voice as he settles into a corner of the sofa with a copy of Sing for Christmas on his knees. “I’m jis’ so happy,” he murmurs hoarsely to no one in particular, “I guess I’ll jis’ sit down and sing Christmas carols.” And thus…is the month of Christmas ushered in on The Hill. “The Little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes” has had its impact on the family’s youngest preacher. Andrewshek’s sermon this morning, to a wide-eyed audience of one, included the following enlarging: “An’ He din’t cry. Not a tear. He didn’t even wiggle. Not a teensy meemsy wiggle.” At this point the young preacher’s own words seem almost too much to take lying down. “Only,” he added uncertainly, “I think He did.” And the audience nodded solemnly in full agreement. The sixth-grader has entered into business, with Lefty as his junior partner. They must have money for Christmas, and of course their measly allowance would hardly buy one present. So they trudge from door to door, asking for orders of ground pine, or as the old-timers call it— “crow’s feet.” At fifteen cents a box—the box is this big—it is supposed to be a bargain, and they come home with an interesting arrangement of letters of the alphabet which actually turns out to be a list of about twenty customers. The Enterprisers’ parents, to whom selling comes harder than turning handsprings, stand back and wonder what ancestor put that trait into their sons’ genes! 73 Story of a Family The annual flood of letters, cards, and form letters has begun. The lady of the house has two alternatives. She can drop all else to hurry and get those notes in the mail, even if they do ring with an eerie sameness. Or she can say “No, I’ll take it easy—and give only as I can give myself along with the letter—even if it takes a year. She decides upon the latter. But she wishes often, as she delights in the warmth of the greetings of family friends, that she had had more foresight, and more “Git-up-andgo.” Then these same friends would be knowing that the people on The Hill were thinking of them too! These pre-Christmas weeks have brought a special joy. The neighborhood preschoolers (fours and fives) have been coming in for a story hour twice a week. I am quite sure that the cutest children in the country live in our own neighborhood, as we prepare a little program for their mothers and younger siblings. And when they sing the African carol, “Jesus Christ Was Born on Christmas,” their eyes are all the stars I need to remind me that Christmas is coming! Each voice has an endearing quality of its own, from Denny’s earnest, if somewhat irregular, basso, to Jan’s soprano, true and sweet as a crystal bell. Christmas Eve is upon us. Our nearest neighbors (and nearest relatives) eat chili with us, and we adults share around the table for a brief hour—a rare treat in these hepped-up times. Then our family gives their family a program, at the close of which we pray in unhurried quiet. But as the door closes on our guests—closes with a jingle of the bell on the home-made (and lopsided) wreath—a sudden whoop sounds from the living room. “Presents!” About this time a quiet voice arrests us as Lefty, looking earnestly at us through his specs, pleads, “Last year it was a mess, everybody yelling and opening packages at once. Let’s do it differently this year. Just one at a time open a present. Then we can all see the happiness on the faces.” Agreed by all. And while the parents exchange a glance which says, “We who are so rich—what need have we of gifts?”—the packages are opened, one at a time, and we all see the happiness on the faces! The newest addition to my devotional library is The Letters of Evelyn Underhill. Rich food, these letters of a modern saint. It is almost an eerie experience to find oneself naming a spiritual problem, only to discover wise counsel for that very problem on the next page! Douglas Steere’s 74 Hill Journal 1958 little Prayer and Worship is also on my Advent’s menu, and in these post-Christmas days I am finding it a gem, especially as a guidebook for devotional reading. He speaks of “marrying the mind” to revealing Scripture; but he assures the reader that reading the Bible without yielding to the Spirit’s preparation, and without “following the light that comes” after reading, will mean little. Tonight we sang the Messiah—a traditional New Year’s Eve occasion here in our little church community. What with three other New Year’s Eve meetings going on, there were no tenors at all, the basses were few, and everyone seemed just a bit intimidated by the scores. But it was a really joyous experience, even if we will probably not be asked to make records of our renditions. And one felt that the little circle of praying friends experienced together a meaningful ringing out of the old and in of the new, as, with clasped hands, we waited for the church bells to signal the beginning of another year. Coming home, quite cheerful and wide awake after coffee and fellowship, I think about the evening, and I pray: O God, I thank You for the year that is past, for its joys and its growth, and its successes; yes, and for its heartaches, its recessions, and its failures. It has been a good year, for You were its Lord. You hallowed its pleasures and transformed what was unpleasant into spiritual blessing. With such knowledge of Your grace and love, how can I but put my hand confidently in Yours, walking in trust another hour, another day, another month, another year? Hill Journal 1958 January The first day of the year burst bright and clear. And who can say what combination of impressions—however minute—give today that eternal quality, to a particular person at a given place, in a unique temporal setting? I try to trace the patterns of this day. Why this pervading impression of wholeness? Partly, perhaps, it is the memory of last night, singing the Messiah in the Pauls’ living room. (Well, it was singing. Singing the Messiah can be a great experience, even in the absence of tenors, even when the runs are all running the wrong way.) Maybe it was the quietness of the little circle of friends waiting in prayer for the New Year. Or was it going to that person for forgiveness, for understanding, 75 Story of a Family in an attempt to start the year without any known barriers between us? It may have been the fellowship with our neighbors across the tracks, plus Aunt Beth, as we all (at least the more agile) sat cross-legged around a low table, clicking chopsticks together. Our living room reflected the possibility that the neighborhood supply of mandarin pajama tops was depleted—but each of the thirteen of us had at least a smattering of the Chinese look. The big boys have acquired a new lock on their door—one that will keep out varmints (especially those of the four-, six- and eight-year-old variety of Homo sapiens). True to character, Secundus locked himself out of his own room today. Windows were vainly attempted; screwdrivers and knives proved equally disappointing. In the end their father grimly took a saw and removed a part of the wallboard partition between his study and their closet. Going-on-twelve slunk through the new entrance while the entire family stood watching, silently accusing. A moment later he emerged—this time from the doorway of his own room. And in the tail of his eye we thought we detected a sweet, secret joy in having been the cause of such drastic action. Today was spent in cleaning and reorganizing files. One must be quite ruthless: These college themes, these inane love letters, these hoarded Post covers, adolescent journals, letters to the children from the maternity ward—these must go. Who in his right mind would start a new year of effort with such a weight? She sets herself courageously to the task. But first—each folder must be opened, just to see what it is that is being destroyed; just to see and approve…. And lo, the years of her life are quite suddenly compressed into this one moment. All the hurt and the happiness of the green years; all the love and heartache centered in the mother-daughter relationship; all the naiveté of young wifehood and new motherhood; all this she feels again as she opens each folder, reads its contents, and, misty-eyed and thick-throated, replaces it in the file. Our friend has recommended another book, Paul Tournier’s The Meaning of Persons. But not only has he recommended a book—he has given a friend. This Christian psychiatrist from Switzerland writes with such engaging honesty, such lucidity, that his very person rises from the pages of the book and speaks directly to the soul of the reader. I go about my Martha-way, but I ponder the exciting insights he has given concerning marriage, concerning children’s secrets, the keeping of journals, the true 76 Hill Journal 1958 dialogue between persons. And I ask a blessing on all who go about doing good in the form of recommending helpful books. May they have their reward! Overheard from the Big Boys’ room tonight: “What’s this Hill Journal, anyhow?” The muffled, disinterested answer: “Oh, I dunno. I think it’s some kind of magazine or something.” Tonight, in the tiny shining basement kitchen of Mrs. B., we three honored guests broke bread with our friend. Never, we felt, was a table laid with more care, and never was food more tasty. Into this meal had gone so much nervous energy in planning—it must be just right for us! Into it had gone hours of preparation over the coal stove in the corner. Into it had gone that secret, unmeasurable ingredient of love, and the “in honor preferring one another” which is so rare a seasoning. Looking across at the broad, dark face (she was so happy to please us) I found myself praying fervently in the words of my grandfather: “Bless the heart and the hands of her who prepared it for us!” Truly He has made us, dark and light, of one blood. But when it comes to cooking—and to true hospitality, I sit at the feet of Mrs. B. The arrival of new babies never yet has become a commonplace to this sentimental household—even when we are not the fortunate recipients. This has been a month full of exciting phone calls and tiny envelopes in the mail. First came small Abby, then John Timothy, then Miriam, John Lowell, and finally, Karl. Each of their mothers a dear friend, I rejoice with them one by one, and eagerly await the day when I can hold their babies just for a small moment, and remember a little of what it was like to receive such a gift. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The delighted thanks of a teen-ager who has discovered on his desk a purchase made by his mother. His mother is really quite ignorant about such things, but she has proved that she can follow directions. One twelve inch dowel pin, one 3/4″ pipe nipple. His grin lights up his face, the whole room, her own tired face: “Mom! You’re okay—you hit it right on the head! In fact, you’re sharp!” 77 Story of a Family February To the accompaniment of stinging sleet against the big window, the family gathered tonight for one of its all-too-rare church sessions. The boys had prepared a program, and from the happy faces all around, we knew that one such period as this might well be worth a month of per functory religious exercises. At the close, Mister Almost-Twelve prayed earnestly, “Thank you for this happy occasion, and help us to have them oftener.” At this rebuke, Father and Mother and the Eldest exchanged amused glances; amused, but nevertheless saying clearly, “We thank you too, Lord, for this experience of communion with those of ‘the church in… [our] house.’” The big boys and their parents weathered the elements this Sunday afternoon to take in (thanks to our friends’ tickets) the concert at Syria Mosque. Somehow, listening all open-souled to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and S. Thaviu’s magic violin dovetailed exquisitely with our morning worship experience. The boys, slightly less emotional about the music, were fascinated by the arrangement of the orchestra, and pleased to discover that they could identify most of the instruments by the aid of the ear and a pair of borrowed field glasses. On our arrival home, Big Boy went to our little stack of records and hunted until he found one which he had heard in the afternoon. As the music flooded through the rooms of our house, he was heard to mumble, “That bassoon!” A new book, all one’s own, can—for me—set off one day from another, all shiny and special. Even before it’s read one feels he must tell somebody about it, show it off, call attention to the format and the cover, perhaps contemplate with a friend what one is expecting to receive from this book. Today it was Elton Trueblood’s edition of Doctor Johnson’s Prayers. For Friend Husband, struggling in the deep waters of the Accadian, Hebrew, and Syriac languages, I read this (with a smile): “Enable me so to pursue the study of tongues that I may promote Thy glory and my own salvation.” Shades of the winter of 1949! Or rather, drifts. School is closed for the week, and this mother finds herself enveloped in a tremendous appreciation for the schoolteachers who normally relieve her of such confusion as she is experiencing now. When it’s almost time for them to return to school, they do finally settle down to some constructive pastimes. Today, from the closed door of the Little Fellows’ room, we hear the piping 78 Hill Journal 1958 voices of the members of a newly formed organization called “The Munny Raseing Culb” trying to agree on procedure: “Let’s not talk about what we did—let’s talk about what we’re going to do,” comes a suggestion from sensible Smitty, who at seven still retains his earlier gift for clarification. “At least,” says his neighbor-twin, “let’s wait ’til we git the money before we have it all spended.” The harangue goes on and on and finally Smitty winds up the business session of “The Μunny Raseing Culb” with sound advice: “Let’s wait to have this club ’til we have a little more sense.” Agreed. Minka, indignant, blurts out half a forbidden word, in the direction of her mother, then stops short. “No,” she says sheepishly, “I won’t call you that, ’cause you love me so very much, even if I am mad at you.” There are few gifts more precious than a praying friend. At those moments when one’s problems seem impossibly involved, one’s burden unbearably heavy, to be able to go to the phone and confess simply, “I wish you’d be thinking of me,” is like knowing where to reach for a warm hand in the darkness. Then later, when in a flash of insight the problem is laid open, the weight lifted suddenly, one wonders why he does not more often ask this help of his friends. I am quite ready to agree with one authority—that not contemplation, but intercession is the highest form of prayer, and that it expresses most clearly the character of God Himself. These words of Evelyn Underhill have brought me up short more than a few times as I have approached God with a list of names: “Devote yourself…to intercession—using the whole strength of your will in it, not casually recommending people to God.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The quiet words of a friend reassuring me, after a painful misunderstanding, that “there is balm in Gilead”—the balm of forgiveness and continued love between us. March Today—bright, cold, and Marchy, Esther said goodby to her friends with an elegant luncheon at the Townhouse. As I look back over these years which have held added riches because of her friendship, I think, “Lord, 79 Story of a Family who am I that I should have this friend—and not only this one, but many others with whom I have experienced that deepening of the spirit which the poet says, must be the only purpose of friendship?” Thus I think, and yet know that one must accept honestly and simply these gifts of friendship and love—accept them as miracles of grace which can never be asked for nor sought for, but which “come to pass.” Overheard: a question-and-answer session from the bowl-licking set. Five: Methuselah—he really lived long, din’t he? Seven: Sure. He was old and blind but he still had a couple wifes. Five: Yeah. Hey, do you think he was true? Seven: Sure. Five: When was he born? Seven: I think about 1900. Five: Wow! That was before the war! Seven: Well, sure. Five: Did he fight in it? Seven: Naw—he was too old! Tonight, answering a mysterious invitation, six of us haggard old married women ended up at a restaurant, the guests of six fresh-faced unmarrieds, for sharing of fine food and yet finer fellowship. To sit at ease there and later in Helen’s pleasant apartment was pure joy, and we left with reluctance. I don’t know what they thought, but recurring to me all the way home was this: “Why don’t we get together more often? We have so much to give each other.” One of the most delicious feelings, I decided today, is that peculiar lightness after a severe headache. One can turn his head this way and that—the horrible weight of pain is gone—one can almost fly! A cup of Constant Comment with the friend-across-the-tracks packages the whole delicate feeling into a precious and unforgettable impression. This month my book was The Early Church and the Coming Great Church, by John Knox. Because of the author’s explanation of the purpose of the Communion service, I find myself looking forward to that occasion with more than the usual joy. It is at the time of a person’s death, says Κnox, that the significance of his life becomes apparent. 80 Hill Journal 1958 Thus, to remember Jesus’ death is to contemplate the meaning of His entire, incomparable Life. Experiences of this week aroused compassion and concern for two groups of people: the restless church folks who make a habit of following after this and that new wind of doctrine at the expense of loyalty to the particular fellowship with which they have voluntarily identified them selves; and these pathetic clubwomen who have found no more satisfying outlet for their energies than the jealous guarding of their heritage as daughters of this and daughters of that. Minka looks out the window for a long moment, then turns slowly to her mother and observes, “It seems like all our neighbors have more proppety than we do.” After a pause, “But that’s all right, isn’t it, ’cause we have more childrens than they do. That makes it fair.” From the selected letters of Baron von Hügel, two tidbits, one of which made me smiley, the other—thoughtful: “A religious woman is often so tiresome, so unbalanced, and excessive…” (Baron, I agree!) “Many women are better helped by women than by men, yet how few women are sufficiently trained interiorly to be able to help wisely!” (And amen.) A pleasure trip undertaken unexpectedly holds more joy for me at this particular time of life than ever the anticipation of birthdays or holidays held for me in childhood. Birthdays meant presents and privileges; holidays meant food and fun. But such a trip always means contact with people—surely God’s most remarkable gifts! Perhaps a trip will mean the making of new friends, perhaps the confirmation of longstanding relationships, perhaps the matching of long-known names with faces. In this case it was all three. The joys included: learning to know better the family with whom I traveled; drinking tea with the interesting daughters of one of my grandpa’s favorite fellow ministers; sharing into the wee hours the kind of experiences friends share who cherish each other, but see each other infrequently; meeting the mistress of Sleepy Hollow in person; sitting on the edges of a family gathering, yet not feeling a stranger. So much to remember! 81 Story of a Family TO KEEP AND PONDER: The clasp of a friend’s hand in parting, and her words echoing in my own soul even yet— “The spiritual bond—isn’t it wonderful?” April April first found the mistress of the house late to rise, having just come home from her precious weekend. But while still abed, she had no doubts concerning the welcome which a rather bedraggled family and a more than slightly disheveled house was giving her. From eldest to youngest she was besieged: “Sorry Mother, but we ate up all the wieners.” (So what—there were only five pounds.) “But Mom, I don’t need a jacket—I put my hand out the window and no frost gathered on it!” “Hey Mother, how do you work this problem? ‘The five members of the Jolly Juniors Club need to buy enough pop for…’” “Thee, Mom, my tooth ith out at latht!” “Hey Mom, we dug up a hunderd-ninety worms at Stevie’s place.” “But Mummy, it wasn’t time for you to come home—I still have one clean dress left!” Occasionally I like to take a familiar story from the Bible—so familiar that I have unconsciously memorized the words—and attempt to approach it with an open, uncommitted mind. It can be a bit like rounding a familiar curve to be suddenly confronted with the same old hill—the same one, but in this new glory of spring presenting facets which one had previously missed. Today, in the Easter tradition, and at the suggestion of a friend, I have read the words of Jesus to Magdalene, “Do not hold me … but go to my brethren.” In that moment of insight I saw more clearly than I had yet seen, how impossible it must be for the Christian to build a tabernacle on the mountaintop. For to clutch to oneself, to hold, is to eliminate all possibility of sharing—whether it be a thought, an experience, a person, a relationship, or a possession. I closed my meditation praying that it might be increasingly true of me that I did not stay to clutch, but ran to tell my brethren. On Easter Eve there has come a little envelope from Mrs. B. Enclosed is an Easter card, two dollar bills, and the penciled note, laboriously written by dear brown hands, “I know you don’t need this, but I send it 82 Hill Journal 1958 with God’s love.” Suddenly the two dollars has leaped in value, and is too precious to spend. Secundus is twelve today—a confirmed sportsman, in his heyday with a new glove, ball, and bat. When the neighbors come to offer him a roller-skating treat (“We’re leaving right away!”) he leaps from the party table and disappears. Smitty looks after him with an expression of wonder and disgust: “Well. It seems unusual to me. Someone not even staying for their own birthday party.” Book of the month—J. H. Oldham’s biography of Florence Allshorn. Scarcely have I leafed through it when Alice calls, “Do you have anything good to read?” and it flies to her. Now it is a peculiar secondhanded, but genuine joy to become acquainted with the book as she calls to read a gem she has found, or just to tell what the book is doing for her. The owner of such a book may rightly rejoice, knowing how out of proportion with the original cost is the ultimate price. A pathetic reminder of a certain homemaker’s failures: Mister Twelve approaches his mother with a humble little smile, “Mom, do you think maybe I could mend these holes in my socks?” Friend Husband must often smile at his illiterate wife in her handling of the Scriptures. Consequently her usual approach when seeking confirmation on something she has written is, “I know this is torn out of the context but…” At which he smiles fondly and replies, “It probably is, but, let it go, it’s a good thought, and if it helped you, it will probably help someone else.” Whereupon she sighs and returns to her desk feeling, nevertheless, like a child who has just received a fatherly pat on the head. And under her breath she may be heard to mutter, “Please remember I am not writing for exegetes!” For tonight’s guests the lady of the house resisted the temptation to run into town to supplement a poorly stocked and uninspiring larder. Knowing that our guest of honor is herself one of those disciplined, doit-yourself, make-it-do persons, I was quite sure she would appreciate concoctions with odds and ends. She did! And the fellowship with her and her equally lively and interesting daughter was all the richer for the decision to refuse to be careful and troubled. 83 Story of a Family TΟ KEEP AND PONDER: The wise words of my friend Mrs. B., when I have unexpectedly found my way into her little basement kitchen for coffee and comfort: “I like it when you drop in on me when I’m sitting here in my old clothes. It always makes me think how one of these days God’s a-going to come, and this old lady won’t have time to put on a clean dress!” May A bus load of carefree women with a gay sprinkling of teen-age daughters was our tri-church contribution to the regional WMSA meeting. The ride to and from would have alone yielded a bounty of that kind of fellowship in which the Hausfrau too rarely participates. But this was only an introduction to a dayful of such communion. From our friend Helen’s thoughtful paper I have copied this: “There are six things which every woman has to budget: time, energy, abilities, space, property, and money. How she budgets these determines the quality of her homemaking.” Among Speaker Jake Goering’s psychological comments, this one spoke to me: “Let your children act their age when they are children if you want them to be able to act their age when they are adults.” It seems to be the month for MotherDaughter functions, and this mother finds herself harassed at having accepted, in unguarded moments, too many “speeches.” After making the rounds and fulfilling, as one could, these obligations, one large question remains: Do audiences in general understand their responsibilities to speakers? Do they realize how much depends on their participation as to whether or not the speaker will give them the best of himself and his thought? When one looks over an audience and catches even a little of that participation, then, even though his speech may be written out and followed closely, there is added that “something” which makes the difference between mere words and an inspired utterance. I always face an audience with a silent plea, “Share yourselves with me, and I will give not only these poor words, but myself, to you; keep your responses hidden behind a closed face, and all I can give is words.” Small Daughter confides: “I put myself to sleep by telling secrets to me. They’re just old ones I knew before, but I still like to tell me them.” 84 Hill Journal 1958 How amazing to sense a few of the silent and secret means which God uses to bring about growth in man, His image! Tonight a big boost was given to this particular “image” as she listened to the candid spir itual autobiography of a friend. How painful the probing, the writing, the reading must have been! But what new strength of purpose is mine because she dared to be as honest with herself as she knows how to be. I am convinced that there are some books which, for all their greatness, cannot speak to us until we have ears to hear. A number of years ago, at the advice of a friend, I struggled through Dostoevski’s The Brothers Karamazov, emerging mainly with the embarrassment of knowing that its greatness had not really touched me. This past week I have reread the book in my own paper-backed copy. Somehow the experiences of the intervening years have opened enough doors that this reading was an intensely personal, heartrending experience. May has now unfolded in all her perfection of tender greenness and billowing blossoms. She appears so unspoiled, so delicate and lovely, one wants to reach out and hold her forever. But the magic-skin leaves must toughen to withstand the heat of summer; the blossoms must make way for the green fruit. And, after all, is it not only a transition from one state of perfection to another—first that of spring, then of summer…? “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Today’s mail brought four inspiring letters. After what has seemed to be months of trudging down to the mailbox only to find furniture store fliers, envelopes stuffed with coupons, “new exciting offers” (for a limited time only) of this and that magazine, invitations to cash in on this health plan, on that money-making proposition—after all this, what a lift to find four first-class friendly letters all in one day! In spite of the fact that I, who once wrote many letters, now write practically none, and use H. L. Mencken to support me (“a friendship that’s worthwhile doesn’t need the glue of correspondence to keep it together”), the ministry of letter writing today seems very important to me. As I read the heart-warming words of a great and good man—words directed personally to me, as I visit with the mistress of Sleepy Hollow, as I catch the gay, ever-young spirit of Auntie between the lines of her letter, as I sense the wholesome affection in the note from this college friend, I am not quite ready, after all, to stop writing letters. And to Mencken I might reply that a good letter supplies something more than glue. 85 Story of a Family Ask the two grownups what impressions remained of their short jaunt to Canada this weekend, and they might say: “Meeting with friends at Vineland and Kitchener—old friends, new friends; cups of tea and simple meals all made sacred by the benison of Christian fellowship; a new faith in the quality of the young people of our church.” Ask the three little folks, and the answer might run like this: “We saw a big boat go through the locks, and a big drawbridge go up to let the boat through, and some people had a thing you could grind and pepper would come out on your eggs, and some nice ladies had a kitty under the porch and lots of salt and pepper shakers that could work and they gave us a whole box of cereal toys to play with on the way home!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The sad, dreamy look in the eyes of Andrewshek as he confides, “You know, sometimes I’m in bed and I think—what if there wasn’t any dad and mother? I sure feel strange when that thought comes over me!” June June, to the people on our hill, as to the people on many little hills of our land, is inevitably associated with the closing of the school year, the activity of Bible school, roses, strawberries, and, in our case, the beginning of the summer spate of birthdays. “School is out!” I always rejoice to have the boys home again. We have a family council, outline our summer duties, and everything, it appears, will go like clockwork this summer. Several days later the confusion is in full mad swing, and I am already casting a wistful eye at that page of the calendar which contains blessed, blessed Labor Day. Bible school finds this person mothering nineteen seven-year-olds again this year, as last. As I look into their fresh young faces day after day, I am reminded of what one writer has said of the three stages of life according to Jesus. In children, he says, one finds the characteristics of spontaneity and wholeness; in men one finds inhibition and division; in the “new person” born into the kingdom, spontaneity and wholeness appear once more. This explanation illuminates Jesus’ words, “Unless you…become like children…” 86 Hill Journal 1958 Yesterday, after a Laurelville picnic with friends, we stopped at their home long enough to receive a trophy from the rose bed. Today, each time I pass the bowl with the perfect creations of red, white, pink, and yellow, my breath catches at their beauty, and I must reach out and touch them, as one would touch the cheek of a newborn baby. I touch them, and I am awed to realize how eloquently a simple flower can speak when it comes from the hand of a treasured friend. A thought for the day has come from some aimless reading, and I smile as I copy it into my little notebook: “It is a general rule of life that should you touch mud with your gloves, it is never the mud that becomes glovey.” Tonight was a Homemaker’s Special. The rice and curry alone would have made Headlines in this hill-woman’s daybook. But it was Nan’s detailed account of what is involved in sending one’s children to board ing school which gripped me and left me feeling naked and ashamed. Yet there was in her presentation not a hint of “See how we Indian missionaries sacrifice!” (How pathetic, anyhow, to hear people speak of their own sacrifices.) Just her usual sunny smile and quiet voice—an ordinary mother sharing with other ordinary mothers the usual concerns of mothers the world over for their children. Lefty’s tenth birthday was a quiet day full of simple joys: a new tire for his bike, a drive alone (himself steering) with Dad, icing his own cake with a chef’s touch, a few reminiscences with his mother concerning the day of his birth, the beaming reception of the family’s singing of “Happy Birthday,” and the crowning privilege of a king’s day—staying up as late as he wishes. “So you see, I lean on you,” writes my author-friend Lois, after she has asked me what books I would recommend for inspirational reading. “We human beings do need each other so much!” I smile, knowing how superficial are our little systems of stratification, how stupid our simpering excuses that we are not needful to those more talented, more famous, more rich, or more beautiful than we are. I think of Eric Fromm’s, “Inasmuch as we are humans, we are all in need of help, today, I—tomorrow, you”; of Evelyn Underhill’s, “Souls…all souls are deeply interconnected”; and of the words of the wise Seneca, “God divided man into men that they might help each other.” 87 Story of a Family Friend Helen always says that since one has time to read only the best, one should find a person who knows you and whose judgment you can trust, and ask them for book recommendations. So when I read Elaine’s review of Reality and Prayer (Magee) in the Herald, I knew that this was a book which would likely speak to me. As I have read it this month, I have been moved by the realization of how certain friends and the books they have loaned me have helped to groom the mind and spirit for the reception of this one book in a way that multiplies its significance. A friend asks, “What is your philosophy concerning clothes?” That called for little reflection, upon which I discovered that over the years my views have undergone change. Whereas I once thought one should give little or no thought to the selection and use of clothing, I have learned that when little thought is given to selection, great energy may be spent feeling uncomfortable, embarrassed, and even humiliated in ill-fitting, unattractive, or inappropriate clothing. One can only speak for himself, but I find that when I attempt to select carefully, and succeed in making what seems to be a wise choice, I am then freed of further concern when the clothing is in use. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The compassionate tears in the eyes of a small daughter as she refuses to eat her dessert, since her mother has none. “But Daddy, I can’t eat when my own mother has to go hungry!” July Recollected dimly and inaccurately, the summers of my childhood seem to have had a lazy tempo. Things didn’t have to be done—at least not this minute. But I was a child. It is with wonder that I now realize how differently the summer vacation months may have been viewed by my mother! Could it be that she too was tumbled along through the days, hanging on for dear life while the current whisked her along? For us here on The Hill it’s only summer’s beginning, but already all hope of any order to our days has been abandoned. One can only lift helpless hands and mutter weakly, “I surrender! I surrender to the pressures within and the pressures without, to the fluster of special days and the clutter of ordinary days… I surrender to the hours of dragging drudgery and the moments of insight and uplift…” One tries to do what can be done in a day without debilitating strain, to be what one can be without hypocrisy. 88 Hill Journal 1958 And then if one is a little bit wise, he relaxes and smiles secretly recalling that the days come one at a time. One book leads to another—this is a part of the intense excitement of the Reading Adventure. To be led by inferences, by a quotation adroitly placed, by an idea documented in footnotes, from one book to another is reminiscent of following childhood treasure trails. Today the Lady on the Hill pretended she had a green thumb. Young plants from a friend’s overcrowded bed made the journey, some to the garden of the parsonage, the remainder to our own back yard. Transplanting the tender stalks in the preacher’s garden was an act of rather hesitant faith. Would they grow in this newly cultivated soil, with the hot July sun pelting them? Would they respond with no one here to hover over them and encourage them? Straightening from my unaccustomed posture, I look over the rest of the garden. Someone else was here before me—someone who had faith, and now the tomato plants are sturdy and spreading, and the rows of beans are bushing out. I glance at the kitchen window of the parsonage. It is the spattered window of a house-in-process. But I see it clean and shining. And behind it stands the pastor’s wife, her hands in the dishwater, her eyes on the dash of color at the edge of the garden. At last we have—for a while—what we’ve always wanted—six boys! Our sixth is a sandy-haired eleven-year-old Canadian. We clean out a drawer for him, bunk him with the boy nearest his age, and promptly enroll him as a member of the swimming class at the “Y,” as well as an honorary member of our family. Our Reality and Prayer came back to us today with a unique bookmark—a dollar bill. This man makes a practice of borrowing rather than buying books, and has his own idea of evening up the score. At this point in life one does not expect the world to shoot fireworks on the occasion of one’s birthday. Yet I wondered as I went to bed last night, my new age resting rather lightly on my consciousness, if I had ever felt so surrounded by love, so cherished, as on this latest birthday. Little gifts and bigger ones; cakes—two of them, and both works of art; three first-class, personal letters; and, over the phone, birthday messages 89 Story of a Family to be recorded in the heart! Lying awake, holding it all, and wondering, I could only pray, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?” Smitty’s birthday, following hard on his mother’s, finds him the proud possessor of one of his aunt’s special cakes—a tugboat which is the envy of the neighborhood. Smitty is eight today, and as solid a little citizen as the family has yet produced. After lights out, his father and mother reflect on his virtues: “He’s the one—remember—who insisted on having his bottle ’til he was past three!” “Yes—and aren’t you glad we let him enjoy it, in spite of the way folks looked at us?” Today our beautiful baby girl arrived from the Children’s Bureau. Five weeks old she is, with black hair and fair skin. Yesterday her new mother-to-be was panicking—wondering if she even knew how to hold a baby any more. Tonight, having settled the new addition without a hitch, she feels herself a veteran at baby care. Long age I gave up the idea of ever learning to swim. This summer, in need of some extra vitamins for my mental balance, I have cashed in on the family membership at the local “Y” and—can it be?—have just passed the first series of tests. Friend Husband is impressed, and as I display my Minnow card to the waiting boys tonight, my stock rises visibly: “Good for Mom!” “She did it!” “In the deep part, too!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The joy of having a friend who will say to one almost engulfed in such tasks as filling stomachs and washing clothes, “And how is it with your soul?” August Each morning we awaken to the peculiar humming noises of nature in August. Gradually, as the day unfolds, other voices are added: from the kitchen the distinctive grind of the applesauce mill; from the back yard the crack of bat on ball; from the mud-hole, shouts and splashes; and throughout the day, the insistent punctuation of a tiny girl-baby asking for food. The day races on, becoming hot and dusty in the process, and we rush along, becoming likewise. But every night brings “sweet sleep 90 Hill Journal 1958 which knits the raveled sleeve of care,” …and every morning His mercies are new. Love has many hands and many voices. Last week it reached out and spoke in the form of an applesaucing. A. brought a bushel of yellow transparents from their own tree (she herself used the windfalls—these were flawless picked apples). She brought her huge pots and pans and her gracious self and children and we had a lovely day canning applesauce and communing. (Yes we did too commune—in spite of the twelve children in and out of the house!) When, after a few days of anxiety, an appointment with a specialist materializes, and I return home with a comparatively clean bill of health, I discover that love has spoken again. My sister-neighbor, besides keeping the children, has canned the bushel of peaches which has been waiting in the utility room. Overheard from the vicinity of the record player where small daughter is sitting in her little red rocker, intent on Marian Anderson’s recording of “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”: “Course not. Course, I wasn’t there!” I have a friend who is sure to give me something worthwhile to take along home and think about, whenever a meeting between us takes place. Today she passed on the advice someone had given her: “Praise your child every day.” There is no child who does not do something that merits recognition and encouragement during the ordinary course of a day. Occasions for nagging are so easy for parents to find—surely we can also find at least one occasion for honest praise! Parents who may be wary of such extravagance with their children might reflect on how far a little praise goes when directed to themselves. Tonight we gathered on C. F.’s lawn after church to welcome home the Ressler sisters. No less fascinating than Ruth’s stories were Rhoda’s interpretations to the deaf persons present. Her agile hands actually spoke and her mobile face communicated, we guessed, beyond the call of duty. 91 Story of a Family This week it seemed that a whole loving community conspired to give me a trip to Hesston with the three big boys and Friend Husband. Almost on the eve of their departure (without me because of the unexpected advent of girl-baby!) one friend called to say, “We want to keep the baby.” Others opened their doors to the three remaining. Another said, “I’ll do your ironing,” and another, “Do you need a nightgown?” I accept all the generous offers and am grateful, but I think, how is it that other people can see ways to be helpful before I can? I remember overhearing my mother sighing over a certain teenage daughter, “Yes, she’s a good worker, but she just doesn’t see work!” Highlights of our hurried trip included a short night with Lois and family—whose house was already bursting at the seams with company. On our leaving, she gives me a rose from her old-fashioned garden and confesses with a smile that her garden is her “mental health”—like my swimming. In Goshen there are rich, unexpected meetings crammed into the “time it takes to get these books unloaded and the tires checked.” At Newton there is the famous Guest House, where Mister Twelve, brightening at the sight of two colored men at the next table, sighs, “Now I can enjoy this food.” And later, “You know, the best part about that restaurant—better even than having seconds—was that it didn’t have that terrible sign in it!” (“We reserve the right to refuse service…”) At Hesston we soak up the hospitality of Hesston homes, enjoy coffee with old friends and sidewalk visits with new ones, while Friend Husband fills his conference appointments. Then there is the old-shoe comfort of auntie’s house again, and home. Home to fat girl-baby who didn’t seem to miss us, to two others who sighed, “Why di’n’t you stay longer?” and to a little boy who, quiet and good for a whole week, spent the day skipping and singing from morning till night, our first day home. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The compassion in a small daughter’s eyes as she takes her mother’s hand after an exasperating day with boys in the clutter of another building project. “Mommy,” she consoles, “Are you very tired of huts?” September Is there any phrase so sweet as “day after Labor Day” to a summer-tired mother? This one thinks it has angelic overtones. Not that she can’t bear 92 Hill Journal 1958 her children—she really thinks they’re quite nice. But it’s for their sakes, too, that she welcomes that wonderful, sparkly-new first day of school. She knows that, even more than she needs a vacation from them, they need one from her—plus the discipline and challenge of regular classwork after a willynilly summer. This time the last little boy straightens his shoulders and struts along to school with his brothers. And he joins in the chorus that fills the house, come four-forty o’clock: “Oh, I do like school!” “I got just the teacher I wanted, Mom. We all did!” “I get to sit by Jon!” “Davy’s in my room, too.” “Fifth grade is much more interesting than fourth!” My friend K. and I have discovered new ways of helping each other. She seems to have difficulty disciplining herself to read and meditate. I have trouble accepting discipline in housework. And so we bargain. In return for the explanation of my new method of meditation, she gives me a few pointers for lining up some weekly household tasks. The Gospel of Mark is my book of the month. Each day I read a chapter, recording the encounters of Jesus with persons and His responses to those encounters. Each day I close my meditation with a devotional response in the form of a written prayer. At the end of the month, I feel sure this book will seem more mine than any I have read in the Bible. At this point, I can only “stand in silence and adore” as the Person of Jesus shines through the written story of His meetings with other persons. As for the household disciplines—well, I grit my teeth and insist that I shall get into the habit of doing that ironing on Tuesdays and cleaning the bedrooms on Fridays. It’s nice to be flexible—and still be able to hold things together. But sometimes I feel rather like a rubber band which has been so flexible, so often, that it has worn thin and is about to snap. Andrewshek, thoughtful in the bath tonight, asks his Daddy, “Were you a carpenter?” When the answer comes, “No,” a light goes out of the brown eyes, and he looks down into the water, disconsolate. His father perceives and smiles. “I’m not a carpenter—but Jesus was. He was a good carpenter.” “Was He?” Andrewshek pipes in wonder. And in wonder and sudden exhilaration he breathes softly, “You know, don’t you, that I’m going to be a carpenter when I grow up?” 93 Story of a Family Today our preacher was stricken with laryngitis, so we had a unique worship service—mostly singing interspersed with appropriate Scripture. We were glad he didn’t call in another minister. His creative solution to the problem was a far greater joy to this worshiper. Later, I thought, Why is it that we feel we must scrabble about in an emergency, to keep things going “as usual?” An occasional dose of the unusual—whether it be in food or recreation or worship or work—might be good for us and for our pampered tastes. A small fairy who lives at our house touched a routine trip to town with her wand and transformed it into a treasure for the memory when she turned to the driver, her eyes luminous, and sighed, “It’s so beautiful going places with you.” Today we set out the willow twigs which our friend procured for us, and hoped that at least one would grow. These twigs came from huge willows on the old home place in Juniata County where my Father lived as a boy and where he grew up into young manhood. My mother often painted for me the picture of Papa, a little boy lying on his stomach in the hall doorway of the big house. From here he loved to watch the willows during the violent summer storms. Ever since we saw those willows nearly ten years ago, I’ve wanted to go back and get a start for our own little acre. Now the stubby twigs have come, from the hands of friends, and to me they are a living link with the father who died too soon to tell me his own story of the willows. TO KEEP AND PONDER: These golden Sunday afternoons when the Tall One comes out of his room, viola in hand, and grins, “How about making a little music together?” At times like this, his Mom is grateful that, though she’s no pianist, she can at least play hymns (in the keys of F, G, C, and E flat) to the accompaniment of an up-and-coming viola. October The golden days have come again. “Again,” she writes—yet each year October seems to be a new thrill of colors, textures, dimensions, odors. Today was one of those bright blue days, and against that blue the remaining leaves fluttered like gold tags in the wind. 94 Hill Journal 1958 To live in such a golden world, yet to feel the sadness and suffering about one and within one is to experience an exquisite tension of pain and joy. A friend in need comes humbly to our door to say, “I thought—if I could just look out your big window for a while…” We say that is just what our window is for. But as we stand there and feel our friend’s hurt as our own, somehow the colors outside the window are deepened and blurred. Minka greets us at breakfast on her birthday morning with a haughty glance at her high stool: “No stool, please…I’m FIVE!” Sometimes—maybe once in a lifetime—an experience comes to us which defies capture by words. Perhaps it is a moment of rare, insightful meeting with God or with another person. Somehow it leaves us aching for the consummate, face-to-face meeting with God. After such an experi ence the words of John Donne cry out within: “No man can see God and live, yet I shall not live until I see Him; and when I have seen Him I shall never die.” “Everybody—come to the Animal Show. Admission one penny. Gum from the gum bank—one penny. Everybody’s invited! Free refreshments.” Lefty and Smitty and their bright-eyed neighbor cooked this one up—and since the invitations were out before the mothers got wind of it, it really went through. (Even to the “free refreshments”—free, that is, to everyone but the moms.) To our surprise, however, this was no halfcooked performance. The magician, the bunny, and the leopard, in proper costume, put on a clever little skit (original, too). But for the mothers it was the audience that stole the show. There they sat on the improvised bleachers—fourteen bright-eyed neighborhood youngsters, a colorful lot, mostly under six years. Their faces reflected their delight in the antics of the amateurs, and as little hands clapped and shrill voices called for a repeat performance, gum was chewed with all the vigor and strength— and sound effects—of fourteen pairs of excited little jaws. The Inward Cross, by Charles Kean, wins top place on my reading list this month. These are the most rewarding meditations I have yet read concerning the words of Jesus on the cross. I refrain, with effort, from interrupting Friend Husband, scowling over his books in his cell. Instead, 95 Story of a Family I write down in a notebook what I would ordinarily share with him. One thought stays with me today—that the spirit behind the words, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” should be the basis for our dealing with the uncertain future. Kean suggests that in every decision we make, in every relationship we enter, we should echo these words. I like that. But to say it is to say also, “Not my will… .” And somehow, for me at least, that is never easy. Friend Husband’s birthday is this year the occasion for taking his colleague and wife (our neighbors in the red house down the road) out to dinner. If it wouldn’t be for the fine fellowship we have on these eatingout nights—a fellowship we can’t quite duplicate with ten children, nine of them boys, milling about—we might feel it to be an extravagance. Tonight, a still, clear gem of October, I made the acquaintance of some new friends—the constellations. Having been able to recognize up to this point only the Big Dipper and the Milky Way (and one other rather nice star which I had assumed from childhood to belong to me), I am acutely aware, suddenly, of the neglected areas in my education. It’s comforting to discover that one can keep learning though, as long as there is incentive to learn. The boys, ignited by my new discoveries, feverishly hunt up books and articles and charts on the heavens, and are soon far beyond me. TO KEEP AND PONDER: A moment of wonder, of remembering, of meeting, of prayer… in the quietness of an empty chapel… on a rainy day… November November finds the family on The Hill beginning a flurry of late fall housecleaning. Drawers, closets, shelves, and files yield to the firm hand of Order. For a few hours at least, one can walk through the rooms singing with the poet: “Order is a lovely thing On disarray it lays its wing…” For a few days, not a cobweb! Clean drapes hang at all the windows— windows which suddenly seem to be letting in an extraordinary amount of light. I remember the “Poem in Prose” which Archibald MacLeish wrote for his wife… something about there always being sun and time and a sweet air and peace and work done, curtains, flowers, candles, a cloth spread, 96 Hill Journal 1958 and a clean house—wherever she is. Friend Husband couldn’t write that about me most days, I think, wistful. But—but today he could! Andrewshek has requested that for his seventh birthday he doesn’t want anything big like, well, like a tool belt (anyhow he already has one). He just wants little bitsy presents. His eyes dance, then, at the heaped platter of minute-size gifts all done up in party paper and ribbons. Scotch tape, nails, clips, labels, paste, gum, dimes, pencils, a comb, tiny notebooks, crayons, and string are among his loot. For days he hoards them unused, just so he can count them again. “Missionary slides,” muses Lefty reflectively as he strains toward his reflection in the mirror in order to clip on his bow tie. “Well, I know what that means. They’ll begin with a boat and end with a sunset!” Man Is Not Alone, a philosophy of religion by Abraham Joshua Heschel, has provided a spot of beauty and light for me in the gray sameness of these November days. This man traffics in words which are more poetry than prose. Every page carries gems of insight, aphorisms which call for underlining and remembering. Above all, the person of a godly man shines through the words and the ideas and one thinks of Enoch, who walked with God. A friend who delicately questions my appreciation of a Jewish author, says, “Yes…but he isn’t a Christian.” I reply, “If only more of us Christians were as Christlike as he is!” I am in debt to this good man for new understandings of the Person of God, the will of God, and the walk with God. Minka, all measles and misery, crawls into bed on her daddy’s side and snuggles into the shelter of his arm. “Now,” she observes, “Daddy has a young mother and…” Her other parent cringes, waiting for the blow to be dealt by the word “old.” “And,” Minka adds thoughtfully, “and a tall mother.” “When I was a kid at home,” states one of our friends in an aggrieved tone, “our parents were free on Sunday afternoons. We scattered and kept out of their way. Nowadays Sunday is my hardest working day—I’m expected to keep them entertained. Why can’t they entertain themselves, like we did?” 97 Story of a Family We smile in recollection of the Old Days and in recognition of the New Order. We ourselves have had some pretty harrowing Sunday afternoons— even with the help of naps and how-to articles and books. It seems there are days when a child can be presented with fifty-odd suggestions as to what he might care to do, and not one will appeal to his sophisticated taste. Then there are days like today—blessed day!—when each one settles down to his own pastime. Then the parent who was going to write letters is almost inspired to write an ode in praise of family harmony! An drewshek and Smitty have sealed themselves in their monastery, and are building a miniature village. Minka is mistress of a paper doll household. Lefty and his next older brother are deep in books from the Saturday trip to the library. The Tall One experiments with the tenor arias from the Messiah to his own accompaniment. And the tiny baby sleeps, as is her habit—an admirable trait in a lady of five months. The man of the house presents us his Christmas gifts by stages this month: a concrete floor in the basement, good for years of roller skating and ping-ponging; and especially for me, steps leading to the basement from the inside of the house—contemplating those chilly dawns and lone ly nights when I become fireman during his regular weeks of absence, I think this is about the most thoughtful gift possible… Thanksgiving this year was special in a different way. The family was alone, but it seemed that many of our friends were with us. For on our table were hot rolls from our neighbor-relatives next door, corn from Marnetta’s freezer, and pumpkin pies from Kit’s oven. No one was able to figure out the why of this windfall, but “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” fairly rang as we gathered about the table, and we ate our food with love and remembering and gladness of heart. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The hushed, excited voices of Christmas-struck children planning and practicing (behind closed doors) for the family program, nearly a month away. December The Christmas month calls for “grace for little things,” this mother feels, almost more than any time of the year. Today, listening to the fourteenyear-old experimenting alternately with all four voice parts of the same Messiah chorus, I am desperately aware of the need for such grace—or earplugs. 98 Hill Journal 1958 Friends of the family, just returned from three years in Switzerland, delighted us with their company last night. Highlights of the evening— their delicate playing on Blockflutes, reminiscences of their work abroad, and the acquaintance of their “small character.” (Minka’s name for her: The-Little-Sara-Who-Likes-Cheese.) “This year,” the Hill-Woman told herself—and the family, in case they wanted to hear—“our Christmas greetings are going out early.” They did, indeed. That was no idle boast. However, after reading on every other incoming greeting, “Yours was the first card of the season for us!” she confessed to her husband that next year our cards will be sent a week or two later. Overheard: a small sigh of satisfaction from the youngest. “Think of it! I colored this whole page without yawning!” Everywhere there are stars: Stars in the eyes of the Tall One when he discovers that he and his viola get to go to the county orchestra. Diminutive hands of the newborn of the community (Why do their hands always remind me of stars?) A heaven full of glory-declaring stars as we listen to The Messiah sung by the Mendelssohn Choral Society accompanied by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Then there are those sparks of excitement as the boys gather around to watch their parents open the gifts they’ve bought them. With even more joy than they exhibit opening their own gifts, they watch us unwrap the paring knives, the thermometer, the little percolator for our joint use. “Is that the kind you like?” “Did you guess at all?” “They cost us…” At this point a large hand claps over a small mouth; so the parents are spared the knowledge—until later when they surreptitiously remove the sticky price tags from the backs and bottoms of their gifts. Christmas day began with a 7:00 a.m. chorus, “When can we go?” And ended with a 10:00 p.m. wail from Secundus. “Best day of my life this year, and then you have to insist on leaving right in the middle of everything!” It seems an impertinence to try to take the whole shining day apart and appraise it, piece by piece. But next day we find ourselves doing just that. The Tall One says, “That food!” Andrewshek recalls the Surprise-Pudding centerpiece, from which to each person’s plate, ribbons 99 Story of a Family led and were pulled at the appropriate after-dinner moment. (Even Baby Joyce rated a rattle!) There is talk of basement playing, of planning the program to be given for the parents before the basement fireplace, and of the program itself. (A very good one, the parents agreed.) Lefty speaks of the marshmallows roasted in the fireplace. (Just why do boys like to burn theirs, and wave them about under people’s noses, crying, “Look! mine’s on fire! That’s the way I like it!”) The parents recall a special treat—listening with our pastor-hosts to a recording of Dylan Thomas reading his own “Boyhood Christmas in Wales.” How could it be, we wondered aloud later when we were home, that the recounting of a particular child’s experiences—a boy’s at that, and in a strange country and culture—how could such an account evoke so much of one’s own childhood experience? That’s the magic of good writing, I guess. Anyhow, it seemed as if all the sights and sounds and smells and tastes and textures of our own childhood Christmases were compressed in this brief hour of listening and remembering. Several weeks ago, after viewing a film on family worship, the boys came home full of big plans to revamp our own system. Each evening at dinner we are now to take turns conducting table devotions. Today, Sunday, it’s Dad’s turn, and he suggests that our morning worship at church be counted as family worship. Smitty hotly declares this to be cheating, and his father meekly concedes (in shortened form, however.) Smitty further guards the purity of our family worship in reprimanding severely his small sister when she chooses as the worship song, “I Had a Goat, His Name Was Jim.” (Let it be said in his defense, though, that his tears of compassion immediately responded to her heartbroken sobs!) TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment when, in the midst of the choir’s singing of “Surely” one is pierced by the immediacy of the words, “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” “My sorrows, too!” I think— the sorrows that no one else can know or understand, that even I can scarcely name to myself… A great silence envelops the deep places of the heart, and the choir, for a while, seems far away—like angels singing to the world’s anguish. 100 Hill Journal 1959 Hill Journal 1959 January It’s a new year again, and the first day of it. There is a fascination about this day for me—in spite of what the cynics say about its really not being more significant than any other day. Sometimes when one is confronted with an ordinary day with its ordinary demands, one wants to run the other way. (A crisis may require less courage than the daily grind.) But today, today I awaken with joy. “Here is the day,” I quote to nobody in particular. “Here is the day; one must act.” And as the wings carry me to the kitchen for the preparation of Breakfast #1 of the new year, another song is singing within: “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” The boys thought the new year couldn’t have started better—dinner with Alva’s at Grantsville. “All that food!” sighed Twelve. “She said, ‘Just a little snack for supper.’” Lefty’s mimicry of our hostess was effective. Smitty looked back at the family, waving from the icy walk. “I guess they are just about the nicest people there are,” he said, in quiet desperation. We all understood; for how does one—we always ask ourselves as we leave this home—how does one answer to such hospitality as this? Overheard today, a remark of a friend, “I’m not what I want to be.” It made the hill-woman thoughtful, for it is something she has often glibly said of herself. But this time, somehow, it arrested her attention. Not what I want to be? But how can I say that? For am I not becoming, day by day, that person who is the result of my real wantings? How easily one declines himself into thinking that he wants the best and the highest. O God, may I increasingly want for myself what you want for me. Smitty, having faithfully discharged all the duties a harassed mother could think of while preparing supper for guests, plants himself in her path and pleads, “But, Mom, I don’t like to just spend my life pacing back and forth; I want to be helpful!” What a rare happening is a good biography! Let one crucial letter be omitted from the sources available to the biographer—and maybe he has missed a valuable key to an important door of his subject. Several 101 Story of a Family years ago, on reading The Letters of Evelyn Underhill I noted that the correspondence with her spiritual director, Baron von Hügel, was absent. The preface stated that these letters were, unfortunately, missing. Today I have become acquainted with a new Evelyn Underhill through the courtesy of Margaret Cropper, her latest biographer. The “lost” correspondence was not lost after all. These letters to and from the baron reveal a facet of E. U. which seems to me to be necessary to the understanding of her as a person. Here are her conflicts and waverings, those spiritual anguishes which she nobly kept out of her letters to those who looked to her for guidance, but which were real, and with which she struggled all her life. This recommends her to me as a greater saint than the calm person I had envisioned from her Letters. Last night, according to habit, the mistress of the hill-house made a list of the things to be done the following day. After the children had left for school this morning, she took up her list. Scrawled at the bottom, right after “let down hem of M’s dress” was this pathetic note, designed to melt the heart of a mother who sometimes makes repeated promises without fulfilling them: “Read How We Grow Up, Chap. 3, to your third son.” One hears lots of talk about taking life a day at a time. Today, after hearing some bitter words concerning a friend, I thought what a fine thing it would be if we could learn to take people a day at a time, too. But no, we must carry along their history—what they did and what they said and what they were in another situation. And often the baggage of this history piles up so that we can’t find the person “[hidden] among the stuff.” We hope that, as for us, each day finds us taller in stature; we like to think we are capable of growth and change and rebirth. But others we judge as they were yesterday, last week, twenty years ago. Well, this is the little sermon the hill-woman preached to herself today. And she ended by being grateful to God—the one Person who really takes us a day at a time. Minka’s eyes shone today, when she opened a big box of “nurse’s things.” This was more than a shiny little kit from the store. It was the carefully hoarded and much-used treasure-trove which Betty Ann had collected herself as a small girl playing nurse. Now she is a real nurse, 102 Hill Journal 1959 and Minka is heir to her box of dreams. Dream, little daughter. Dreams have a way of coming true if we want them to—I know! TO KEEP AND PONDER: The rebuke of the month: I was tired and cross and would rather not have talked to the one who called me, even though I knew of her lying there, day after day, with so much to irritate and so little to comfort. She must have sensed my impatience, for she said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but your voice always soothes my nerves.” February Like January, February opened for us with a gala feast. This time it was a Mexican dinner at our neighbor-relatives, just comfortably settled after spending the holidays in south Texas. Enchiladas, tamales, hot peppers— the boys reveled in the abundance of favorite foods. And I quietly enjoyed, as I always do, the sheer beauty which this sister of mine is capable of producing, given some food, a table, and an occasion. Overheard: Minka confiding to a playmate, “My mother knows much more than my daddy. I know, ’cause whenever I ask Daddy something he says, ‘Ask Mother.’” “[O] rest in the Lord, … wait patiently for him.” Some days when I listen to this recording of Marian Anderson’s voice, the soul can hardly bear the weight of beauty. Not only the unique voice, but also the immediacy of the text of the aria makes listening a deeply personal experience. For who of us does not nurture that heart’s desire for which we long in secret silence, and which seems so impossible ever to possess? I find reassurance in a comment found today in The Interpreter’s Bible. The writer is explaining the different answers which may be given to such a prayer. One might be, “You must wait for what you desire, but you shall have now what you need.” Lord, if this be your answer to me, may I accept graciously what I need and wait patiently for that which I desire. The family turned out en masse tonight (with the exception of absent Father) to hear the County Orchestra play at the high school. All that I could see of our firstborn was the tip of his viola bow and his left ankle. Nevertheless I was giddy with pride, and I felt much like those overbearing alumni at whose class letters I had hooted years ago— “Our daughter has first chair in violin…” 103 Story of a Family Tonight for a valentine treat the hill-woman featured a “Favorites Feast.” Now a Favorites Feast comes about in this fashion—each child, the day before, confides secretly one item of food which he would like to have on the menu. Father and Mother add their choices in a desperate attempt to balance the meal. This time the result was mashed potatoes, Italian spaghetti, hamburgers, ravioli, chocolate ice cream, corn bread, lettuce, and candy. Smile, O friends, at our top-heavy menu; it was a joy to serve and a joy to eat. “My children don’t say things like that,” observed a reader of this column. I tried to tell her that her children probably say and do things much more interesting and significant, for our family has no precocious children. The only difference is that I have a habit of taking notes on paper—she relies on her memory. I have found that these little jottings over the years often restore the image of a child long forgotten. It seems to me that in the true enjoyment and appreciation of family life, the past of each child plays a role. Most of us can recall the past piecemeal, at best, and with distortions and loopholes. Granting that notes and diaries are not foolproof when it comes to documenting facts and emotions—I’ll still rely on these above my will-o-the-wisp memory. “It’s not what he said, it’s how he said it!” wails Minka. Minka is learning about life when she is learning about inflection. What a difference is made by that subtle shifting of the voice! Her mother recalls a college classroom where the professor was reading aloud one of her poems. The remembered line ran: “Where the dumb clouds lay quilted and calm.” Croaked the friend in the next chair, “He made them-there clouds stupid, not speechless!” And when I think of what we can do for or against people by the mere rise and fall of the voice, I remember a friend who, in order to bestow a great gift, needs only to speak one’s name with that indefinable inflection which no one else has quite mastered. For years a “Sisters’ Party” has been in the offing here—and tonight it became a reality. We met at Hazel’s, and it was surprising to find out how interrelated our little community is. The sisters poured in, each with a dish of something remembered from the table at home. (My own sister delighted me with butterscotch pie, the like of which I had not 104 Hill Journal 1959 tasted since our mother made her last butterscotch pie for me, years ago.) Reminiscences were the order of the day. Older sisters recalled lugging their baby sisters about, and baby sisters remembered their bossy (and loving) big sisters. We tried guessing which of the pair (or the three) was the older, and many a tale was told out of school. It was a relaxing, different sort of evening, and when I came home, I felt like saying to the small waiting daughter, “Poor child, no sisters!” The hill-woman hates to think of what might happen to her cooking if the family would not be invited out once in a while. For then the boys enthusiastically demand that we get the recipe for this … and this. The current craze is for hot fudge pudding, which the lady in the red house down the way served us recently. All you do is sift into a bowl 1 c. flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. salt, ¾ c. sugar, and 2 T. cocoa. Stir in ½ c. milk and 2 T. melted shortening. Blend in 1 c. chopped nuts, spread in 9″ square pan, sprinkle with a mixture of 1 c. brown sugar and 3 T. cocoa, pour 1¾ c. hot water over the batter and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Served hot with or without cold rich milk, it brings from our Tall One one of his rare slangoes: “Hot-dig!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: Minka’s whispered apology as she flits back and forth from her father’s chair to mine: “I hope you don’t get tired of it, but I just have so many kisses inside of me, I don’t know what to do with them!” March March, with its capricious temperament, had the laugh on us right from the start this year. We left for Goshen, just the two of us plus Minka, with the sun hot and bright—so hot and bright that at the last minute we exchanged Minka’s warm winter coat for her light spring one. No sooner were we on the turnpike than the gusts of wind and snow almost lifted the old Pontiac from the road, and Goshen greeted us in a blanket of snow. But the cold and the snow were entirely out of keeping with our week there. “Friendship is a miracle!” writes Simone Weil, and it seemed that wherever one turned, one was confronted with this miracle. Years may have passed since we had seen each other. Yet there was no backtracking to be done; in fact, whatever bond had been between us seemed to have strengthened; understandings bloomed where we had not even been aware of the need for such understandings. 105 Story of a Family “You know,” I confided to my companion on the homeward trek, “while you were teaching this week, I visited with nearly forty people. And,” I added as Friend Husband smiled indulgently, “every one of those contacts was a vital one—for me. Not one was commonplace; not even those hurried surprises on the streets and in the halls that began, ‘Why, hello!’ ” Back home, Minka greets her brothers and baby “sister” with aplomb. In spite of the fact that they think they have gotten the best of the bargain, spending the week with an aunt who gave them “all we wanted to eat,” Minka feels her position is quite superior. After all, she had her own private rooms at Aunt Stella’s. She saw baby turkeys. She made new friends. She has a boxful of treasures garnered from Mommy’s friends. Furthermore, from her lofty heights she can be generous—she doles out a small gift for each boy with nonchalance. But at the baby’s pen she suddenly becomes again the little girl we love. “Sweetie,” she whispers, as she urges her to play with the new toy she has brought her. Then she turns to me. “Does Joycie know she’s a person? I hope so…” “Everyone” is reading Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago—and so I finally take it up also. Whether or not the book has been oversold, its reading has been a significant experience for me, and the usual wrangle and confusion over the Russian names has not prevented reading enjoyment. “How wonderful to be alive,” cries Lara, “but why does it always hurt?” An old question, and no new answers. But the hill-woman, with Lara, will still choose aliveness with hurt, to the safe, sterile “existence without courage.” The car being out of commission and Father gone, we had our service at home this Sunday morning. I always look forward to these occasions, for I can count every time on new insights into the persons of the young worshipers who have planned and executed the service. Today we even had typed bulletins, at the top of which was, The United Brethren Church. When I asked why the desertion from the Mennonite faith, the five male conspirators looked at each other in amusement. This was their little joke. For, as one of them finally pointed out, there couldn’t be a better name for their church—wasn’t it being run by five brethren? The green tips of the bulbs are showing; a friend has donated pussy willows to enhance the springy decor of the bookcase; Easter is upon us, 106 Hill Journal 1959 in spirit and in symbol. Yesterday eight children stood around the kitchen table coloring eggs, each moving from one color to the next in order to produce one egg of each color for his own private collection. I remember the time when this was a trial. This year, with the increased steadiness of little-fingers-grown-bigger, it was a joy. At sunrise service this morning we heard the old-new words, “The Lord is risen indeed.” Yet I could not repeat them glibly, knowing that He is risen indeed, to me, only as I am risen with Him. A friend, in a conversation today, was deploring the fact that as Christians we do not feel free enough to speak our minds, one to another. Shouldn’t we be able to say what we think about each other and our church? Partly, I agreed. But somehow, I knew that often the people who feel freest to “speak their minds” are the most lonely and unhappy of persons. After thinking about it, it seemed to me that freedom to speak one’s heart (one’s love) is a higher and a more costly freedom, and that I have little right to speak my mind when I have not freely “spoken my heart.” To speak the truth is one thing—any crank can do it. To “[speak] the truth in love,” God knows how few of us are capable of this. And so, for me, I cannot ask more freedom to be critical when I have not loved freely. “There is no freedom,” writes Heschel, “without sanctity.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: Andrewshek’s nervous system is not geared for TV, and when he comes home from a session of Cowboys and Indians at a friend’s home, he cannot sleep, out of fear. I talk to him, trying to soothe him into sleep. “Remember that picture in your book, and the verse about God’s arms being around us?” I repeat it, then, “Underneath are the ever lasting arms.” “Yeah, I know,” Andrewshek whispers, “but keep your arms around me, Mom, please.” April The proverbial April showers have been real and plentiful these first few April days. Small daughter is disconsolate, and I hear her muttering to herself, “You’d think the sun was dead!” The gifts of April are not all showers of rain—and not all those first bright smiles of hyacinths and jonquils. Today Sister Therese’s newest book of poetry Moment in Ostia arrived direct from Sister Therese, the friend of a friend. The delight of reading good poetry is heightened by the joy of discovering that we, the poetess and myself, share enthusiasm 107 Story of a Family for the writings of Simone Weil and Thomas Merton. Moment in Ostia has brought me more than exquisite poetry; it has brought me another friend. It takes a really good book to put one on speaking terms with the author. April—life! I used to have some vague notion of eternal life being what one has after death, whether he wants it or not. But now I think of it differently, and when I read, “If any man is thirsty, he can come … and drink [of the water of life freely],” I know that eternal life is something we taste here and now, or never; and that freely drinking of it or not makes the difference between life and mere existence. Tonight I have had to thank God for the eternal life in which I have participated this day: the meeting of spirit with spirit as I sat with a friend; the easy exchange of confidences with a growing boy; the insight springing from the pages of the book I was reading; the sure guidance from within at a moment of indecision. Smitty is examining the hand-tooled belt which his Texas aunt made for him several Christmases ago. “I want to keep this belt,” he announces, “to show to my other family—you know, my wife and children. And I will tell them the story of how I got it, and who gave it to me. She made it with her own hands.” We guess this is Smitty’s own way of saying, “Daddy and Mommy, I like the way you have shared your own childhoods with me. I want to do it for my children, too.” Tonight at Second Son’s thirteenth birthday supper the guest was our friend Don, fresh from Japan. The boys were overawed by his great politeness, including his low bows, his seating of their mother at the table, and his insistence on helping with the dishes. Mother decided that this is the kind of guest we should have oftener. After all, a big strapping fellow who is polite and still knows about baseball and boys is proof enough that one can have manners without being a sissy. Coming home from a particularly disappointing evening spent with other members of a prayer group, I mused on the word, “meeting.” And I sighed to think how many assemblages one sits through without there having been any real meeting. 108 Hill Journal 1959 Tonight, because we were without a car, and because of a sudden upsurge of the spirit of adventure, the hill-woman walked the three-odd miles to town. It was a crisp evening, and I walked briskly for two reasons: to get there in time, and to keep warm. New sights and sounds and odors were opened to me as I trotted along the road: the birds exchanging their little good nights over and over; the peepers proclaiming spring from the swampy hollows; the heretofore unnoticed dimensions of the banks at the roadside; the loveliness of the back yards along Pittsburgh Street Extension (we always pass too fast to really see them). It all was a new and exhilarating experience. I do hereby recommend walking to town at least once every ten years. The Tall One had missed his supper to go to Music Club, and so his mother saved a generous supply of creamed chicken to be served him on his return. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t eat it all, Mom,” he apologized later, pointing to the tablespoon of creamed dope he has left in the pan. “See, Mom, I ate six sloppy-joes at Music Club.” Which is the most rewarding and which is the most trying stage of family-raising? I ask myself. Parents of a houseful of preschoolers have a definite answer. Parents of teen-agers (forbidden word!) have another. As for me, I have always felt that the current stage is both the most trying. and the most rewarding. Each child, at any age, presents problems and pleasures to serve as both weights and wings to this parent. Tonight one of those rare bonuses to parenthood was given when they all, from five to fifteen, seemed alive, yet peaceable; when, without plan or design, we chatted the evening away together without one major uprising, no namecalling—and no nagging! TΟ KEEP AND PONDER: The thanks in the shining eyes of the three youngest as they are served a Tiny Party. Once in a great while their mother remembers how she liked Tiny Parties when she was small. And so she makes the wee, triangular sandwiches, piles minute-sized cheese slabs on Minka’s Blue Willow platter, and prepares inch-long carrot stix. These, she guesses, are the meals her children will remember longest. May Mother’s Day came early this year, and especially early to the house on the hill. As it happened, Smitty finished his gift a week ahead of schedule, and couldn’t wait. The tiny piece of cloth with M S L sewn across it in almost recognizable letters was worth more than a dozen red roses—even 109 Story of a Family if Mother never did divine its intended use. And what fun it must have been to wrap. All that Scotch tape! Today the boys’ father was in charge of a funeral, and the big boys were involved in a May parade. Andrewshek seemed puzzled all morning as preparations were made. The source of his confusion became apparent as he suddenly burst out, while watching the parade, “Wow! I never knew they had to celebrate that much for a dead person!” A little paperback, No Man Is an Island, written by the Trappist, Thomas Merton, has been the springboard for fruitful meditation this week. Proper love of ourselves, says Merton, is something we owe to others. And by proper love of ourselves he means “first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others.” One small person at our house seems to have a sense of honest selfacceptance. “You know,” she begins earnestly, “it seems as if I love you more than anyone in the world, except myself!” Today was a day for celebration, hat-throwing, firecrackers. Actually all we did was have an extra-special breakfast and a few quiet cheers around the table when Father, still sleepy from his early morning train arrival, announced that now he was home for good. The winter-long arrangement of life-with-Father for one week, followed by life-withoutFather for the next, is now over. A new experience for the women of the family: attending a motherdaughter banquet together. In a way it seemed as if Minka’s grandmother, gone long before Minka herself was born, was also there. I felt a strange, rich communion with my unseen brown-eyed mother on one side, and my attentive brown-eyed daughter on the other. This experience in return seemed to communicate itself to the women who listened. They gave, I was sure, more than they received. Sometimes this miracle happens when one gives a very ordinary speech. Sometimes it doesn’t. In any case, the small daughter, on the way home, patted her mother’s arm and moved closer. “You told good poem-stories,” she murmured sleepily. 110 Hill Journal 1959 This week we have nine children at our house. Minka looks forward to these visits of her little friends, for she knows that then her mother might make an effort to do some special things which have been delayed for months. “Sometime, dear” is an all-too-familiar answer to this patient child’s repeated requests for doll clothes, a tea party, a story—or the making of fairy houses. Like most nostalgia-embroidered memories, the making of fairy houses in reality did not quite come up to the pictures in mother’s mind. In the first place, the lovely little ditches are an Idaho product, and no stony Pennsylvania creek bank could offer the same opportunities. To make a fairy house one should be able to lie flat on his stomach on one side of the little ditch, and dig the wee house hole in the opposite bank. A can lid, pushed firmly into the bottom of the hole and covered with green moss, makes a lovely floor, and extends out over the water as a balcony. Toothpicks produce a proper railing. Missing also, in this thirty-years-too-late version of fairy houses were the little china penny dolls, big as a minute, which we children would buy to attract the fairies to the completed houses. So the long-promised project fell a bit flat. Yet I have a suspicion (so powerful is the mind’s magic) that long after the little girls have forgotten about the unsuccessful fairy houses they made, they will remember the lovely ones which a nostalgic imagination produced for them—in words. TO KEEP AND PONDER: Back in the long ago When goblins were real to us, and witches, We built, with breathless care and tender skill Fairy houses, in the ditches… Only the greenest moss We chose for carpeting the tiny floors, And bought, to lure the fairies, stiff penny dolls In the dim downstairs of Moore’s. Back in the long ago Flat on our stomachs by the little stream We fashioned fairy houses with love and longing For fairies who never came. June June seemed this year to leap at us without a warning. Suddenly the house is filled with sound and fury which a more patient mother might primly call “activity.” First off, the two young campers must be outfitted 111 Story of a Family with bedrolls and changes of clothing for the annual Little Boys’ Club camping weekend. One assumes that the extra clothing supplied will come back unused or not at all. (Or bearing the tag marked “J. C. Penney Size 6” instead of “Boyville Size 8.”) The only member of the family who seems to consistently bring peace and not a sword these days, is now a year old. Her first birthday left Baby Joyce placid and smily as usual, with only a moment of wonder as the tiny lighted candle flickered before her; a moment of delight as her fingers dug into the squishy icing; and a moment of pleased surprise as the sticky, sweet stuff found her mouth. These moments we captured in color (we hope) with our camera. How I admire those people who plod along doing things methodically, from a sense of responsibility and duty. Most things this lady attempts must be motivated by the sense of adventure. Tell her it would be hard to do, or that no sane person would try it, or that one doesn’t learn this new trick this late in life—and she will probably attempt it. Tell her it is ex pected of her, that other women do it this way without batting an eyelash, that it would be simple for one with her time and talents—and she will likely turn coldly the other way. Teaching Bible school morning and evening for two weeks, including planning and making freezer meals to cover that period, was one of those things which she determined to do because it seemed impossible to one with her easygoing (polite English for lazy) habits. With such motives she knew she would be undeserving of any credit which unthinking people might give her. (Besides, she didn’t do it alone—lots of people helped out with food, love, and service.) But she did it, and enjoyed it. And who knows? Next time she may be able to do the same with a purer motive! Found in the Little Boys’ Room, a typed sheet bearing the following information: The Activeity Club Minka L. . . . Treasure Andr. L. . . . Presidant J. J. C. . . . Congress Smitty L. . . . Guard Lefty L. . . . Guide Note: The Guide is most Importent Note: Dues: 1¢ Note: Activeitys, fishing, picnicing, hiking, swiming, selling. 112 Hill Journal 1959 I smile as I contemplate the possible life span of this first club of the summer. And I wonder if Lefty realizes how I know who masterminded the organization! My friend Elizabeth has loaned me Weatherhead’s latest book, A Private House of Prayer. According to a bad habit of mine, I could not read beyond the first few pages, for by that time I knew I must have my own copy to underline, to cherish, to loan, to have at finger-tip availability for my times of need. This is a rich storehouse of devotional material. Weatherhead is a man with a genius for extracting valuable insights from every man he has met, every book he has read, every homely happening of his daily existence. Today was Baby Joyce’s “Psychological.” The two of us went with our caseworker to Seton Hill College at Greensburg, where a trained Sister went through the fascinating process of testing the baby’s intelligence. I had not believed there could be so many ways of stimulating a more or less measurable response in so young a child. Coming home, dreams of future service with foster homes, or adoptive parents, or even with testing programs such as I had just witnessed—vague dreams nudged at the corners of my consciousness asking, “Is this it?” “Sometime?” “Maybe?” Annual Publishing House Picnic today. Oh, the luxury of taking a book and a blanket, and just relaxing! But Friend Husband reminds me that this is a day for socializing. “Don’t you think,” I suggest, “that the rest of them might be as glad as I to be left alone a bit?” (He doesn’t think so.) Facing the long tables loaded with such astonishing variety, such artful arrangements, such temptations of color and odor, I realize sadly that I still have no adequate “Philosophy of Food.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The inner burst of joy in the midst of a hot, dusty day, when Lefty presents me with an armful of wild roses—the first I’ve seen or smelled for years. “There’s a whole garden of them in the middle of the woods!” he cries. July Some more energetic parents would, I am sure, find themselves at less odds with the world in that middle summer month than we do here on our hill. We make a few feeble attempts at a work schedule for the boys. 113 Story of a Family Of course they make their own beds and keep their rooms clean, or at least keep a path cleared between Saturday cleaning upheavals. Of course they do the dishes more or less willingly, usually less. Of course they practice their music lessons and mow the lawn (which needs little mowing in this dry season). But all this takes only a fraction of the time. Then what? The Tall One has the project of painting the house. But even this, we see, will not take him long, for he works swiftly, evenly, and willingly—when he works. Secundus has the task of cutting down some small trees. This sounds glamorous until the blisters start appearing. A good case of poison ivy saves the day for him. Oh, for a farm! But at least we are comforted that they all like to read; and when the work runs out, they bounce back to their books with joy. Remembering the times when the Sears repairman has come out to fix my washer, only to find a small length of key chain in the pump, I have finally acquired the habit of going through the boys’ pockets with special care on washday. I am grim as I pick up Andrewshek’s jangling, heavy jeans. These pockets, I conclude, might well be storage facilities for the Pittsburgh Screw and Bolt Factory. July is full of birthdays and anniversaries for us. But who is there to celebrate with one those hidden anniversaries of the heart? Quietly, alone, I today partake of οne such sacrament of remembrance. The little fellers come home from watching a Pony League game in which their two big brothers played. They are wild in their acclaim of Secundus who, they say, made a beautiful, oh, a beautiful catch out on the field. “Everybody cheered him!” cries Smitty, proud to burst. In sheepish delight the Man of the Hour hangs around the sink where I am mixing tomorrow’s supply of milk. “You know,” he philosophizes, “when you do something like that for your team for the first time, you feel like—well, you just feel like a real person!” The Hill-woman’s birthday came on a Sunday sandwiched between two rather trying weeks. Books and letters, clothes and accessories, a call from Texas in the morning and one from Michigan in the evening, made her feel that somehow, she could keep on going; somehow from now on she was going to be a better woman. 114 Hill Journal 1959 The sister-neighbor announced, in addition, that she was preparing a picnic supper for us to take out or eat in, as we wished. “Just a few simple picnic foods,” she cautioned. “Nothing fancy.” During the preparation Lefty, who had been watching her, burst into our house gasping, “Simple! She says simple!” He flopped onto a chair in mock unconsciousness. Later, after viewing, eating, and sharing the food with friends, we decided that Aunt Liz had better bone up on the meaning of the word “simple.” “Why can’t we take in the family swim at the Y?” the children ask their father. “It’s every Friday night.” Father agrees tiredly that he will go with us once, but we shall not ask him to do it again. After a relaxing evening in the pool, where all of us showed each other what we had learned in our separate swimming classes, where the boys water-fought with their dad, and the Tall One patiently played in the shallower water with the Small One; after all this, guess who it was who insisted, “We must do this often!” Smitty’s birthday was one of those hot, poorly planned, cluttered summer days spent hauling the children to the Y, picking up packages at Sears in Connellsville, getting books at the library, buying groceries at the A and P, collecting the children at the park, meeting Daddy at fourthirty, icing a cake, and having a birthday party in process by six. But the new Niner couldn’t have exhibited a more kindly spirit. (Even when his “main” birthday present—two goldfish in a bowl—died at nightfall.) Midsummer—and the garden is dry and pitiful, the lawns brown, the dust hot and thick on the little road behind the house. These are the fine summer days I used to dream of when the children would be outside working or playing happily. Now they gather in the living room after a few abortive attempts at outside play. “Too hot” “Too dirty,” they mutter. And so they bring their books, their games, their arguments, and their spite in under the nose of their mother who has long ago forgotten that there is such a condition as peace. But they also bring their persons, their reaching-out minds, and emotions as quick to flow outward in compassion as they are to flare up in conflict. Passing back and forth through the rooms, I recall again Enid Bagnold’s rich pictures of intuitive motherhood in The Squire. I remember how the Squire looked at her little son “seeing all that the shape of his face meant to her, the unfolding of the seven years of his past ...” and thinking “how dull, in comparison, 115 Story of a Family were the faces of children who were not hers,” as dull as the faces of men who were not one’s Beloved. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The brave effort of Smitty to control the tears as he stands alone, blinking fast, after watching our baby-for-a-year leave us with the ladies from the Children’s Bureau. He turns to me fiercely, in answer to my query “Nothing’s wrong with me!” Having thus asserted his manhood, his voice falters pathetically, “She patty-caked for me, Mommy. Right at the last.” August Fortunately for the pleasure of the family, the one who is responsible for packing up for a family trip seldom realizes the enormity of her task until the day before—when it’s too late to back out. And so we leave on schedule (well, almost) for a real family vacation. Our destination is the cabin at the Mountain Clinic, Harman, W. Va. After our arrival, the first day is spent in trying to believe that there is really such a place as this and in trying to convince ourselves that we are actually the fortunate ones to live here this week. The boys soon find another boy at the clinic home, and later discover a whole nest of them down the road, in a family arranged just like ours—five boys with a girl on the end. One’s soul is slowly healed in this place brimming with the beauty of bird song, of rushing waters and still waters, of green mountains protecting one from faraway pressures of urban culture. There are breakfasts of huckleberry pancakes; there are gifts of warm apple pies, of fresh milk and butter, of corn and other garden products delivered at the door. Above all, there is fellowship within the family and with the other families who live in this idyllic little strip between the river and the mill race. We leave, believing that we can face the rest of the summer with a bit more spirit. “Why do you sing when you work?” asks my young friend who is spending the day with us. “I like it.” And what can one answer? I say, “I don’t know … just because, I guess.” But if I were more reflective, I might have said, “Maybe, dear girl, it’s because you are here, and the joie de vivre that is always bubbling up in you makes me happy too.” Maybe one sings because life is too big and heavy to be carried around indefinitely, inside. Or maybe it would be truest of all and less complicated to say, simply, “My mother used to sing when she worked. She sang even when she was sad, even when she was worried, even when she was tired. Somehow, I 116 Hill Journal 1959 always felt that the world was all right as long as I could hear my mother singing. And so I guess I got into the habit of singing too!” Smitty and his friend Steve are overheard discussing the imminent arrival of school days. “Did you hear,” Steve queries earnestly, “that they’re talking about making the school year longer?” “Yeah,” sighs Smitty bitterly. “And then they say this is a free country! You can’t eat what you like and you have to go to school, and still, they say it’s a free country!” Since our August visitors discreetly avoid mentioning the condition of our windows, I try to make a point of explaining why a map of the world serves as one pane, an old church bulletin as another, the back of a typing tablet as a third, and why a piece of tape is strapped across a fourth. We have five sons, all of whom are baseball fans, all of whom agree that the only decent place to play is in the back yard, all of whom disclaim any real responsibility for the four broken panes of glass. We shall wait to replace them until baseball season is over. (Knowing how rapidly small repairs are made in this household, I add, under my breath, “Until the last one has outgrown baseball.”) “Days of the Spirit never pass away,” writes Heschel. Today I rested for a while among cool ferns in the woods, in the shadow of a great rock. And I arose, knowing that though I would likely never again come back to this place under these circumstances, yet I had here discovered the Cause to which I now desire to give the remainder of my life. I had found my true vocation, however impossible it might be to explain it to the world to which I was returning. Going from that place, I felt my commitment to be one which even death could not terminate. “Days of the Spirit … never pass away.” The hill-wife complains rather bitterly to her visiting guest, “It seems to me that being a mother this summer meant hauling children back and forth to the places they had to go.” My wise friend nodded in understanding. “Accept it,” she smiled. “That is one of the functions, the important functions, of the modern mother!” 117 Story of a Family Today was the special day to which all our first-graders-to-be look forward—the day for shopping alone with Mother for school clothes. Minka preferred to invite her friend Susy, since they had been promised dresses alike in anticipation of their being separated soon. This naive mother discovered that shopping for dresses with two little girls in tow is quite another matter than shopping for shirts and jeans with boys. She should have allowed at least two extra hours. And now the vacation days are numbered. We look over the summer and wonder why we have complained when there have been such rich satisfactions. Time with the family—more than usual. Friends: the inimitable J.P.S. out of his cast and here just in time to hold his pet, Joyce, before she leaves. (Also to serve us the best chicken soup we have tasted—with poetry, too!) Mary, with whom the hours passed like minutes because of the rare rapport which sprang up between us; our Oregon Lois, of whom we could somehow not see enough; Ohio Lois and family— who always wait too long between visits, and leave before we get started; Canadian Irene (again, not enough time) and her companions who shared our fruit on a hot evening; Friend Husband’s new coworker and his wife; the two good families who leave our community soon; vivid, earnest Arlene whose August stay at Heathwood always provides a haven for a certain summer-tired lady … all these and others cause us to agree reverently with the current quotation on a local church signboard: “Friendship is a miracle.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The silent undercurrents of love and joy and gratitude passing from one to another as we eat our last meal with a family particularly dear to us. September The bright blues and reds of new school clothes … the golden light of a September morning … the excitement of the old-timers and the shining joy of the newcomers at the bus stop … another year of school has begun. Minka’s red dress flashes through the green of the trees and bushes between our window and the mailbox. At the same time, the hill-woman hears a voice from a so-recent yesterday crying out, “It’s a girl!” A new sense of the swift passage of time takes her by the throat for an instant. But only for an instant. With not too many regrets—indeed with keen delight—she looks about the quiet room where she stands. After fifteen years, she is alone. The whole day is hers—hers! 118 Hill Journal 1959 But freedom is a relative word, after all. A day or two of this delicious, aimless enjoyment, and grim deadlines begin to loom. The first task is to clear out a place to work. The smallest room in the house is transformed, after a day of hard work, into a study with all sorts of advantages for one who has a writing assignment. The only catch is that the study, the typewriter, the handy bookshelves, desk, telephone, deskpad—none of them will do the actual work for her. “Why do big people have those strings on their foreheads?” “Strings?” I ask Minka, “What do you mean?” “She means those lines on your forehead,” suggests Secundus, helpfully. Never one to flatter, he adds, “Too bad, isn’t it? Must make you feel awful old!” On the contrary, I assure him, I do not feel old, and it isn’t too bad, and I like strings on my forehead. Tonight we listened to W.F. Albright give his first of a series of lectures on “Archaeology and the Bible” at the Carnegie Lecture Hall in Pittsburgh. Though much of what he said was difficult for me to follow, and though the detail could have been tedious, I found myself fascinated throughout the lecture, unable to keep my eyes off this intellectual giant. The sheer brilliance of his mind and the breadth of his knowledge held me spell bound. I came away with a new sense of the majesty of man—this highest creation of God: Thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor —Ps. 8:5, RSV After the lecture, we sat around the table at C.F.’s with tea, pretzels, and cakes, adding to the evening’s inspiration some long-neglected fellowship. Coming home, we found the remains of a tea party. Lefty, we guessed, threw the gala affair. Only Lefty would insist on using every piece of Fostoria in the cupboard, disdaining the play party dishes. I’m glad. It warms me to know that, in spite of the appearance of his room to the contrary, he is able to recognize and create beauty. Letters! Little bits of life that can light up the dullest day or extinguish the brightness of the most joyous moment! Thoreau, I’m sure, was speaking 119 Story of a Family only part of the truth when he remarked, “As the inner life fails, people run desperately to the post office.” (In his whole life, he said, he hadn’t had more than two or three letters that were worth the postage—poor guy!) It may be that Thoreau, who was able to commune with nature, never knew the joy of communicating intimately with people or of committing himself to a particular person. Dr. Johnson, rascal that he may have been, lived more fully and roundly and seemed to respect the personality of others more highly. It was he who knew, far better than Thoreau, the possibilities of letter writing as a form of vital communication. To Mrs. Thrale he wrote, “In a man’s letters, you know, madam, his soul lies naked.” As I go over today’s mail—letters which at this particular time seem like hands reaching out to help me up after a fall—I muse on what great men have said about letters and the writing of letters. I quite agree with William James’s genial observation: “As long as there are postmen, life will have zest.” Minka, home from school with an unidentifiable ailment, watches the midafternoon supper preparation with concentration. “Just think of it … just look at it!” she murmurs to herself in wonder, “The kettle is breathing!” Tonight Friend Husband and I are the guests of friends, and we’re “eating out.” Good food and good fellowship work miracles in restoring humanity to one who is almost lost in a maze of difficult study. On the way home the man who “didn’t see how he could take time out” sighs that it’s the wisest thing he could have done! One of the very deep subjects of our conversation with our hosts of the other evening was the naming of babies. Among other things, we gave our approval (as if it were needed) of the name Emily. This morning we are happy to hear that our friends are the parents of a new baby—the first of their three children who could be expected to answer to Emily. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The lift that comes at 4:40 daily when the hill-woman is overwhelmed by the burst of talk from the eager school children. How fresh-faced and delightful they seem, after being away all day. And now the evenings of listening to six different reports of the day, and, finally, of reading a good book aloud together seem almost too 120 Hill Journal 1959 important to give up to those countless meetings which seem to swallow up a family’s week. October Minka’s sixth birthday opens the month of October for us festively, as usual. With three little friends to share the party, a braided crepe-paper crown, and a cake in the form of a bassinet with a tiny doll sleeping inside, she is shiningly happy. But long after her friends have skipped home clutching their prizes, the guest of honor is found carefully examining each tiny blue-willow plate on the now disordered party table. Unmindful of her presents and with the fat tears brimming the brown eyes she mourns, “O dear, where is my gum? It was very usable gum!” It is a bright and beautiful October Saturday—just the right day to take our friend Elizabeth to the hideaway cabin at the Mountain Clinic in West Virginia. The four youngest, plus Stevie, our guest for a month, pile in too. Going down, we feel disappointed at having missed the best of the fall coloring, but the sun on the bright yellow leaves is cheering. Elizabeth, full of ideas for restless children, suggests that we play a game called “Beautiful.” The game is to guess what beautiful thing has made us cry out “Beautiful!” Arriving at the Clinic, we unpack Elizabeth’s gear, visit a while with our friends here, and it is time for the home trek. Coming back, we find that the gorgeous colors of autumn are still here after all. We had to see “the other side of the mountain” to believe it. And the other side of the mountain was all that we could have wished for by way of beauty! Promises to children, this mother feels, should not be made too glibly unless one really means to carry them out—and soon. For a month Smitty has been begging for help in making a winter garden. Today at last his delinquent mother makes good her promise. Through the delicious fall afternoon we roam the woods, scuffling the dry, golden leaves with our feet and looking for moss and tiny violet plants and ferns. Here we come to the spot where we had our snow picnic last winter. “I got too cold,” sighs Smitty. “I don’t care for another one.” There is Jonah-whale rock—a family landmark named years ago on our first exploration of these woods. “And here, Mom,” cries Smitty, pointing to the branch of an enormous tree, “is where we built our tree house this summer.” His mother gasps. Overhanging the path, higher than the house—oh, much higher—is a frail platform of thin, uneven boards. “Oh, my goodness,” she responds, 121 Story of a Family in typical motherly fashion. “Whatsa matter, Mom? Does it look high? Aw, that’s nothin’,” Smitty consoles her, taking her hand gaily. As for the mother, she clamps her mouth shut and goes grimly on. After all, if she was too busy all summer to inspect this thing—as she was repeatedly invited to do—what can she say now? She does breathe a little prayer, though, for all little boys who climb, out in the woods—away from their mothers. The winter garden is now complete with its ferns and violets, its moss and lichencovered twigs, its partridgeberries and a tiny ceramic mouse which Andrewshek has generously lent from his collection (after being wheedled unmercifully). And now Lefty reminds me that I promised even longer ago to help him get started on his Indian beadwork. Just when this gets intriguing, the red beads give out. I have somewhat to say to the manufacturers of kits for children. They should not include patterns for which there are insufficient materials! Tonight was a great occasion for us—our first pastoral visit. (Ministers, it would seem, do not need pastors.) Our pastor’s quiet preview of the coming communion service and what it can mean was a happy experience for the three of us who sat with him around our table. Not the least of our joy was listening to the teen-ager express himself with an ease and earnestness which we had not known him to possess! Another reminder that our children do not belong to us and that each has his own secrets. Favored, we, if only occasionally we are invited to enter his secret world. A new experience for the family—the installing of an electric stove. This, however, is more than just an ordinary stove because it belonged to friends who could not take it with them halfway across the country. “And so,” I explain to Friend Husband, who smiles indulgently, “cooking on it is a sort of mystical experience.” (He smiles, but he understands, and he agrees.) The thought of taking the suggestion of the junior superintendent about halloweening for soap for Hong Kong refugees at first leaves the boys cold. “You mean we have to knock and ask for it? Oh, no!” However, when it is agreed that I too will join them, and as a band of gypsies we will go only to the houses of people we know, they consent. Seventy-three bars of soap and several hours later, as the raggletaggle gypsies drink cocoa and eat doughnuts (made right before their eyes in the new stove’s 122 Hill Journal 1959 deep-well fryer), the cry is, “Oh, this was much more fun than regular halloweening!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The lovely memory-picture of the improvised tablecloth laid by Elizabeth and the children on our way to the Mountain Clinic. Green ferns and varicolored leaves made a pattern of such beauty on the rough wayside table that one could only groan, “Why, oh, why, did we leave the camera at home!” Next best—or maybe, after all, the best—is to store it away in the memory in a package marked: To be opened on a dull day when life seems difficult and pointless… November It is Andrewshek’s birthday; as most people do on special days he becomes thoughtful, contemplating the great subjects of life and death. The question finally finds words: “When I am dead, Mommy, will anyone else be alive?” Once again I am reminded of what the great writers have often said: How impossible it is for any man to believe in his death! November, it seems, can be almost as capricious as April. Going down the hill for the mail, I seem to walk in a different world each day. On a Monday the wind almost picked me up bodily and set me down again at the bottom of the hill, only to push me back violently on my return trip as if to say, “You have to work for it!” Tuesday was one of those still, golden Indian-summer canvases with the startling October-blue sky and the humming of a few late insects. Wednesday I walked in a warm, light rain; Thursday in sleet; Friday through haze that softened still more the quiet coloring of the burnished hillsides all about me. “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” Having long been a reader of the poems of Mark Van Doren, the hill-woman brought home from the library his Autobiography, knowing that for the next week a good meal would always be within arm’s reach. Perhaps the most satisfying reaction to the reading of this book was that it did not in any way distort the picture of the man as seen in his poems; it only sharpened the outlines and filled in the background. Today the family made a trip to Pittsburgh for the purpose of setting up housekeeping for the husband and father in a tiny apartment (a study 123 Story of a Family and sleeping cubicle) at the seminary. Knowing the effect of long hours of study with no family bustle to relieve the tension, we try to leave a bit of ourselves in this room for him. Pictures, books, and a green plant soon make the bare little rooms inviting, and we almost envy him in his pleasant privacy. The fall rains have come! They have come late, but now they are making up for their tardiness with their volume. The great bowl which our neighbors had scooped out down in the pasture has now become what it was intended to be—a lake. The boys watch it fill, and there is great talk of boating and fishing and swimming and skating for years to come. Since they have lived in the country all their lives, there have been a few times when they have wished to be in town. But now one overhears the wild assertion that they couldn’t be paid to live in town! (Their parents feel this is not quite the time to introduce the subject matter of several letters which have lately come into their father’s hands, indicating the possible uprooting of the family from their hill-home.) The long evenings are coming again and with them the old-fashioned reading sessions. The four youngest nightly arrange themselves as close as they can get to the reader. Having reread several Little House books and the Joseph story, we are now on the third of Mary Norton’s books concerning those delightful little people known as “The Borrowers.” When we go to the Central Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, we seek out Mrs. Hodges, head librarian of the Children’s Rooms. Can she give us any suggestion for some more read-aloud books? One by one she names them, and one by one the boys pipe, “We’ve read that—we’ve read that.” Mrs. Hodges claps her hands delightedly. “Oh,” she cries, “these are the kind of children I like to recommend books for!” Whereupon she suggests a very old book, Toby Tyler, written in 1885 but, she says, as interesting to children today as it was then. Mrs. Hodges is right again, we discover. “When they want to bake,” the hill-woman says, “I remove myself as far from the kitchen as possible. It’s the only way they can have freedom and I can have peace of mind.” Tonight Lefty and Minka are joyously assisting each other in a cake-baking spree. Fortunately their mother is able to stay away until it’s all over. “There’s nothing like the water to provide play opportunities for the whole family at once,” confides the large lady in the red swimsuit as she 124 Hill Journal 1959 and the hill-woman tread water in the “Y” pool and glance over their respective children. Her companion agrees. Having been afraid in the water as a child, it is a particular joy to see the children thoroughly at home in the pool, playing games with each other, swimming and diving and ducking and racing. Togetherness in all its best aspects blooms under such conditions. It really does, she smiles inwardly, as she watches the tall son leave his fun in the deep and of his own will go down to the shallow water to teach Minka, the only nonswimmer, the first principles of face-floating. TO KEEP AND PONDER: Today, in a moment of concentration, the words, “He must increase,” dropped into my consciousness with a strange significance. Suddenly it seemed that this attitude toward the other person might well be the core of all real loving… December This year the gift-giving schedule, we knew, must be drastically revised. Should we drop names from the list? Instead, we decide to do our shopping at the dime store, limiting each purchase to twentynine cents. With this system we find that we can even expand our list. Divided into three shopping groups, each of which is armed with a list of names and money to cover a twenty-nine cent gift (plus sales tax), we have the gayest afternoon of Christmas shopping ever! Those in Lefty’s group, we decide, are the star shoppers, for they have come back with almost half their money! “If you see something you know someone would like, and it costs ten cents,” Lefty reasons, “why pay twenty-nine?” I can’t help praying, “And lead him not into sophistication…” Two paperbacks came in the mail today, and business was suspended while I took a quick look at the reading menu before me. These, I decided, would be saved for reading in bed. Going to bed alone is not so terrible if one has a good book! Looking at the attractive covers, I think of the boom in paperbacks within my own lifetime. What a breadth of really good literature is now available in this inexpensive, yet entirely satisfactory form! One remembers when most of the covers—even those of a classic— were of lurid scenes, the paper unpleasantly rough, and the type poor. Now there are thousands of editions with format and art which are pleasing both to the sight and to the touch. As Lefty would say, “Why buy a book for four-fifty when you can get it for seventy-five cents?” 125 Story of a Family Today, the friend at the other end of the telephone line remarked, “When I grow up, I hope…” And the hill-woman, remembering it later, smiled. What a delightful thing for a woman of forty to say! Now come the evenings that we love, the special evenings out of every year. Snug in our log cabin, though the snow lies drifted outside and the ice on the lake is glistening in the moonlight, we wrap the tiny “cheap” gifts. The little boys labor, biting their tongues, to write the right names on the right tags: they stop once in a while to beg a piece of the candy which arrived today from our Kansas friends. And long after the children are in bed, an inept seamstress sews at a wardrobe for a small doll, hoping that love will cover a multitude of mistakes. Once more comes the thrill of hearing from friends all over the world. Christmas greetings, like so many warm hands reached out, like so many smiles visible across the miles. (Oh, yes, we agree it can be a racket; it can also be love.) Once more the sharing of home with friends (a real treat to us whose only guest for months has been our welcome weekender—Friend Husband). Once again the quiet delight in that one special handmade gift, in that surprise beyond our expectation. Once again the shining eyes of a girl-child holding a new doll. (Please don’t look too closely at those clothes!) Once again the hearty shouts of a houseful of boys crying, one after another, “Open it, open it; it’s something you’ll reeely like!” and later, over their own gifts, “Just what I wanted!” Once again spending Christmas Day with our neighbor-relatives. (We live too close to visit much during the year!) Once more, all these reminders of the essence of the season, never more beautifully expressed than in the simple words we have heard every Christmas of our lives, “And there were in the same country…” Never more simply expressed than in the words of Saint Paul, “And the greatest of these is love.” Once again, Christmas. It’s the day after Christmas, and a child is poring over a new calendar. With starry eyes she whispers as she points to a certain date, “I just can’t wait. I just can’t wait to get back to it. It starts with an s and ends with an l and I JUST CAN’T WAIT!” TO KEEP AND TO PONDER: The sound of the town bells, resounding on our hills at that magic moment when New Year’s Eve becomes the morning of a new year. At twelve midnight we have flung open windows, disregarding the bitter edge of the winter dark, just to hear these bells. 126 Hill Journal 1959 But this one is different—and the hill-woman is thoughtful as she thinks of the possibility of a new mistress who will stand here—listening to the bells next year at this time. With a touch of sadness, but with peace, she prays: “May she be as happy here as I have been.” Editor’s note: What? No more Hill Journal? Yes, the author has left the hill and during the period of “resettlement” preferred not to write. But she has promised to write again later (although not from a hill) if we want her to. Will you help us decide whether to invite her back? Write us a letter or post card giving your vote on this question: Hill Journal should come back: Yes ____ No ____. Reasons for your opinion will also be of interest. Address: CHRISTIAN LIVING, Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, Pa. 127 On the Corner 1961 January The New Year came in as we sat quietly in the candlelit sanctuary. Before now we had not heard the Union chimes with such clarity… Just a token of all that we miss when we fill the silences with noise and motion! Eleanor Roosevelt says she has made few New Year’s resolutions, but those she has made have been kept. I, too, recall having kept some—a few out of many. To have done so was, as I remember it, an exhilaration; an “added”—a means of grace, really. And so, cautiously, I write down a very few suggestions for the New Year. Sometimes prayer for another complements the various ways we have of serving in love. But sometimes there is, literally, nothing left but prayer. By circumstances we may be prevented from doing, from giving, from meeting; then only in prayer can we still express the heart of our loving. And so I often recall such persons, sensing with Thomas Merton, that “without my love for them they may perhaps not achieve the things God has willed for them.” The spare moments of these days are being spent on working out a litany to be used at a baby shower for our High Park friend. Weary of the usual games and gimmicks common to showers, the hostess was determined that this should be a more meaningful occasion. And so the woman on the corner has been delegated to prepare a “Litany for Mother and Child.” Empty things, says Evelyn Underhill, need to be filled, and it is up to us to fill them—and so we are doing just that. It is a work of love, but even works of love are costly. This doesn’t just write and organize itself! One of the really discouraging things about parenthood is that it is so seldom granted a parent that his child comes to know him as a person… to understand something of his inner life, his struggle for autonomy of existence, his high thoughts and noble purposes, as well as his doubts and despairs and mixed motives. Mostly, it would seem, parents remain “parents” until they die. And can we hope to be treated differently? 128 On the Corner 1961 Listening to the sermon last Sunday was one of those rare experiences in which what one hears ties in miraculously with one’s current reading, his meetings with persons, and his own inner crises. In the glow of recognition, we experience again something of the incredible nature of grace. After-school chatter: “Well, today at school we saw Matt Welsh anointed governor on TV!” Afterthought, “Or would you say ordained?” Are there others, I ask, who come home from a meeting, having in no way really met anyone on a significant level of communication? I suppose one can be greedy, one can ask too much of life. Perhaps we should only hope to be—to someone else—that occasional pinpoint of light, which, perceived, is a sort of shadow—an “all’s well” to another ship passing in the night. Big Brother drove out today, and it was good to have him, his wife, and his friends around our table in a new home. As we talked of the gone years, I thought, “What different memories we have, each of us, of our mother!” An interesting family project might be the assigning of the topic, “This Was My Mother,” to each of the six. My guess is that in the six manuscripts we would find six different mothers! The Brother brought meat for us, too. Wonderful, wonderful meat! His own sausage, hamburger, a rolled roast, a ham. Later a big-eyed little boy looked in awe at the riches. “Now we’ll have meat every day!” “But we do have meat—almost every day,” his mother explained. “Aw, I don’t mean meat in things; I mean meat all-by-itself!” Outstanding among the stimulating books read this month: Tillich’s The Courage to Be, Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, MacLeish’s J. B. A friend who once came to our table, seeing the rolls, cried out, “Homemade rolls! Now that is the hallmark of love in meal preparation!” In a way, I suppose many homemakers would agree. (Exceptions are surely in order here; we have all served rolls without love, and love without rolls. ) But in this case, at least, it was true. 129 Story of a Family TO KEEP AND PONDER: A small boy’s reaction to a story in the local newspaper. Two little girls, eight and ten, after a violent argument with their father, ran barefoot three miles in three-below-zero weather. “How terrible!” I cried. “Think of going barefoot so far on such a cold night!” The response: “Yes, but the worst part would be to have a violent quarrel with your father.” February The lady from College Avenue breezed in this February morning. There’s no one else we know who feels free to walk in and ask for lunch, in case she’s had none. “Any peanut butter? Bread? Milk? Good!” Such artless freedom cheers one. My world would be several shades grayer without this friend! Long February evenings are tailored for family reading, but one must admit to a bit of nostalgia for the winter nights, gone now, when all six could be gathered around one book. Still, the three younger ones and I move happily through Onion John, Caddie Woodlawn, and a repeat performance of The Long Winter. And in their own rooms above us, the older three lie in their beds with, respectively, The Red Badge of Courage, the latest Heinlein Science Fiction, and one of a stack of baseball stories. Long February evenings are still good for family reading! “You Are Accepted.” This sermon of Paul Tillich’s from his Shaking of the Foundations speaks with marvelous immediacy, confirming so much of my own unarticulated inner experience. I think of this friend … and that … and wish that it might be possible to share some of this Bread with them. Longing, as one does, for wholeness, for ever renewed reunion with God and oneself, for the discovery of a clear goal, there are times when we long still more that another may find what we fail to find. At such times we understand the agonized prayer of the priest for his child in The Power and the Glory: “Damn me, I deserve it; but save her.” The child bursts in from school, breathless as usual, and starryeyed. “Look, Mother, look at my papers!” The woman, with a perfunctory “Yes, Dear,” continues to give her attention to whittling carrots at the kitchen sink. Two days later, clearing debris from the window seat, she finds the paper and studies it—her latest, smallest child’s first cursive 130 On the Corner 1961 writing. The big, well-formed letters of the exercise fill the yellow sheet: “Dear Mother. This is my first cursive writing. Do you like it?” The woman likes it, but the time to rejoice with those who rejoice is past. Two days later is two days too late. My High Park friend left today with her family for their year abroad. Somehow it relieved my sense of desolation to see her mixer standing in the corner of my cupboard—for my use until her return. And I think—yes, “things” can be the bearers of joy and of comfort—when they remind us of a relationship. I have a certain knife which I use daily. Yet I never pick it up without thinking, however briefly, of the one, now dead, who gave it to me as we left her home after a summer evening of good fellowship, “You liked this—take it along,” she insisted. I have a little gaudily flow ered tray, left behind by a friend moving out of the state. It isn’t the kind of a tray I’d buy. But it gives me a particular pleasure to use it as the family “sick tray,” or to carry our eight tumblers to the dining room each evening at dinner, because it reminds me of a person. Looking around, I see that our house is full of such reminders: an old sewing basket and a theologian’s picture on my desk; a wood carving and a cradle in our living room; a bottle brush; a quilt; a pump vase of blue glass; a cutting board … the list is endless. No, our home does not really reflect our own tastes. It is almost literally “a part of all that we have met.” We tried something new at World Day of Prayer this year—silence. But, frankly it was rather a flop. We just don’t know what to do in a service if no one is speaking or praying aloud. It was heartening, though, to see that somebody knew what to do. While others sat in the little chapel discreetly glancing at their programs, wondering how to do this thing properly, the old Episcopal rector came down the aisle, squeezed, kneeling, into a pew not made for kneeling (his feet had to stick out into the aisle) and, oblivious of all, prayed there until he was through praying. Then he arose with dignity and left the chapel. Who but a child—or a saint—would be so free, would know so surely what to do? Strange, how a day can suddenly collapse, and all attempts at ferreting out “Why?” are futile. Why the sudden loss of meaning, relevance? Even the most vital relationships seem without purpose, without life or color, empty. And, with Arnold, one feels he is here “as on a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash at night.” 131 Story of a Family But just as strange are those moments when, without warning, one is lifted out of these deep despairs. At such times I always assume that someone, somewhere, is directing love toward me, and I hope that my loving thoughts do as much for my friends. Highlights from a month of reading: Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Tillich’s Shaking of the Foundations, and C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers. TO KEEP AND PONDER: One small girl’s inadvertent tribute to her father while introducing him (in absentia) to her doll family: “Meet the Professor, the gentlest man to the ladies.” March Having just read my neighbor’s three little books on exquisite Japanese haiku and having just made a springtime discovery in my still-wintry flower beds, I do the only thing to be done in such a predicament: create a haiku of my own. A sorry little haiku to be sure—but mine! Which reminds me—how refreshing it might be if simple people like us, with aspirations for writing poetry, would begin their experimentations with such a form instead of mangling a perfectly good thought in order to squeeze it into an a-b-a-b quatrain! Almost anyone should be able to say something with significance and beauty in seventeen syllables! Reading over the first journal entries from my students, I perceive that I am learning creative spelling rather than teaching communications! I tell the class so, and they respond with cheerful grins. All of a sudden I can see some sense in the movement for spelling reform! Throughout the years of bringing up small children, housewives in our bracket learn to ask concerning any garment, “Is it washable?” The cost of dry cleaning for a large family is almost prohibitive. But now selfservice has arrived! Today we tried out the new coin-operated dry-cleaning equipment on the corner of Jackson and Eleventh. Besides having fun, we were rewarded with beautifully cleaned clothes (needing little or no pressing) at the cost of $1.50 for eight pounds. When we told the man of the house that we’d saved over seven dollars in dry-cleaning bills, we 132 On the Corner 1961 were made to feel that the Virtuous Woman of Proverbs hadn’t too much of an edge on us! It was a raw March day, far from the spring we had expected, but still so very warm with the welcome of friends. Yesterday we spent the day with the congregation who welcomed us, green from seminary, some eighteen years ago. It is strange how short a time fourteen years seems when friends meet again. Still stranger is the fact that in such a short time, those who were little children then, have become unrecognizable! Just when we begin to feel ageless, abruptly a college girl is presented to us. (Last time we saw her she came to our waists and had two front teeth missing.) At this point we detect a creaking in our joints. “There was a brightness in him.” These words from Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country kept recurring to me today. Sitting in the beautiful Elkhart Presbyterian Church, half-listening to the good and true and comforting words of the minister, I was captured by that portion of the magnificent window depicting the praying Christ in Gethsemane. Remembering the rare spirit of this friend of my youth, I was aware of the words repeating themselves, within me: “There was a brightness in him.” March has been another rich reading month. There was the excitement of two more of C. P. Snow’s “quiet” yet penetrating novels; another of the Don Camillo books; a careful reading of Christopher Fry’s Boy with a Cart; a rereading of Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Through these and other books I have caught a glimpse of reality; I have sensed love; I have met myself, my brother, and God. I remember the time when I felt that God could be encountered in the reading of devotional books more surely than in other books. At the same time I would have insisted that God is not confined to a church house, but can be found on the streets, in the offices, in the squalor of slums, in the splendor of nature, in the union of man and woman, in the rapport of friend with friend, in the relationship of parent and child. At that point in the pilgrimage, I did not see any particular significance in the fact that even the Bible is not primarily a Devotional Anthology. Here there is biography, fiction, poetry, philosophy, drama, historical narrative—in fact, almost any type of literature. Perhaps we shall one day have to acknowledge more readily than we do now, that just as there is no exclusive type of architecture 133 Story of a Family which can contain God, so there is no one type of literature which has the monopoly on spiritual truth. One gets all kinds of advice before and after moving to a new community. And when it comes to choosing a church “home,” the advice is by no means subtle. “Whatever you do, don’t join a large congregation,” was the most frequent advice given. Which is exactly what we planned to do from the beginning, and what we did. After more than a year in the big church which we were cautioned against (lack of warmth, “you’ll be lost in the crowd,” “you won’t be needed”), what have we found? About what we expected to find—what we have found in every church to which we have belonged: warmth and concern, a place to put our particular gifts to work, fellowship and spiritual stimulation, and a deepening conviction that numbers are irrelevant in the household of faith. TO KEEP AND PONDER: That moment which occasioned my first haiku: Sharp thrust of plowpoints On winter-sealed plot of the heart— My first snowdrops! April April again... and again as in most of the Aprils of our lives, it is the Easter month... now for eighteen years, April, the anniversary month for us... April, for fifteen years a birthday month which annually opens up the family season of birthdays... April, the month of chilly rains and warm rains; of heavy wet snowstorms and pleasant sunshine; of bare limbs shivering in the sharp wind, and living green bursting, uncurling before the very eyes… April, when the Hausfrau gets the dirty-eye, when nagging sadnesses and disappointments and wintry thoughts are gently eased out of the heart by a rising, inexplicable hope… when one almost believes again that he can somehow be what he was created to be… April, I love you! “And this is for a new spring frock,” writes a friend. Accordingly, though the woman on the corner knows that the body is more than raiment, she responds as most women respond—have always responded. She responds much as she did (at the age of four) to the white dress with the blue embroidered kitties lapping milk from a saucer on her bodice; as she responded at eight to the new green princess dress for the school picnic (the lovely dress that shrank beyond use the first time it was 134 On the Corner 1961 washed); as she responded at eleven to her first “boughten” dress. Yes, the body is more than raiment. But even the most saintly of women, I would guess, experience a lilt when presented with new raiment! Today was the first day that felt like spring. So I responded, not by a flurry of housecleaning, but by baking a few pies and going visiting… across the street, down the street, up the avenue. The dirt we shall have always with us…but our friends we shall not always have! Living in a community containing many specialists, one sometimes wonders what he is, and what he is good for. Just where lies his unique contribution? Sadly one is apt to realize that perhaps he has no unique contribution. Perhaps it is greedy to want to be able to do just one thing better than others can do it. Perhaps one should after all accept himself as a person who must “attempt less than others,” as E. B. Browning suggests. Maybe God needs consecrated dabblers! A friend reminds me that if I really want to get into a field that is wide open and which offers little competition, I should try to become a saint! For two days now, the children have been home from school, following the most gorgeous snowstorm we have yet seen here. Truly the land of Goshen is God’s country right now. Oh, the town is blooming with white, loaded with loveliness. Winter-weary as we all are, we wouldn’t have missed this for anything—the finest snow-show of the year! A family jaunt to Michigan yesterday, besides giving pleasure through the meeting of new friends and old, revealed to us newly the uninhibited nature of childhood. After a series of artless observations by the youngest (causing consternation among her siblings) our hostess broke into gay laughter. “Well—at least we know they weren’t coached!” And this was some comfort to the parents, who recognized the dangers of coaching a child into insincerity. Imagine tempers flaring over a discussion of methods of prayer! Yet it happens; I know it now! How rich our fellowship in prayer might be, if we were content to let each person find and follow the method, the language, the climate of prayer that is for him, personally, the most meaningful. Regrettably, “effective prayer” is too often measured by the degree of fluency with which one can audibly participate in a prayer meeting. As 135 Story of a Family for me, I accept the Hebraic concept of prayer as the strengthening of a relationship, rather than the Canaanite concept of prayer as a means of getting things (power, etc.) from God. But I will not quarrel with the Canaanites! It is pleasant to meet with joy unexpectedly on the ordinary streets and lanes of our days. Last week there was the exhilarating chorus program of Brahms’ Liebeslieder. Ah, the pleasure of properly wedded words and music, performed and directed with spirit! And yesterday there was the visit to the Chicago Art Institute, with the Fine Arts classes. Obviously a day is not long enough to more than taste; but I found myself returning to the rooms of the French Impressionists. Sitting in the Monet room, I was fascinated by the contemplation of the mind, the skill, which could so create this beauty, portray this truth. We used to sing, “For such a worm as I.” But here one sees man as one in whose mind God has truly set eternity, as the Bible states it. Somehow, in the presence of such evidence, I cannot despise the image of God—“thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: Reflecting on our visit to the Art Institute, I am newly aware that God, through man His image, is still busy creating; and in many cases the verdict must still be: “Very good.” May Our reluctant May began with green, but little color besides. The women of the family could find barely enough flowers for two May baskets, so all the others we had projected were postponed until next year—an earlier, more colorful May Day, we hope. Remember the childhood fascination of moving into a different house? It’s hard not to pity the person who never experienced this as a child. First, the house itself intrigued one. The rooms, no matter how small, seemed large and strange, and our voices came back to us hollowly as we called to each other. Gradually, as the familiar furniture filled the rooms, swallowing up the echoes, the strangeness receded. Then we would run outdoors to make new discoveries. There were always sheds, or garages, the farthest reaches of lawn and garden (maybe even an orchard), the plantings about the house. Though I am no longer a child in many ways, yet the wonder returned again this spring as I poked about with a stick in 136 On the Corner 1961 the beds and bushes around the house on the corner. Green spears and spikes are coming up all over; all the bushes are erupting greenness. But what are they? We must wait for the flowers—and we do. We wait, and one by one the shrubs and leaves tell us their secrets: hyacinth, tulip, iris, lily of the valley, Japanese quince, magnolia, lilac, snowball, spyrea, mock orange! Worth waiting for! Once again there are fresh flowers on the table, and the ivy is relegated to the anonymity of the windowsill greenery, almost unnoticed among the showy African violets. A recent guest tells us a flower story: An African boy accompanying Europeans on safari, prepared the meal, and as a final touch, filled a tin can with sand and stuck a wild flower in it, setting it in the middle of the camping table. The boy assisting him asked why he should do such an odd thing. “Oh, don’t you know,” the first boy replied, “Europeans can’t eat unless there is a flower in the middle of the table?” Speaking of flowers, this is my month to spend in the crib room during Sunday school. And it is this variety of flower which I find to be my all-time favorite. The usual rash of mother-daughter affairs is prevalent. Cautiously consenting to participate in a few, I find all three delightfully different. One turns out to be a reunion with many old school friends. At another, anticipating knowing no one, I am delighted to find the mistress of cere monies to be a dear friend I have not seen for nearly twenty years. Still another gave me fine new friends among one of our sister GC churches. There was never such a Mother’s Day at our house! The daughter and I arrived home from our trip in the wee hours, awaking to a house actually in order, if not shining. One boy had planned a hamburger and French fries meal (naturally—his favorite). Another had paid for the needed ingredients (until I could pay him back). A third had wrapped a gift of candy bars (his idea of the perfect gift). Besides this, there were floral offerings and ingeniously painted cards from the rest. But the crowning event was Father’s reading of Prov. 31, punctuated by the hoots and giggles of the children. Now I realize that some parents may have been distressed at such impiety. Perhaps there are women who actually like to think that their children regard them as examples of the perfect woman. As for me, I knew well enough that I sat there, obviously a caricature of these words—and I rejoiced that the children were honest enough to 137 Story of a Family recognize the joke. Their laughter at such places as, “She rises while it is yet night,” “she brings her food from afar” (from the A & P), and “she makes herself coverings” was gay and spontaneous and was worth more to their parents than any flowery Mother’s Day phrases or pious poses. Lilacs again! So brief is their season! It seems so short a time that we can look out the bedroom window and see our far neighbors’ magnificent bushes—four varieties in one glorious splurge of loveliness. Yet, in spite of the short season, their fragrance manages to live with us the year round and to evoke newly every May choice memories of places, of people, and of times long gone… Our little neighbor has finally had his birthday. When we first learned to know him, we asked him his age. “Free,” he replied sunnily. “Free in May.” Today, as he showed us his new toy, we asked again his age (old people are so forgetful). “Four,” he beamed. “Four in May!” Which reminds us—what would we do without this little neighbor who rings our doorbell almost daily for a playmate? As one of the boys confided soon after we moved, “I’m glad he’s in our neighborhood. You know, there’s something about having a little kid around that makes you feel, oh, sorta good and happy.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The memory of a little communion service on a Sunday evening in one of the Sunday-school classrooms. The fact that we, who had missed the congregation’s spring communion, ate and drank with our friends who are soon to leave us for their mission field, with the newly baptized class of young people, and with some of our older members who normally take communion in their homes, heightened the significance of the occasion. Moreover, our pastor has a unique gift for preparing meaningful worship services—never the same, but always tailored to the particular occasion. And today, again, he “neglected not the gift” that is in him. June The final report cards have come; the porch has been washed down by a status-conscious teenager; storm windows are off, screens on. June is bustin’ out all over and so are the kids’ threadbare school clothes—and so are the appetites! The woman on the corner has her summer cut out for her. 138 On the Corner 1961 Commencement season is here, and we are happy when old friends drop in. Around our table, a couple in their seventies sing with us the doxology. Afterward, we remark about the remarkably clear, young quality of the woman’s alto. But then, her spirit is just as sprightly. The tulip tree in our front yard is in bloom. The waxy yellow-orange blossoms delight the eyes each time I step out the door to get the mail, to sweep the porch, to shake a tablecloth, or to answer the doorbell. Strange how these little bonuses sometimes make life bearable on an otherwise desolate day. “Why did you come to Goshen?” I ask Annie, our little Dutch friend from down the street. She has been here skipping rope with the youngest every day for a week now. But her answer reveals that grown-up people’s reasons for coming from the Netherlands to Goshen apparently have not yet registered with her. She smiles shyly and tosses her blond Dutch bob, “Oh, we came because we like it here. It’s so cozy in Goshen!” We have discovered that rarity—a book which can be read aloud to, and thoroughly enjoyed by, the entire family, from seven to seventeen to forty-two! It all came about when my Neighbor-Two-Doors-Down observed our smallest boy mowing the lawn. “In his short pants and long-sleeved shirt, he looks like Tinch, doesn’t he?” she remarked. “Tinch?” I asked. “Oh, haven’t you read The Gentle House”? I remembered faintly reading it some years ago. Now we borrow it, and each evening I read to the family at dinner. And nobody wants to leave before the reading stops! Sometimes one is gripped by a book yet hesitates to recommend it indiscriminately, knowing how people differ in tastes. How many really fine books we would like to pass on to others, yet we do not, knowing that certain issues, areas of life, are taboo to them. If they were to read our book, they might not be able to see the forest for the trees… But here is a book that we can share without a qualm. Here is a book which will not only interest and entertain a family, but should awaken compassion and understanding in parents and children. (The author, Anna Rose Wright). 139 Story of a Family The little leagues are in full swing, and the days are full of misplaced gloves and caps, and queries, “Is my FOP shirt clean, huh?” or, “Be sure to call me in time for my game at eight.” “Well, I’m batting two fer three now, Mom,” confides one boy. “Good!” “Then you know what two fer three means?” he cries incredulously. Incredibly, I do know. The little fellers scan the sports page, looking for their own names, and when the youngest finds his, followed by, “hurled the Pirates to victory,” a pleased sigh escapes him, and he asks for the scissors. Last night at church there was a special service commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the ordination of one of our veteran ministers. This giant of a man is so well beloved (even in his own country) that such a service seems “meet and right” to a degree that few such services do. Most people do not grow old, we are told. They are old when they stop growing. This one has never stopped, and so he seems ageless. The annual round of neighborhood circuses, lemonade stands, hot rods, and hut building has begun, we see. It seems that these activities are timeless—that whether one is settled in town or country makes little difference. Childhood—even in the TV age—is still childhood. There is something whole and round about child’s play. I watch the circus preparations and I am catapulted back more than thirty years to a little street in a little Idaho town. I can see myself, the Prince, standing in bor rowed tights and ballet slippers, calling to the moon, who was Clarenceat-the-top-of-the-ladder (Clarence—because he was youngest, and the moon had the fewest lines to learn). Even yet the lines come back: O moon through the beautiful trees, I would like for my birthday, please, just to play a while with your golden smile And to sit on, your golden knees… And little it mattered to the indulgent audience of mothers and fathers if Lucy the king’s beard fell off or Clarence the moon forgot his lines. And now, three decades later, history repeats itself in the form of a small wistful boy who comes, asking, “Where are the kids? We have a play all ready to give, only we can’t find any audience!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: A new insight from a friend, lonely in a strange land. She asks me not to apologize for my “depressing” letters. “Sometimes,” 140 On the Corner 1961 she says, “I think they help me more than the cheerful kind.” And I understand—having been often plunged into deeper desolation than ever just by being around an excessively cheerful and hearty person! July A dabbler myself, and not particular glad to be one, I still feel a bit sorry at times for those who by the necessity of their choice must spend the greater part of their thought and energy in one specialized field. Aren’t they a bit lonely outside the company of the few who speak their language? Tonight, we celebrated the Fourth with another Old Testament family. (The label is given out of respect to the family heads!) The assorted boys gravitated to the basketball ring on the garage. The two Heads settled themselves in a dim corner of the porch and fell to chewing their favorite, esoteric rag with the appetite of those long deprived of such fellowship. We women, in another room, made our own ventures into friendship. We ranged over the many fields in which, we discovered, we have both dabbled. And in spite of all that may be said for the association of couples, we knew that our fellowship was all the richer for the segregation! What excitement to find persons who are enthusiastic about the same faith, or ideas, or music, or people, or books which have captured one’s own imagination! After reading one after another of C. P. Snow’s books, and finding no one whose eyes sparkled at the mention of his name, I was rewarded with a bonanza today! I met my neighbors’ houseguests, charming people whose home has been the world, and whose beginnings were in Wales and Minnesota. Up to a point our talk was the usual polite chitchat of people who meet and part casually. But then C. P. Snow was mentioned—and we discovered three addicts in the same room. From here on, we could have had conversation enough to last a whole ocean voyage—by freighter at that! Returning the book, Dear Mr. Brown, by Fosdick, ushered in one of those meetings to which one can look back with wonder, and which one catalogs under the heading, “Grace!” Douglas Steere has said that there are times when we come into the presence of a genuine listener, and the very quality of his listening makes us better than we were. After today my ideas of a good listener have been expanded even more. Here was one who not only received, but also gave in such a way that what one thought were his own peculiar problems were shown to be shared by the listener in other contexts, other forms. We expose to another person our 141 Story of a Family hurt, our disillusionment, our doubt, in a vain effort to find answers. But if that person gives us, not the pat answers of a gone generation, but the acknowledgment that he knows what we mean, for he too has experienced it in this … and this … then there is possibility of a miracle that is greater than any “answer.” One rises strengthened, not because his problems have been solved, but because, through his self-disclosure he has made himself available to bear not only his own burdens, but that of his listener too. How many people have walked through the door of our lives and stayed to sup with us—all because of a book! Tonight we had good fellowship with a young family whom we met through the common reading of a book on child training. To eat together from a table spread not only with barbecued chicken but also with stimulating ideas is an experience which can never be relegated to the realm of the commonplace. The little children have left for a ten-day stay on their old Hill. Life is suddenly quite simple. The downstairs washbowl stays clean all morning; the piles of sand dumped from Little Leaguer’s ball shoes onto his bedroom floor are missing; the refrigerator door stays closed for hours on end; a quiet, well-ordered atmosphere pervades the white house on the corner. And every morning an incredulous little neighbor rings the doorbell and asks for each of the children in turn, only to end his queries with, “Well, when are your children returning?” [PIC] This is the sort of day that leaves one ashamed … ashamed that somehow, after all these years, he has not more completely fulfilled the promise of his life … that he has not been, to these people who trust and love him (and today tell him so in such delightful ways) more trustworthy and loving. A neighborhood tea, the florist’s finger on the doorbell, letters and cards, family coddling and surprises, a telephone call, gifts of linens and books and fresh garden produce. What does one do? Tonight we shared our regular Saturday night guest with guests from the Hill. For who can be satisfied, when he has found a treasure, not to share it with those he loves? So we were eager for these to meet each other, and thus to enlarge the circle all the way around. 142 On the Corner 1961 Small daughter writes, “I miss you, Mummy, but it seems like I live here.” And on the corner, the house is beginning to echo a bit hollowly, as if asking for the cries and laughter of its rightful inhabitants. Such stuffy, quiet grownups and teen-agers taking the place over! And they return, brown from days of swimming in the lake; happy, overflowing with their adventures. They return with one of their aunt’s special cakes for the other members of the family, with a few trinkets, and with memories potent enough to last a lifetime. And the small one—at last—has learned to whistle through her teeth. Our speaker tonight suggested that to the time-honored factors of heredity and environment should be added a third—the will of the individual child, the factor of individual decision-making and respon sibility for it. Fresh breezes! Bless him! TO KEEP AND PONDER: The joy of reunion at some indefinable place in a conversation with an old friend. Up to this point the talk is pedestrian, almost forced, and one wonders, “Will we ever be air-borne again? Is it lost—the rapport we once had?” And when we cease to ask for it, it is given. August “And was our car completely demolished?” asked the boy hopefully, as he listened to the details of his big brother’s accident on his way to work. The poor old fifty-dollar Chevy, chief thorn in the flesh of the whole family of boys, was, we assured him, listed by the police as “a total loss.” Friends from the far North ate dinner with us tonight, and we were grateful for a few hours in which to catch up on our two years’ separation. We, who had once lived in a common community, now have a richer store from which to bring to each other gleanings from our different cultural climates. And the two little girls have grown tall and interesting. Though I have been a lifelong admirer of the outgoing, neighborly type of woman, I have somehow not been able to transform myself into one. In this area I seem to be unable to overcome inertia. I simply wait— sometimes hopefully, sometimes sheepishly—for someone else to make the first move. For a year we didn’t even know who lived in the green 143 Story of a Family house down the street. But since their two parked cars were the victims of our old Chevy, we’ve become neighbors! Kindness speaks an eloquent language, and few people would be so kind as these have been, under the circumstances. Today this neighbor, herself recuperating from surgery, has stopped in to inquire anxiously about our son’s teeth, to share a part of a lazy afternoon, and to loan me a book of charming woodcuts made by a friend of hers. The beans fly in all directions these days when the children are busy at cleaning them. The warning signal, however, has come with this latest bushel: if I can one quart more, they aren’t going to eat ONE BEAN when they appear on our winter table. To tell the truth, I was planning on stopping anyhow, without the threat. Also, I knew the threat was harmless, since green beans are a favorite winter vegetable. “And what are you reading now?” a friend writes. Reading? Did I ever read a book? Do I even know how to read? I suddenly realize that I have not read a book for at least two weeks, and it seems as if it happened in another life, mysteriously removed from these hot August days filled to the brim with beans and children! Last night our relatives from the Hill came, with full arms as usual: freshly baked cinnamon rolls, the accumulate third-class mail which still arrives for us in the big rural mailbox we shared, the drapes we had left in our hill-house in order to soften the impact of its emptiness and odd socks and shirts left by our vacationing children. Suddenly—for what reason?—I remembered with an acute pang the view from the picture window and felt an unaccustomed twinge of nostalgia. But this was soon relaxed by tea and talk, as we gathered up the stitches we had dropped since our last meeting. When I have a visitor who is a particularly good cook, I never try to outdo myself or her, knowing the uselessness of it. But I do try to serve one dish which may be new and exciting to one who is always interested in new recipes. Tonight I offered our guests fried rice, made according to the recipe of my rice-happy neighbor next door. The charm worked! She copied the recipe. 144 On the Corner 1961 The children have finally finished the birthday gift for me—a month late, but worth the wait. It is a notebook of pictures and stories entitled, “For Our Mother to Tell Her What We Did in Pennsylvania.” It represents hours of painstaking collaboration; it represents a kind aunt’s motivation (promise of reward); it represents love all around; and I love every page. Today in South Bend I found the Haiku book I have wanted for my friend, and the finding of it inspired this, for her birthday: Friend of my old home … From one spring to another Parted … Still we meet! Our weekend guests have left in their little Mercedes. It is always a special joy to renew acquaintance with this sister-in-law who has so much good sense and vitality—and Christianity! And it is always a new discovery to find that people need not “speak the same language” to have genuine spiritual rapport. Augusts are always enriching months, in spite of the heat, the work, and the restlessness of children needing the discipline of school again. For August always brings us house guests, dinner guests, and old friends stopping in for a few minutes as they drive through our town. This month has been no exception, and around our table we have had good fellowship with old friends, with friends leaving town for assignments elsewhere, with our minister and his family, with relatives, with our children’s friends, and with our regular Saturday night visitor, whose quick ringing of our doorbell always brings us joy. Today, with sadness, I hung up the thin, worn, torn sheets of pink and white which Arlene gave me years ago—and which have been either on our bed or on the wash line continually since that day. Somehow I seldom looked at them without consciously remembering Arlene. Now that they are beyond salvation, what will bring Arlene, with all her freshness and spiritual vigor, to my attention as often as they did? Yes, “things” can be the bearers of grace, symbols of living relationships. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The fervor of one twelve-year-old who, noting his mother’s weariness on the eve of the annual trek to Little Eden, sets up the ironing board and insists on ironing the dozen shirts which remain 145 Story of a Family in the basket. In a glow of happiness he finishes his task—a task done awkwardly, left-handedly, but beautifully. And the mother (who has difficulty recognizing the child who ordinarily wails when asked to pick up a newspaper realizes anew that crisis brings forth the best qualities of some people, as well as the worst of others. September After days of frayed nerves; after the fever of canning that last bushel of tomatoes, attacking that last great pile of laundry, and finally packing clothes for eight people—packing, indeed, far into the night—after all this heat and bustle, how healing it was to lie for hours, today, on the beach. As my friend beside me said, there is something infinitely strengthening in the knowledge of the dependability, the inevitability of the waves’ advance and retreat upon the shore … And so every afternoon of this precious little vacation, we return to this spot. Days of fellowship with faculty wives and faculty ladies I seldom more than nod to all year, hours of jumping the Lake Michigan waves and walking up and down the sandy shore with a friend—days, hours, moments like these slowly help to loosen the knots of the last few frantic days and of the entire summer. That which was bound is released, and one feels whole again—or nearly so. Three and a half days at Little Eden can do this! Home again, the piles of washing and ironing again seem insurmountable, the days long and hot and impossible, and the deadlines for teaching preparations ominous. But the gathered strength of our little stay in Eden has given me a bit more starch than I would otherwise have had. The sounds of school are with us again. Each morning the patrol boys broadcast their shouts on the late summer morning. “O—kay— ay—!” What a joy to be allowed to yell with such abandon. Today two of these boys, proudly officious in their new jobs, shouted their quarrel at each other as they guarded their corners, a block apart. “Shut up!” cried one. “Why? Why should I?” shouted the other. “You’re disturbin’ the peace! That’s why!” roared the first, in a voice more raucous and peacedisturbing than that of his fellow officer! This is what one gets for opening his mouth. Having put into rather forceful words my opinions on the costume-centered newspaper accounts of even Christian weddings, I am now being asked to prepare the write-up 146 On the Corner 1961 for the wedding of our neighbor’s daughter. Attempting to carry out this assignment, I decide that news writing is a demanding and constricting field, and one which I do not care to enter. Even so, it is good to try to put into practice that to which I have verbally committed myself. When finished, the account sounds like any other wedding story except that the details of the worship and dedication service take the place of the usual details of costume and decoration. But this is a great difference, it seems to me, and an important one. With satisfaction I note that the picture above the article includes a groom, who is actually a rather important ingredient for any wedding, in spite of all evidence to the contrary! The freshmen are with us again, but with a great difference. One of them is our son—and many will be my students. As I listened to our minister’s prayer this morning, to the dean of men’s talk, and to the litany prepared for the vesper service, I wished that each of these young people might sense something of the tremendous dedication which our faculty brings to its teaching task … I prayed that they might be spared the shallow and perverted habits of petty criticism. But they too must be given the chance to grow normally through, not around, their experiences. And ripening is a gradual process. I have read that the sense of smell is the most evocative of our senses. I believe it. Today we baked oatmeal cookies from the recipe in Mother’s faded, stained recipe notebook. At the first whiff of these special cookies baking, a part of my childhood was poignantly alive for me again. And my mother, in all her mother-ness, humor, and humanity, seemed suddenly to be standing behind me, looking over my shoulder. Tired on her feet, her apron slightly soiled over the broad middle, the braided coil of her hair slipping down slightly from its high perch, her face soft and mobile, her large brown eyes weary but warm and accepting—my mother, baking cookies. A blessed breath of the coolness of October mornings has been injected into the humid September summer. Again we housewives have a little zest for life—we can at least look at our work without despairing. But it is not easy even to look at all that should be done. Teaching, even parttime, is demanding. Not only is it a matter of hours of preparation, teaching, and paper-grading, but also an involvement with persons from whom one cannot be entirely detached, if he wishes to really give himself to his work. 147 Story of a Family “You walk like you’re tired,” observes the boy. His mother says that it is true. She is tired. “Do those shoes really feel good?” No, admits his mother, they really don’t. “Well, why don’t ladies wear shoes like boys wear, if those funny toes and heels hurt them?” The mother admits that this is a sensible question, and tries to imagine herself going to class in sturdy, brown Boy Scout shoes. One value in attempting two jobs—how ever temporarily—is that one has the opportunity to exert more discipline in his choices. “You must be busy,” friends say. When I say I am not, they assume that it’s just a matter of words, for they know that I react to the word “busy.” But this is not true. I simply refrain from doing things and going places—the doings and goings of which would be the added burden that would indeed make me busy, inside and out. It is amazing how much trimming and pruning one can do without missing or being missed. Likewise amazing is the help one can get from practicing the advice of which my friend Ann has written in her song: “When I sits, I sits all over, and when I lies, I lies down loose.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The rich experience of communication with a different age group. Sitting in the church library today as the Senior Adults filed into their meeting, chatting with these wonderful people of my mother’s generation, glimpsing a bit of their wisdom and kindliness as well as their interests and hopes and fears—all this has given me a new focus for my day. These seem to be the years of segregation, of rigidly divided compartments into which we are placed according to our age. One wistfully hopes that the gains of such a system outweigh the losses! October That lovely tree on the corner of Seventh and Franklin! Every day it changes, its reds deepening and glowing. Every day its gift to me is new— the gift of piercing joy which comes unasked whenever one finds beauty and does not resist it. Newest member of the family arrived on small daughter’s birthday—a pixie-haired baby-doll with floppy arms and legs, who cuddles up like an honest-to-goodness baby. She’s so real that when we give her to our friend to hold, she cries, “Take it! Take it! It’s real.” The baby’s mother 148 On the Corner 1961 graciously lets Grandmother play with Sweetie while she’s at school! After school, however, Sweetie is almost forgotten as four enchanting eightyear-olds eat together the miniature victuals which have been ordered for the birthday supper. Four laughing mermaids take a bubble bath together in the big tub; four excited girls whisper and giggle together in the little room at the end of the hall; and four angels at last fold their wings and slip into a dream world. Another birthday is over, and as Sweetie’s Grandma tiptoes out of the room, it seems as if she hears her own mother saying, “Your birthday is the one day that belongs to you … Birthdays should be happy days for children!” A new angle in church elections: A boy who stayed home from church because of a cold, greets his parent at the door with the anxious question: “Did you get the prize?” The dense parent doesn’t understand the question. “Did you get the prize, huh? Did you win?” We finally are able to translate it into our own language, which is: “Were you elected?” We smile ruefully and say, yes, we got the prize. And the boy glows with joy to know that he is represented on the Church Council! Is it true of most people that what they want most is the impossible, the forbidden, the right to open the gate that says, “No Trespassing”? It isn’t that there are so many areas into which we dare not enter. It is the one that frustrates us—the one tree in the garden of which we may not eat, or whose fruit we are not capable of digesting! And though we may chafe because we may not eat this, have that, go there, perhaps at the same time we deeply know that it is for our salvation that the prohibition is made. “Do you have a good talk for us?” my friend asks just before we enter the room where I am to speak to her WMSA group. I tell her that I won’t know for a while—how can one know, when so much depends on those who listen? My better half—the audience—comes through, however, and so it becomes a good experience of meeting. The talk? Apart from the meeting of persons, what good is a talk! All over town, gold leaf is being prodigally scattered by the fall breeze, and not just on the streets and lawns of the rich, either. The grayest little shack has its mounds of gold, its never-ending sifting of yellow—down, down through the autumn sunshine. I have heard Edna St. Vincent Millay’s God’s World described as maudlin or even hysterical! 149 Story of a Family For Eighth Street—in Goshen—in October—I would call it an ineffective understatement. We watch them set off for the frosh banquet, and suddenly feel just a little of the weight of age settling down upon us. The boy? He’s ours. The girl? Her mother was our college classmate. And so the wheels of time turn to full circle. Our children stand where we once stood (yet not really there!). With the children of our friends who once stood with us, they watch life on the GC campus—watch it, and enter into it, and give themselves to it… Living in town has its advantages—more than a few. But not among them is this annual horde of Halloweeners. Two days to go ‘til Halloween— and already tonight over 50 of them have trudged up the front steps, rung the bell, and departed with a calculating squint at what we dropped into their bags (apples and cookies are frowned upon), with a mechanical, “Thank you,” and with, we suspect, a good bit of the gray paint of the porch floor on their shoe soles. Or is it my imagination that makes me certain that a coat of paint, come spring, is twice as necessary now as it was a week ago? Oh, well, it’s a comfort to know that they enjoy it. And there is something appealing about the tiny black cats and ghosts and Mickey Mice who stand there singing out, “Trick or treat!”—tots scarcely old enough to be up at this hour, much less abroad at night. Almost scared of themselves and each other, they appear. But they are quite sure of what they are after. In spite of a realization of great inadequacies, I am finding that it is possible to actually “enter … into the joy of … [the] Lord” in one’s teaching experiences. Who could help it—when the students are so bright, life-loving, open, idealistic, eager (at least up to this point. How subtly life closes us in upon ourselves with the passing of years!) One student suggests innocently that she would like to explore the question, “What happens to the idealism of youth?” Her question echoes within me in the poignant words remembered from a youthful reading of Storm’s Immensee: “Hinter jenen blauen Bergen liegt unsere Jugend. Wo ist sie geblieben?” Where, indeed, has it gone—our youth? And not so much our physical youth (for maturity brings with it solid joys of its own), but that eagerness for life, for ideas, for new frontiers! Today several students stop to congratulate me on the Professor’s chapel talk. “The thing is,” one tall 150 On the Corner 1961 boy explains with enthusiasm, “it gave me at least two completely new ideas!” TO KEEP AND PONDER: It is a beautiful vision, that prophecy of Micah’s which pictures the nations going up to the mountain of the Lord, the swords being beaten into plowshares, and all hot and cold wars in the past. Most beautiful of all is the picture of every man sitting under his own fig tree! But today I would say: Dear Lord God, let my tree be a maple—an October maple, please, all gold-tinged—with orange, like the one on our corner. November We planted bulbs today, the little boy and I, in our “secret garden.” It’s not really a garden—just a big bare space on the back lawn, which the industrious lad has spaded to form a circular lot. It’s not really secret either—all the others know we planted the bulbs. But they don’t know what we planted, nor how we arranged them. So it is our special project—a down payment on a gift for the family, to be delivered, we hope, next spring. A long brown box from Kentucky arrived at our door today—our dulcimer! The beautiful little instrument, handmade by a farmercraftsman, is the center of family attention for today, at least. Because it is a simple instrument, even the youngest can quickly pick out “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” and soon we have a harmonica joining the chorus, then a recorder, then the organ, and finally even the viola. Though on a concert stage it might seem a rather wild combination, it sounds just fine in a family living room on a chilly night, with the mood being one of great informality, and the motivation—“just for fun!” The lovely leaves have gone. All that are left are the ugly brown patches which have been blown into the shrubbery and caught there, or against the foundation around the house. We despair of raking them, for the first light snow has fallen, and cold seems to have descended for good. Then we are given that one day in a year which becomes the talk of neigh bors over their boundary lines, the subject of tellers at the bank windows, the greeting of every passing acquaintance. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” It is a bonus Saturday, balmy and invigorating. All hands to the rakes and the baskets! Inside, Mother cleans furiously, with the energy of five days within her. Summer clothing, sorted and folded, replaces the stacks 151 Story of a Family of winter clothing in the chests and trunks. Curtains, windows, rugs, spreads are washed. We are more ready for winter than we had hoped to be—all because of one glorious day, a little golden piece of September set into the heart of blustery November. Now the soup and sandwich days are here again. The children come in for lunch, ruddy with the cold, and hoping for soup on the menu. But the chief chef gets a little weary of trying to figure out which kind to try today. Then she remembers an old favorite of her mother’s—brown potato soup. Made like any potato soup, but with the addition of flour which has been browned in a skillet (without shortening) and with a sprinkling of raw onions in each bowl, the “new” soup becomes a favorite on the first try! The chef suspects that at least a part of the enthusiasm for this recipe is that it comes from that shadowy, magical land of a parent’s childhood! “I like old-fashioned food,” one young thing volunteers, “cause it makes you feel, well, like history.” “Why is it, Mom,” asks a curious child, “that sometimes when I ask you what date it is, you have to think a while, or look on a calendar, and other times you tell me without even thinking?” I explain to the questioner that there are four days out of a month when, if he asks me the date, he is likely to get the answer immediately. I never miss it on these dates: the fourteenth and fifteenth, the twenty-ninth and thirtieth. Just as he never gets his dates scrambled on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day—so I am fully aware of Payday Eve and Payday! In a pensive moment this morning, I reflect on the directions for opening the new box of rolled oats. “To open, pull string.” What a lazy race we are getting to be! Suddenly this box becomes more than a box to me. It becomes a symbol of a way of life. To get where you want to get, learn to know the right people—and handle them with kid gloves. To find love, success, personality, friends, even God—follow this easy formula. “To open, pull string.” Indeed! Out of sheer rebellion—however useless and silly it may be—I get out my sharp little paring knife and open the box the way I used to open it before life became so infested with strings to pull! “I’ll be glad when I grow up, so I can write like you,” the little lady of the house confesses. “Like me?” The woman on the corner laughs wonderingly. “Yes, Mommy. All fast and scribbly so no one can read it!” 152 On the Corner 1961 So many words printed every day! One wonders how much action they really prompt, how real is their influence. But today I find myself taking action on a paragraph in a woman’s magazine. This fellow says that he has one little Thanksgiving ritual which he follows every year. He writes a letter of thanks to a person who has enriched his life in some way, but whom he ordinarily would not think of thanking. Sometimes it is a garage attendant; sometimes an author; a happy child who unthinkingly gave him courage; or even, perhaps, a statesman. And so, for the family, I write to a long-standing friend of the family, Jean Ritchie, who, because of the charm of her singing and dulcimer-playing, has become a familiar name at this house. “To Grandfather’s house we go” takes on a bit more meaning for us this Thanksgiving. Though our children have never had the joy of an annual trek to Grandfather’s house, today they sense something of what it must mean to be so blessed. Lacking handy grandparents, they find that great-uncle and aunt serve the purpose just as well, and they spend a fine day around her table, getting reacquainted with second cousins, and enjoying the tasty turkey dinner. The middle generation also enjoys the rare fellowship of visiting leisurely once again with each other and with our hosts—their parents, or uncle and aunt. In fact, everyone is so well pleased with the day that we decide to make an annual affair of it, and the house on the corner is designated for next Thanksgiving dinner. TO KEEP AND PONDER: Another query from the boy with question marks for eyes—this time directed toward his Sunday-school teacher and relayed to his parents: “But if you have to punish before you forgive, what does forgiveness mean? What good does it do to be forgiven?” December “Oh, good! It’s December! Now we can begin to have Christmas!” She wants to begin right away? and so I acquiesce. She may arrange a little Christmas table in the hallway, if she wishes. She wishes. With enthusiasm and love, she covers her little table with the red velvet, sets a white candle in the Christmas candleholder which her big brother made years ago, and carefully unpacks the pieces of the crèche. Thus we begin to have Christmas… 153 Story of a Family But the stores have been tinseled and overstuffed and jingly for weeks. It seems that each year the season is ushered in a bit earlier, only adding to the confusion of the issue: What is Christmas? What is it, indeed, I ask myself, as I begin to carefully divide my December into compartments in the hope that with a little foresight and discipline I might be able to better keep Christmas in spirit. Strange, though, how in spite of such care, the days slip through the fingers. I begin to have the hopeless, helpless, familiar feeling that again I am unprepared to cope. Again only about half our list of friends will hear from us this year. Most of the little homemade gifts will not be made. The house will not be shining. The cooky jars will not be full. This is the price one pays for taking on a double load—that there is no time nor energy left to give to those beyond the family circle. Having faced this, and deciding that it shall not be thus next year, I relax, accept the half-done state of my affairs, and enter into the joy of the sea son… The joy of the season is ushered in by many means: the meeting at Auntie’s, where I am given the rare privilege of fellowship with women of her generation, wonderfully wise and mature and accepting—even to the point of seeming to appreciate the amateurish attempt to entertain on the dulcimer; the annual faculty women’s banquet, after which two of us fall to talking and find that the miracle of meeting has taken place; the warm, sincere letters which keep coming, in spite of our own halfexecuted plans for greeting those we love; the children singing, planning, practicing, working secretly in their rooms… And always with stars in the eyes. An evening fellowship over an African meal in our friend’s trailer. A call from a friend, “My little Christmas gift to you this year will be to do your ironing next week.” Choosing the tree with the Professor and rejoicing at the spicy fragrance which fills the living room as he executes his annual task of setting the tree in its place of honor on a reliable stand. Thus is the season of joy ushered in… And now the schools are closed, and the pace quickens. Packages begin to arrive. Here comes a neighbor with two gorgeous loaves of Christmas bread (she knows our guests are arriving tomorrow)! The door bell rings early in the morning and here is a great package of meat from Uncle John, sent special delivery just last night, and bringing shouts of joy from the boys. A pair of sheets arrive in time to take care of the extrabedding problem! How did she know? Here’s a package with a note which 154 On the Corner 1961 says we can open it now, for it is supposed to help out in the Christmas rush. Paper plates and cups to save dishwashing at lunch and supper! Just before we leave to meet the train, an elegantly decorated breakfast wreath is brought to the door. By the time our guests arrive, we feel as if their entertainment is a joint project of the community! … Giving, receiving, meeting, loving, remembering—all are significant elements of the joy of the season; all are ours in these happy days with old friends. And when they leave us, we are richer because we have had these few hours together. But now the eve approaches. In the lull which follows departing guests and the coming climax of Christmas Eve, I often hear, from the living room, a soft voice reading over and over, “And there were in the same country…” We deliver our few little gifts; the Professor drops his work and relaxes with the family; the pace slows significantly… Christmas Eve has come. In our church we are transported once again to Bethlehem as the children’s choruses and the MYF readers tell us what Christmas is all about. The three kings miss their cue, but we do not miss the message … The week after Christmas Eve sometimes becomes one long, rather disorderly anticlimax. But not for us—not this year! First of all on Christmas morning the little portable mixer must be tested by the eager young ones. New games are in session. New books are keeping their readers glued to the sofa corners. A little girl needs help in making a doll kimono, now that she has a sewing basket of her own. Guests are coming for Christmas dinner, but we’re having the most unChristmasy of dinners—just rice, with all sorts of condiments to sprinkle on top of it, and for dessert, fresh fruit. That’s the kind of thing you can get by with, if you choose such easy, unconventional guests! Christmas Day is followed by several ordinary days filled with paper burning, string saving, washing, ironing, picking-up-after, and simple meals. (How good soup tastes to everybody—after the past two weeks!) Suddenly we are transported to our old home—our first family visit since we left—now it’s Christmas all over again! How can so much joy be 155 Story of a Family packed into so few days? In just two days we meet scores of old friends, glimpse the new babies, fill a pew at the little church, walk through our former home on the hill, experience the old-shoe comfort of visiting around the yellow kitchen table of our neighbor across-the-tracks, bask in the hospitality and familiarity of our relatives’ home and presence, and take delight in the view from the hill. In the meantime the children, almost strangers to a sled, spend most of their waking hours coasting down the gentle hills, skating on the lake, stuffing themselves with their aunt’s delicious food, and contacting old friends by telephone and by yelling across the hills. “Happy new year!” a little boy calls across the tracks to his friend, as we again load up at midnight for the return trip. “Happy new year! Happy new year!” the answer echoes … It may not be a happy new year. There may be for some of us, or for us all, much sadness, much hardship in this, and future years. But we have had this moment, these days, this wonderful season of joy. It has been a grand climax to a good year. It has been a gift of grace. Whatever happens, we shall keep the memory of this season. Surely, some shred of its joy we shall keep and we shall ponder it in our hearts. On the Corner 1962 January With bells and song the new year is celebrated, but scarcely a day has passed before all eight of us are whisked once more into the world of textbooks, tests, and lectures—the same old wonderful grind, even if the calendars are all spanking new. Fleetingly, I think of my fondness—sentimental, no doubt—for making resolutions. I’d like to compose just one, but I can’t seem to find the time and place for the required meditation. To my reading friends I silently send out a recommendation of the book I have just finished reading. A large documentary by Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez, opens a world about which few of us know much, the world of the urban poor. All the more appalling and fascinating because it is the account of an actual, living family, this many-faceted story pro vides opportunity to develop the kind of empathy which is required of those who would see in the sick, the hungry, the prisoner, Christ Himself. 156 On the Corner 1962 It is an expensive book—but I keep hoping that all our friends who are interested in psychology, anthropology, or just plain Christianity will find their way to a good library to seek it out. Fortunately, our town librarian is wide open to suggestions for new purchases, and so when I find a good book, I call her, and she usually responds by ordering the book and by giving me first chance at it! Probably anyone who heard William Nagenda and Festo Kivengere when they spoke here and there in our North American churches will remember what I have taken home after hearing them today. It is always invigorating to uncover a new insight in an old story, but mostly we seem to depend on somebody else to do it for us. Tonight the Story of the Prodigal Son expanded in significance as our brother pinpointed the sharp contrast between the two brothers merely by extracting a phrase from the conversation of each. Said the younger, “I have sinned…” “I have served…” said the elder. Is it vain to hope for a day in which, perhaps, there will be fewer and fewer elder brothers among us? The cold has settled in now. The boys have banked the snow in the back yard to form a frame for a skating rink, and have flooded the ground within the frame. The result provides hours of innocent fun. It doesn’t serve, however, to keep one young adventurer at home. On a below-zero day he visits the dam, jumps on a frozen-over fishing hole—just to see if it might break. It might, and it does. As his scared companions watch, he goes through into the deep water, yet manages to catch hold of the edge, pull himself out, and trudge the frigid half-mile home. With frozen clothes, a white face, and a chastened spirit he lets himself in, trying to slip past his mother. In vain! Yet he meekly succumbs to the hot bath, going to bed, gentle scolding, and a few extra motherly manifestations of love. The mother, meanwhile, wonders how many more times this fearless child will be allowed to come back to her from the brink of disaster! Once again, after a year of absence, my old friend and her family have returned to our town. It’s comforting to have, once more, this place to go occasionally after the teaching stint is finished for the day. One needs a few such second homes where shoes can be kicked off and hairpins removed. We are discussing a book, and the question is raised: Can one be Christian, yet suffer feelings of meaninglessness and despair? The 157 Story of a Family woman from the corner goes home depressed, for she feels that there are those of us—indeed, many—who by their very nature must live life “the hard way.” There are others whose temperaments seem to fit them for a more even, accepting existence. (William James speaks of them as congenitally “healthy-minded.”) Often one of the former, who has made great spiritual strides, is still less attractive than a pleasant person who has really changed very little in temperament from the time of his infancy! How wise Jesus was to warn us all against judging—even against judging at what point a Christian is or is not Christian. As for me, I take refuge in the psalms, those remarkable expressions of the ambivalent, turbulent David who was God’s man always, yet knew despair. And from the pen of a modern saint (Merton) I take comfort also: “It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.” The nephew and his wife stop in to borrow our recorders. We lend them gladly, hoping that they will fare better with them than we did. Our purpose in having them was to play together, but this doesn’t seem to work out in these months of thesis writing. “Someday,” we say—a familiar ending to so many pipe dreams! Semester exams! The light in the middle room upstairs burns late as the college student drinks his coffee and reviews his notes. And what parent dares give words of wisdom to the crammer, when he remembers his own study habits some twenty years back? Besides, the candle is burn ing at both ends in the dining room, too, where the table is spread with the bright-jacketed journals of Basic Communications students. Another poor mortal is struggling with the task of assigning grades—grades which can never really be an accurate assessment of the whole student! TO KEEP AND PONDER: Those cozy evenings of winter, free from the frenzy of Christmas and of semester exams—the time when we gather up strength for the frenzies ahead. Their studying done, the boys are bent over the chessboard, onlookers scarcely discernible from participants. Meanwhile the youngest and I follow the adventures of the wondrous Mary Poppins—she for the first time, her mother for what seems to be the tenth, but is likely only the third. Father, studying at the dining-room table, looks on wistfully, but doggedly keeps to his books… These are the moments which this woman on this corner cherishes, both now and later, 158 On the Corner 1962 in retrospect, in the heat and rush of midsummer. She cherishes them and gives thanks for them and yearns to be worthy of them, all the while knowing that no one, ever, is worthy of grace. February On these icy February evenings, the twentieth century with its speed and its complexities hardly intrudes. Age-old pastimes of reading, chess playing, listening to music—even conversation—absorb the family members in the living room after the last schoolbook has been slammed shut and piled upon one of the four untidy stacks littering the dining room table. How often, as I have stood in the doorway watching the intent faces of the chess players, have I been grateful that children are able to find pleasure in such simple, time-honored, and inexpensive pastimes—along with their very real involvement in the 1960’s. Yes, seeing them thus absorbed tonight, I could almost believe them children of my own generation, or an earlier one! But there are, I know, great differences. When I was nine, my Weekly Reader featured a daring story about the possibility—sometime far in the future—of a radio which would have a screen on which pictures would be projected as the words were broadcast. Of course, we didn’t believe a word of it, but it was exciting. These children, now, do not bat an eye over space travel; they fully expect that man will reach the moon quite soon. And they hoot merrily to think that their parents couldn’t believe in the possibility of television until it was proved! The little dulcimer rang tonight after Vespers when the college youngsters dropped in and decided to stay for pizza and fellowship. One of them turned out to be an authentic folk singer of Swiss yodels, and though he’d never seen a dulcimer, he blithely accompanied himself and the rest of us, as one song led to another. Soon enough, all the chairs around the long table were full, and even the youngest was chiming in without the reserve ordinarily shown before strangers. Now if we had suggested, “Let’s all gather ’round and sing tonight,” we should have gotten pained looks and boos from the offspring. But with a pied piper in charge, the kind of evening we love came about naturally, as a rare and wonderful gift. Perhaps, I reflect, it is true that life’s loveliest moments are never those for which we set the stage, but those which just happen; that the greatest satisfactions are not those we take, or ask for, but those which are given unasked—gracious gifts from the hand of God. 159 Story of a Family While the woman on the corner attempted to share choice morsels from Evelyn Underhill’s letters with her Elkhart Seminary sisters, that good neighbor—two houses down—chose a grand way of standing behind her. She served hamburgers and milkshakes (“As many as we wanted, Mom, just think!”) to five boys with singularly elastic stomachs. That’s what I call fellowship in the gospel, bless her! Today the students of Section A dribbled into class reluctantly with many a backward glance toward the Student Lounge. “Won’t you dismiss class?” they kept asking. Incomprehensible to them was my answer, “But why?” It was embarrassing to discover that an epoch-making event was taking place, that it was being televised, and that it was supposed to happen in exactly four minutes. And so, Basic Communications, Section A ended up in the Student Lounge, its naive instructor, as full of butterflies as any flighty freshman girl, watching too, as John Glenn made history. Later in the day, as the children took turns pushing the shuttle on the old rug loom in Mrs. B’s basement, and as we all ate her fat sugar cookies, it seemed that we were suddenly transported from the space age to grandmother’s day. And I looked upon these youngsters with a twinge of respectful envy: no conflict for them in events which to me seemed incongruous! “This morning we saw John Glenn go into space and come back. This afternoon we watched the rug-woman making Mom’s stair carpet on her loom, and she let us work the loom, and she gave us some cookies like the ones Mom’s grandma baked. And tonight a lady from Afghanistan visited us.” It’s all in a day for the child of the 1960’s. For weeks we have been saving for this treat. And now tonight in the middle of an ice storm, we send out the six men in our family to a Father-Son banquet—the first experience of its kind for any of them. We proudly launch them on their treacherous journey to the Church Fellowship Rooms, knowing that our love for them will somehow help them to negotiate the ice-covered streets safely. And then we two women eat our sandwiches together quite cozily, with grandchild Sweetie, the floppy doll, staring brightly at us across the table. “My letters—all dead paper, mute and white,” the poet writes. And there is the breath of death about old letters, somehow I feel it when I open the files where lie those few folders of letters which for some reason have been difficult to destroy. But these letters which one comes upon 160 On the Corner 1962 in the mailbox, after a morning filled with teaching or housekeeping duties—how alive, how vivid they are! This morning there were three for me—all unexpected, delightful, surprising, and almost breathing with the vitality of the people who wrote. From Connecticut, from Pennsylvania, from Kansas, these living bits of paper brought to me the loving presences of three women who are dear to me. Why don’t we write more letters? Oh, not duty letters, not “answers to your letter,” but this spontaneous encoding of a little bit of ourselves onto a piece of paper, and sending it off, knowing that we shall certainly be received in love and joy by the friend who recognizes our scribbling on the magic envelope! TO KEEP AND PONDER: Robert Shaw’s gift of interpreting the St. John Passion. This was the first time we heard it in English, and we came away wondering if we’d tire of listening to it every Sunday of our lives. No, we would not, we think, as we go home “lost in wonder, love and praise.” March About this time of the year we grow overeager for spring, refusing to face the bleak possibility of six more weeks of cool, if not cold and stormy, weather ahead. We begin to talk about spring house cleaning, some of us, and the others actually begin to assault the upstairs rooms with that semiannual fury peculiar to good housewives. Here on the corner we have literally laid out the carpet for spring. Our rug-lady up the street has finished the hall and stair carpets, and we can’t wait for anything so unlikely as Spring House Cleaning. Down they go, and they transform the dim winter halls and stairs into a spring garden of freshness and color. We gather bare branches of forsythia and Japanese quince, forcing them to outwit the outside weather over which we have no control. Let the harsh winds of March keep howling through northern Indiana. Spring has begun inside our hearts and inside our home. At Doc’s house tonight we were among the guests, all of whom shared in common the present privilege of living in this fair city, and the past privilege of having attended college about the same time (some twenty or more years ago). It was impossible to be overimpressed by the dignity of this group of doctors, professors, and preachers around the table— especially when they began releasing accounts of college escapades. It is good, we feel, occasionally to meet in this way with one’s peer group, so to be reminded that education, titles, distinctions, accumulations of wealth or power or honor (or the lack of them) fail to add to or detract 161 Story of a Family from the worth of the person as he is known to his friends. And so that which might seem like informal, even gay, fellowship turns out to have a basis of deep significance, and becomes to each of us a reaffirmation of our acceptance of and love for our brothers. Viper’s Tangle, by the Catholic writer François Mauriac, is a book not pleasant to read, but deeply revealing of the human condition—of my condition. Stirred by its greatness, I find myself feeling doubly sad about the sad state of most of the so-called “Christian” fiction confronting us today. Since we (Protestants) seem at this point still to be unable to produce fiction which is significant in either theme or style, the least we could do is to make more use of the great writing which has been produced by those of other parts of the Christian fold. However, as long as we are more shocked by the sins of others than by our own sin, we are probably not ready for such reading. With such a “middle-class morality” we can hardly expect to see the spiritual significance of a book exposing the tangle of vipers which one man discovered within himself. Our Family-Head lives in an Old Testament world a good bit of the time, and because of this he is sometimes able to shed light on questions which others have about this world. This has opened for us all kinds of interesting experiences and relationships. Tonight we sat about an elegantly appointed table in the home of our Middlebury friends to celebrate the birthday of another F.O.T. (Friend of the Old Testament), and to discuss some more of those inexhaustible themes from Genesis. One does not need a large enthusiastic audience to maintain interest in the field of his choice; he needs only a few whose eager minds keep posing pertinent questions, and who really want to explore the answers with him. “Never again!” The woman on the corner collapsed onto the sofa after the last third-grade girl skipped (or was she pushed?) out the door. A veteran of countless lively boys’ parties, I had looked forward to giving this “quiet little luncheon” for the daughter and her playmates. Apparently the guest-list contained an unfortunate combination of personalities. In any case, after such a free-for-all, I knew I’d never have the courage to corral this particular group of little females within my dining room again! This morning during the church service the opportunity came to try out some advice of a favorite saint. To be sure, the principle extracted 162 On the Corner 1962 was used in a context other than spiritual or physical suffering, but it was effective, and I now hope to practice it increasingly, whenever I find that petty annoyances are tying me into knots. At first the fretful child behind us only momentarily took my mind from the sermon, for it was a piercing sermon, spoken to my condition. Gradually, however, the shift of focus from the sermon to the child was apparently made on some unconscious level within me. Suddenly I was aware of seething hostility toward the parents of the child. (The fact that I couldn’t turn about to see who it was didn’t help! It’s less frustrating when you know just who is the recipient of your hostility!) As for the sermon, it was now, for me at least, nonexistent. Mercifully, then, my anger shifted toward myself. Why should a fretful child or any other disturbance dictate my own behavior? It was at this point that Evelyn Underhill’s words came to me: “It is much the same with bodily suffering. There, too, one can either explore it and emphasize it, allow one to be obsessed by it till it is nearly intolerable, or he can stand away from it and let it happen, and so kill the worst of the sting.” These words, memorized years ago in a totally different context, now returned with added illumination. Thus aided by the loving Spirit who brings things to our remembrance (“the Spirit also helpeth…”), I was able, by an effort of will and by a miracle of grace, to “stand away…and let it happen,” and to join again the worshipers, and the Human Race. TO KEEP AND PONDER: the memory of this year’s Spring Vacation. All the public-schoolers in the family home for a week—and in dreary weather, too! Knowing too well what could happen, how our big house could suddenly shrink, how frayed the best of our good natures might appear by suppertime each day, we put our heads together and did a bit of planning which paid off, and even gave us some unexpected bonuses. Each child took his turn being at beck and call for a day; on all other days he was to be undisturbed. The result? The woman on the corner never had so much willing help for such long periods! One room after another was house-cleaned, always with the help of a child. The junior-high chef filled all available cooky jars, and baked a cake for good measure. Errands were quickly run, books and newspapers were picked up without the usual “But I didn’t put them there,” and a fine comradeship—lasting a whole day—characterized each successive working team of mother and child. At the end of vacation, whereas I usually add to the last psalm the words, “Praise ye the Lord for schools, especially after vacation,” I could joyfully replace them with, “Praise Him for vacations, and especially praise Him for children who make them so delightful!” 163 Story of a Family April Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote The droghte of March hath perced to the rote, And bathed every vein in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour;… No April ever comes but I hear the melodious voice of that high school teacher as she introduced us to Chaucer—Chaucer in its original, Old English beauty. And it always leaves me with an ache that no child of ours has yet had such a teacher, who could so inflame those lumps of student clay, who could so light up a whole world of thought and experience, that even to this day one marvels at the continuing influence of her teaching. What a magnificent, strong-willed woman she was! And how much more than English VIII she taught me! They said she smoked and drank—and I’m sure what they said was true. But because of her acceptance of my plainness and piety, her respect for my youthful faith, her belief in my gawky seventeen-year-old self as a person of worth, I, too, began to know what it can mean to accept another person, irrespective of his behavior, as worthy of love and respect. Wherever she is, I hope that life has rewarded her appropriately, and that the lilt of the Chaucerian lines adds as much to the enchantment of her Aprils as it does to those of her students. In these days of Conventions and Important Meetings, it is a small thing for even little frogs in little ponds to hop a train or plane and to become a part of the milling crowds converging in the Grand Ballroom of the big city hotel for the opening address. Even the most humble participant sports an identification badge as important-looking as that of the famous speakers and discussion leaders. What does it matter if no one pays attention to your name? Having a natural aversion for things done in a big way, this little froggie felt quite out of her element at this, her first convention, and though her assignment was to learn something about the teaching of college communications, she found herself ab sorbed in observing the behavior of individual persons beside and around her. She attended the workshops faithfully, and was impressed with the facets of communications about which she knew little or nothing. But she learned enough to justify the expense of ten such trips, in one half hour of informal conversation with one man. And what she learned was not unrelated to communications; it was a clear example of impartial yet personal self-giving—not the condescending handing down of advice from expert to amateur, but the sharing of one life with another. I salute Dr. 164 On the Corner 1962 Charles Drake of Harvard who is able to give of his knowledge with such integrity, earnestness, and humanity! What is more shocking to the nervous system than to be awakened in the wee hours by the insistent ringing of a bell? The very ring screams of emergency, and in that half second when one is trying to shake off the drug effects of sound sleep in order to determine the source of the ring (alarm clock? doorbell? telephone?), the possibilities of such an emergency can be genuinely terrifying. An accident! A death in the family! A cry for help! This morning at 2:00 a.m. we were relieved to find only a couple of shivering boys at the door—one of them a nephew we hadn’t seen for years, and of whose whereabouts we didn’t know until now. The derelicts, whether or not they knew it, were doubly welcome for disproving our initial fears! What is a good sermon? What do we mean when we tell the minister that we “enjoyed the sermon this morning”? Perhaps we often mean merely that we agreed with it…that it supported our ideas and confirmed our own interpretations. For me it means that at least one new insight dawned upon me as I listened, an insight which, directly or indirectly, would lead to a change in my actions or reactions or attitudes. To how many women in our brotherhood, I wondered tonight, would a certain statement of our Passion Week speaker have afforded such an insight? Shocking at first in its implications, is it not still something to study, to evaluate, and perhaps to act upon? The statement: that perhaps the current American women’s magazines, with their emphasis upon gracious living and dream kitchens and smart furnishings are influencing our sense of values more than the Bible. The woman on the corner, for one, came home and crossed a few more things off her list of “needs.” It is difficult for me to understand why some good people are afraid to read books which cannot be recommended in toto. Some of the most exciting and spiritually helpful ideas I have found in books which contain other ideas which are either dull, irrelevant, or foreign and even antagonistic to my own. This year my Easter reading was The New Man by Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. What if I could not go along with his mystical Catholicism at every point? He nevertheless gave me the jewel of an idea which enriched this season, and, I would guess, my whole life. To find the full meaning of life, he says, we must find—not the meaning that we expect, but the meaning that is revealed to us by God. He adds that 165 Story of a Family this meaning is not a sun that rises every morning of our lives (though we think it should, and so we tend to substitute some artificial light of our own when God’s meaning is not clear to us), but it is a meaning which dawns upon us in God’s own time. Somehow it comforts me to know that we do not need to know the meaning of what happens to us, the whys of our lives. God has not promised that there will not be moments, days, when everything seems quite absurd. We do not need the answers; we need only to know Him, and to wait for His explanations. And we can be quite sure that they will come when we are unaware, bursting upon us like a new sun, and convincing us beyond a doubt. TO KEEP AND PONDER: the joy of another April! These are the mornings when the woman on the corner looks out at the green spears jutting from that secret garden which she and the young son planted last fall; at the unfolding magnolia buds; at the haze of green in the maples as the tiny leaves uncurl; and wonders. These are the mornings when even the trailings of sand spilled from the sneakers of lads who are again in training for the spring track meet crunch deliciously under her feet as she smooths the spreads on their hastily made beds. These are the days when her morning prayers are all the same: thanksgiving to her Creator for being permitted yet another April! May For so long ours was an all-of-a-kind family that we still feel a special kinship with other all-girl or all-boy families. Last night our guests’ five sons and their father lined themselves up with our five sons and their father for a parlor picture-taking, while we women, outnumbered twelve to three, looked on. Small daughter had her misgivings, but she was soon rewarded, for today we visited old college friends who specialize in daughters, and she sat happily at the long table, one of a group of hungry and talkative boys and girls—five of each! All-of-a-kind families still seem special to us; and even though we have no real regrets that ours was ended with the advent of The Princess, we can’t feel sorry for parents who are blessed with a solid row of girls or of boys. We couldn’t agree with those who say that every girl should have a brother and every boy a sister. We have the habit of replying that if this were true, the good Lord would have arranged it to be so. Blessings on the all-of-a-kind families! May they all be as happy and complete as these two whose fellowship we have just enjoyed. 166 On the Corner 1962 The youngest comes home from an afternoon spent with a school friend whose name is unfamiliar to us, but who has begged to have our daughter come to her house to play. “Did you have fun?” we ask her. “No, I didn’t,” she answers emphatically. “She insisted on playing teenager the whole time.” We wonder how one plays teenager, and she gives us a simpering performance of looking into an imaginary mirror, applying imaginary lipstick. “And then you talk about boys all the time. Stupid!” We smile on her, grateful for her present naiveté, and we hope that it will be a few more years before she decides that it isn’t stupid after all. It scares us a bit, the way some folks generalize about family patterns. “He comes from a good home.” “The children in that family can be depended upon…” “Their children are so good (or ornery, or bright, or polite…).” Perhaps such deductions are generally valid, and ours is one of the few families constituting exceptions to the rule. But we look at our six and think—how could anyone say they have any traits in common except that they are all “human beans”? We even have trouble finding similar habit patterns among them, though we have come up with one: at this point they all habitually wash their hands before meals! This week we were again made aware of the six widely varied attitudes toward work, as help was enlisted for the tail-end of house cleaning. There is one who simply takes work for granted, plows into it, does it well, and seems to have no special need for praise for a job well done. There is another who spends the greater part of the allotted time arguing that the number of square feet in the wall he is to wash is greater than that which his brother had to do, and then mumbles and complains as he halfheartedly swipes at his area. Another will do anything for money, but prefers to volunteer for unpaid work, rather than to be drafted. Still another has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and will do anything he is asked to do, even when it is work rightfully belonging to another, even though it inconveniences him, even though it makes him so unhappy that he must blink back the tears as he reports for duty. Then there is our “little French Horse” who tears into work with a zest, exulting in doing a good, thorough job, and basking in the resultant praise. Final ly there is one who really enjoys helping, but seems to feel that a bit of complaining about “all this work” somehow goes along with the task—in much the same way that many children say they hate school when they really like it. Is the point proved? Please, dear friends, there’s no one cubbyhole for the six kids on this corner—or those on any corner, any street, any road! 167 Story of a Family Once in a while the woman on the corner answers yes to a request simply because there seems to be no valid reason to say no. Then as the appointed hour approaches, she wonders whatever possessed her to agree to do this! This afternoon was such an occasion. It sounds so simple— just reading some poems to a bevy of wiggly, giggly little Bluebirds. Yet she quaked as she waited to be called upon. Surely today’s eight-year-old girls, with their TV fare, their sophistication, can hardly be expected to respond to these simple things written over ten years ago for and about little boys! But the fears were groundless. Childhood is still a time of open response to the stimulus of the moment, I guess, for the dear things sat shiny-eyed, laughing in the right places, clapping with gusto, and, afterward, shyly offering, “I liked your pomes!” Reading days have come—no classes this week—and I take advantage of the breather by boarding a train to visit a dear friend whose husband has died. As the old coach rocks through the dark hills of western Pennsylvania, past the steel mills, along the Monongahela and Youghiogheny rivers, a nostalgia seizes me. And when the train stops for five minutes at Connellsville, I think I must run into the old station where, so many nights in what now seems the long ago, we sat, the little children and I, waiting for the train from the west—and Daddy! Somehow these memories of little, everyday things, and gray, familiar places, rather than of life’s great crises and spectacular scenes, are the ones which crumple the heart, and bring back most poignantly a bittersweet past. TO KEEP AND PONDER: In a month filled with Mother-Daughter breakfasts, teas, and banquets, one hears a plethora of flowery tributes to motherhood. But the woman on the corner cherishes most the one from a certain brown-eyed eight-year-old. They sat, she and her mother, at the dime-store lunch counter, over their lemon-blends. Several counters away sat a pretty young thing with two small children in tow. Brown-Eyes watched, horrified, as the babies were yanked and slapped and spoken to harshly. There was a long silence. “You know,” she whispered, with just the faintest trace of tears making those eyes even more luminous, “some mothers that are pretty aren’t—aren’t good mothers. And some mothers,” here she turned up a face glowing with love, “and some mothers aren’t so—so pretty, but they are good.” 168 On the Corner 1962 June Commencement over, we pack boxes and luggage full of the necessities of life (mainly books) for The Professor, and take him off to Chicago where he settles into his little bachelor cubicle for the summer. This is a ritual which has been repeated, in various forms, often enough that everyone seems to take it in his stride. As one of the young ones says, “I try to think back to a time when Daddy wasn’t going to school or writing his thesis, and I can’t remember that far back!” Observing the healthy relationships existing between this man and each of his children, I again am convinced that time is a small factor. I read the complaint, in a woman’s magazine, of a wife whose husband has just earned his doctor’s degree. They have two children and a debt which will take them years to pay off. She wonders if it’s right that anyone should be asked to jeopardize health and home in order to prepare for the work for which he is obviously suited. I know how she feels, but long ago I had to face this fact: that no one asked us to do what we knew we must do. This course of action was our decision, and any hardships encountered along the way were a natural consequence of that decision. Admittedly, some people have the advantage of more money, less family, more brains but this cannot enter into our own plan ning. We are responsible for the choices we make; it’s as simple—and as complexas that. But once we have accepted responsibility for our choices, however stupid they may seem to others, and however much deprivation they may cause us, there is a certain freedom and joy in continuing on one’s course. And the children in the family just naturally soak up the attitude of their parents, whether it is one of acceptance or of complaint. Sometimes it helps, in setting goals for oneself, to dangle a reward at the end of the hurdle. But this time the woman on the corner found the obstacle course too long, and the reward too tempting. And so, with a few more pounds to go, she gave up and called the friend who was promised an evening out with her at the completion of her stated course. She can always tell herself that she’ll lose those pounds sometime, and besides, she needed the fellowship so badly that she was just naturally frustrated in her purpose to lose weight. It was a grand evening, out at Miller’s Country Restaurant, sharing real food and real fellowship again, after these lean weeks! You can’t have everything—and I have never asked that The Professor be a Jack-of-all-trades. But there’s no denying the fact that one handy man in the family would be awfully useful! Today I’ve been walking on 169 Story of a Family clouds—all because of The Professor’s brother, who is visiting us. That good man has never yet paid us a visit without playing the role of Mr. Fixit. This time it was the dryer, which has been sitting there silent and useless for nearly a year, waiting for repairs which we knew would be expensive. A little tinkering and cleaning, a little oil and penetrating fluid, and she is humming sweetly again. Our prize servant has again come back to work for us! Permit me to sing the praises of all handy men (be they husbands or husband’s brothers or sons or grandsons or good neighbors) who work miracles, and who never present a bill! The cherries are ripe, and on a cluttered Saturday morning the invitation comes to the family on the corner: We may share the crop of sweet cherries on another family’s tree if we come and pick them. With buckets and baskets the rest of the family scoots out the door while the housewife whisks about uncluttering the house so there will be time for the unexpected canning operations. A few hours and forty quarts later, all of us are beaming at the first load of fruit to be taken to the basement this season, and gratefully thanking our benefactors. For a week, now, our neighbor’s roses have given us a lift as we walk through the various rooms of our house. Here a deep red one floats in a shallow glass bowl; there on the bookcase two yellow ones bend gracefully over the blue vase; and on the dining room table, roses in varying shades of pink and creamy white are glanced at and sniffed at by passing members of the family—even the boys. Someday, I tell myself, I too shall grow roses. But deep down I know that I am not the rose-growing kind, having neither the patience, the love of the soil, nor the know-how. And besides, why should I rob my neighbor of the joy of sharing with me her specialty? No, I shall try to content myself with writing a little old col umn now and then—for her to read, in return for the roses! TO KEEP AND PONDER: Found in a boy’s pocket, an unsolicited Father’s Day tribute—obviously written as a class assignment, but nevertheless cherished. MY FATHER My father (or dad, as I call him), earns practically all the money we spend. He teaches at Goshen College. He leaves for work at 7:45 a.m. and comes home about 5:45 p.m. Sometimes, in fact, usually he goes back to work after supper. 170 On the Corner 1962 He often plays games with me, like baceball (which he is not the best in, but he is good for his age), Careers (the game he beats me every time in), and others. I like to hear the stories he tells me, about when he was a boy. Some of them are very exciting. When Mother is feeling ill, or is away, he cooks the meals. (He is not the best cook, but his meals are better than nothing.) He also helps clean the house, wash the dishes, and do other things, when Mother is away. On winter days, he never fails to see that the fire in the furnace is just right. I don’t see how I could ever get along without my dad! July July officially opened for us with a double celebration of the Fourth at the Sunday school picnic, and later in the evening, at the home of our Topeka friends. Two potlucks in one day! The boys groaned in disappointment as they reached the place where they could not accept another of those thick, juicy hamburgers. “If only we could have them tomorrow!” What is lovelier, on a hot, hot July day, than to receive an unexpected telephone call from a distant friend? “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” Suddenly there seem to be cool breezes wafting through the rooms, and a new wave of energy makes the re maining tasks of the day light! “And how was your camping trip?” we ask the pale, smudgy boy who trudges into the kitchen, dropping his lumpy camping gear in the first convenient corner. We get the answer we expect, a dull, “O.K..” (Months later I find a grimy folded paper in the pocket of his school jeans, and receive, thanks to his English teacher, an enlargement of the terse July answer.) My Camping Trip This summer a freind and I decieded to go camping for 2 days at a lake about 12 miles over the border in Michigan. We divided up the list of things to bring. When we left (on bicycles) we had 2 saddle bags full of food. The bicycle riding proved tiring, but we made very good time. When we arrived we quickly made camp. It was then that my pal chalked up his first brownie badge—he’d forgotten the mosquito repellent. After we had set up the tent we started scouting around. In the lake hundreds of fish were within casting distance, and again my pal came 171 Story of a Family through and callously announced that he had forgotten the bait. Luckily we found small frogs that would serve the purpose. For dinner we had hot doggs, cookies, pop, potatoes, and candy bars. The hot dogs proved very messy because the bread my friend brought was about the size of a silver dollar. After dinner we went fishing for 20 minutes and caught 30 fish. We decided that the good fishing could be accounted for by the sole reason that there were no fishing signs all around the lake. Since we had no time-piece we ate supper when we were hungry. Then we started getting ready for bed. After we made the first campfire, it was so fun that we made 3 more. We went to bed but after about 4 hours of trying to sleep we got up and went for a midnight swim. We were only in for a half hour on account of the cold water. We then decided to try sleeping in the sand. It worked. We then woke up very early and took out a boat to go fishing. That time it took us 2 hrs to catch 32 fish. We went back to camp to eat breakfast. It was then that everything went wrong. The eggs carefully packed by my friend were all broken, the bread was full of ants, the pop was stagnent, the cookies were burned, the butter was melted, and a pair of my pal’s pants were burned off at the cuffs. By what we thought was dinner time, our food was no more. We then decided that we would cut short our venture and be in Bristol by 3:00, where we could get a ride home with his dad. On the way back we stopped at a rest park where my friend, practicing his casting, lost a 2 dollar lure. When we arrived in Bristol it was 11:30. The idea of spending 3½ hours with only 13 cents between us about broke us down. We managed, however, and at 3:30 we triumphantly entered Goshen. (Moral, attached by woman on the corner: what mothers don’t know until three months later, doesn’t hurt them.) A rather sudden development scatters all our July plans to the winds. With scarcely more than a week’s warning, we were off to the West Coast, leaving behind two bachelor boys. When I suggest to them that I wish so much they could come too, the outspoken one counters, “Now, Mom, do you want us along as persons or as exhibits?” Our usual July birthday plans are scrapped: My day is a flurry of getting ready, though not without its celebrations. (New books fall from beribboned wrappings, a yellow rose arrives with a note from the rose-lady that a box of sandwiches is in the freezer, to be picked up when we leave in the morning.) Fourth-Son’s Day is celebrated with real cake and ice cream, even though our hosts at our first stop (Kansas) didn’t even know it was his special day. And his birthday breakfast at the cozy little home of these good friends is a 172 On the Corner 1962 rare one: roasting ears and hamburgers! As for the Tall One’s Day—while his mother, brothers and sister, cousins and aunts picnic together on an Oregon lawn, and his father eats a final “Last Supper” with his own parent and brothers, he doubtless has a good time celebrating with a very special friend. But his mother remembers with a little pang that this is the first time in his 18 years that she has baked no cake for him! TO KEEP AND PONDER: Driving homeward again, over the majestic Big Horn Mountains, we keep saying to each other what we shall probably say for years: How tragic if we had not come! How providential that we were urged to come even after we insisted that it was impossible for us to join the rest of The Professor’s family, meeting together for the first time in over thirty years—and most likely for the last time. Our two-day reunion was one of those unblemished joys, from beginning to end—surely a gift of God. THE TRAIN I was laying in bed One long summer night, When I saw from my window A very strange light, And out from the black Came a long mournful cry, And whatever it was Came clacketing by, Then I wondered and wondered With all of my might, What has a long mournful cry And a very strange light? Then I started to think And then thought again, And after more thinking I said, “It’s a train!” Soon the train and its clacketing Went out of sight, With its long mournful cry And its very strange light. —Matthew Lind August The first of August finds us winding up our whirlwind trip. And what a splendid trip it has been! Besides the main feature —the reunion of the 173 Story of a Family The Professor’s family —there were such bonuses as seeing all my own brothers, two for the first time in many years; there was the golden day spent in The Little Town on the Prairie; and through it all, there was the excitement of the varying natural scenery, all at its green and prosperous best this particular year. What a lot of living was packed into these twelve days for us! And our only casualties were a foam pillow lost on the turnpike as the result of a pillow fight, and a bone-china cup broken at home in our absence! Returning to the house on the corner was not without its shocks. A heap o’ livin’ had been going on in these bachelor quarters too. But what at first seemed like the Herculean job of cleaning out the Augean stables, really didn’t prove to be so bad after all. It took us only two days to restore the place to comfortable living quarters. “Wouldn’t it be fun,” suggests one young thing, “if we had the ability to see into the future, and to discover the further life of the family?” The rest of us around the table decide we’d just as soon not. A day at a time is enough for us. But this one says he can hardly wait to see what he’s going to remember about his youth because he is sure that not as many exciting things are happening to him as happened to his dad and mom when they were young! One of those early morning phone calls again! We suspect maybe it’s from someone in the sixties or seventies, whose day starts (and ends) several hours earlier than ours. Actually it turns out to be another Texas nephew surprising us, and he s welcomed into the family for the next ten days. His first significant act is to lie town flat on the living room floor (yes, he s offered a bed) and sleep for several hours. Ah, that informality! We discover again that those foreigners from the country of Texas may have a chip on their shoulders about their native land, but they’re among the easiest people in the world to have as guests. Easy also to have around these days—a special family pet, the 20-month-old son of our friends. This bright, friendly boy has quickly adopted these additional brothers and a sister, while our comparatively grown-up clan responds with delight to an experience which none of them can clearly remember: the fun of having a talking toddler in the house. “Did you see what he did?” “Did you hear what he said?” we say to each other all day long. And all he needs to do is open his arms to one of the children and say that child’s name, to acquire a devoted slave. Tommy 174 On the Corner 1962 won’t remember—except perhaps “in his bones”—the week at our house; but there are seven of us who couldn’t forget it! “It was a good evening. Somehow I feel more a whole woman, less ‘neuter’!” My friend’s farewell strikes a response in my own spirit. I know what she means, even though she expresses surprise that I do! Don’t we all have these arid stretches in which we seem to function as a sort of colorless, efficient machine, without the vividness and vitality which lights up existence when we are made to feel whole women, whole men? This awareness can come to us in many ways; and sometimes it is the product of a chance remark, a fleeting rapport, a glance across a room; or, like tonight, just an otherwise ordinary conversation between old friends, which somehow turns out to be more. On the way to our friend’s piano recital at Ann Arbor, we provided passing motorists with a spectacle: a carload of women standing helplessly about a car with a flat tire. The woman from the corner insisted that we were equal to the emergency, even though she had to look in the car’s instruction book to find where the bumper jack would fit on this new Buick. To her regret, and to the relief of the others, a humble workman in a rickety truck stopped and applied first aid. Nothing like bolstering a man’s ego by appearing completely helpless in the face of a mechanical failure—whether it be a flat tire or a dull knife! Tommy left tonight, and our Somalia cousins arrived. What memorymaking days for the children—these few days of playing with cousins who come only once in five years! Suddenly we have three little girls, instead of one; three young boys near enough in age to team together. So concentrated is the boys’ play that they reject every intrusion; their manners desert them; they fall to a game of Gusher or Monopoly or pingpong with a zest, a hunger, that reminds one of starving pigs at a trough! And when grownups speak to them their response as much as says, “Yes, hello, but can’t you see this is a matter of life or death?” Tonight, the guests having departed, one of the big boys recounts to his father the story their uncle told late last night—a story which had us all in stitches. But something is missing. “That’s funny,” he observes. “Why was it so hilarious last night, but nothing special at all today?” He concludes that the elusive mood may have been dependent on the lateness of the hour, our tiredness, and the 175 Story of a Family special privilege of being able to stay up and talk with adults after the little kids are in bed! What a wonderful month! No sooner does one car leave than another one comes. And these are our Kansas friends, old-shoe comfortable to have in the house, and bringing with them always an inexplicable lift. Even the big boys are captivated by Miss Four; the college boy raises his eyebrows, looks across at me, and says, “Schöne!” And the high-schooler responds to her innocent advances with just the kind of teasing she loves. Again, observing the interaction of the children and adults, we are reminded of the rich gifts which family friendships offer. In gratitude, we keep and ponder this lovely summer in our hearts. September Little Eden again, and again we stow our gear in Lakeview, the cabin assigned to us, and to which we have become so attached that we almost feel it is ours for these few days each summer. As we unpack, the Professor and I are amused by a contrast which never occurred to us until today. Fourteen years ago, when we packed for our first visit to Little Eden, important items besides clothes were diapers, rubber sheets, bottles and nipples, cans of SMA, small treasured toys for two and four-year olds, children’s aspirin, a thermometer, picture books, washing supplies.... Now the necessities of life include ball gloves, swimming trunks, razors, deodorants, combs, billfolds, pegged jeans, and suntan and sunburn lotions. We are quite aware—when we pack for a trip—that we are in a new era of family living. A few afternoons on the beach, a few days of renewed acquaintance with these fine people who make up our college family (but with whom we scarcely speak during the year, such a large family it is, and such a busy one), and then back to the opening of another school year. For a while it seems that God has made the days not quite long enough; but after a few weeks the mountains of washing have been removed, more peaches and tomatoes are stashed away on the shelves of the fruit room, the initial excitement of new teachers and new studies has died down, those first awful book-rental bills are paid, and, sure enough, the days are just about the right length after all! One can almost do what needs to be done in one day again, without feeling martyred. 176 On the Corner 1962 Few areas of our lives these days are free from the pressures to react as the Joneses do. The houses and furnishings we buy, the food we eat, the music we listen to, the political party with which we align ourselves, the brand of religious expression we use, the books we read! It’s not just that we feel the pressure to buy, to eat, to listen to, to vote for, to read what everyone else is buying, eating, listening to, voting for, and reading. But we also feel the pressure to react to all this, or to manufacture reactions, like the crowd. Probably most of us conform more than we think we do, but I’ll risk appearing a stupid and uncultured member of the unwashed masses when it comes to smiling and bowing over some of the current best sellers! Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools may be the “long-awaited first novel” of a great writer, and it may head the bestseller list for months. Yet, having read it, I find myself unable to stretch the imagination enough to think of it as a “great” book. Ah, for a glimpse into the future, to see what literature will survive this “Age of Fools.” It’s always a letdown to have the table spread, the kids in their best clothes and company manners, and a sort-of-special meal waiting, and then to discover that there are no guests. Still, the annual Venture-inFriendship which our congregation sponsors for the new students is a good idea, even if, like today, not enough students turn out to furnish all the hosts with guests. We do a bit of searching in the highways and byways with no success. On some days the woman on the corner might rise to the occasion and proceed to make out of it a gala affair for the family. But tonight, for some reason, she eyes that white, white cloth with concern. “Go ahead, Mom, take it off and put the old red-checkered one on,” suggests one boy. “We might as well enjoy our spaghetti, if we can’t enjoy our guests.” There’s nothing like a little learning to open new doors of concern and action; Mamma is back in school again—to the delight of the youngsters who wonder what her grades will be. My choice of a course in social work was made because of a vague idea that maybe, sometime, I might want to work in this field. But in the stimulating class sessions I am finding that any mother or housewife could benefit from a greater knowledge of the “helping process,” which is the heart of social work, and by acquaintance with community resources. Then there are always the new insights which a little study inevitably initiates. I heatedly explain a new concern to the Professor tonight. He smiles and suggests that maybe I should forget about a profession, and just take occasional classes in various fields, in 177 Story of a Family order to get Involved about Conditions—and produce Militant Articles. The woman on the corner says it isn’t funny, but as a matter of fact, there are some articles she’s going to write—and soon! To find oneself teamed up with an old friend on a retreat mission was an exciting prospect—especially since the friend happened to be the lady on College Avenue. As usual, I found my friend’s combination of saint and court jester a delightful one. It’s exhilarating to realize that the roommate who awakens you with the proclamation, “Well, you’re welcome to the bath room; I just saw a spider precisely the size, of myself walking up out of the drain!” can a few hours later speak words that light new fires in the spirit. And then there were other delights in those two golden days in the lovely wooded hills of Friedenswald, with our G.C. friends at their women’s retreat...sharing over simple meals, in quiet corners, at the scheduled meetings ... giving to and receiving from each other out of the bounty that we have received from other saints, living and dead . . . feeling conscience quickened, concerns deepened, responsibility sharpened ... meeting new friend, old friends, friends of friends, relatives of friends, and friends of relatives ... listening, loving, discussing, laughing—all this was retreat. TO KEEP AND PONDER: a few lines from a birthday book which I have just finished reading. Rose Macaulay write that just knowing a friend is offering the prayer, “In manus tuas illam, Domine, commendo,” in her behalf, lights a candle for her in the dark places of the spirit. I know what she means, for I too have seen the glow of that little candle on dark nights. And I wonder if there is any prayer one could ever pray, for anyone, any time which would contain such depth and breadth as this: “Lord, into Thy hands I commend her (him, myself).” October The bright blue days of this October were crammed with hours to remember: a daughter’s ninth, and her floppy doll’s first, birthdaysdemanding two cakes of course ... a rich session in Modern Literature at Faculty Wives’ Meeting, by one of those experts whose presentation is all the more delightful and stimulating since she sincerely does not believe herself to be an expert ... afternoon tea in our living room with old friends from Idaho-land of my happy childhood . . . a farewell for a sorely-to-bemissed family, celebrated by a South Sea Islands dinner; result-a sense of loss in our community, but a new recipe (Hawaiian curry) for my files! ... another evening of impromptu folk music, complete with our favorite 178 On the Corner 1962 Swiss yodeler, his root beer, and our pizza ... the freshness of young life all over the place-the children’s friends, student groups, Sunday school classes-ushering in another season of school fellowship Potlucks! Fascinating, frustrating potlucks! Even the ordinary one can ruin an appetite by confronting one with a new decision at every step. Which of the five or ten meat dishes shall I sample? Which salads? Desserts? But last night our potluck was even more confusing. The Home makers featured a salad supper, and we were faced with choosing from nearly one hundred salads. By the time I had passed up and down the tables, feasting my eyes on those elegant edible objets d’art, indecision had dulled my appetite. Just as well. I like potlucks. I know they can serve a purpose more important than mere nutrition. Yet there is something about them that always puts me off a bit. As I grow older, I feel somehow ashamed, apologetic, around such an abundance of food-as if I should be asking forgiveness of hungry millions. And though I know that our canceling out of potlucks would not feed those persons, still there is something slightly revolting about such flagrant plenty. Even so, I keep attending them, though I do it with uneasiness. For I have known it to happen often that a miracle of meeting can flower more easily between people who break bread together, espe cially within the fellowship of the church. I like to keep all the windows and doors open, in case that Grace should visit me. Hoping to learn something new for my own use, I went to hear an amateur dulcimer player tonight. Although it was disappointing to find that the performer’s range of techniques was even more narrow than my own, it was a good evening. The lady was charming; her voice, a lovely lyrical soprano which outdid her dulcimer playing, made us all wistful. (I’ve often felt it must be so freeing to be able to soar away on a good high soprano!) Most interesting was her explanation of the difference of theme in Negro spirituals and White spirituals. The White spirituals, she says, are expressions of pioneering people, and generally speak of forging on to something better-moving to a more satisfactory place. (ExamplesWayfarin’ Stranger and I Will Arise and Go to Jesus.) The Negro spirituals, products of an enslaved people, repeatedly call for deliverance in the present situation (Swing Low, Rocka-My Soul, etc...). The idea makes sense. I want to explore it further, to see if her observation is valid. 179 Story of a Family The Old Woman Who Lived—on the corner had such a bad cold (her first in years) she didn’t know what to do. So, for a day, she took to her bed. Seeing how the household falls apart when you’re unexpectedly out of action for one day is enough to strike terror into the heart of any mother. What would they do if I’d really have to leave them? The possibility was sobering enough that every morning since that day, my first awakening thought has been one of overwhelming gratitude for continued life and strength to care for the family. Who wants to return to his carefree, joyous childhood? Not I, even though I’m sure it was, over-all, an unusually happy one. What we seem to forget, over the years, is that little troubles can be mighty big when you aren’t equipped to assess their importance. A little boy can’t get his homework done. His mind just isn’t working tonight. Hours have gone by, and he is still sitting, staring at his paper. You finally wake up and ask the right question: “Is something troubling you” and receive in answer the agonized wail, “Oh, I have lots of troubles.” But which is the one that is keeping him from studying? He finally gets it out—the G string of his violin has broken! All day he has worried, fearful of telling, because this is his first experience with a broken string. He doesn’t know that it isn’t a major expense item. The relief in those eyes, when he learns that musicians are always breaking strings, that this particular string will cost his parents only a few cents, and that his big brother will replace it before the next practice period at school—the relief, the wonder, is a beautiful thing to see. And he settles down to finish his arithmetic in ten minutes. Childhood— carefree? We all felt quite Laura-and-Mary-ish today when we awoke to the Big Snow. One young thing suggests that maybe it’s going to be like The Long Winter—snow and cold and blizzards from October to May! But the heavy snow which turned our town into a delectable fairyland was gone after one fantastically lovely day during which cameras were clicking in rose gardens where the last roses of summer were vivid against the snow. Oh, well, we weren’t ready for winter anyhow. I suppose the time will come to us, as it has come to others, when the drastic change of seasons will be too much for us. But as of now, we do not envy our friends in Florida and California. We would vote for the variety of the northern Indiana climate any day. 180 On the Corner 1962 TO KEEP AND PONDER: Those moments after a women’s meeting of some kind, when you, the last guest, are saying a gay good night to the tired hostess; then suddenly something unexplainable takes place, and you both drift to comfortable chairs . . . to talk. Some hours later you find yourself saying a quiet good morning, and you go away unto the darkness, a lighted candle within your spirit, and sensing the flicker of an answering flame from her doorway. November The Public Sale is an institution under whose spell I have never quite been able to come. Perhaps I have my mother to thank-or blame-for that. While other householders exclaimed over the bargains they collected at “The Sale,” my mother would remain silent. Her comment to us later was always to the effect that it was a good thing if one was able to pick up a needed item at a sale, but that nothing, however inexpensive, was a bargain if you did not need it. And so, while other people filled their attics and basements and garages with bargains, we lived with relatively few possessions. (One of my priceless memories is that of helping to sort over the handful of my mother’s “things” only enough to fill a few boxes in a corner of a room.) At various times, however, I have gone to sales hopefully in order to find specific items which I thought we needed, only to be completely discouraged. Yesterday I made one more try, standing in the freezing drizzle for hours, and emerging with wooden feet and one small item which I could have bought downtown for only a few cents more, and without giving up my entire precious Saturday morning. Farewell to thee, O Public Sale) What is a “gifted” child? According to the current academic usage, the term could hardly apply to any of our children, thinks the woman on the corner. But there are gifts ... and gifts.... What about the child whose sense of justice will not permit him to take advantage of another child, and who will speak up against injustice wherever he sees it? What about the child with spontaneous compassion for all who are sick, hurt, deformed, humiliated, disappointed, left out? What about the child with inner resources which make it impossible for him to be bored with his own or another’s company? Who feels no need to rely on canned entertainment for his pastimes, and who seems to assume that you use the resources you have to produce the effect you want? What about the sunny child who believes everybody to be likable, and makes generous allowances for them when they are not? What, indeed, is a gifted child? The woman on 181 Story of a Family the corner joins with every woman in realizing that the degree of spiritual and emotional giftedness which a child has is not necessarily related to his being in, or out of, “the accelerated group.” Today I finished Francois Mauriac’s A Woman of the Pharisees. Mauriac, in my book, is one of the finest of the modern novelists. This is the fourth of his books I’ve read, and I want to read more. How refreshing to find a novel which develops a religious theme in depth; how tragic that most of the so-called “Christian novels” rarely do this. It would seem that almost any story, however poorly written, which uses the “right” vocabulary can pass for a Christian novel while books which develop great Christian themes in subtlety, depth, and with real artistry are passed by because they do not conform to that vocabulary. Even in journalism, we might do well to remember the warning of Jesus: “Not every one who says Lord, Lord... In spite of the largeness of our local congregation, the opportunities for real fellowship are many. Today was one of those special celebrations which have a way of binding people to one another, no matter how large a group they comprise. It was the thirtieth wedding anniversary of our pastor and his wife, and the open house in the fellowship rooms gave us the chance we wanted and needed to express the appreciation we feel for these two who are continually giving themselves to us as servants—God’s and ours. We have lit our first Advent candle, and so are formally ushered into the annual blessedness of the Christmas season. Personally, I feel it is a great loss that we tend to neglect almost entirely the church year in our brotherhood. No wonder we wail about how Christmas and Easter have been taken over by commerce—when we ignore the spiritual preparation which Advent and Lent could give us. Every day is holy—we know that; but as long as we do give special emphasis to the traditional “holy days” of the Christian church, as long as we join the rest of society in such preparations as gifts and turkey for Christmas and new clothes, eggs, and ham dinners for Easter, we might well make some spiritual preparation beyond that of the multitude. There is something about an unseasonable day which makes it an unforgettable experience. Today—the 30th of November—we had one of those perfect, golden, September days. The quality of the weather 182 On the Corner 1962 somehow changed one’s entire outlook. Neighbors meeting each other on the sidewalk exclaimed to each other over the wonder of it; clerks in stores seized upon it to bridge the conversational gap at the cash register; housewives changed their plans for the day. The woman on the corner gazed out of her open kitchen window and thought how like grace is an unseasonable day) You can’t ask for it, you dare not plan for it, you will not receive advance notice of it. It is simply, suddenly there. And you —you merely stand with open hands and receive it, with gratitude. TO KEEP AND PONDER: the pleasures of the hours spent with our Novem ber guests: a young medical student who delights the man on the corner with his live interest in the Old Testament; a long tableful of nephews and nieces, their girl friends and boy friends, all of whom happen to be in college here at the present; a young family from the Elkhart Seminary and our friends from the Negro Baptist Church there; our old friend in the psychiatric nursing-teaching field who drops in to eat soup with us, and to give us news of his family and his work in California; our favorite guitar strummer and his friends, celebrating the occasion of his senior voice recital; Aunt Beth, combining business (picture-taking for the family Christmas greeting) with pleasure (talk over the dinner table); our Bible study group in a farewell meeting with its members who are leaving for Saipan; and—a rare treat for us—a house brimful of authentic relatives participating with us in a Thanksgiving! To all these we are in debt, for they all have poured added riches into our already full family treasury. December Our month of Christmas opened with quiet and simple joys: the College Orchestra’s December concert; the first gift, a little candle, offered lovingly to our youngest from the chubby hands of our favorite two-yearold; evidences of a growing maturity in this perplexing matter of what Christmas is really all about. No doubt about it, every family is always in a state of flux. No Christmas can be or should be like the last. But sometimes the changes are more sharply defined at a given stage of the family’s growth. This year we are suddenly aware that we no longer keep Christmas with “little” children. Lovely it was, while it lasted. Lovely and hectic and noisy and exhausting! But now it’s over, and we don’t wish it back. This quiet (well, comparative quiet), this added thoughtfulness (a sprinkling, amid plenty of selfishness), this ability to reflect and evaluate (once in a while), this is the now of our family’s life, and we accept it gladly enough. One of the tall ones observes that for the first time he 183 Story of a Family doesn’t really care whether or not he gets any gifts. His youngest brother adds that he still cares “but it eases off a little every year.” If there were an item from past family Christmases which I might wish to retain, it would not be the prattle and excitement of the preschoolers, nor even the special atmosphere of the house on the hill where most of our young-family life was lived. I think it would be the reading together of the December issues of the Sunday edition of The New York Times. Somehow, the pages devoted annually to “The One Thousand Neediest Cases” brought Christmas into perspective in a way that nothing else has since the time our subscription was discontinued. Each year the gaiety of our Christmas season was tempered by the knowledge that for thousands this same time was a time of suffering, of tragedy, of pain, of separation. Perhaps we would not fret so about our inability to “keep Christ in Christmas” if we would go easy on the candle-poinsettia-openBible motif, or that of the stars and the quaint, clean Wise Men and shep herds, and recognize instead the bitter motifs of the sword, the full inn, the unattended birth, the death of the innocents, the hasty, furtive flight. This is the First Christmas that “The One Thousand Neediest Cases” recalled for us. And we needed to remember. For many families we know, Christmas is a time of reunion, of traveling annually to grandparents’ homes, with festivities and gifts shared and enjoyed by all the relatives, and with children going to sleep on Christmas Eve in a bed other than their own. We can guess that such a Christmas would have its own set of rewards, but we have never felt denied because they were not ours. Except for one far-away Christmas when two little boys and their mother were sheltered by a generous auntand-sister, while the man of the house was building some walls and a roof for us, we have always spent Christmas in our own home. We like it this way. We know there must be advantages in traveling to grandfather’s house, but since we never had this privilege, we shall leave to those so privileged the task of enumerating the advantages! Christmas at home means, always, a sort of open house. Whether or not people drop in (a vanishing grace-both to drop in, and to happily receive those who do so!) there is somehow the aura of special readiness for guests-more so than at other seasons. On our corner this is one time of the year that neighbors may get together, even though we neglect each other shamefully during the rest of the year. Maybe it is morning coffee 184 On the Corner 1962 in the kitchen-just two women talking about Christmas meanings or preparations. Or two colleagues and their wives drinking tea together— late, after the children are in bed. Or two families meeting together. Christmas at home brings the satisfaction of being able to receive out-of-town guests: perhaps one’s own relatives; perhaps friends, passing through on their way to family celebrations; perhaps vacationing students. Relieved of the necessity of hurrying to get the family ready to go someplace, one can more serenely offer hospitality to those who are on the run. Christmas at home means participation in the special services of our own congregation. The ranks are thinner, but the spirit is warmer than ever, and somehow responsibility strengthens our responses. Those last few days before Christmas were made easier for all of us this year by one of our guests, a medical doctor who specializes in amateur magic tricks. Not only did he keep the younguns popeyed with the wonders he casually produced from nowhere, but he was responsible for a rush to the library the next morning. With the aid of two armloads of books on magic, the pressures of waiting for Christmas were considerably eased for the younger set-and incidentally, for their elders. For nearly all Christmases past, the children in our family have found it intolerably difficult to keep a secret. If the clumsily wrapped gifts for Dad and Mom did not announce themselves, they had been announced long before by tongue slips and urgent hints almost as obvious as when one tiny boy looked up from his blocks with shining eyes and burst out, “I’m building somethin’ an’ it’s for you, an’ I won’t tell you what it is, ’cause it’s a secret, an’ it’s a GARAGE!” But this year, another evidence of the fact that we have gone a long way since those days, was the children’s gift to their parents—a real surprise: china, of the pattern for which the woman on the corner has long wished. Christmas dinner is simple, but because of the lovely blue-and-white plates, it has an un-planned-for elegance. (Not that we didn’t love all those pencilholders, bottle-vases, plaques, book ends, and calendars of Christmases past!) TO KEEP AND PONDER: Looking back over these few weeks, this month, this year, the years of my life, then taking second looks, more deeply-I still come out at the same place . . . with, simply, gratitude. Gratitude not merely for the good things that have been given and that have happened to me. Looking back can be a terrifying and humiliating experience, if one 185 Story of a Family tries to be even a little bit honest. And with the good and the beautiful there are the remembrances of loss, of death’s separations, failures, of willful sins, twisted loves and hates, cruelties, indifferences, jealousies, regrets, and the appalling list of omissions. But through it all there is that thread of grace which, remembered, leaves one awed and grateful— grateful for the whole fabric of one’s individual life. I can believe, reflecting now, that there is truth in what a chapel speaker told us last year-that the opposite of hate is gratitude. On the Corner 1963 January If the first day of a new year is any indication of the character of the coming twelve months, we on the corner shall find our lives full of surprises, noise, and sweetness; and the woman of the house is going to be hard put to find a moment to sit down and commune with her Creator, her self, nature, or even with a good book. First there was a late, late arising as is customary with us after a watch night; then unexpected dinner guests, arriving when we were still in dusters and robes, but as welcome as they were unexpected. Shortly after lunch Aunt Beth blew in with her gear—this time the ingredients for a candy-making party. The chatter of four nine-year-old girls and the auntly instructions penetrating the downstairs rooms kept at bay any silence which might have dared to enter the house during the afternoon. Fortunately the numerous varieties of fondant sampled as they were formed into candies had dulled the edge of most appetites by evening dinnertime, and no one seemed to notice that the meal was hardly worthy of the name “New Year’s Dinner.” At the end of the day the woman of the house tried somewhat wistfully to recall something significant she may have done on this, the first day of another year. Nothing! But each of the little girls had a box of bright candy to show for her efforts and to take home to share with other members of her family. There are too many days like this, when, on first consideration, the housewife finds it hard to see anything significant resulting from her day of work. True, she has a tired back and jangling nerves, and eyes that will not stay open even for the most intriguing of books. But these are all passing. What remains? Oh, yes, they tell us that we are molding character and all that—and I can believe it. But I am comforted by the reflection 186 On the Corner 1963 that what I am doing, not only as a mother but as “just a housewife” is of elementary importance. There are scores of activities eating up the time of women which, while good, can be dispensed with quite easily. One can skip the next Homemakers’ meeting without drastic results. Committees and appointments can be dropped or postponed. Going to the hairdresser is hardly a matter of life or death. But a dependent child must be fed and clothed and loved —by someone. In this realm, postponement, refusal to participate, or irresponsibility is a sin against a person. It is at this point of reflection that I usually end up thankful for the most rewarding and exhilarating job in the world! One more special New Years’ treat which I hope is a harbinger of other such meetings in the year to come: an hour spent with two aunts—my mother’s only remaining sisters. Out of six wonderful women these two are left to remind me, every time I see them, not only of my own mother, but of the rich heritage which can be transmitted by godly, courageous people. If there have been any of our forebears who left an appreciable amount of money to his survivors, I’ve never heard of him. But long lives of Godcentered goodness and wholesome values have netted an inheritance which has enriched us all—unto the third and fourth generations! When good friends from afar stop in for a two-day visit, one first of all wonders how we can possibly cover all the conversational ground in such a short time. When the stay lengthens—because of illness—to ten days, then, in spite of the discomfort of the ailing guests, there are given to us long evenings over teacups, with leisure to really visit. And though we had a hard time convincing our guests that we were glad they had succumbed in our house instead of in less roomy houses along their journey, we cherish the memory of those quiet evenings of talk. The understatement of the year so far was our departing guest’s deadpan remark: “Well, at least I can say that I know you folks better than I ever did before.” Let us hope that time blurs such knowledge! Who are angels unaware whose entertainment we should take care not to neglect? Today, answering the doorbell, I listened while a young man offered me the latest Jehovah’s Witness leaflets. Beside him was a tiny child, skimpily dressed, bare legs exposed to the January cold. I accepted the papers, listened to his explanation of what I should be sure to read, thanked him, and closed the door. But long after, I could not forget him. Why hadn’t I asked them in? Offered them coffee and 187 Story of a Family milk and cookies? Obviously they were cold, and one could almost see in their faces the impression of continued verbal rudeness from good people who opened, then quickly shut, their doors to them. My mind went back to the many times in which I have heard good women tell with obvious satisfaction how they “handled” such people from “heretical sects” at their doors. But it gives me pause, now. What is Christlike about telling off a Jehovah’s Witness? The memory I prefer to keep, and which I want to remember oftener for my own instruction, is that of a neighbor who invited such a person into her home, drank coffee with her, and listened to her without argument. Here, I thought, was love in action. Lord, forgive us for all the angels we have turned away from our doors with coldness and denominational loftiness! Tonight at Bible study what began with a discussion of Psalm 23 drifted into an examination of some of the “plaintive” psalms and ended with a discussion of the worship services at our own church. Coming home, we decided that it was truly a therapeutic session, resembling the structure of the very ‘plaintive psalms which we had discussed—a structure including complaint, querulous petition, dissatisfaction with the status quo; but, finally, a staunch affirmation. No wonder so many people have found comfort and instruction in the Psalms over the ages— their writers were so unashamedly human! TO KEEP AND PONDER: the influence, over the years, of various psalms (and phrases from psalms) on my own life. How glad I am that memorization of the Bible was not “played down” when I was a child! How many the times when I would have had no words to express what I deeply felt had I not these words of men and women who were mortal as I am mortal, but who thirsted as I thirst, for the living God! “O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. . . . Whither shall I flee from thy presence? . . . The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? . . . God is our refuge and strength, a very present help. . . . Take delight in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart. .. .” So these fragments, memorized by an immature, uncomprehending child, rise now to the surface in times of need. Maybe all the jots and tittles aren’t in place— they point me surely to the Source of strength and comfort; I have never found them to be misleading. 188 On the Corner 1963 February Though she is approaching middle age (according to the verdict of the younger generation) and though homemaking seems to her the most creative of careers possible, there are still some household tasks which this housewife has not learned to love with a great, overwhelming love. For instance, ironing. For twenty-odd years I have explored various ways of trying to learn to accept this task with at least a minimum of joy. Music hath charms to make me a somewhat less savage ironer at times, but not always. The most successful gimmick I have discovered so far is to iron while I visit with friends, either at my home or theirs. This gray morning was made special by a trip to the farm. While my aunt hooked her rug, I ironed, and managed to get rid of a good bit of accumulated pique by visiting with one of my favorite conversationalists. As usual, she sent me home with some good books, good cheer, and great stacks of freshly ironed shirts. Having accomplished so much so pleasantly, I added a further fillip to crown the day that began so somberly: after the younger children were abed my whole evening went into solving the new Saturday Review Double-Crostic—the first I’ve begun and finished in months. Ironing out the mental wrinkles can be exciting even in solitude! For years we have been the smiling, grateful recipients of a series of rather nice, rather useless little articles executed in the industrial arts room at the junior high. Today we reaped the harvest of all those smiles and gratitudes: Son No. 4 brought home his project—up to now a secret. It was an entirely useful, quite respectable, indeed, to our eyes, beautiful step end table which was put into immediate use. We are not asking that it hold together forever, but for our lifetime we expect to use it—a table made valuable by a boy’s patient work and loving assessment of our needs. If one concentrates on the progression of ideas instead of the necessity of standing rooted to the spot for ten minutes, he may find that the pastoral prayer can be quite helpful in worshiping. But we have been conditioned to expect worship to be effortless: hence the billows of hostility which one encounters on the subject of long prayer. And though the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing undoubtedly had a point when he kept repeating that “short prayer pierceth heaven,” there was One greater than he who often prayed all night! 189 Story of a Family Advice to all my good friends who love music and love the church and who have not read Erik Routley’s engaging book of essays, Music: Sacred and Profane—read it! The first swim of the season—wonderful! I’m afraid I’m a hothouse creature—the only swimming I really enjoy is that in a well-modulated indoor pool. Now for eight weeks we faculty wives have our chance to swim once a week at the lovely high school natatorium. Once again I’m glad to have decided some time ago that I wasn’t too old to take the plunge and learn to swim after all these years! Tonight’s exhilaration is one that accompanies no other kind of physical exercise I have known. Afterward, bone-tired, a few of us eat sandwiches together and have a re freshing meeting of minds over our food—a triple renewal! “Familiar as an old mistake and futile as regret.” This line from E. A. Robinson’s poem, “Bewick Finzer,” keeps recurring to me under rather painful circumstances. It is an awkward thing to be so gifted with hindsight as is this woman on this corner. This morning I can see that even though I thought I was too weary to move last night, it would have rested, even re-created me to go to hear Serkin play. What a tragedy! Even the musically inert were delighted; apparently it was the outstanding concert of the year! The hindsight works in other ways, too. I can always think of simpler, more exciting food I could have served to the guests last night, and more unusual ways of entertaining them; a really appropriate gift clearly the Right One—instead of the one I spent hours choosing, then bought in lukewarm acceptance. I can always think—later—of ways I could have showed my affection to my visitor at the time, instead of waiting to formulate it in a note after her departure. Then there is the clever rejoinder to that remark which caught me off-balance, eliciting only a silly “Really?” from me at the time. Oh, how good at repartee I am—the next day, when there is no one but the pink kitchen wall to hear it. But my latest regret strikes deeper. Today, in a supermarket, I saw a woman, obviously poor, washed-out, disheveled, pushing her cart with the interference of many similarly poor, washed-out, disheveled children who constantly plied her with questions as she attempted to shop. (Now let me say here that I have vowed my next Militant Article will be entitled “The Supermarket Mothers.” I have a deep anger concerning the brutal treatment of little children in stores and supermarkets.) And so when I saw this mother smile warmly as each child assaulted her, and when I 190 On the Corner 1963 heard her answer them in a gentle and loving tone, I gave her a deep bow (within myself, of course) and I knew I should go to her and tell her that she was a special kind of person. I didn’t, though. Why can’t I shake that verse from the Bible which has been dancing in and out of my consciousness ever since? “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” TO KEEP AND PONDER: The light in a child’s eyes as she reads to the family from the Bible which arrived in the mail today. Being the only namesake of her late grandmother, she has been favored with this special gift: she need not even change the name on the flyleaf, for it belongs to her, too. She finds the psalm marked by the ribbon. Was it Grandma’s last reading place? And in good fourth-grade style she reads for us as we remember with love this woman of energy, courage, and humor. March We’ve had a game of old-fashioned anagrams, the youngest and I, while the other two (of the three who make up the younger set) finished their homework. Now we’ve settled down to an hour of reading another Lawson book. This is the kind of evening I love most—perhaps because it is so precious, so rare to come by, these days. And one is aware that very soon there will not even be an occasional night like this, for there will be no one left to read to. When that time comes, hope I shall be able to rejoice in the fact that the cozy reading evenings are being repeated in six homes of the next generation! Nights like this I hate to leave home and I only pray that I may come back alive! No, it’s not because of the weather. But what a muddle this household is in right now, with drawers, closets, files, cupboards, and corners all needing attention so badly. Lord, when you blow that trumpet for me, please make it sometime when my poor relatives and friends won’t find such a mess to clear out! (As usual, I’d like preferred treatment.) The sister of a dear friend visited the house on the corner today, and with a sort of wonder, I made the discovery that here, too, was potential for deep friendship—a friendship never really developed or explored because of my close relationship to the other sister. The words of David Roberts came again to me with new force: “Every friendship is entered into at the expense of others equally worthy....” 191 Story of a Family What a glorious week—a stay-at-home week full of answering urgent mail, cleaning out drawers, sorting clothes into piles, washing, ironing, and being what I am often called, but seldom qualify for: a busy housewife. For several days out of a year, I find this quite invigorating: special cleaning and sorting projects have a glory that the daily grind lacks! The funeral today of our friend’s mother seemed to me to be the highest type of memorial service. The simplicity, the dignity, the Christianity of it! One could wish that those who plan services for our church leaders would respect their greatness by just such a simple memorial service. The greater the man, it seems to me, the less needful are eulogies. Remember FDR’s funeral? Would that ours might be as Christian! I have often said (and others have said it before me, and along with me) that when it comes to the setting for real communication, nothing quite takes the place of eating together. How much, or what kind of food is unimportant. From a cup of tea to a full-course dinner, it is often the “breaking of bread” together that performs the miracle. This month has provided many such meetings for us. There was my neighbor’s beautifully served luncheon for a few friends. (“Why, it was only soup,” she remonstrates. Only soup—served with inspiration, with a flair which I could attempt day after day, and never approximate!) The memory of a picture-pretty table set for three before the floor-to-ceiling window in a friend’s country home, and presided over so graciously by herself, is inseparable from the memory of the happy meeting of minds among the three friends who surrounded that table. And in the tiny dining room of our Elkhart friends, there was the table loaded with cornbread stuffing, turkey, and all the rest—plus those green beans cooked as no white person could ever cook them. That table we remember too, for across it there was good fellowship, and four-year-old Robin, the gorgeous, outgoing child of one of the ladies who helped prepare the meal, didn’t let any color barrier get in the way of showering her charm on us. She saw a lap, jumped into it, wound her arms around my neck, and forthwith began to confide the family secrets to her new friends. (We hope it’s a sister, Robin!) Again spring vacation has arrived, and here on the corner we have again marshaled forces. Since I have needed to do some writing—and quick—I suggest that each child take charge of the household for one day. They respond with a minimum of complaint—even a little enthusi 192 On the Corner 1963 asm. After all, the prospect of being free for four days is worth one day of responsibility. One young thing, at the end of his day, watches wonderingly as his mother, home now, and taking over the reins, puts the evening dinner on the table. Finally he cries out, “Mom, I really admire you. Why, I flew around like a chicken with its head off, just trying to get hot dogs made for the kids for lunch. You do it as if it wasn’t even work!” Nothing like a bit of responsibility to encourage appreciation! Today, in the seminary lounge, we watched Hisako and Toshi and Yaguchisan giving a shortened form of the Japanese tea ceremony. It was a beautiful thing—each act having a meaning, a symbolism of its own. I could not help thinking wistfully, “If only we had one such ceremony.” But Americans are not noted for their ceremonious approach to life, I guess. Indeed, as I told my neighbor, I think the only ritual I ever executed with similar ceremony was the daily bath for the baby! TO KEEP AND PONDER: the beauty of another kind of tea ceremony. And perhaps this, for us naturally unceremonious Americans, is the kind we should oftener cultivate—just taking a cup of tea with a friend. Today such a little ceremony was held in the kitchen of a friend. There were mint tea, chilled blueberries, crisp crackers, set out for the three of us, and familiar talk among us, strengthening the deep ties that bind “our hearts in Christian love.” April Although we ourselves had only one spring baby, it always seemed to me that spring was the ideal time for these young shoots to make their appearance. This April we are alive again to the joy of welcoming another baby, again a ready-made one, as was our last one. There are plenty of advantages that go with getting a baby of this kind. even though in the end they go from us before we have a chance to see them flower into toddlers, schoolboys, adolescents, and young adults. In the first place we know before the arrival whether to shop for a boy or a girl; and shopping is a pleasure, with a credit voucher in hand, a pleased daughter of nine to help in the selection of clothes, and more physical facility than has the usual mother-to-be on the day of the arrival of her baby! At midnight, then, he comes to us, a mite of a boy, already a veteran sufferer, having received more medical attention in his few weeks of life than our whole family has received in our accumulated lifetimes so far! His responses are 193 Story of a Family few; brain damage, they tell us, is probable. But life is there, strong and persistent, and we are eager to see what t.l.c. can do. In spite of the fact that the woman on the corner felt equal to the task of caring for a new baby, she was due for a few surprises. In lifting a baby there are certain muscles used which may have become a bit out of tone after six years of disuse. Incredible that such a tiny burden should make a big strong woman so tired! And, although he is the best of babies, the additional hours of laundering, bathing, and feeding put an unforeseen strain on the household time-budget. In the first few weeks of Life-withBaby, the mountains of unironed clothes for the rest of the family steadily grow higher, and the morning song of the big boys becomes, “Mom, I need a shirt!” But with the patience of the family, the kind help of friends who drop in to iron while they visit, or to visit while I iron, and with the settling of routine, I am convinced that I can still manage a household containing a baby, in spite of my advanced age. The Great Days of April come and go more swiftly than usual this year, it seems ... birthdays of friends ... a son’s seventeenth anniversary marked by a special breakfast on the day preceding, a special dinner on the day itself, and a special lunch on the day after. (At this stage food is to him the highest expression of love, and so for once I disregard the budget and try to fill him up.) ... Easter Day, spent quietly at home with a simple dinner and our usual guest ... the twentieth anniversary of our marriage, this year celebrated with old college friends who—back there in the dim ages—were married a week after we were. In ways we did not anticipate, our families have come together at one time and another throughout the years, and now this night we celebrated with a gala dinner prepared by their daughters and a gorgeous seven-layer tiered cake executed by our son. Having moved to a new community, one is never so aware of the strength of old friendships as when a friend from the old home drops in for a fleeting visit. (Somehow, this kind of visit always seems fleeting, whether the friend stays an hour or a week.) Perhaps there is no surer criteria of friendship than the nature of this meeting. With some people, no matter how often we see them, we need to try constantly to think of something to keep the conversation rolling—something to bridge the gap in time or interest or values. With others, even ten years with little contact leaves no stitches unraveled; we take up our relationship naturally—not 194 On the Corner 1963 necessarily where we left off, as many say; we may find that additional stitches and patterns have been added in the interim, without our being aware of them. This April has been a time of new realization of the peace of friendship, when three women from the hill country have again walked into my life with all that freshness and singularity of their persons which has endeared them to me over the years. Our favorite two-year-old has got himself a butch haircut, and seems suddenly twice as handsome as he was before. I have always been fascinated by the role of hair in our feelings toward a person. I’m not the first woman to admit that when the son’s or husband’s hair starts creeping down toward the ears and under the collar, one can become more easily irritated with them—and the same is true of the daughter with bangs inching past her eyebrows. Many are the times that I have been alerted to the necessity of getting out the barbering equipment by the recognition of my own feeling of impatience with a shaggy child. As a young mother I would often look at a newly barbered child and see as if for the first time what fine eyes the boy had! Again it is the jumping season, with sand everywhere: embedded in the rugs, grating underfoot on the bare floors, pouring from the cuffs of slacks and from the dark interiors of smelly sneakers. Socks are black (“I’ve told you and told you not to jump in your socks”) and dingy boys leave in the bathtub a dingier ring than usual. This is the story yesterday, today, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—every day until the final track meet is over. Oh, dear! But the grim woman with the broom is just as pleased as the grimy boy when she reads in the paper that he has walked off with the honors. She is happy to sew the junior high boy’s track letter on his red sweater. And she celebrates both the end of the season and the victories by making May baskets with her daughter—more a matter of her own nostalgia than of the child’s insistence. TO KEEP AND PONDER: the meaning of life, in whatever form it is given. Friends, hearing of the efforts made to keep our baby alive in those first few weeks before he came to us, and of the possibility of his retardation, wonder why such effort is made in “such a case.” But who is to decide what the case really is? Who is to say that the life of the child of the unmarried mother is less precious than the life of the child of a president? Or that a certain retarded child might not have as distinct a mission as a certain 195 Story of a Family “gifted” child? Who is to say? Who is to decide? Who is wise enough to play God? May Again the Mother-Daughter theme takes over, and one wonders how many more years will pass before this fad expires. True, the MotherChild theme is ageless and agelessly beautiful, but I should hate to think that the rash of mother-daughter functions will continue throughout my lifetime and on to eternity! Along with all that is good and beautiful about a special day and special occasions honoring mothers, there is so much excess, hypocrisy, and downright idolatry involved that many of us mothers would be grateful to forget that such a day exists. One of the most subtly corrosive effects of such adulation-run-wild is that we ourselves get to believing that what they say about us is true, and that we are perfectly deserving of all this honor! As for me, I need to remind myself that the honoring of a parent by a child can no more be conjured up by a special day than it can be bought by favors and bribes. As for my own mother, let me continue to honor her quietly by reflecting on the quality of her love as I experienced it, and by being a more loving person myself—all 365 days of each year of my motherhood! One of our favorite poets, in the first decade of her professional life, having been bitten by the Mother’s Day bug, is agonizing over what she hopes to be an appropriate tribute. “My mother she is sweet and just” comes easily, but then follows a long period of eraser-chewing and staring into space. Finally a hopeful idea sends her hopping to her mother with the question, “Mom, what does lust mean?” The mother suggests that a better way to use it might be in its adverbial form such as “she sang lustily” or something similar. The poet is a bit crestfallen and thereupon asks for a series of words that might rhyme with just. The mother, having in her own youth been a veritable rhyming dictionary, complies. The result is that the poet says she’ll love her mother sweet and just, even when she turns to dust. Lucky woman! Having poked all this fun at Mother Celebrations, I must confess that each May finds me saying yes to at least a few invitations to participate in such occasions as mother-daughter breakfasts, teas, and banquets. Long ago The Professor gave me some advice which I’ve tried to follow in such cases. “If you think a subject is hackneyed, if you hate what a certain observance or ceremony has become, then it seems to me that the best 196 On the Corner 1963 thing to do is not to turn up your nose at it and refuse to participate, but to take the opportunity to fill it with new meaning—to plant the seeds of change; to ask questions; to say not the things one is expected to say on such an occasion, but to cut through to what is real and mewing.” Sounds fine, but the idea’s easier to carry through on paper, and I admit that I usually fall short of such intentions. For instance, one evening this week when I settled for an after-dinner medley of “Songs of My Mother,” accompanied by dulcimer and daughter. Though I’m pretty sure that some of my good friends would term my efforts as schmaltz—and they’d be right—never-the-less, it was fun, and the kind audience seemed not to miss the usual Mothers day Platitudes. Now is the time of the year when the last school festivities are crowded into a few weeks. For the college community the big social event of the spring is “Spring Fest” and we wonder, as we watch the passengers file down the gangplank into “The Sea Around Us” Banquet Hall, who is enjoying it most—we faculty waiters and waitresses, tired old things in black and white, or the students, all dressed up in their festival best— and their youth. As here and there the faculty couples fondly spy out their grown sons-or-daughters-with-special-date, I’m convinced that the Tired Old Things have the edge on the Bright Young Things. With commencement a week away, the agenda of The Professor’s wife is clear: wash curtains, clean rugs, sweep, dust, wash windows, snag and destroy the cobweb lace. I remember the days when fall and spring house cleaning were Sacred Institutions relegated to October and March. Even my mother, who was no traditionalist, would get the Dirty Eye about then. But mine—if I get it—comes mainly when house guests are expected, and so the latter part of May usually finds me on a cleaning binge. One thing I like about house guests is that they force me to do a bit more thorough cleaning job than usual—a luxury for which I otherwise cannot take time. This year our special commencement guests are one of The Professor’s brothers and his family. If these brothers alone were the only community resources we had, we should not fare too badly. Except for medical and legal care (and even there we might be able to cull some amateur advice) our needs would be taken care of quite adequately. Farmer, plumber, electrician, teacher, mechanic, builder, salesman, businessman—you name it, we have it. And preachers! Preachers of all sorts — preacher197 Story of a Family bishop, preacher-pastor, preacher-teacher, preacher-missionary, preacher-professor! But this year we are especially grateful for the mechanic-electrician-businessman. And not just because he healed all the electrical diseases of the household. That was only the bonus. The fellowship with one of our favorite families was the underlying joy of those days spent together. Where is the woman who used to read at least one good book a week, to say’ nothing of half a dozen which she would’ promptly forget? Lost in the shuffle of housework and baby care, I suppose. But why worry? This too is another stage of life to be accepted with grace, like the passing of the Family Reading Evenings, I suppose. (It is harder than I thought it would be—this acceptance of the fact that the family is in a different stage of growth in which togetherness is not as important to the child as respected privacy and individual development.) I once thought it impossible to live creatively without much reading. The days pass, and maybe the woman on the corner is not living creatively, but stomachs of unbelievable elasticity are being filled, questions are being discussed, if not answered, laughter is being shared, clothing is washed and mended, a baby is loved. And there is always the possibility of sacraments being created out of such. TO KEEP AND PONDER: Despite the fight with Mother’s Day, I still like women, am glad to be one, and I take great comfort in the fact that Jesus apparently valued women for their spiritual insights and good company, as well as for their knack at raising children, keeping house, and setting a good table. June The rare hot days of June envelop us, and we panic at the thought of an entire summer of such temperatures and such humidity. Our common sense tells us that it would be a rare summer if such were to be the case. But under the stress of the heat our common senses warp, and we cannot imagine respite to he possible. And that reminds me—where feeling is concerned, how bound we are to the present moment! I smile to recall the words of George Macdonald (that unique nineteenth-century Scottish clergyman and man of letters) concerning “two silly young women”: “They had a feeling, or a feeling had them, till another feeling came and took its place. When a feeling was 198 On the Corner 1963 there, they felt as if it would never go; when it was gone they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, they felt as if it had never gone.” On one of the hottest of noons a missionary family eats lunch with us. Interesting conversation, good fellowship, and the high ceilings of our old-fashioned house tend to minimize the heat, but the moment we step outside to say good-by we are assaulted by a merciless sun and a searing wind. One day we hope to sit around our friends’ table in Israel, and perhaps there too we shall find the weather threatening to be a topic of conversation! The pace of life on the corner changes somewhere around the middle of June. Up to that time there is the close of the school year, commencement at the college, the post-commencement flutter, followed by Bible school. But by the middle of the month a new schedule has been inaugurated, new patterns of living begun. The oldest leaves home to work with a construction crew. The second spreads wings and flies away for a summer of VS. Dishwashing, practicing, paper routes, babysitting, reading, and baseball become the order of the days for the younger set. The food budget for the first time in years actually stretches over the full two-week period, since the two most voracious appetites have been removed to other tables. At times there are even leftovers! What a lovely, carefree summer, thinks the woman on the corner as she muses over a table set for six. Letter writing is only one of the skills (out of the few I ever possessed) which I have allowed to atrophy through disuse over recent years. Sad— because it is one with great possibilities for good and for both the giving and receiving of pleasure. Reading those first letters from an absent son, I am catapulted once again into the wonder and excitement of the personal letter. But not everyone has the gift for writing a truly personal letter, one which amplifies and expresses the self within, and reveals facets of the mind and soul of which we had not been aware. For years I’ve said that I feel sorry for any couple who have not carried on at least a part of their courtship by correspondence. But after having compared the dutiful, brief postcards of one son with the effervescent, expressive epistles of another, I’m convinced that people should not be judged by their letters, nor constrained to write them. As for the postcard-son, I think I’ll suggest that he just telephone us several times a year after he leaves home—then at least we’ll have some idea of what kind of person he has come to be, 199 Story of a Family what his interests are, and how he is getting along in the world. But we shall watch the mails for fat letters from our extrovert. Eating out occasionally seems to be “the thing to do” for couples or even families in the Gracious-Living set. It is almost a status symbol, the status depending upon the degree of nonchalance with which one can say, “Oh, we’re eating out tonight,” and the degree of knowledgeability concerning good eating places and gourmet tastes. I have nothing against the custom. I, too, enjoy eating out. Yet—probably because of the way I was brought up—I have seldom been able to “eat out” without a pang of something like remorse for spending (or having spent on me) so much money for one meal. I can remember my first meal “out.” I was sixteen years old, and my brother and his wife (with whom I was traveling) took me to a little restaurant where we ordered a full meal: roast beef, mashed potatoes, and the rest, including the coffee cream in the dear little bottles. (I’ve always been fascinated by miniatures.) It was what our twelve-year-old himself with very little experience in eating out, might call a crumby meal in a crumby joint. But to me it was wonderful, and even the cockroach found under the crust of my brother’s pie didn’t seriously affect my judgment of the meal or of the whole experience. (I had never seen a cockroach before, nor read of their habits.) I sometimes recall this “First” on those rare occasions when I am eating out with a friend or a group of friends; and in the moment after the food has arrived, that moment of “the sanctified headache” (as one of our preachers has put it) I usually pray that somehow the quality of the fellowship might justify the expenditure—whether or not I am paying for the meal. Tonight, eating with my Main Street friend who is a summer widow, I felt that this happened; that the waste was a holy waste strengthening us both. Our new picnic table, constructed by the men and the boys as an advance gift for the woman’s birthday next month, was christened tonight on our neighbors’ premises in the royal setting of a steak barbecue. Since neither of our families is in the steak-serving bracket, this was a rare oc casion for both; but of course we all knew that we could have had just as good a time together if the steaks had been hamburgers. TO KEEP AND PONDER: the gratitude and contentment which comes of having at least one friend who feels no need to wait for an invitation, but who any time of the day or night may call and ask if you’ll be at home in case she drops in! Every household should have at least one such 200 On the Corner 1963 friend, we decide, as we talk together in the dim living room on this hot evening. She has brought a fan along, and we have turned off the lights in the room, in order to make it seem cooler. But the three of us can still see each other and we can still find much, besides the heat, to talk about as we sit here. Life today is not impossibly rushed and complex and impersonal as long as friends can still gather together in the leisure of quiet conversation on a June night. July Between the lush green, the summer-newness of June, and the slightly soiled and dusty sameness of August, comes July, the lively peak of the summer. At least this household on this corner seems to think of it as such. The commencement scramble, followed by a quick orientation into Bible school or summer school, the early weddings, the finding of summer employment are over. By now we have settled down into a summer routine which has passed the hectic stage of adjustment, and has not yet come into the doldrums or the fever of getting ready to go on that last little August trip northward. The budget often rights itself during July, the last school expenses over and the heavy back-to-school drain still a vague Thing away in the distance, unworthy of present concern. One of the young things came home from his music lesson today with a new book. Sitting down at the piano immediately, he launched into an hour-long sightreading reading session, which is anything but standard procedure around this place. Soon other, younger members of the family were calling out, “I like that!” and “Play that again.” (One more unprecedented reaction.) Even prosaic old Mom, a musical conservative, found herself stirred by the vitality of the sound coming from that room. “If this,” she mused as she listened to the boy playing from his new Jazz and Blues book, “if this belongs to a new generation of sound, then I can’t be completely set in my ways because—because I like it! It speaks to my bones!” Are there people, I wonder, whose goals are so clear, whose selfknowledge is so complete, that they need not periodically reassess the direction of their efforts, as I seem to need to do? The many-faceted modern way of life seems to crowd me into a corner every once in a while. A distracting busyness starts whirring around in my insides. These warning signals remind me that I must again go “down into the stillness,” as Thomas Kelly advises, to rediscover my true role. Then I can return to 201 Story of a Family the surface level of life, armed once again with that kind of direction and purpose which can say “no” or “yes” to a day’s demands with freedom and responsibility, and without regret. A rereading of Psalm 139 and of Kelly’s chapter on the “Simplification of Life” (A Testament of Devotion; Harper and Row; 1941) are always effective in helping to put the disordered cabin to rights, and to reset the sails. Having surveyed the babies in the crib room at the church on his way to check on the one belonging to us, the boy was in a reflective mood. Trying to read him, I expected any moment to hear, “When you see those babies who are all right, it doesn’t seem fair that our baby has to be like he is.” But what emerged from our junior philosopher was quite otherwise: “You know, it’s strange how, after you’ve looked at other people’s babies, your own baby always seems cuter.” The extra squeeze given at that point to the little fellow in my arms might be interpreted: “Mentally and physically handicapped you may be, but not, if we can help it, will you be shortchanged on love!” Scarcely a birthday passes but I think miserably about how unimaginative and thoughtless are my gift-choosings. Here is a date—and what are the considerations? Why, two: How much money can be spent? What in the world would he/she like? To be sure I rarely give without wanting to give, but oh, for that touch, that “gift” of instinctively lighting upon the uniquely personal, the right expression of what is felt about this person. Here is a large box of home—frozen corn—our family’s favorite vegetable. Here is a housedress slipped to me, not on a birthday, but weeks before, at a time when for special reasons it was needed. Someone heard and remembered, last Christmas season, when I artlessly admired their Adventskrantz, with its German-made spindle and stand. Now here, in midsummer, is an identical spindle and stand—not representative of a great outlay of cash, true, but of an exorbitant thoughtfulness. Tea with a friend and her small son (whose contribution was “Happy Birthday” sung lustily over the teacups)and a new cup and saucer at my own place to take along home. Would I ever think of such a simple, yet appropriate gesture? These and other kindnesses have blessed this day, yet left me sad. For who, in the presence of grace, can be really happy, reflecting on his own gracelessness? A reunion of the northern Indiana offspring of J. S. Shoemaker was a new treat for those qualifying. At the college cabin we met to eat potluck (oh, 202 On the Corner 1963 these Shoemaker cooks!) and knit together again neglected relationships. It was a little disconcerting to realize that some of us, though living less than ten miles from each other, had not met in the entire three years since our family has lived here! TO KEEP AND PONDER: After-reunion thoughts: “Why don’t we get together oftener?” In the richness of such fellowship one is almost aghast that somehow our lives are frittered away by activities so much less soulbuilding. We know much about people, but enter into relationship with them so rarely, and so gingerly. Again I am impressed by The Professor’s explanation of the Biblical meaning of the word “know.” Making my own free translation, I reflect that to know a person is not necessarily to have knowledge about him, to be able to call him by name and be recognized by him, but to enter into deep and meaningful relationship with him. Lord, help me to see those about me whom I should know! August In spite of being a full-blown summer month, August always seems to me an anticlimax. It is at this point that we begin to say in the Biblical manner, “The summer is almost gone, and we have not done what we had hoped to do.” The green of the earth is losing its luster. Often grayed with dust, the leaves hang limp in the heat or, if it is an unusually dry year, begin to curl and dry prematurely. This August the lawns need no mowing; the young boys begin to complain that they have lost their jobs, and once again they stand in the bread line for allowances. The freedom of vacation is beginning to pall, in spite of the fact that there are still those special days at Little Eden to look forward to. But there are also all kinds of fulfillments in this hot, dry month. Blueberries are ripe, and we pick them on an early morning, getting a thorough drenching from the dew on the bushes, but pleased with the results of our effort. Yel low transparents become incomparable applesauce. Picnic suppers with friends in the back yard make the warm days worth enduring. And the big boys gather home from their summer jobs—brown and muscular, and somehow more appreciative than usual. And so we like August too. There are in each of our worlds, I suppose, a few people with an uncanny sense of timing. What spiritual wells do they tap, from what inner disciplines arise their impulses to say and do the things which, for the people who benefit from them, seem to be said and done at just the right time? For me, here on the corner, it was one of those nondescript 203 Story of a Family days—a day filled with “dailyness.” Then she came to my back door with a basket of vegetables from her big garden—large plump tomatoes, green beans, corn—all treats that our gardenless family rejoices in. Her ex planation was that it involved a fair exchange—the bounties of her garden for these bits and pieces of so-called writing. Hardly fair, I think, but I accept this bonus payment with gratitude. Something new has come into the afternoon at this point; an ordinary day has been redeemed by a deed of grace. Summertime, which brings to the mother of a large family unprecedented volumes of cooking, washing, cleaning, and confusion, and leaves little opportunity for “creative solitude,” still has its rewards. One of these is that a baby-sitter is almost always available. This means that Mom can accept an invitation to afternoon tea or morning coffee, do her shopping at times convenient to her, browse in the library, or meet with a committee, without wondering what to do with this baby. This morning a cup of coffee and delicious little sandwiches of brown bread were embellishments to fellowship with a lady who has retired from missionary service in the technical sense only. She is even now busy discovering new mission fields—writing, intercessory prayer, visitation, friendship. I come away from her tiny apartment feeling somehow younger and braver than when I left home. Almost as young and courageous as she is! Let us now consider the virtues of the three-tined fork. Can it be that some women keep house without it? You may have your electric skillets, your automatic grills, and teakettles and can openers. But if you have no three-tined fork (handed down, most likely, from your grandmother) how can you manage? How do you know if a potato is done to the proper degree of mealy tenderness? Or that the apples under that piecrust are thoroughly baked? How do you layer peaches in your mason jars? In my cupboards there are not many old or lovely things. My parents were pioneers, and most of these accompaniments of gracious living had to be left behind when they went West. True, I have my mother’s butter dish with the domed cover; an oak-leaf plate of heavy stonewear which was Grandmother’s; also—through the kindness of an aunt—Grandmother’s pan-of-all-uses, in which her lettuce was washed, potatoes peeled, and apples piled for slicing into pies. Still, the only one of these precious inherited items which is in daily use at our house is the three-tined fork. Sometimes I pick it up and look anxiously at the slender steel tines, so thin and delicate now that one of them is slightly bent at the top. And 204 On the Corner 1963 I wonder what I would do if this queen of my kitchen should conk out. (Forgive my paean of praise, all you readers who have not been blessed with such a fork! Those who have been, will understand.) These are the years we could never envision when the children were very young. Thinking back, it seems that it was difficult then to really grasp the fact that someday these boys, the managing of whose boots and snowsuits alone could almost eat up a given winter day (to say nothing of the wiping of noses, tying of shoes, assisting in the bathroom)—that these boys would someday be fully contributing members of the family! But here they are—cheerfully using their vacation after a summer of hard work to paint the walls of our living and dining rooms. With an ease and precision of which I was never capable, with high spirits exercising themselves in rowdy singing and vehement discussion of baseball averages, they do the work in record time, and the new blue on the walls lifts all of our spirits. Then too, there are now two extra chauffeurs in the family: the mother is no longer in the position of having to drop everything to take this child here, to pick up shoes at the shop, to meet someone at the train or airport. Better drivers than she ever was are now in command. Mothers of little boys, take heart. Enjoy them now, of course, but don’t let anyone try telling you that you’ll always look back to this as the best time of your life. Though the plot may thicken as the pages turn, the characters get more interesting all the time. And more helpful. TO KEEP AND PONDER: Not the old question, “Why did it happen to us?” but a more frequent one at this house “Why did it not happen?” Once more the boy who jumps on thin ice and swings from treetops and pumps his wavering bike in front of oncoming cars has escaped serious injury. Why did he climb the tree? He doesn’t know. How did he fall? Well, the top of the tree broke off, unaccustomed to one hundred pounds of sturdy boy swinging from it. Why didn’t his neck hit the porch railing as he fell? Why didn’t he make a crash landing right on the sidewalk beneath? Some boys do. . . . This one, after having the wits scared out of him, being winded, bruised, and burned a bit, was soon walking around. Several hours later he casually returned a tape measure to the tool drawer. He had just been to the top of the same tree, this time measuring his fall in a more scientific manner than had been pursued by the gathered family and neighbors. Oh, well, it was only forty-five feet! 205 Story of a Family September Perhaps even more than January, September is the month of beginnings. Once in a while now, the heat is broken by small rains. The excitement of school makes a joyous bedlam of the first week after Labor Day. Children in new clothes—those bright reds and blues, redder and bluer than they will seem at any other time of the year—flit past the kitchen window on their way to good old Parkside. There are new household routines, new mealtimes, new neighbors. A new crop of college freshmen floods the first Sunday morning worship service of the school year. Table conversation takes a new turn as the college boys report on new profs and classes, and The Professor talks about new courses. For the high school, junior high, and elementary set, there is much discussing of teachers and schedules. And for the stay-at-homes, there is quiet, blessed quiet—sometimes for as long as three hours! With all this newness there comes inevitably a lift of the spirit, a liveliness of purpose, which inspires a certain housewife to make some new lists of Things to Be Accomplished, Fall and Winter. But ah, the lull before the beginnings! After weeks of hubbub with the voices and the desires and the needs of many claimants constantly bombarding the eardrums, there is a sudden silence. The family has gone to Little Eden. The old neighbors have embarked for Africa, and the new ones have not yet arrived. The baby, even, does not co-operate in alleviating this depressing silence—he is the kind who doesn’t cry! I turn on the record player, pick up a book, do the few needful chores, wonder what has happened to the person who used to love solitude, and gratefully accept a Sunday dinner invitation with Aunt and Uncle in the country. Now they come, the scholars, with their lists of supplies which they must buy or rent. Having moved here from a state where these expenses are included in the taxes, we have never ceased to be overwhelmed by the disastrous financial havoc worked by starting out six children in a new school year. We check and double-check the lists of the Parkside youngsters, sorting out crayons, rulers, scissors, erasers, and pencils left from last year, in order to salvage enough to be able to cross a few items, at least, off the list. And we wonder if we will ever be fortified to the extent that we do not wince every time a schoolboy comes in the door with the song, “I need a dollar [or five or ten or fifteen] for lab fees [workbooks, towel fees, textbooks, regulation swimming trunks, health insurance ...].” 206 On the Corner 1963 We are only grateful that the college boys, whose staggering incidentals would be the killing blow, can reach into their own summer savings. Entranced with new textbooks (not for long, of course), inoculated with new intellectual enthusiasms, all the family is reading these days— all except the maid-of-all-work. Not that there is no time. She has most of her evenings free; but the necessary energy to tackle a stimulating book has long since fled, by that time. For years now she has been planning to read Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. She sees it now on the shelf, makes a mental note to try to get it read before she is fifty, and sits in her corner of the sofa, nodding over the latest Double Crostic. When one does not, like many good women, go to work to help the husband through school, she must think of little ways to affirm that, after all, she is behind him. It goes without saying that such a woman will take over the burden of the household to a greater extent than most women need to do. But there are times when she wishes she could do something directly related to his ordeal. This week I found such an opportunity— typing the first draft of The Professor’s dissertation. I know, and he knows, that I will not be asked to do the final typing. But in a first draft, it does not matter too much if the a’s and e’s, the apostrophes, periods, commas, and strikeovers stand out in boldface because of a heavy finger. And who but a wife would feel free to shape up what she considers an infelicity of style, or to substitute one word for another which she thinks is less accurate? (And who but a loving husband would let an ignorant woman have so free a hand with his manuscript?) “How long,” thinks a certain woman, “it has taken me to realize that whenever I find myself wanting a certain thing terribly, I must resist buying it, even if I can find the money for it! Invariably these change —chairs, pictures, rugs, clothes, whatever, the desire for which carries with it so much emotion—invariably these things, possessed, leave me empty. I even come to hate the sight of them. Wait it out, I tell myself. Wait it out. And when the heat of desire is cold, when you can have or have not with equal joy—then make your decision. Which reminds me of the wise words of George Macdonald to the effect that he would always like to be welcomed into his rooms by flowers in summer and by a glowing fire in winter. But if this were not possible, then he would like to think gratefully about how nice they would be—if 207 Story of a Family he had them, and go about his work without regret. “Contentment,” he concludes, “lies [not] in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight the world holds, and be content without it.” Now comes our “last supper” with our weekly dinner guest, and then an ocean will separate us for a while. Miss these world-travelers, we must. We can’t help it. But we also feel the stirrings of excitement, knowing that a part of us will be taking in the new sights and sounds and ideas of a different and far-off culture. TO KEEP AND PONDER: The joy of having friends throughout the world. This is a pleasure which few of our grandparents had. But now there is hardly a family we know who does not have some relatives or friends living and serving in the far comers of the earth. As for those of us who stay at home, we do not really stay, for we are a part of all we love, and through them we share a worldview. October “October’s Bright Blue Weather” is a living poem which I always look forward to reading in autumn. Each year the accompanying illustrations are varied. Sometimes the colors of the leaves seen from our corner are vivid and wild reds, greens, yellows, oranges, vermilions. Then another year they may be mostly golden—shimmering like flecks of gold leaf against the intense azure of the sky. But this season—is it because of depression or loneliness or lack of imagination and creativity on my part, or has nature gone sullen?—the weather is sharp and overcast, the leaves curled and dull. Hardly one golden day to remember) Oh, well, there’s always another year—or so we hope. There is likely no community, however small, which does not have local attractions to interest the most curious of its constituents—if they would only venture to explore them. Yet we usually prefer to go farther from home to see the sights. We’ve read and sung of Mississippi River lore, and felt a certain satisfaction in actually crossing the Ole Man Himself: We’ve visited the Hershey factory and the big West Coast fish-processing plants. We’ve haunted museums in Pittsburgh and Chicago. It has never occurred to us, though, to explore the possibilities of an extended rowing tour of the Elkhart River-though some of our friends have done this and have found it exciting. Penn Controls, Conn Instrument, and Miles Laboratories are all 208 On the Corner 1963 too close to be inviting) And only today, on the repeated advice of a friend, did we actually pack up the younger children and drive out of town a few miles to visit what seemed not too promising—that well-known species, the Local Museum. But Hubbard Hill Museum was a pleasant surprise. Scuffling through big yellow maple leaves—the only pretty ones we saw all fall—we made our way through the clean, rustic picnic area, wishing we had brought Sunday afternoon lunch along. We entered the neat white house attached to the neat red barn, and thereafter we were lost for hours in a past, informative, interesting, and—in spots—delightfully funny to the children and vividly nostalgic to us. A faithful reader of John Ciardi’s column in Saturday Review, I yet must wince often at his arrogant and cutting manner. And though I find his thought stimulating, I had entertained the idea that it would be difficult indeed to like the man. Curious, though, what an actual flesh-and-blood confrontation can do to add dimension and proportion to one’s concept of a person about whom he has heretofore only read. After listening to his lecture in the Union Building, both we and our after-lecture company agreed that—say what you will about this man’s roughshod tactics in literary criticism—he’s a Great Big Man, and we liked him. This brings to mind what Paul Tillich observed in one of his sermons. Often, he says, in effect, he read; the theological views of a man, and feels nothing but antipathy to him and his ideas. But in meeting the same man face to face, a new dimension is added, and both immediately recognize each other as a Christian brother. I suppose that many who disagree with what Paul Tillich says would find the same surprise awaiting them if they were to meet him! In preparing for a guest there are many aspects which can be controlled by the hostess. She can make sure the house is clean, the food well prepared, the children motivated to look forward to the pleasure of the occasion, and that she herself is relaxed and rested enough to bring her best self forward. But what about preparation for being a guest? Is this a completely passive role? After having a number of special people in our home this month, we have been impressed by how differently guests contribute to the homes in which they have been entertained. At times— and such are, fortunately, rare—the house looks suddenly very shabby and cold and uninteresting after a guest leaves. At other times, glowing with the warmth of the one who has just left, we return to our rooms to see beauty where we had not seen it before. And neither time could we 209 Story of a Family put our finger on what, exactly, those people did or said or were, which made us feel rich or poor. Perhaps one difference is that while the one guest might have given us much valuable information about himself and his work, he basically conducted himself as an “honored guest,” not really seeing us, our children, or our home. The other, though hitherto a stranger, was alive to us as soon as he entered the door. Not only did he courteously answer our own questions about his life and work (answered them, but did not elaborate tiresomely upon them) ; he noted with pleasure the lovely complexion of our “special” foster child, wondered who wove our stair carpet, expressed curiosity about the contents of the casserole, and commented on the great differences in the facial features of our five stairstep sons. Whereas the one guest came to us as an old friend and left a stranger, the second came a stranger and left an old friend, and even our undistinguished house somehow soaked up the aura of his generous spirit. It made me do a lot of thinking about the kind of guest I want to be in the future! Two nights on the train, with a day of speaking and visiting in between, made a good, nutritious sandwich for this rather housebound old lady on the corner. The occasion was a WMSA meeting in another state and an invitation to speak on one of the few topics which I can discuss with any real sense of abandon—and mission: Gifts from the Saints. And while my task was to pass on a few of those gifts, at the same time a great many other gifts came my way: gifts of renewed friendship with women, friends not seen for years; of meetings with new friends and even, to my great surprise and delight, a sister (inlaw); hospitality in a young pastor’s home; pleasant contacts, recipe-exchanging, and listening which were all a part of meeting with ordinary—and extraordinary—people on the train; and an appreciative family welcoming me into a clean house. Gifts from the saints) TO KEEP AND PONDER: In a complex age can one’s life be simplified? Can I know who I am and what my central tasks are? When to say yes and when to say no? Is it possible not to be the victim of pressures (what others are doing, what is expected of me, what people think)? My gratitude to saints alive and saints gone before for the answers to that question. All the way from Abraham to Trueblood, their answer is one: the single eye, the pure heart; centering down; making the one big decision in the light of which one will find all minor decisions more or less automatic. This is 210 On the Corner 1963 still both the most effective tranquilizer and the finest stimulant I have yet found. November Now comes what has long seemed to me to be the most nondescript of all the months —with March running a close second. Indeed, these two months have some similarities. Bareness usually prevails; in the case of November that first exciting beauty of snow rarely appears until toward the end of the month—if then. In March the pretty white stuff is usually gone, or else it is clinging only in dirty patches here and there. In both months we are in for some sharp, even bitter, weather—new to us in the fall, but irksome by March when we’d like to be thinking Spring Thoughts. The woods, the fields, and the streets of our town are as unattractive as they ever get; one must depend on an inner cheer—nature certainly doesn’t overstimulate us! But even November is redeemed by the great American holiday, Thanksgiving. And March ushers in Lent and sometimes even Easter. Then too, perhaps we need the dull and the bare and the sharp and the bitter to remind us that even so are the seasons of life—not all, and not always, beautiful and stimulating and shiny. So, come ahead, November! Studying The Imitation of Christ with a Sunday-school class of alert college students, I recall that in previous readings. I was somewhat puzzled by its continuing popularity throughout the centuries. But at this reading it seems perfectly understandable that saints, living and dead, have mentioned it as being a decisive help in their pilgrimage. A great man has said, “Beware of receiving things too soon.” Surely there are times when spiritual truth will come alive to the seeker; but the seeker cannot be greedy, eagerly attempting to digest what his system is not yet prepared to receive. And who can plot the right time for the reading of this or that? Each person has his timetable which he himself cannot read in advance. Whether or not he is ready for the revelation of a given truth may not be dependent so much upon his maturity as upon a hidden sensitivity that has developed because of events or insights beyond his control. In spite of all the nasty things said and felt about November, this particular month continues to bring new surprises and pleasures. Now on our own street, some five blocks townward, our aunt and uncle have come to live from their country home. Much as we enjoyed that home, we 211 Story of a Family find its spirit transferred intact to the Eighth Street house, and we hope that being this close will not make it more difficult—rather than less—to get together. I tend to be skeptical, remembering how little real visiting we two sisters did while we were neighbors on the hill for thirteen years. But still, visiting or no visiting, it was nice to know that she was there. And we are finding that there’s a special kind of happiness in having relatives on our street. Just when the woman on the corner was beginning to feel sorry for herself for being confined to the house; just when she wondered if she still had friends; just when the November doldrums had set in with a vengeance and she was doing exactly what von Hugel described as the most “meanly deteriorating” of all pastimes - “sulking through the inevitable”; just then, all in one day, three of the most cheering and stimulating women I know happened to drop in. It wasn’t prearranged; none knew that the others were coming, but the effect was that of the best kind of a surprise party. Later, though, washing the coffee cups, I did wish a bit wistfully that the party could have been spread out over three different days. There is one nice thing (among many) about having “celebrities” in the home. When the housewife surveys her domain in preparation, she knows that nothing she could do to make her rooms look a bit cleaner or less worn or more sophisticated would impress her guest, who has been entertained in mansions! So she can shed any such anxiety and cheerfully go about her usual preparations—vacuuming that rug which still has a bit of pile here and there to prove it was not always mere woven jute, setting the table as she does for the family on Sunday noons, and forgetting about any special instructions to children who just might disgrace their parents! This time our guest (the current L-M performer and the most delightfully natural personality we have yet to meet) more than justified our refusal to “fuss.” From the minute she walked in the door she was one of us, even discovering at once our favorite standing place—the kitchen register. She asked for a cup of tea with no apologies. (A good hostess would have offered the tea before she asked; a good guest, she felt free to ask!) From start to finish here was one who made us all so comfortable that we forgot she was a guest. Later I had to admit to The Professor that the only kind of people for whom I find it really difficult to prepare are “the climbers.” No matter whether they’re climbing socially, culturally, economically, spiritually, intellectually—the effect is the same 212 On the Corner 1963 and recognizable in a minute; no effort made in their behalf seems quite adequate. Dark clouds moved over our land this November. Recording the events of the four terrible days in a journal, I found myself wondering how people will feel about them by the time this is read—next November. For four days time seemed to stand still. Not only a nation but a world seemed united in an unprecedented closeness. Tragedy ordinarily brings out the best or the worst in people; what impressed us as we watched the real-life drama was how much nobility did emerge from quite ordinary people, how much dignity from usually undignified media. Perhaps there had not ever before been a death in which so many people of one moment in time felt so personally involved. We too, in our little corner of the world, sorrowed. TO KEEP AND PONDER: It is not only the intimately known and loved whose loss by death becomes personal loss to us. We felt genuine grief at the death of a President we had never seen. And when we later heard that C. S. Lewis died the same day, we again felt that a brightness, a vital presence, had gone from our world. We recalled the loved Narnia books and resurrected them, determining to read them through again, aloud, all the way from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to The Last Battle so that the younger children, too, could be blessed by this great man. And those of us who still recalled that final judgment scene could picture its author striding up the last hill to look into the face of Aslan with radiant joy. December Now that there is December, let there be snow—snow that snarls the traffic and slushes the streets for the shoppers, true, but that also adds that indefinable “presence” which we here in the North Temperate Zone come to associate with the Christmas month. And let there be gifts—gifts given without anxiety to please or to impress or to reciprocate. May parents have the good sense to refrain from overgiving to children who already have too much of things and too little of love and training. May grown children search for the gift of time, of effort, or of understanding , attention which they can give to aged parents who neither desire nor need the buyable gifts. May good people 213 Story of a Family everywhere turn their attention and their children’s attention to giving where there is need and to limiting their own wants. What can measure the worth of a gift? Here is this wooden spoon—an ordinary kitchen stirring spoon, but with a difference. For it was carved from a carefully chosen, properly aged walnut bough by a friend. Having spent an evening in our home, sharing our folk-singer guest who was a native of his own state, he wanted to say “thank you” and said it in the finest way possible—the work of his own hands. Even apart from the fine craftsmanship, the beauty of the grain, and its unusual contours, this could never be an ordinary spoon! And let there be friends—friends whose opening and closing of our front door usher in the most precious and lasting gifts of the season. Let there be times for the morning coffee, the afternoon tea, the late-night dessert, the Sunday evening sandwich supper — all those occasions for fellowship which we have been meaning to make all year but for which we were never quite willing to sacrifice. A string quartet practicing in the living room provides sweet cheer on an early December afternoon.... The voice recital of a niece occasions a celebration which fills the house to bursting, but college students gladly sit on the floor so long as the tarts and punch reach them there.... A brace of our favorite sisters watch in amusement as we open the gifts of Christmas Eve, and next day they and a stay-in-town nephew and his wife help to eat our bona fide Christmas dinner; the materials which, turkey included, were the fifteen-year-old’s gift to the family and friends. ... So they come and go, neighbors and friends, and again we are forced to assess our true wealth. Let there be silences—cessations of mad preparation in order that we may, perhaps, hear the angels sing ... or meet our true selves ... or see Christ in “one of the least of these.” At my first initiation to a ————— Party (attended in spite of principles to the contrary) the ladies present are asked to write what they would get if they were given a hundred dollars. Somehow, I thought that since these are mostly church ladies, their first concerns would be for someone other than themselves. To my horror, most of the lists sound like 214 On the Corner 1963 children’s letters to Santa, and somehow this revelation puts a damper on the whole, evening—a damper not removed by the utterly silly games and the long lists of orders following. At risk of making enemies among good women who enjoy these selling parties, I shall only say that though we are all different, both in our needs and in our responsibilities, it would seem that attendance at these parties, like everything else to which a woman gives her time, energy, and money, must be taken “down into the light of the Presence,” as our Friends would say. This little purifying exercise might not prohibit us from attending the next party that comes along, but if honestly done it will surely make a difference in our evaluation of the entertainment there, in our list of wants and “needs,” and in the total of our purchases. And if we are dealers ourselves, might it not make a difference in the quality of “entertainment” we initiate at those parties? Let there be books at Christmas! One of the most exciting facets of our childhood Christmases was the packages from Mamma’s relatives in the East. The charm of Aunt Stella’s packages was that we never knew what they contained. The charm of Uncle Charles’s was that we always knew—books! These childrens’ books are today still treasures to me. Ragged, backless, soiled, they represent the great joy of my childhood. Here is the first book of poetry I ever owned, received at the age of eight. I still say, “Thank you, Uncle Charles,” every time I look at it, for it opened a wonderful world which I’ve been exploring ever since. And somehow I think that I could never feel quite right about a Christmas without a new book in hand—the newness, the promise, the sight, the smell, the texture of it! And let there be holy waste! The youngest runs to me with a horrified look: “Do you know how much he (her brother) paid for your present!” She whispers the sum, a monumental one to her and to her mother also, who knows about how much this boy had saved from his paper route. When he comes home, I chide him, only to realize that this exciting new venture in giving is a veritable alabaster box, and I am a Judas to carp at him. I see it all: roaming through the store, he spied it. He hadn’t been looking for it—but here it was, the fabulous, the extravagant, the perfect gift. Having seen it he could see nothing else in the store. And so he brought it home, and his earnest, “But, Mom, ‘tis the season to be jolly!” accompanied by some rapid blinking, silences me once and for all. 215 Story of a Family On Christmas Eve after opening the roaster—just what I needed!— and the tiercake pans—just what I wanted!—I open, oh, holy waste, what I had never even thought of owning—a hair dryer. And from one end of the room to the other every face is beaming, and there is not a Judas among them to remind him of how much he could have bought with that money! And, TO KEEP AND PONDER, let there be love. Let there be love which, snow or no snow, gifts or no gifts, friends or no friends, silence or no silence, books or no books, is the stuff of which a Christmas is made. For a Little Christ is no more to be found in a stable but comes to birth only in those who love. On the Corner 1964 January For years I have admitted to being hopelessly sentimental and ceremonial concerning the beginning of a new year. True, it’s just another day, indistinguishable in its physical essence from December’s day. But in its real essence (real to me, that is) it is unique in countless ways. In the normal curse of life the years teach us to value the old—old ideas, old possessions, old ceremonies, old friends and it’s not to depreciate the beauty of the old that I sing of the wonder of the new. Perhaps that wonder will always be sharper to one who has been accustomed to comparatively few new things in his life. I cannot remember feeling sorry for myself that, as a child, few indeed of the clothes I wore were new, and I have little sympathy for those mothers who teach their children by their own attitudes to wear hand-me-downs with a sense of martyrdom. My own mother gave us, early, the gift of gratitude by way of her own obvious delight in the kindness of friends and relatives who passed on to her family their good used clothing. And so to us the opening of and digging into a parcel of used clothing was tremendous excitement. I remember that thrill. But new clothes! That was a thrill of another variety. Once or twice a year there were new shoes to be sniffed at and caressed and taken to bed; each year at the beginning of school there were at least a few completely new articles of clothing—a new print dress 216 On the Corner 1964 or new pairs of long tan ribbed stockings, flat and smooth in their unworn state and without darns in the heels! There were the old joys repeated, the family ceremonies of birthdays, Easters, Christmases, May Days, and Fourth of Julys. Each year they gained in richness and beauty. But new experiences! That first long trip back East to visit grandparents and cousins never before seen! That first turn of the knob and the blare of sound from the family’s first radio! The first wondering walk through the bare rooms of the “new” old house to which we were moving.... The old ideas about the nature of life and the human condition, the old expressions of faith, the old ways of saying “I love you”—what person, knowing violent uprooting from these oldnesses, does not suffer a shock deep and more devastating to the integrity of his being than even he can realize? But new ideas! How they can give meaning to the old! If there is life, there must be the new shoots from the old vines of rooted faith and love; and these shoots are bound to be exciting—exciting in their difference, exciting in their relevance, exciting in their potential. And old friends—comfortable, predictable, cheering—gaining in mellow beauty as does fine silver—with use. But new friends! The sudden rapport or the slow dawning of understanding with a person of whom, last year at this time, you were not even aware! Beyond the barriers of age, of class, of race, of religion such beginning relationships have a way of lifting the weight of heavy responsibilities so that they may be borne with a new grace and of bringing a flush of joy into the pallor of our more listless days. Most of us must admit, I guess, that even where time itself is concerned the old takes on an increasing aura of meaning to us as we grow older, and the weight of memories both pleasant and painful has a way of enriching all of life. But—a new day! A new year! Spare me from ever losing the hope which awakes with me each morning or on New Year’s Day, no matter how dull or difficult the previous day or year has been. It is the hope that somehow today, this year, there will be a measure of meaning, of achievement, of fulfilled purpose that I failed to capture in yesterday’s or last year’s maze. 217 Story of a Family And so each year on January first I can’t help collecting my thoughts rather ceremoniously and singing a song in gratitude for newness to the God whose Spirit has a way of making all things, all relationships, all days, New. Among this January’s treasures of newness were these: A new achievement—The Professor’s dissertation is accepted, and our friends rejoice with us by means of letters and salutations and good wishes from many; a steak dinner from one couple; a check from an absent friend who orders us to celebrate; a great package of ground beef from three zany doctors who congratulate us, reminding us that “now that the ‘grind’ is over, the woman of the house will no longer have anything to ‘beef’ about.” New contacts—An afternoon of visiting with our foster boy’s grandparents in our home, the occasion being their first meeting with the little child whose welfare still concerns them, even though he is legally a ward of the state.... Weekend guests—a family in town for the Jehovah’s Witness Convention. In spite of well-meant disagreements of some good people, we saw no reason, when solicited, to refuse lodging to those differing from us. And so these two days were days of mutual respect and gratitude. We’ll let God judge as to whether or not we should have denounced their “heresy” to their faces or argued on matters of doctrine. New “little” experiences—Lon’s chicken curry, upholding our contention that the most inspired cooks in the world are men; the singing of German hymns together in Bible study fellowship and, on a later eve ning with the same group, tackling Harmonia Sacra, singing the parts as written for a delightful, though a bit eerie, effect; the reading of Elizabeth Gray Vining’s novel about a favorite author, John Donne —Take Heed of Loving Me. For these and other newnesses, few in comparison to the many oldnesses, yet so enhancing their value—for the tiny pinprick lights of joy that give beauty to a whole sky of darkness and pain and sorrow, MAY GOD BE PRAISED! February “And what are you planning that your sons will become?” our Korean friend asks us in all seriousness. We are taken aback at this frank question which no one has ever asked us before. He, in turn, is mystified by our answer to his question. Our sons themselves, we tell him, will decide what occupation they shall enter. We would not think of trying 218 On the Corner 1964 to influence them to go into any particular one of the many honorable professions open to them. We think we have stated our case well, but he sadly shakes his head. We can see that he fears for the future of our sons. “In Korea,” he explains gently but with finality, “the parents decide for the sons.” This reminded us of the country woman who would gladly have taken the responsibility of deciding the futures of these same boys. She came walking across the fields to our house on the hill to read some Scripture and to offer a prayer for our newest son. “And God,” she ordered quite firmly, “make all five of these boys into preachers” (to which the mother— who likes variety—added her own silent postscript). The youngest was fitted with new lenses today. As we drove from the doctor’s office, she stared out of the car windows in wonderment. “The world looks so much neater!“ she exclaimed. “Why, I can see every branch on the tree! I thought they were supposed to look fuzzy.” I reflected that I could write a nice little moralistic paragraph on the subject, “Reasons People Can’t See Things as They Are.” But I decided to leave it to the compilers of sermon illustrations or moral lessons from life! This all reminds me of the great change in methods of teaching “moral lessons” to children. I remember a series of books we sisters were given, years ago. My oldest sister’s was large and thin and tan with the title: Countries and Customs. My next sister’s was large and thin and green— Plants and Insects. Although these were both informative books, I now suspect that their purpose was basically the same as that spelled out in the title of my book (large and thin and red): Ideals and Moral Lessons. Today’s children—even today’s parents—would probably find such books hilarious in their obvious moralizing efforts. But we loved them—and maybe we even learned something good from them! Sometimes I wish for one shelf in the bookcase on which would magically appear the books I loved most as a child. In reading the books on such a shelf, one’s own children might be amused and bored in some cases, but surely they would be delighted with many of them. The basic qualities of childhood have not changed that much—we hope. 219 Story of a Family If a woman does not want her friends to know her age—and I have never been able to understand whyever she should want it kept a secret— she should take care not to give herself away at those times when a group good-naturedly begins to recall the scenes of childhood! Anyone who can remember the agony of making one’s long underwear fit around the ankles (under the long stockings) while dressing on a wintry Friday morning, who can recall the ignominy of having to wear high shoes when the more “cultured” were being freed from such buttons and laces, who can remember the ritual of surreptitiously rolling down one’s stockings at school where Mamma couldn’t see—anyone who remembers such things as these, and who can still recall the Lindbergh kidnapping ‘and Hoover’s election, just has to be over forty! One of the pet peeves of the woman on the corner is the segregation of ages in our modern society. Middle-aged people are thought to have little in common with young people; folks in their thirties and forties, unless still blessed by their own parents, can be almost completely isolated from those in their seventies and eighties. What a treat for me, then, to have two reversals of this lamentable fortune in one week! A college girl stops by in her little car to see if I am available to go out for a cup of coffee. Not only am I available but also terribly willing, since this is the time of day when I don’t very much like the people I love, and I’m sure they feel the same! Come Sunday, the whole family is invited to the warm little home of a retired couple who seldom tackle anymore the feeding of such an outsize tribe. This fellowship has a special quality impossible to duplicate in gatherings limited by age; and the children, who seldom talk with people the age their grandparents would be (were they here), are astonished that such “old” people can produce such a bountiful and delicious meal and be interesting to talk to in the bargain! “In this business of entertaining,” the speaker said, “by definition there must be a donor and a recipient.” But when friends share a meal around a table, who is the donor and who is the recipient—really? For the eating of a common meal can also be, and often is, the sharing of life. Though hospitality must be extended by the definite act of one person, the distinction between giver and receiver ends with that offer. To accept such an offer is also to give. That antiquated bit of politeness, “The pleasure is all mine,” seems basically false to me. What real pleasure can there be in any manner of fellowship—of friendship—if it is not mutual? 220 On the Corner 1964 Tonight the two seminary boys who ate Sunday evening lunch with us in return shared their lives with us: their laughter, their hopes, their humor, their sharp, bright, young thoughts. The pleasure was not all ours—or theirs—and so it was great. March “I have decided something,” the youngest announces with the firmness of Pooh’s declaration to Piglet concerning his decision to catch a Heffalump. “I have decided that every day this week will be a good day.” And so it was because, having decided, she proceeded to discipline herself for a whole week in such matters as leaving her room tidy and responding cheerfully to work and bedtime and practicing suggestions. How powerful is mental resolution backed by firm will) Surely the whole battle is not won when we say, “I have decided not to worry; I have decided not to be ‘busy’; I have decided that I will throw off the tyranny of ‘what they might think.”“ To make such bold assertions is not to carry them out, but it is a beginning, a beginning that too few of us often make. It takes only a very little lever to open the floodgates of memory. Today I was honored to be included in a sort of Freundschaft Quilting, even though my lack of preoccupation with, and skill in such matters is well known. But I went for the fellowship with old friends. And I did contribute several hours of stitches, such as they were. Aside from the pleasure of renewing friendship, just the business of quilting served to unleash a pack of memories long confined. Once again I was a small child accompanying my mother to the Sewing—in summer at the church, in winter at the homes of “sisters.” There was little to do at Sewings except to play with another preschooler or two under the quilt. But there was something mysterious and special about that dim playroom. We tinkered with empty spools. We lay down on our backs and tried to guess whose hands were pressed against the bottom of the quilt to test the stitches made on top; I well remember despairing even then of ever being able to stitch so fast. Sometimes we tried to guess which black oxfords belonged to which woman—and it was always with comfort and pride that my eyes were inevitably drawn to a certain pair of long, narrow, worn shoes—shoes distorted by the bunions which caused Mamma so much discomfort all her life. 221 Story of a Family A special supper guest this evening was the man who had been the evangelist in our little Idaho church years ago when I, among other children my age, “stood up.” Much could be said about so early a com mitment—almost infant baptism as it were. But what impressed me tonight was the sudden realization that however immature I may have been, however naive my stand, still it was an experience of greater sig nificance than I had realized throughout the years. For this is the one evangelist, of the many who passed in and out of the churches I attended, whom I remember with honor and affection whenever I have heard his name mentioned. And so it was a joy to be able at last to have him in our home-after thirty-four years. I have a theory that to expect too much is as great a deterrent to learning and growing as to expect too little. And so if I hear in a sermon one phrase which strikes me where it hurts, I do not ask for more. There and then I meditate on that one piercing arrow and leave the rest of the sermon for those who need it. If in a book of a thousand pages I find one life-changing idea—only one—then the time spent on those thousand pages is for me completely justified. The idea need not be earthshaking. It may be a quiet idea, a few words which spread silently into the crannies of the consciousness. For weeks now I have been living with a little sentence from Elizabeth Goudge’s latest fine novel, Scent of Water. Already I have forgotten the plot and the characters, but I doubt if I shall ever forget the remark of one person who said that there are after all only three really necessary prayers: “Thee I adore”; “Lord, have mercy”; and “Into Thy hands.” The longer I think on this, the more encompassing they seem: adoration, confession, intercession, commitment—all of these can be expressed in a few simple words. Today news came of an uncle’s death. Though I am not free to make the five-hour trip to pay my respects in the usual way, my thoughts honor him as for many hours the memories of happy days spent in his household drift in and out of my consciousness. He it was who, when I first learned to know him, lived in the brick house in the hollow—the Old Home Place—where my mother had grown up. I still remember the exciting sense of history I felt when at the age of eleven I was introduced all at once to a church full of relatives, houses my mother had spoken of in such detail that I recognized certain features 222 On the Corner 1964 as though from a picture book, the wonders of life on the Eastern farm, attendance in the very one-room schoolhouse where my mother studied. In these hours of memory vivid sensations of the laughter and funmaking around my uncle’s table return. I also remember the satiny feel of the banister of that wonderful staircase and the unmatched excitement when, at the end of a hot week spent pulling morning glories from the young corn, my uncle himself presented me with my wages—a paper dollar! It was the first paper dollar I had ever owned—so much finer in every way than our clinking Idaho silver dollars. And so the hours pass, and though I wish to be with the family who gave me so much pleasure in my childhood, I feel that the loving thoughts of remembrance are after all a most fitting farewell. Today Little Bubu and I went to Indianapolis where he was examined at the clinic of the James Whitcomb Riley Children’s Hospital. As we were directed from room to room, doctor to doctor, therapist to therapist, I was fascinated with the knowledge of these specialists. Trained to observe, each in his constricted area could immediately see things which we had not seen in a year of living with Bubu! Again I found myself wishing wistfully that there might be one, just one, little area in which I might be considered a specialist—that there might be just one small thing I could do better than the next woman! Still, I guess there are rewards in being ordinary—then at least you can live a quiet life, if you are so disposed, without having the world beating a path to your doorway and asking you to do all kinds of energy-consuming things which you really do not want to do. April The steps in achieving a goal often pass unnoticed. But when the goal is as longstanding as that of the Professor’s, every milestone along the way is the occasion for celebration. At least this seems to be the reaction of friends who, upon learning that the Professor has successfully passed the last test—the orals—go out of their way to “doctor” him right and left, even though the title has not yet been officially conferred. Of course they know and we know that the title alone means little to him. In spite of what people on the sidelines often say about the relative unimportance of a degree, we do live in a world wherein academic circles at least—a degree is a necessity. None of the degree-seekers we happen to know would put up such a tremendous struggle or submit themselves to such grinding discipline for a mere title. Sideline critics are apt to 223 Story of a Family overlook the fact that a tremendous amount of learning must take place in order to qualify one to teach. Tonight our fourth son was among the applicants for baptism and church membership. Our pastor has a gift for making such services very special. I wished, however (as I have often wished), that we had in our church a ceremony approaching in significance and beauty the Jewish bar mitzvah. This is the service in which the thirteen-year-old boy becomes a Son of the Commandment—a part of the adult Jewish community. It, as well as in the bath mitzvah (for thirteen-year-old girls), is a special service in the synagogue as near as possible to the birthday of the child. Parents of the new member also participate in this truly important occasion. Sometimes one is tempted to feel that our baptismal services in which large classes are “run through” are almost too impersonal and casual to carry the really great significance of the moment. Unlike the Jewish boys who must read (in Hebrew!) from the Torah and prepare and deliver an address of their intentions and commitment as a member of the Jewish community, our candidates for baptism need not even face the congregation at anytime and need only murmur an “I do” or “I will” in response to the proposals put before them. To me the really discouraging aspect of all ties is that such a ritual is considered so sacred (by virtue of its having been for so long “the way we’ve always done it) that there seems little hope of changing the basic pattern. Our pastor did say, though, that he hoped sometime to arrange the service to include the parents in the ceremony. It’s refreshing to find people who seem to be aware that their Creator is not a person of dull habit and who are continually seeking the right words and form for the occasion instead of endlessly relying upon what has been traditionally said and done. This Easter morning found the woman on the corner a bit tired and jaded. Half her thoughts were with the Professor back East in the midst of his orals, half on other days when the family was very young and the children were bright-eyed on this special day. With a bit of wistfulness she recalled their love of the Easter Morning Ritual. But these family rituals somehow seem a bit embarrassing to big teenage boys, and so she has reluctantly let them go. At this point in her reveries the college lad, first down to breakfast, neat in his Sunday best, poked his head around the kitchen doorway and grinned as he triumphantly sang out his part of the old ceremony: “The 224 On the Corner 1964 Lord is risen!” And the woman, baffled as usual by the strange goings and comings, leavings and returnings, rebellions and dependencies of Youth, remembered just in time to return the greeting: “He is risen indeed!” One way of quickly realizing that you are fast approaching middle age is to have around your table a group of college students whose fathers and mothers were your classmates. The appalling thing is not just that they seem so young but that you have to keep fighting the urge to tell those stories about your association with their parents some 20 years ago even while you sense that they couldn’t care less! You could say, “I can remember when your birth announcement arrived at our house!” and somehow it seems significant that you can remember it. But on second thought it doesn’t make too much sense to repeat it before these sophisticated (in a nice sense, of course) collegians. What will it be like when we find their children around our table? Perhaps then we will no longer fight the urge but just indulge in reminiscence. Let us hope that such a generation will also have the grace to bear our rememberings! Again there is that annual quickening of life—perhaps the most dramatic, definite passage from one season to the next. I cannot remember back to a time when changes from one to another of the four seasons did not deeply delight me. I’ve never had the slightest wish to live in a climate which is almost always temperate. Though extremes of weather in places like northern Indiana involve the need for more types of clothing and tighter housing, I’m not ready to trade such inconveniences for pleasant, even weather. There are people, I know, to whom such changes of the season seem violent, who feel that life is somehow more pleasing when lived at an even 70 degrees year-around. So too, in the seasons of life, some of us seem destined to be fascinated and some afraid of the changes which come. Women are conditioned first to fear their thirties, then their forties, then the flight of the birds from the nest, then old age. Men, we are told, secretly dread the loss of their virility, of being pushed aside in their profession or in the church, of retirement. Yet there are many who welcome the seasons of life even as they welcome the seasons of the year, feeling in their bones, somehow, that each is good, that each has its fulfillments and rewards which cannot rightly be compared with the fulfillments and rewards of another season of life. For such it seems a sort of blasphemy, a kind of life-negation, to hear a person speak wistfully of his childhood as the happiest time of his 225 Story of a Family life, to hear the years of young motherhood thoughtlessly blown up out of proportion by the familiar phrase so often spoken to harried young mothers: “Enjoy your children; this is the best time of your life,” to catch the plaintive refrain of one in life’s winter—“It’s no fun to be old.” In every season of life there are disadvantages; in every season there are perils and sorrows; in every season there are joys and compensations. I would hope that as I pass through what is left of life to me I can continue to say with the same deep joy in which I have been accustomed to welcoming spring, summer, fall, and winter and childhood, youth, young motherhood, and approaching middle-age: For the various beauties of the seasons of nature and the seasons of the human pilgrimage MAY GOD BE PRAISED! May “It’s funny,” says one Young Thing to another as they reenter the house they left several days ago to attend their father’s commencement activities in Pittsburgh; “funny, how, when you take even a two-day trip back to the place where you grew up, it seems like you’ve been gone so long!” And a long journey it was for us, too—to go back to the scenes of our children’s childhood, our young parenthood. The memories came crowding with every stick and stone, house and tree, each bend of road or contour of hill. More followed as we attended the little church, now charmingly redecorated; as we met old friends by appointment or by joyful accident; as we drank the incomparable water from “our” spring, wandered through the hill-house in which so much happened to so many, and rested in the hospitality of our old neighbors’ (sister’s) home. Somehow the whole experience was one of those rare, flawless gems— an occasion when, incredibly, everything went right! But the Young Thing has said it: homecoming gives us the illusion of having returned not from a few days in the East but from years in the past. And now the last milestone of The Program on which we embarked seven years ago is past. No longer need its progress be reported in each letter to the relatives or friends. No longer is it a terrible necessity that the man of the house leave the supper table every evening to bury him self in his books at the office. (In an emergency he may spend the entire evening at home!) Everyone in the family is a bit dazed to have the Conversation Piece suddenly snatched from our midst. Dazed—but happy. And now, after many minor celebrations tendered us by friends as we passed this or that 226 On the Corner 1964 test, our good neighbors throw a Grande Finale of a celebration in honor of The Professor. A rather well-defined era of the family’s life is now in the past, and nobody seems to be regretting its passing. When we came to The Corner, we fell heir to a rather motley collection of trees and shrubs, most of which are still nameless to us. At times we have threatened to call in an expert Adam to give us their names just so we might feel a bit more comfortable with them. But I know what a tulip tree is, and one of my May delights is to watch for the blossoms which appear on our little tulip tree in the front yard. It has become a springtime ritual to break off several of these blossoms, so rare in color and texture, and carry them to the aunt who lives on up the street and who so admires them as they float in a shallow bowl on her table. I scarcely ever look at these blossoms without remembering Keats’ words: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Young people, we’ve been told, are usually pleased when their parents respect and appreciate the children’s friends. Now I’ll add a postscript to that statement: parents are likewise delighted when their children show respect for and interest in the parents’ friends! Sometimes the youngsters—understandably—are bored with the table-talk when such friends are visiting; they maintain a polite silence, asking to be excused after a respectable interval. But tonight no one asked to be excused as one of our old friends mesmerized them with his stories, his obvious acceptance of them as persons in their own right, and his artless enthusiasm for life. After our guest had gone, one boy responded in the language of the disc jockey, “There’s an oldie but goodie!” And the rest agreed that here was one “old” person who was really “on the ball.” (Our aged friend was all of fortyfive.) Long-suffering friends know that one of the weaknesses of this woman is the love for quotation. Over the years it has become habitual for her to jot down sentences which seem to present much thought—food in a very small capsule or in a particularly beautiful or clever form. There are people who feel that quoting is merely warming over someone else’s cold thoughts—a lazy way to avoid thinking for oneself. There are others, however, who think of quotation as an art. They believe that he who knows rightly how and when to quote does his listeners an inestimable favor, setting thoughts afire by means of this one small bright 227 Story of a Family flame. A great man has said that for such a boon we should give thanks first of all to God who inspired it, next to the man who initially uttered it, and then to the one who passed it on to us. A few words can start mental activity which can change the direction of a life, they say. I’m inclined to think that anything I might say about the dangers of indecisiveness would hardly make a listener think twice. But if I were to make a mental bow to Oldham and use his words, “To refuse to choose is to choose to drift,” it is conceivable that some one person might be caught by the very succinctness of the adage, might remember it, might think about it, and might possibly act upon it. And so I shall continue to quote the quotable and to be grateful to those good friends of mine who pass such quotes on to me in their letters and conversations. I think about the month that is past and sort out its opportunities, disappointments, and pleasures. I think of the entertaining and banqueting, the orchestra programs and the special breakfasts and teas all crowded into these last few weeks of the school year. I think of the pleasure of having the Christians of Russia with us and some of the pitiable community reaction here and in other places supposedly “Christian.” I think of the books I have read—all too few, indeed, but there was that intriguing Morehead account of the Great Trek in Australia—Cooper’s Creek. I think of our family’s guests, each of them in turn giving us good gifts all unaware. I think of the greenness and color of maturing spring. But perhaps I reflect most often upon a very small child with great handicaps and great sensitivity to love. Suddenly the most important event of the month seems to be “Bubuis creeping!”—on his tummy, to be sure, but creeping, with the weak arms alternating in a pull that will surely strengthen the underdeveloped chest muscles and bring him closer to sitting alone. How beautiful is growth—even when it is slow in coming. And how beautiful is the love which one small unclaimed, handicapped child can bring to his foster family. June Where did it all start—this June bride business? After attending three weddings in three weeks—all on what I am sure were the three hottest days of those weeks—I have to wonder why anyone would want to get married in June. But the brides all looked cool and lovely, and the grooms all looked calm—more or less—and proud. If the principals of these occasions didn’t mind the heat, why should the wedding guests? 228 On the Corner 1964 Like most other women, this one loves a wedding, usually has to wipe the eyes a bit when the bride comes into view, and is always looking for—and often finds—something unique in any wedding she is fortunate enough to attend. In one of these ceremonies there was a new and gracious touch which seemed to me quite beautiful: the bride kissed her father when he gave her away as the mother stood in her pew. Maybe the real reason this so appealed to us was that with sons in and near the twenties, we somehow find ourselves identifying with the parents more easily than with the so-young bride and groom! Thus we like to see the parents get a bit of recognition. An unexpected bonus among all the weddings was the privilege of bringing home from the hospital a mother and her baby. Many years it has been since I was in a maternity ward, even to visit, but the antiseptic odors and the crisp efficiency all around me brought back a flood of memories. This time, however, the memories were not as they used to be some ten to fifteen years back—wistful and yearning. Now they were just very pleasant. With much pleasure I watched that mother dress her tiny doll of a girl for the home-going in our car. I was happy for her and not one bit envious! How can one be homesick for a land he has never seen? Tonight while listening to the rich burr of our visiting Scottish minister I felt an overpowering sense of homesickness for Scotland. Perhaps the letters of friends who spent time in Scotland and who report so faithfully what they have seen and done and what they have felt about the country have given me honorary citizenship there. Or perhaps it was the books of John and Donald Baillie, read and loved for years. It could just be that through these armchair experiences one can possibly see more of a country than do many of the tourists who actually set foot on the soil. The youngest man of the family has somewhere picked up a great love for productive labor. He insists that if anybody calls offering us cherries, berries, apples, beans, or anything, I must accept the offer; he will go and pick them and help to clean, pit, pare, freeze, can, or preserve. He is as good as his word and better: there is more on our shelves already than has been there the last few years. I myself am caught up in his infectious joy and excitement, and what was once merely time-consuming labor has taken on the zest of a contest. 229 Story of a Family His first letter home after having left us for summer school in Colorado causes a young son’s mother some embarrassment. This is the one who was not supposed to be able to write a decent letter, according to the woman on the corner writing in her journal at this time last year! Yet how full of information, of humor, of himself this epistle happens to be! I conclude that he must somehow be able to squeeze more meaning out of studying music than out of working on a construction gang. “Can you guess who this is?” These words always make me bristle when they accost me over the telephone. But today when the question was put to me, a bell immediately rang —there was only one voice like that. Since that voice would have to be in Idaho and not in Goshen, I hesitated identifying it. But the bell was accurate, and the speaker was indeed that dear friend of our family whose very voice made me feel immediately that I was a child again. Strange how ageless they seem, these grown-ups who were our parents’ friends (hence, old) when we were children. Except in cases where great ravages of disease have transformed them, they seem to be just as they were when we were small, and it is hard not to feel that we are still children in their presence. I feel it keenly after a pleasant day visiting with Edna; and the Professor testifies to it also, a few days later, after having spent a night with Oregon friends of his parents. Now at last after the fever of getting the summer schedules in order, shipping a son off to the West, and adjusting to the mealtimes of the working boys, the couple on the corner gets down to the business of reacquaintance after the Seven Lean Years. This nose-to-the-grindstone living does not lend itself to leisurely conversation—and now that there is time, we discover that the gears have rusted and there is little to say to each other. As a step toward reunion we initiate an evening walk which not only serves to reestablish a particular kind of contact between us but also gives other unexpected benefits. We take a closer look at the houses on our street and the streets parallel to ours; we nod and speak to people who in another era would have been thought of as neighbors—but whom we do not even know! And along the way we are sometimes hailed down by friends or colleagues with whom we seldom, if ever, find time to visit casually. Tonight we were even beckoned into a backyard to sit around a picnic table and help with the dessert. While the men ate applesauce and 230 On the Corner 1964 talked theology, we women ate applesauce, fed some to Bubu (who often accompanies us on our walks), were served delicately toasted marshmal lows by the children, and talked womantalk. The night before we wound up admiring the flowers in the backyard of our uncle and aunt and later talking at leisure in their pleasant living room. Looking back over the month, we think of these walks as gems among gravel. We are again aware that time to live even one such unhurried, unplanned hour in any given day is seldom laid in our laps; an act of will is necessary to seize it, then let it take its own shape as a parenthesis of growth or fellowship or peace between the crowded hours of our modern days. July Dear Friends, Some of you have told me chat you seldom feel as if you are out of touch with me even if I don’t write many personal letters because “On the Corner” is somewhat like a monthly letter from me to you. (I might add that it could be a rather one-sided correspondence, but more of that later.) Well, you’ve given me an idea for a welcomed change from the usual month ly chatter of the goings and comings, the thinkings and doings on this particular corner, And when does a person need a change more than in July? Forgive me, then, for taking the liberties of writing a personal letter and doing what friends naturally do when they get together—reminiscing a bit. Through eight Julys now, the first four “On the Hill” and the last four “On the Corner,” I’ve been meeting you in these columns. Perhaps some of you would like to know how it all started and why, what the writer’s purpose may be, and how she goes about it. As I looked through the pages of the new CHRISTIAN LIVING during those first years of its existence, I was repeatedly aware that some small element was missing. Being, like Pooh, “a bear of very little brain,” I found myself wishing for a note of lightness, a touch of casual everydayness to balance the rather unremitting seriousness of the pages before me. I thought of those columns in other magazines which I always read first and which spoke to me simply because of their informality and friendliness. Such people as Harlan Miller and Gladys Taber seemed to be talking with me over the back fence (almost a forgotten art, but still a great one!), and I couldn’t help wishing that CHRISTIAN LIVING had such a voice. I thought of this voice not as one to inform or instruct or reform or campaign but simply as one that would share the kind of things that neighbors share. 231 Story of a Family I attempted to explain my idea to the Home Life Editor. Looking back, I can’t honestly say that she was enthusiastic. But she was generous and plucky and willing to let me try. So I tried, and that is how I started writing to you in July of 1956. NOT BEING ADEPT at potting future events and thoughts and reactions, I could not with conviction write in July of a January that had not yet arrived. (As you know most of the copy for monthly magazines is due six months before publication.) So the poor reader has been con sistently served up warmed-over events and thoughts which occurred a year before. But you have been most kind and uncomplaining, though a few of you have admitted that at times you are confused. When the column began, its writing was really quite simple: just a matter of choosing and editing excerpts from a journal which had been kept regardless of “Hill Journal.” But years and the cares of life—know what I mean?—have changed my journal-keeping habits. These days I simply jot down on my appointment calendar the naked details of events or thoughts as they happen. At the proper time they are lifted out of their untidy paper bed and dressed. (I always attempt to put on them the clothes they were wearing before bedtime.) Sounds easy, doesn’t it? However, the passage of time, while it does give greater perspective, also makes writing more of a chore. And now in behalf of all those who have ever attempted to do more than the average amount of writing, a word to you people who think it must be wonderful to be able to pour out words onto paper with such ease! Ask any neighbor, any close friend, or any household of almost anyone who writes anything worth reading, and they’ll tell you just how much fun it is to live with such people when the Deadline is near. Writing, even simple writing such as this, is hard work. And it can be painful. All too often after one has wrangled all day with a few pages of manuscript, the result is like a fallen cake. As with such a cake—nothing one can do (short of starting over from scratch, which you have neither time nor energy to do)—nothing can make it right. So like the letters you write, like your own cooking, perhaps, the product is uneven. At best, however, the person who writes such a column as this is bound to think of his unseen readers as friends, as women whose concerns are much like her own—women who, of course, are interested in big issues and ideas but who also find “eternity in a grain of sand,” God in the eyes of a child, and love, hope, and faith creatively active in the chores of dishwashing, cleaning, cooking, gardening, and child care, as well as in the act of formal worship and in church and community service. 232 On the Corner 1964 AND SO EACH MONTH, from the January beginnings I so much love through my own sun-baked and special birthday month to the brilliant December denouement, I send you a little of myself. I send it in the hope that therein you may find a little of yourself and so may smile a little or think a little or hope a little or love a little more than if you hadn’t read the letter. And never think that the correspondence is one-sided, for the one who writes is aware, even as she writes her homely and simple lines, that, as her patron saint (Evelyn Underhill) has quoted, “Souls—all souls are deeply interconnected. The church at its best and deepest is just that— that interdependence of all the broken and meek, all the self-oblivion, all the reaching out to God and other souls ... nothing is more real than this interconnection.” This quotation is one that I have kept in my heart, and I ponder it nearly every time I begin my monthly letter to you. Grace and Peace! August Summer’s perfection frays at the edges, and its grays under the days and nights of heat. But in spite of the weather the end of the season promises a rich harvest. Friends, neighbors, and family gone from us for long weeks or months have arrived or are soon due to arrive. Other friends on summer vacations are sure to stop in with us. Maybe even we will drive somewhere for a day of leisure! And—who knows—perhaps the woman on the corner will manage to get a book read before the school rush begins! We wish desperately that the cooling change will come before our overnight guests do. How can we send them upstairs to sleep in that oven? The hoped-for change does not come but our friends do—en route to visit relatives farther east—and in our pleasure of reunion we accept the heat. The children decide to sleep out in the corridor between our house and the neighbors’. Mercifully for those neighbors they are on vacation. All night weary parents make repeated trips to the row of would-be sleepers to bring mosquito repellent, to settle fights, to straighten incredibly mangled sleeping bags, to encourage the wide-awake to try to sleep. In the morning the oldest of the group—pale and patchy and bedraggled— announces that he has not slept a wink, and we believe him. As we say good-bye to our friends, we urge them to stop back on their way home, promising to try to make up for the wild night with better weather and 233 Story of a Family accommodations. But we’re pretty sure they won’t—and we don’t blame them! The day is warm, the lawn is yellow and dry, the food on the picnic table, greasy and crumbly, has turned out all wrong. But the occasion is right and joyous. Home are neighbors, home from the sea—here where (we feel) they ought to be! Long ago in a childhood which now seems like something that happened to a storybook child we girls clustered around a certain bench in our little church. The object of attraction was a mite of a girl whose parents had moved back into the community after a year or so in another state. Audrey was new to us and very special since she could say “big words.” Her older sister put her through the paces for us as we looked on in awe. For months afterward our favorite after-church amusement was to run to Audrey, stand her up on the bench, and prompt her into show ing off: “Say Methuselah. Say hippopotamus. Say Nebuchadnezzar. Say Constantinople.” That blond Audrey who so sunnily responded to our promptings is gone: the woman she became sat in our living room today with her mother, and somehow it seemed that they had come to me not only from the land but also from the time of my childhood. Idaho — two thousand miles away—and a happy little girlhood—35 years away—both, seemed very near to the house on the corner. If we had said (coming home on a Sunday afternoon from the Benedicts’ cabin on Lake Oliver), “Let’s sing awhile,” the response would have been sophisticated moans and groans from the younger generation. As it is one of those very youngsters in the back seat happens to start a spiritual and from there on all the way home we have such a car full of music (well-a, sort of) that we have to roll up windows going through towns. We used to say of such spontaneous funmaking, “We had a great time.” The teenagers of today say, “We had a blast!” Somehow the latter expression does seem more ap-propriate—at least in this case. Unable to sleep in the heat I get up and do what I have not done in years—pick up a pen and begin writing, not for an assignment but just for fun. Aimless at first, my efforts gradually and unconsciously confine themselves to a theme. And when, finally sleepy, though exhilarated, I prepare to return to bed, I find that the first chapter of what promises to 234 On the Corner 1964 be an ambling commentary on an old subject has written itself almost without my being aware of what was taking place. The theme: Mother and Child—but with a difference. This mother is a foster mother, and the child is handicapped, and the title drops out of the blue and settles itself at the top of the first page: No Crying He Makes. We were sure they wouldn’t, but they do! Happily, when our early August visitors return we are blessed with cool breezes. We eat together, talk, and spend a comfortable night. All the imperfections of our first visit are redeemed, and we accept this unplanned-for bonus as, simply, grace! And the summer-weary woman on the corner does manage a book in spite of the heat and exhaustion. Nothing earthshaking. No classic literary gem. But this book is what seems to be rare these days—a novel that lifts and inspires and teaches one much about an old and often mistreated subject: love. Somehow I feel a bit cleaner and more hopeful for having read Brightness by Elizabeth Jenkins. Vacation almost over, we suddenly realize that we have had no vacation in the current sense of the word. Our one-day trip to visit faculty friends on sabbatical in Michigan turns out to include only part of the family because of sudden, though minor, illness; and so it is a special day for only a few of us. Now, in a last-ditch effort to do something special together as a family we make what may well be our last family trip to a zoo. Bu-Bu, in his stroller, couldn’t care less—not only because of his limited age and development but also, as we discover in the midafternoon heat, because of incipient illness heralded by mounting fever. The Professor is as tireless in his hunt for this or that animal as the boys are in their search for the next refreshment stand. I sit on the benches rocking the fretful baby and watching the hordes of people go by. This, to me, is the fun of a zoo. In spite of the crowds, the untidyness, the odors, and the heat, nothing restores my confidence in the American family more than an afternoon at the zoo. For at the zoo the family is the leading clientele. There are of course a few loners, a few young lovers, but mostly there are families—families from all levels of society, in all kinds of costume, from proper Sunday afternoon dress complete with hats and heels, jackets and ties, to the embarrassingly casual halters and shorts, Bahama shirts, and—for the babies—diapers only. From the sidelines one 235 Story of a Family sees much tenderness, much concern for the young—far outweighing the occasional snappiness so typical of the strained supermarket mother!... “Farewell to the zoo!” I muse, as I wait for the rest of the family to return to our meeting place. Just then a gray-haired couple with three tiny black-haired girls pass my bench, and I am reminded that it is altogether possible that the Professor and I may be back again someday—with the next generation. September The beginning of the Parkside, junior high, high school, and college year may be tiring, hot, and harrying; but it is hardly dull. Every day brings fresh demands for more cash. Each year I think we have fortified the budget adequately to cover all possible beginning-of-school demands. Each year we do come a bit closer, but we never yet have anticipated the full spectrum of possibilities for cash outlay. We suspect a conspiracy. Oh well, I tell myself, in ten years who will remember such an earthshaking event as the sudden need for fifty dollars to be conjured up from nowhere? Friends and relatives of college freshmen again come and go, enriching our home with their fellowship; new seminary students again gather around our table for coffee and Heilsgeschichte talk; and at the beginning of another Sunday-school year I go to the bookshelf and blow the dust off certain books which I must again study for my class in devotional literature. Somehow, I find anew that summer heat, bodily weariness, and the pressures of a large family are more easily borne within the disciplined parenthesis of the school schedule than in the comparative freedom of summer “vacation.” Two of our friends, of whom we often said, “I hope he (she) finds someone really right for him (her) “ have found each other to our (and their other friends’) great surprise and delight. They visited us tonight, and we were lighted by their glow. It is always warming to be in the presence of love, whether young or mature. At such moments, too, one looks at one’s own spouse with something more than the usual casual, old-shoe acceptance. Who can plot a friendship? Who can say, “This will exist as long as we shall exist—this fine rapport, this ease, this atmosphere in which explanations are unnecessary, understanding is automatic”? When 236 On the Corner 1964 suddenly it is not so, one gropes for clues: What happened? What did I say? What has changed? Why do we speak past each other? Yet no amount of individual probing or of frank discussion together seems able to breathe life into a mysteriously ailing friendship. I am convinced that the most tragic and the most painful of our earthly sorrows are surely not illness, death, or financial loss; most painful is a broken relationship, whether with God or man. In how many sermons have I heard the retarded or otherwise handicapped child used as illustrative material—always in the analogy of the tragedy of arrested spiritual growth. Sometime . . . I would like to hear in a sermon something about the wonder and the sanctity of life in whatever imperfect temple it occupies, a sermon on the seriousness of the command: “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.” Sometime ... I would like to meet a person who would say (instead of, “It’s wonderful of you to keep this child”), “Are there other children in my town, in my county, who need loving care? Perhaps we could make room for such a child.” Sometime I would like to see in the faces of friends less pity for a handicapped child and more joy in observing the great strides he is taking within the limits of that handicap. But perhaps I do not speak for other mothers of other “special” children. I only know that when Bubugot up on his hands and knees for the first time today, rocking timidly, shining with achievement, I wished for someone to rejoice with us rather than to compare him with normal eighteen-month-old toddlers! Gathering bittersweet has been a ritual of late September ever since we arrived in Bittersweet Country. Today I thought I had turned off the highway onto my Bittersweet Road; but since my knowledge of county roads is based only on hunches and feelings and vague recollections of certain landmarks, not on road numbers, the inevitable happened. My intuition failed me, and I got on the wrong road, ending up in entirely new country with no sense of direction to guide me toward my goal. But the angels were with me, for in my lostness I came upon a fencerow hanging heavy with green leaves and bright berries—the most luscious bittersweet feast my eyes had ever beheld! I would be shy of saying that Providence made me lose my way; but in that moment, standing there in the sun of a bright September morning and gazing at the green fencerow all hung with dew crystals and orange beads, I thought of the line in John Ciardi’s Snowy Heron: 237 Story of a Family “Saint Francis being happiest on his knees, Would have cried Father! Cry anything you please But praise. By any name or none. But praise...” I never saw a snowy heron in flight. But I saw that bittersweet! There are times when the occasions for praise are unforgettable, lifeshaking: a dramatic deliverance from death or temptation, a miraculous physical or spiritual recovery, an event of great joy such as the birth of a child or a wedding. Then there are times when one look, one word, one leaf, one small memory, one minor success, one inexplicable moment of grace seems to expand the soul to such proportions that praise can be the only response. Who can say why such a moment should suddenly blossom from an undistinguished moment in an ordinary evening at home in the midst of the usual confusion of a large family’s comings and goings? But it did, and suddenly I wished for a voice, for an instrument, for a skill to communicate that silent, innermost, suffocating sense of praise. October After years of reading Phyllis McGinley, delightful columnist and lightverse writer, I am eager to see just how she looks. To my satisfaction the image on the TV screen and her response to the questions put to her are not in any way jarring to this old fan of hers. No false note distorts the mental image which her writings have created for me over the years. It is like seeing an old friend and hearing a familiar voice. Perhaps there is nothing so complimentary to an author as to discover that his writings and his person have a common integrity and reflect each other faithfully. It is not too hard for a reader to sense the presence of such an author behind his words. While I myself have read a host of books whose authors left me cold—even if the books themselves did not—I have, on the other hand, a list of persons who (I’m quite sure), were I to meet or see or hear them, would seem of a piece with their works. Among them would be, certainly, Alan Paton, Elizabeth Goudge, Jessamyn West, Douglas Steere, Paul Tournier, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Edith Lovejoy Pierce, Philippe Vernier, Sister M. Therese, and Thomas Merton. Alas, I know that the woman on the corner has no such of-a-pieceness. I remember too well the little lady who was astounded speechless (and no doubt disappointed) to discover that the person who wrote those “nice little things in the church papers” was not small, vivacious, and black-eyed. 238 On the Corner 1964 Our Tuesday-night friend brought with her the usual packet of butter again tonight. Real butter! This package is always greeted with a great deal of appreciation by our born-and-bred-to-margarine family. When I triumphantly put it on the table, I can hardly resist shouting: Nobody, My darling, Could call me A fussy man— BUT “I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!”* However, I usually resist this temptation since the “grown-up” family feel they are beyond A. A. Milne. (Happily, they will be able again to enjoy The King’s Breakfast with impunity once they are parents.) Today at a coffee I find a new acquaintance who says that she agrees with me wholeheartedly about the value of that old steel, three-tined fork (about which I sang last year in these pages). So great is my esteem of that implement I had just assumed that many people would speak to me in support of its recognition. But this was the first, person who did—and I immediately felt warm and sisterly toward her! Several other women present soon chimed in, and we soon had quite a little Society for the Appreciation of the Three-Tined Fork. Any more comers for the SATF? Speaking of coffees, a friend of mine comments, “You people at Goshen spend a lot of your time at coffees, don’t you?” I can’t speak for anyone except the woman on the corner, but I assure her that I spend very little time that way. Three or four a year constitute a usual record for me. Though I find such an occasion extremely pleasant, I can agree with my friend’s implied criticism that one can become addicted, that this can merely be another (and more acceptable) way of running from one’s duties or problems or responsibilities—just like attending endless meet ings. But it can also be an opportunity for real fellowship and growth. As for me, I still prefer the cup of tea or coffee at the kitchen table with one friend at a time. But I know too that the same situation can be approximated at a coffee, where, in spite of the numbers, one usually is engaged in conversation with only one person at a time. And I must admit that there can be rich fellowship in such a quiet corner conversation with persons I would never meet at my kitchen table. * From “The King’s Breakfast” in When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne. Copyright. 1924, by E. P. Dutton & Co.. Inc. Renewal. 1952. by A. A. Milne. By permission of the publishers. 239 Story of a Family Today a visiting aunt is the honor guest at a rare luncheon meeting. Her daughter has managed to find enough women relatives in Elkhart County to fill up the table. It isn’t that we cousins don’t like each other, but we just never take the time to meet. It required a Mildred, who is new in the community, to round us up. We have such a good time around the table that it seems a pity there aren’t more such catalysts as Mildred in the world. A mischievous little tormentor within me asks, “Why don’t you try being one?” But I have the answer for him: “This isn’t my gift.” Even as I justify myself, though, I’m aware that there are some things which can be learned. Coming home from the grocery tonight, I am told that I have had visitors—several of my Sunday-school girls who came to wish me “a blessed Halloween,” whatever that is. I laugh at their spoofing, but it does start me thinking. Remembering the genius of Christianity for putting meaning into pagan ceremonies, I reflect that a blessed Halloween could make sense. Once celebrated as the eve of All Saints Day—a day for honoring saints and martyrs who had no special days allotted to them—this holiday has now become completely pagan. I would hardly attempt a campaign such as “Keep Christ in Christmas” (“Keep Halloween Hallowed”), but next year (I tell myself) I shall have a little private celebration of my own on Halloween. I shall remember then, especially, my own “departed saints” —people I have loved, people whose touch upon my life has made a difference and who now have joined that great cloud of witnesses urging me to “run with patience the race that is set before us”! The little events of October line themselves up before my eyes: a visit with Sally in her kitchen; a daughter’s eleventh birthday; Bu-Bu’s first attempts at crawling (abandoned most of the time for the faster tummy-creep); coffee here at home with the two J’s; Irene with us for lunch; a meeting of our reading group; Uncle’s funeral; arrival of young, bearded nephew; seminary counselee group supper at the cabin; carry-in fellowship supper at church. . . . And so they go—little events whose only shred of significance is in the relationships surrounding them. Reflecting on this, I am again grateful that at the heart of my faith, at the heart of life, is relationship, not rules; and this is what makes life not only bearable but exciting. 240 On the Corner 1964 November A gray November is grayer for many Goshen College alumni scattered all over the world. I wonder as I sit in the flower-filled sanctuary hearing with heartache—yet a certain joy—those hymns which Prof had caused to become so loved and familiar to generations of students: “Eternal Fa ther,” “Great God, Indulge My Humble Claim,” “Before Jehovah’s Awful Throne” —I wonder at the grace which gives to the world such men as this. The sweetness of his life was phenomenal; it is difficult to believe that he left an enemy in the world or anyone indifferent to the hopeful and radiant charm of his person. John Donne said, “Every man’s death diminishes me,” and in a way it is true for us today. When the light of Prof’s life went out, all those who knew him found the world’s light a bit dimmer. But in his death the significance of his life bursts on us anew, and death cannot diminish the great gifts he shared with us; indeed it only emphasizes them. After the last Amen I find no words in my native tongue to say what I feel. “What language can I borrow?” I borrow the first farewell that comes to mind: Aufwiedersehen du schöne Seele! Tonight when I answer the doorbell, I am confronted by the minister of a nearby church. We have never met; he is just passing by and stops to give me some words of appreciation. After he leaves, the glow lighted by his thoughtfulness is reflected in the faces of even the youngest children, who think it incredible that such it person would take time on a cold night just to tell their mother that something she has written spoke to him. As for the mother—so moved is she by this unprecedented action, that she determines to go and do likewise oftener. Before I go to bed I make out a mental list of people who might be glad to have even a telephone call from me. And once again I remember the words of a long-gone mother: “The best way to show gratitude for a favor is to do one for someone else.” It’s the birthday of Youngest Son, and he can think of nothing he wants or needs. This is frustrating to the brothers and sister as well as to the parents, for they wish to buy gifts for him. But on the evening of his birthday we do have a package for him. Yet in spite of all his exaggerated gratitude for the pair of pajamas, we sense his disappointment at having only one gift—and that clothing. But what can we do when there’s nothing he wants? 241 Story of a Family As we sing the usual (and by now a bit embarrassing) “Happy Birthday,” one of the children sets before him a miniature Christmas tree, all hung with bright, miniature packages of various shapes and sizes. By the time he has opened them all, he has a good-sized nest egg of bills and coins with which to buy something he might need or want in the future. In his delight he sheepishly admits that he was a little disappointed at first! Tonight after talking to a sister via long-distance telephone, I wonder at the power of a human voice to evoke sleeping memories, to call up hidden emotions, and to bring forth that sudden, unaccountable joyin-relationship which one all but forgets in the mesh of the immediate. Suddenly I wonder why it has not occurred to me to call during the years (nine of them!) since our absence from each other. But I know why, really. Anyone whose whole life has of necessity been lived in the conscious ness of each penny can understand why a luxury like frequent longdistance calls has not become habitual. Now that the cost of such calls is no longer prohibitive, the habit of frugality persists. In the afterglow of contact with my sister, however, I jot a reminder for the woman on the corner: Remember to indulge more often in the rite of the long-distance telephone call. Once more we are vitally involved in the college’s Freshman Parents’ Weekend. Now for the first time I feel that we can no longer be called “young adults” but are moving rather quickly into middle age. Three years ago when our firstborn made us eligible to participate in this weekend, we were not quite so aware of the passage of time since very few of our old classmates had children old enough to be in college. But this year it seems that almost every other set of parents is a pair we knew when we were students; and somehow the accumulated impact is sobering and aging! Still it’s also heartening and most exciting to meet again this way— with more in common than we have ever had. Perhaps another indication of our classification being properly middle age is the increasing joy we find in the company of relatives. For years under the burdens of making a living and child-raising we have foregone efforts to keep in touch with any but our immediate families. Now, with some of the pressure lessened we find ourselves increasingly eager for fellowship with area cousins, aunts, and uncles. 242 On the Corner 1964 This is a good month for such reunion. With the fine facilities of Oaklawn at our disposal we discover that winter reunions are great—and even the teens seem able to tolerate meeting their second cousins. After all, there was a lot of good food around! Speaking of the teens, I watched a charming 16-year-old author of a children’s book on TV this morning. This young lady was asked what she thought of teenagers—were they as bad as they are made out to be? What do they think on this or that issue? Never have I heard such sensible answers to these nauseating questions. This delightful girl refused to answer “for teenagers.” She explained that she could answer only for herself, that teenagers, much less anyone, can’t be packaged and labeled and grouped, and that she and other teenagers are simply persons who are growing up. She did express the wish that people would stop thinking “teenager” and think in terms of the one person involved. I agreed and smiled at her—even though she didn’t see me—and confided that I was glad my mother never heard of the word. I was just her growing-up daughter, thank God! The first snow! No matter how light or transitory it turns out to be, it always brings a lump to my throat. For while I ordinarily try to shun sentimentality, I can’t look out upon the first snow of the year without seeing beyond it another picture: myself at 20, kneeling before a dorm window, and later writing a long secret poem to a special person: It is the first snow we have seen together: This morning, on my knees before my window I saw the first light snow—now through your eyes... . I never asked him, but I wonder, as I watch him head for his office this morning —does he remember? December December is a month for doing what we have always done. Almost sacred is the routine, and one feels that to depart from it too often is to subtract from the specialness of the season. Early in December we make the usual preparations in the house: washing curtains and cupboards, installing new shelf and drawer paper, and going through the unsightly piles of books, papers, and magazines which have accumulated. Early we begin making lists: lists of gifts to buy, of friends to invite, of cards to send (if we are sending them this year), and of programs to be graced by our attendance) Early the special 243 Story of a Family activities start: the making of the Adventskranz—this year with Sally; the annual orchestra program; and the Sunday afternoon informal singing of The Messiah at the church. And this year a different treat is added—a Saturday afternoon of folk music with Mike Seeger and Dock Boggs. Early the notes and letters are written. This year we are sending no cards, but we recall what it is like. For the woman on the corner it is not really a chore since we send no “duty” cards. Frankly it is one of December’s most joyous tasks, and I always miss it when we dispense with it once in a while; for as we address the envelopes and write the notes, thoughts of our friends light up the mind like so many varicolored Christmas lights. Early the family symbols for the tree are brought out of the big box, just to see if they are in order and to bring up-to-date in preparation for use later on in the month. What shall be the symbol for this year? A ThD diploma, of course, to symbolize a journey’s end. The Youngest fashions a suitable miniature diploma, complete with red ribbon for hanging, and we return the symbols to The Box. The tree, we note, must be small this year—up on a table or stand out of the reach of the exploring fingers of Bu-Bu. Yes, December is a month for doing what we have always done. Of course there are always little variations, surprises, and omissions, but part of the glory of the Christmas celebration is in the sense of continuity with past Christmases—back into our own childhoods and the childhood of that Christian church. Then comes a different December—like this one. The preparations are the same, up to a point. The house is readied; a few specialties are in the freezer; the gifts are wrapped; and the compact, furry little tree hangs full of the symbols of 21 family years. And then, a week before Christmas, the mistress of the whole menage enters the hospital for a planned rest (with surgery included), leaving behind her copious lists for numerous children and a very earnest stand-in (who has put away his everpresent Hebrew Bible for the duration.) Eleven days later I return to a reasonably well-ordered household, convinced that occasionally it is good to have an utterly different Christmas. I observe, too, that: (1) I am not indispensable. Indeed, life went on very well without me. Clothes, washed by the eldest, were clean, if a bit yellow. The house was orderly and reasonably clean—at least those rooms open to the public. Bubu was happy and well cared for. (2) We are in the center of a caring community of Christians. A bountiful dinner meal was delivered each day by a different family of our Sunday244 On the Corner 1964 school class. Knowing that this would be so, I could rest comfortably without disturbing visions of harassed males trying to carry out cooking operations while I lay helpless. Each of these meals was an exciting epi sode for the family—for any mother with five teenage boys understands how often the subject of food dominates a day’s conversation—especially when everyone is home and milling about the house with nothing special to do. In my absence some of the younger members of the family faithfully recorded for me the contents of each of these gift-meals, together with the donors: “rice and other things casserole, chocolate cookies, lemon pie, breakfast bread (woman in 1955 Ford Sedan).” By the way, will I ever find out who that woman is? Step forward, please! (3) I also learn that hospitalization need not be primarily a physical trial. Looking back, I find that it was also a rich adventure in the life of the Spirit. (4) I find that, though I am not indispensable, I am much appreciated at home. No task was so willingly returned to me as that of sorting clean laundry. To allocate the right socks and underclothes—most of which he’d never consciously laid eyes on—to eight different stacks was almost too much for The Professor. Also my ability to track down lost articles was much appreciated. In a little search of my own for our best white tablecloth, however, I am almost stumped. Then one night it suddenly comes to me. I creep upstairs; and sure enough, there it is: a crumpled sheet wound around a sleeping adolescent. At this point that wonderful sense of being needed suffuses me, and happy I return to that too-soft bed, this time to sleep. And so ends the most different of our family’s Christmases, and perhaps the most meaningful in my life so far—a Christmas when I discovered (through necessity) the blessedness of being quiet enough to hear the angels sing; simple enough to receive from God the gifts of grace, insight, and healing which were waiting for me; and to receive from countless generous friends an endless variety of loving attentions. And so it was a December for doing what we always do—and what we have never before done. It was a time for learning anew the grace of receiving—receiving without apology gifts, tangible and in tangible; receiving with joy that we may in turn give with joy. 245 Story of a Family On the Corner 1965 January A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. —LAO-TSE The first day of another year—the first step of another journey. Never has the woman on the corner felt more fortified as the journey begins. Surrounded by the continuing ministry of friends and family I am not allowed to forget that I am still in the category of the convalescent. Though I have once again taken on the responsibilities of meals for the family supporting hands are on every side: this friend stops in regularly to iron (she says she likes to watch the football games with the boys) and to leave on the kitchen table a big box—those meltingly delicious doughnuts (after all she drives right past that bakery—what else can she do?) This neighbor drifts in and out, picking up ironing, leaving magazines, exuding concern and cheer. Another brings a huge bowl of chili at just the right psychological moment. Two of the seminary family happen in on the same frigid morning; and while we visit, one washes the breakfast dishes while the other irons. Auntie comes by with a fragrant loaf of bread still warn from her oven and a stack of newsletters from the church in which I spent a good part of my growing-up years. A pan of breakfast rolls appears on Saturday night—and moments later a knock at the door brings our Sunday dessert—cake and strawberries from a well-stocked freezer. “If you don’t have your Sunday dinner planned,” says the voice on the telephone as we close the front door on the last donor, “let me bring you some. I didn’t get in on helping you when the class was sending food. I won’t bring dessert but. . .” We assure her that manna has just been sent from heaven as a fitting dessert to accompany the ravens’ bread and meat. So it continues: the lady professor drops in to visit—and to iron (always that ironing—do they wonder how I keep them supplied?); a pan of rolls materializes suddenly; the nephews and their wives stop in with doughnuts and cheer; Sunday-school student “pops down” as she puts it, bringing—what is it?—youth...joy...and other intangibles. Two treasured friends come together with roses—roses which for days afterward recall the pleasures of friendship. Finally there comes the day when I refuse 246 On the Corner 1965 to be classed as convalescent. “Six weeks,” I tell my ironing, doughnuttoting friend. “Then it must stop.” Wonderful is good health but priceless is the community of concern and sharing which envelops one in need. And this Woman in this place, recalling the loving attentions of the past weeks, finds herself aching for those persons without community who, when they are weak, are weak alone. These so often undo the good work the physicians have done simply because there is no one to help carry the work load which must be carried if a household is to function. If only there were some simple way of passing on to these unknown, yet really needy ones, one-half the attentions given to me—a privileged, yet no more worthy character. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. —DIETRICH BONHOEFFER. The first outing for the house-hound one was to be the piano recital of the lovely girl in red. But whether it was the excitement of reentry into society or butterflies on behalf of the performer, the fact is that the old lady didn’t, at the last moment, feel up to it. She did manage, though, to look in on the reception afterward, sharing a little bit of one of the significant and happy occasions in the life of one who is—no, of two who are—very dear to her. It is not settled happiness but momentary joy that glorifies the past. —C. S. LEWIS. Having declared myself no longer in the category of the sick and afflicted, I assume everyone will automatically comply. But will the attentions never cease? And how in the world did she know I was hospitalized? The mailman today brings a package of delicately exotic powders and lotions from a faraway friend. Again I am reminded how much grace can reach us through tangibles! Every time I use these luxuries I have a clear sense of the presence of the vital person who sent them. A flood of memories bring back Gertrude, our original meeting place, and the many subsequent meetings: in her own kitchen late at night after the Passover supper; at the comer drugstore 247 Story of a Family after the Great Books meetings; around the table of our friend Esther. As I have wondered often, I wonder once more—“Why Should they call me friend? What have I given them?” And once more I realize that it is not just what we have given or not given each other but rather what has come to life between us. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the Spirit. —KAHLIL GIBRAN. To celebrate the end of convalescence, The Professor takes his wife out for dinner tonight. I must confess that it still hurts my conscience to spend on two what could make a feast for the Seven who are eating hamburgers at home, but The Professor seems to think that the occasion warrants some kind of holy waste. As Jessamyn West has said: This is a night to find out—by having too much—what is enough. Bubu is two today, and it’s a happy birthday for all of us, for we see his own two-year-oldness and not that of other two-year-olds we know or could recall. And his two-year-oldness is unique, incomparable. The road to two has been special for him and for us. It has been a quieter road than the main highway—a road on which there is no drag racing nor murderous striving to pass. It is the kind of road on which one can still walk with safety and pleasure. There’s a bit of grass between the tracks, and the roadsides are wilder, less cropped, and—oh joy—free of billboards. One still may see wild daffodils here in the spring, an occasional wild rose in summer, bittersweet on the fencerows in the fall, and in the winter snow unbroken by plows, clean of smoke and slush and litter. Not many such roads are left today—or if they are left, few people have time to indulge in their beauty. But anyone who walks with such a child as Bubu takes such a road and rediscovers much that he has forgotten about life and love and God. 248 On the Corner 1965 I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms and with the invisible, molecular forces that work from individual to individual. —WILLIAM JAMES February So much of one’s experience is completely incredible to the backward gaze. —CHRISTOPHER MORLEY Periodically—usually during the slower months—I make a gesture toward cleaning out my files. This has been going on for years, yet the files remain much as were fifteen years ago. I never seem be able to get past the first few folders. Reading these letters, diaries, and scraps of thoughts that came out of past and long past periods of my life, I am left a little dumb, astounded even. Was this me? Did I really write, or think, or do what this scrap of paper testifies to? What kind of a person have I become that I find it so difficult to recognize my own expressions, to understand my own actions? By turns amazed, hurt, puzzled, exhilarated, amused, I find it difficult to sustain a connection with the present, to rise up from those folders to perform the very real and demanding chores of the household — cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing—which at this period of my life leave very little room for anything else. Once again, as I did last year, I turn from these intriguing, yet disturbing, fragments of the past thirty years. I hope wistfully that day will come when I can give my whole attention to sorting, reflecting, and perhaps understanding a bit what manner of person has been filling these folders. The past is never dead . . . it’s not even past. —WILLIAM FAULKNER It seems to me that one of the sorriest figures in the history of man is the practical joker. Sometime I shall have to ask one of my psychologist friends what makes such a person tick. I have the uneasy feeling that insecurity and a deep inability to respect one’s self may motivate him 249 Story of a Family and his close associates, the boy and the vandal. Vandalism is often, I suspect, thought of as practical joking by its perpetrators. Yesterday morning citizens of our street and a neighboring street were the targets of such jokers. We realized it when we took that first load of garbage out to the alley only to find the lids of our can and the neighbors’ cans missing. A call to the police told us we should be able to find a lid to fit down at the City Hall, where some thirty-five lids waited. They had been found strewn along a street at the edge of town—and all of them were from the streets nearest us. In place of the lid to our newly purchased garbage can we brought home a battered, unmatched lid, all that was left by the time other irate homeowners had culled through the stack of salvaged lids. But we were grateful for it all the same. And somewhere in town or out of town a few practical jokers were likely laughing at the success of their own joke—there was no man of humor or of dignity to laugh along with them. At the same time there must have been those who would have wished to talk with the vandals, to try to understand, and to reach out a hand to help. [The world] is full of people suffering from delayed or ingrown adolescence. —STORM JAMESON As the children in a family grow up, such days as February fourteenth seem to lose their aura of excitement and charm, which for a small child surrounds a ceremonial observance. But what is lost there is gained in an exchange of ceremony for real experience. A son, his arm around the waist of That Girl, stands by you almost unnoticed as you read and then gently interrupts you to say, “Will you be around in August, Dad? We need someone to marry us then. ...” Letters in strangely unboyish handwriting keep arriving for another son. And the newest high-schooler openly enjoys the company of the fair and tender sex. With all these celebrations of life going on around me it seems a bit silly to go through the motions of making the usual valentine cake for the family in celebration of a mere Day—but I do it all the same. They seem to like the red cake with its ribbonlike layers of white frosting—the recipe that came from an unknown woman on a train (in return for my listening to her griefs and daily-nesses she gave me six wonderful recipes which I use regularly). The Firstborn also makes a cake for his beloved, and neatly inscribes on its top, “Let us love one another, huh?” May they indeed—for a long lifetime. 250 On the Corner 1965 To love someone is not just a strong feeling—it is a decision, a judgment, a promise. —ERICH FROMM Signs of middle age: to recall at any unusual (or usual, for that matter) happening how it used to be. Listening to my elders doing this when I was younger, I thought it the most boring and pointless pastime possible—just as these Sprouts do now. Surely, I thought, surely “old people” must have dismal lives to find nothing more lively to discuss. But a day came when I wished to hear again from my mother those reconstructions of her youth and her marriage, my ancestors and their homes (all those details she had once offered and I had listened to with scarcely a comment—and promptly forgotten). By that day she was gone. And now I am beginning to find that though I would not wish to live again my own childhood or youth—indeed, any part of my life—still, the exercise of memory is a positive pleasure. To remember is not to lay aside the present or abandon hope for the future. To remember creatively can mean to gain wisdom and understanding, impossible without stored observation and experience. Is it when one becomes too wishful, or wistful or bitter, in remembering, that memory can hasten deterioration? Perhaps ... and that is what I will need to watch, I tell this new middle-ager staring back at me from the mirror. It was tempting today, when all the children were home because of a blizzard, to recall other snowbound days when they were small, and we would sit on the old sofa, reading by the hour from a “Little House” book. But now! The house is too small for all twelve of these enormous feet, these burgeoning appetites, these widely differing tastes in what music should be heard or which program watched. Lest I become too wistful about the old days, I pick up a Dorothy Sayers mystery, retire to a comfortable corner, and forget for a while that I have a family. Someday I shall probably be remembering this hullabaloo with pleasure, too! To a noble person it is a holy joy to remember. —ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL 251 Story of a Family March God divided Man into men that they might help each other. —SENECA We know better than to expect spring so early, but it is like a breath of spring to be invited to luncheon today at the home of older friends of our college-church community. To get away from home once in a while is a pleasure for one as housebound as I am; to come here and with other friends to sit down to an exquisite meal is joy! It is a visit combining friendship, remembrance, and renewal in the presence of two who have not ceased to communicate personal charm, kindly wisdom, and evidence of the life of the Spirit—though like most people of their generation they too have had their share of illness and dis appointments. These are the sort of people who help one to be unafraid of the years ahead. Lord, let me live in such a way as to make a light shine on people’s faces. In my mind there is nothing that becomes a man more than a real delight in the companionship of children. I often recall with delight the little fellow with the big cigar in his mouth actually skipping down one of the hilly streets of Scottdale, each hand clutching that of a small laugh ing girl.. And this morning I feel a warm glow when I learn just who is that character on “Today” who always occupies the same spot outside the studio window. Al Birney gets up at four o’clock every morning just so he can go down town and reserve this spot in the window in order to wave to his grandchildren in various parts of the country! Following this he works twelve hours in a restaurant, goes home to his lonely apartment, eats, sleeps six hours, and begins the day again with his long, cheerful vigil at the window—just for the sake of those grandchildren! Few saints are as faithful or as disciplined for the sake of the kingdom of God. Childfulness: the capacity to grow up without “hardening up” and “closing in.” —HARRY and BONARO OVERSTREET 252 On the Corner 1965 Having just read an article on the evils of Lent, I launch a personal, private program for the next few weeks and meditate thereafter on the blessings of Lent. Only those who are able to live the disciplined life constantly are in a position, it seems to me, to deprecate fixed periods of discipline. The rest of us can well use a period of reflection now and then, along with limited and symbolic fasts and deprivations, to remind us more keenly of the world of the spirit. Even Jesus took His forty days and forty nights. It is only with renunciation that life . . . can be said to begin. —WILLIAM JAMES A Formosan student, asked to give his impressions of the U.S. (oh tiresome question!), replies that one of the most surprising observations has been how much Christian people here spend on dog food. Yet even in our own towns people are hungry for bread. Speaking of bread—today we heard a news commentator reporting on the advertising problems of a certain baking establishment. In spite of much and active promotion of their “Mother’s home-baked loaf,” sales simply did not increase. More research revealed that most of today’s shoppers have no image of the goodness of such bread—their mothers never baked a loaf! That, I suppose, classifies those of us who do bake often or even occasionally as museum pieces. Let me still bake the occasional loaf of bread—if not for the fragrance, if not for incomparable texture and tastiness, if not for the sheer joy of creativity—then as a reminder of where bread comes from. I never handle home-baked bread without repeating silently at least the first few of these lines, written by an unknown author and introduced to me by a friend years ago: Be gentle when you touch bread. Let it not lie uncared for—unwanted. So often bread is taken for granted. There is so much beauty in bread— Beauty of sun and soil, Beauty of patient toil. Winds and rains have caressed it, Christ often blessed it. Be gentle when you touch bread. 253 Story of a Family I suspect that many who walked quietly two-by-two from the little Negro church on the south side through the streets of Elkhart to the large First Presbyterian Church on the hill across the river were for the first time in their lives participating in what some may have called a “civil rights march.” There seems to be a natural reticence among us to “stand up and be counted” in such a way, and so we justify nonparticipation by saying that there are more positive ways to work for racial justice—and continue on our way doing little or nothing to that end. Being a part of that orderly, earnest march culminating in the “service of reconciliation” was for us an experience not easily forgotten. Most impressive was the absence of featured “names” and pedigree-giving introductions which so disturb for me the dignity of many of our own wor ship services and meetings where “brotherhood” is proclaimed but hardly practiced as purely as it could be. Here no names were even mentioned. Black and white, the leaders and speakers just arose at their appointed times and carried out their assignments. In this way one could concen trate on the message instead of the messenger. You do not look up or down on a friend; you look straight across at him. —AFRICAN PROVERB The Freshman, home from a Detroit MYF trip, brings a gift—a tiny delicate bud vase of blown glass which he watched being created from start to finish and which he could not resist. Since I know the relatively small amount of his resources and the price of the gift, the little bit of blue glass has assumed a value far beyond its cost to the young son who, even away from home, was reminded of a mother who has a yen for blue. The saints I have known in the flesh have often been quite unable to keep anything for themselves.” —EVELYN UNDERHILL 254 On the Corner 1965 April It’s very easy to forgive others their mistakes. It takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed our own. —JESSEMYN WEST The first of April is, I suppose, the ideal time to make huge “goofs”—if one must make them. However, I still don’t know whose mistake it really was. At a meeting for student wives last night, I sat complacently fingering my notes while the chairman carried on the inevitable business. Then, wham! She announced my topic. It couldn’t have been much further re moved from what I prepared, and there wasn’t time to figure out how the switch may have happened. In spite of what I thought was my flexibility with assigned topics, I was unnerved; that delicate balance of confidence on the one hand and sensitivity on the other was disturbed, and it seemed to me that what I finally offered was a rather garbled version of my originally well-planned speech. Oh, well, as the children call out to the embarrassed victims of their pranks on this day, “April Fool!” To know what we need to know, at the moment we need to know it, is few men’s privilege. —CHRISTOPHER MORLEY In spite of the fact that I know there are thousands of women in the world who spend their lifetimes in a single-roomed hut or cottage, I still find one of my greatest longings to be a room of my own. Oh for a place—even a very small place—where I could spread out papers and not need to gather them up before the next meal and where things would be out of the reach of those incredible fingers of Bubu. Here I could be surrounded by the few things—pictures, photographs, baskets, vases— that mean something to me and to me alone. Here I could escape to in times of pressure and know that at least for a few minutes no on would intrude. It would be a place to invite silence and meditation for however brief a moment sandwiched between the hours of days now necessarily filled with much activity and scattering of attention and concern. Some days—like today—the longing for such a room becomes obsessive, and finally I take solid stock of the possibilities. No matter how I figure it, the outlook seems unpromising for at least five years 255 Story of a Family ahead. Suddenly I know that I cannot wait five years for at least a corner to call my own. I grimly push around kitchen appliances to make room for a long table on which I can at least establish the tools of my trades, all brought together in one place: cookbooks, typewriter, Sunday-school study materials, calendars, program booklets, church directory, letterwriting materials. Far from ideal and badly in need of a good light to make it really usable, it is still the best available substitute for that “Room of One’s Own” which every woman longs for. And I am grateful for it. After all, I’m not as bad off as the woman who could create her own room only by throwing her apron over her head! The main thing is to nurture the spark of grace in your heart. Put aside whatever can extinguish it; seek all that will fan it. —FENELON Although the service of communion seems to bring forth varying responses from different people, almost all agree that this ceremony is of special significance. For some it is an almost magical way of obtaining grace. For some it involves a deeply mystical approach to Christ. Others see in it an affirmation of the brotherhood of all believers. Still others find it a combination of these and other experiences. Increasingly I am aware that the occasion brings near to me one or two friends with whom I have had more or less intense fellowship in the past. As I eat the bread of communion, I find myself suddenly longing to break bread with one or another of these comrades who have shared with me in the exploration of the life of the Spirit. Today the presence of one was so vivid that I almost spoke her name, almost felt the texture of the crusty rolls which we so often in the past did break together. And now, as then, it was clear that there was Another between us—not to divide but to unite. We all need one another.... Souls, all souls are deeply interconnected.... The church at its best and deepest is just that— that interdependence. —EVELYN UNDERHILL The winds which brought death and desolation to our country in April 1965, were the kind of winds which generally happen to other people, 256 On the Corner 1965 people we do not know. But this time—although storm warnings, a coat blown into the street, the garbage can sent rolling, and a neighbor’s tree gently toppling before our eyes were the only indications we had that a terror was lifting over us to set itself down with a vengeance several miles away—this time it happened to people we know and love. Relatives met sudden death. Other relatives and church members escaped with their lives or with, at best, a jumble of half-salvageable belongings. And so it seems almost indecent to be in the position of receiving favors directly traceable to that which brought tragedy to so many others around us. I speak of the joy of receiving calls from concerned broth ers and sisters and friends, some of them several thousand miles away. There were voices I had not heard for years. In thinking of our own good fortune, I remember vividly John Hersey’s account in Hiroshima of the little man crying in a daze of agony to the terrified and horribly burned people rushing past him, “Excuse me, excuse me” —begging forgiveness for being untouched in the presence of general tragedy. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for. —from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevski Once again we celebrate wedding anniversaries with our Topeka friends, only this time with a slight difference. The five girls and five boys of the younger generation (the girls mostly theirs, the boys all ours), and the parents too, keep mentioning such things as material for bride’s and brides-maids’ dresses, duties of a best man and ushers and candlelighters, invitation lists, and reception plans. And her mother, along with his mother, still seem a bit astonished at what is happening, since the thought of such a union never occurred to them years ago when they were classmates, nor later as they kept each other informed by means of baby announcements, nor even when their first-born babies entered college in the same class! Strange what young people are able to accomplish entirely on their own initiative! Love consists of this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other. —RILKE 257 Story of a Family May The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. —ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL May 1, after a long-delayed spring, finds us enjoying one of the few completely springlike days we have had all season. As we travel toward Chicago, we note that the woods have that faint purplish haze which presages the bursting of leaf-buds, yet the branches are still relatively bare and easily discernible. I find myself wondering what difference just one week of this weather will make. Longing for greenness, for lilacs, for the heavy scents and heady colors of spring on our corner, I cherish the secret hope that by some miracle all will be green by this day of next week. The miracle comes through with a burst of glory, as if all the delay had been a damming back of nature now to be released in one incomparable show of vitality. One week later, sure enough, the town is top-heavy with green and our backyard is a veritable censer of lilac-incense—far beyond my hopes. As one of the students in my Sunday-school class puts it, wonderingly, as we stand talking after class in the midst of all the greenness: “I keep thinking spring can’t happen: it can’t be as miraculous as it was last year—and then there it is, more magic than ever!” Yes, like magic, and more—like grace. Our kinship of nature is a kinship of praise. —HESCHEL Bubu in his own way answers the question, “Shall we sin more that grace might more abound?” with a resounding “Yes!” these days. Glowing with the praise he receives when he pushes back the books he has pulled out of their places on the shelf, the obsession of his little life seems to be keep pulling them out in order to hear the command, “Now put them back!” His grinning compliance is followed by the thundering praise, “Big fellow! Fine boy! Good for you!” from various members of the family. In spite of the fact that he has to “sin” more to get more praise, we know well that his joy in receiving commendation is greater than the fun he gets from being ornery. 258 On the Corner 1965 All the while, Bubu’s wordless vocabulary is so eloquent it is no wonder that he ignores verbal adventures. I ask myself if I would be more anxious about his not talking if he were our own child; and though I hope not, I suspect that I would be. For that matter, perhaps we care more than we think. Last night I had a vivid dream in which he enunciated his first, halting, recognizable words, then quickly gained momentum, and soon was rattling off the names of everything within sight! It was one of those wonderfully exhilarating dreams which leave a person with a residue of faith and hope even after awakening. Bubu will talk, I know, in his own time. It is important that the significant person in a child’s life has faith in the potentialities of that child. —ERICH FROMM The Professor tells me that since he plans to be gone most of the summer, his wife is to have money for a vacation all her own before he leaves. The prospect is dizzying; which friend shall I visit? Someone, of course, who never gets to The Corner House. Shall I go to Pennsylvania, or Ontario, or Michigan? What shall I do with those few precious days and the traveling money? The more I ponder, the more depressed I become. The contemplation of spending even a day with Arlene, Margery, Irene, or Pauline is exciting enough. It is the necessary preparation for the family’s welfare in my absence and the inevitable chaos upon returning which in timidate me as I grow older. Is it worth it? Faith says ‘Yes’ in spite of the anxiety of ‘No’. —PAUL TILLICH On the other hand, I muse a few days later as I whisk about the morning “straightening,” what is more satisfying than turning chaos into order? In my better moments it seems to me that the housewife— especially if she is also a mother, but even if she isn’t—has one of the most truly creative jobs in the world. The creation itself, in the Biblical story, was one magnificent feat—however long it may or may not have taken—of bringing order out of chaos. My days too, however daily, are filled with this task. 259 Story of a Family Though it may be argued that it all must be done again, like a potter’s vase created and smashed repeatedly, it is not quite the same. The order I create gives positive support to the lives under this roof and to others who come here. The dish has to be washed again and again, but in the mean time it is the bearer of life—giving food to those around the table. The flowers in the centerpiece die, but before they die some of their fragrance and grace has become a part of those who, though they may not exclaim over them, still see and experience them out of the corner of the inner eye—and nothing is lost. “No, nothing—ever—is lost.” Thus thinks the Woman on the Corner, contemplating her vocation in one of her better moments. Yes, Father, Yes and always Yes. —FRANCIS DE SALES May is the month for last-minute entertaining of students you meant to have all year; for banquets and teas and breakfasts and class outings; for Reading Days and all-night vigils at the typewriter for the college students who somehow perennially leave those important papers until the last second. May is the month for performances, and parents of as large a family as ours are kept moving just getting to the various programs: one child involves us in an elementary orchestra program and a motherdaughter tea; another in the junior high orchestra program; still another in the high school orchestra program; a fourth in a folk song performance at our annual Parent-Junior-Senior Banquet; and, finally, a fifth in the spring concert of the college orchestra. (Hats off to the one family member who does not play an instrument!) Like any other parents we are gratified to watch our own and other children perform, but why does it all have to happen in a few weeks in May? On top of it all, the younger boys who have set up a lawn-mowing business for the summer are besieged with calls for their services which they must sandwich between practices, rehearsals, programs, and studying for those finals. One of these Mays I shall accept the fact that for a few weeks I must be resigned to the sort of rigorous bookkeeping, scheduling, and finagling demanded of a dean’s secretary. 260 On the Corner 1965 What a difference between action and activity! ... When I get up feeling I have a hundred things to do— then I know it’s all wrong. —VON HUGEL June Short prayer pierceth heaven fastest. —Cloud of Unknowing Usually I avoid commencement exercises on principle. Not only do I have a distaste for ceremony (though I know it has certain values) but I simply have not the physical fortitude to sit through hour-long addresses by eminences, however brilliant they may be. This year, however, I did go (surely it couldn’t have been because our son was a graduate!) and was rewarded with an unconventional treat: a short commencement address! I am comforted that at least a few men— such as Franklin Littell—seem to understand that most audiences are not much impressed by my great ideas propounded after the first 30 minutes of a speech. But all too many speakers still cling to the belief what they have to say is so exceptional that the rules do not apply to them. Joy comes from deep fulfillments, not from conventional satisfactions. —MAGEE A single weekend—just a day and a half out of our lives—yet the emotions, the contacts, the insights of that hurried trip would take years to unravel and communicate. The excuse was a wedding in another state: a joy in itself. The unexpected stops with friends and relatives along the way were all the more delightful and intense for their brevity; but the bonuses! The unexpected! The flashes of grace! One such was that moment in a country churchyard. Our stopping there was one of those strange whims that afterward seem a part of a plan. While The Professor walked through the “new” church—new, that is, since we had been there last—I hurried alone to the little graveyard as if swept by a strong wind at my back. There on that incredibly perfect early Sunday morning of June I stood in the dewy grass in the 261 Story of a Family silence, surrounded suddenly by the host of loved friends, aunts, uncles, grandparents and—their stone marked (horrors!) by a few flowers of hotpink plastic—my father, my mother. As if to crown this communion for which I had not asked or even thought to wish, a meadowlark’s trill rose from the surrounding grainfield. How many years since I’ve heard a meadowlark! In that most shining moment when my little segment of time touched Eternity even the hotpink plastic flowers did not offend me. What shall the wedding breakfast be? A fried mosquito and a roasted flea! That pretty well sums up the amount of sustenance one gets at a wedding reception. I’m not knocking the custom: those who ate at our own wedding years ago rated no more than the usual; and until recently I wouldn’t have expected that those who shall eat at our daughter’s wedding ten years (at least, we hope) hence would fare any better. But our friends in the brown bungalow have other ideas. They think we’ve gotten things all mixed up—stuffing people after the funeral and starving them after the wedding! I must admit that their view makes sense: grieving and fasting naturally go together. Why then should food be so important to those gathered in grief? Conversely, rejoicing and “eating and drinking” are natural companions. Why then should there be only a token of food at the latter and twice too much at the former? Maybe it’s just a matter of economics; a few persons must pay for the wedding feast —if there is to be any—but most funeral “meats” are donated by church or community. Too bad that the weddings of church people have become thought of as such private affairs that even when an invitation is issued to members of the congregation few will respond. Too bad that church people don’t have—or take—the chance to rejoice (attend the wedding and send in food!) with those who rejoice—as well as to weep with those who weep. May the day come! In the meantime we are eagerly awaiting a certain Iowa Fraulein’s wedding) Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be today. If I forget Thee do not Thou forget me; for Christ’s sake, Amen. —SIR JACOB ASTLEY 262 On the Corner 1965 The last of June was a time of Comings and Goings, the like of which no two weeks of mine had ever seen. The before, during, and after of Mission Board meeting brought us house guests in an unprecedented number and of a variety of relationships. Any one of these visits would have been the Treat of the Summer—in an ordinary year. As overwhelming as the Comings were the Goings: on Friday, #4 left for Scottdale; on Saturday, the last guests departed; on Sunday, #2 headed for camp as a counselor; on Monday, #3 as a counselor and #5 and #6 as campers boarded their respective buses; on Tuesday, The Professor himself left for New York’s Kennedy Airport —and Israel. Now a man or an innocent young thing might read this and think, “So what?” But any woman in charge of a household can envision behind the simple facts of the case something of the engineering feat required to get everyone to his bus, train, car, or plane with all the proper equipment clean, sorted, and packed in the proper luggage; to do this with a Special Character like Bubu literally tackling one around the legs as he moves from one part of the room or house to another; to keep on serving decent meals in spite of the emergencies; and to see that everyone gets where he is to be on time! You’re not going to get any ships in if you don’t send any out! In the midst of the final frenzy the brief visit of a friend is like a benediction. This friend “knows what it’s like” and leaves an envelope “to take care of some of those extras” that always turn up when one is getting people ready for extended trips. Thank God for people who let you know that they know what it’s like! Thank God for them whether or not they leave envelopes! Responsiveness to God cannot be copied; it must be original with every soul. —HESCHEL July Happiness depends upon the delicate balance between forgetting and remembering one’s self. —CHRISTOPHER MORLEY 263 Story of a Family The house is quiet—very quiet with only Bubu and I (and overnight the eldest who is caught up in working by days and in wedding consultations with his Beloved in the evenings.) In a burst of freedom I find a sitter for Bubu and take off the afternoon to go with a friend to South Bend. My excuse is to look for a proper wedding garment—but really I just want to celebrate the delicious simplicity of these few days without a large family. The dress for the wedding still eludes me, but the joy of a new discovery excites me more than finding the dress would have done. This, I tell myself is God’s gift for me for today. In a small corner bookshop we come upon greeting cards that one can send without a feeling of frustration: cards with a Christian thrust yet dignified by good taste in design as well as in selection of “sentiments.” Greedily we each amass a stack of them and though I’m a bit hesitant to share my knowledge of the locale of the treasure since it will mean that other people will send out cards just as rare as mine—still I can’t keep it and must whisk out my packet of cards to display to even comer! ...not because they are my powers but because they are His gift. —MERTON She stopped me in the hall to say that something I had written about the Everywoman of Lost-Coin fame made her realize for the first time that perhaps she had a special gift too—that of giving herself to others through sending greetings and making telephone calls at important and unimportant occasions. How wise of her to recognize her gift! One of the most frustrating situations for a person who writes or sings or paints or teaches or leads with any degree of competence is to confront the person who thinks of himself as, in comparison, bereft of “gifts.” Yet how many gifted women there are among us! I have friends whose natural gifts of hospitality are great: no painstaking effort on my part ever begins to produce what they accomplish with a natural flair. So I do not try. I accept the fact that this is their gift and mine is another. I have friends who possess a positive knack for seeking out strangers, for making people feel good without having to resort to any artificial techniques of flattery. A gift! An enviable gift—but one which I can only appreciate, not reproduce. Mine is another. 264 On the Corner 1965 Other people I know have a way of making their houses invitingly attractive, no matter what materials they have to work with; or a way with children; or food; or of articulateness in public prayer; or a knack for knowing what a person needs at the time he needs it. These are true gifts—endowments just as honorable and often more necessary than those we speak of as if they were somehow greater. To recognize what one can do well is, it seems to me, as important as to recognize one’s weaknesses. Only then can we weed out the frustrating and scattering effects of that covetousness which makes us want to excel not just in our own one or two special fields but also in those areas in which each of our friends excels! Who that loves can love enough? —WESLEY It is a summer of reunions. At the kitchen sink my sister and I sing the old two-part songs of childhood as we almost always do when we meet again after years (this time, ten of them). Meanwhile her good husband repairs our light fixtures, which have had no attention since another brother-in-law’s visit several years ago. A brother and his wife, cousins, and old friends from the Far West drop in briefly. Then at the triennial reunion of the descendants of J. S. Shoemaker, I have the delight of meeting cousins and cousins’ children, some of whom I had nearly forgotten. Here is a young matron with her children; they tell me she was the little girl I used to rock to sleep. Here is a young father who comes up to me, puts an arm affectionately on my shoulders, and kisses me. Goodness! Who is he? Could it be?—it is—the Jerry who, as a golden-haired sevenyear-old, was in my charge while his mother was busy with a new baby. I used to think he had a sweetness of spirit rare even in a child; and it is this that still shines in the man. Reunions do have a way of reminding one of the relentless passage of time. But also they may convince us that loving relationships can remain uncorrupted by time’s passage. The will to take must be balanced by the will to give. —OREN BAKER 265 Story of a Family With The Professor in Israel there seems to be even more of a conspiracy of love surrounding me on my day. Toward the end of the day I am so ashamed of all the attention—gifts, food, phone calls, cards, service—that I hesitate to show anyone my “loot,” as the children gleefully dub it. Then there is the pounding of nails and the slapping of tile after tile upon the floor as the Boy with the Big Heart (with help volunteered by the Oldest) donates the labor necessary to make the absent husband’s gift (tile for four rooms) useful. But the amazement of the day comes when that member of the family who insists that gift-giving is all rot—and he doesn’t care to get or to give—comes home with something I really need, a paring knife. No, not one, but three. He figured that since such knives didn’t cost as much as he had expected, he may as well buy three and use up his money. (The only one in his price range, he says, was in a jewelry store. He didn’t think the rhinestone-encrusted handle appropriate for a person of my type! If we want to like the people around us, we had best give them a chance to be likable. —HARRY AND BONARO OVERSTREET August The Lord’s goodness surrounds us at every moment. I walk through it almost with difficulty as through thick grass and flowers. —BARBOUR Months can go by in which there is scarcely anything in one’s reading that stands and defies being quickly forgotten. Then suddenly there is a BOOK. This week there were two! One of these was Hutchinson’s A Child Possessed, a most unusual story centered on a father’s love for his severely brain-damaged child. The same artistry that creates the ruthless descriptions of a child so damaged that she is scarcely more than an animal conveys the heartrending beauty of a relationship—the kind of relationship which must be difficult to understand if one has always thought of a “defective” child as less than human. In a totally different vein the second book, The Ever-Present Past, contains collected essays by that extraordinary woman of letters, Edith Hamilton, who has contributed so much to our understanding of Greek 266 On the Corner 1965 culture in such a readable way. I am astounded to learn that this woman began writing at the age of 63. Up to that time, to be sure, she hadn’t been merely puttering about the house. Still— God knows the proper time for giving you new lights. —UNDERHILL In the wake of tragedy there is always—naturally—editorializing. Always there are those futile attempts to explain what is not ours to explain. One of the reactions most disturbing to me, however, is “It is God’s will.” Though I truly believe that God can bring good out of any situation, I cannot believe that He wills tragedy, torture, gross injustice, and all the other ills which bring terrible suffering to members of the human race. A friend and I were discussing this today. We also spoke of the fear of death. Many Christians would say there should be none. I am inclined to agree with the man who said that Plato believed in the Eternal because he was afraid to die—and that the man who is not afraid die is no really alive. Sometimes we make the Bible say there is no sting in death and seem to say that to acknowledge that sting is to be faithless. Sometime, we agreed, we must ask a New Testament scholar what he makes of some of those statements in I Corinthians 15. ...there is only one way to get the answer to tragedy, and that is to live through it, to endure the reality of it with fortitude and faith ...transmuting the pain, the resentment, the anger, into nobler spirit. —BAKER For us at our house, last August was not just another repeat of that final hurdle (for mothers) or the final fling (for children) of the Summer Vacation. It was the Month of The Wedding, including: the last of the three showers for the bride; the fitting of dresses and the buying of suits and shoes; the token shining-up of the house in preparation for wedding guests—then, as the last week opened, a quiet evening service for the Crowning of the Bride in our home; the boys’ bachelor supper at Azar’s; the wedding rehearsal; and, at last, the lovely serviceworship in which our friends child became our child—and ours, theirs. 267 Story of a Family His young brother and sister lighted the candles perfectly; her three sisters and his three brothers, standing there with them, helped to make of the ceremony—besides a worship service—a family undertaking, not a “social affair.” It was a beautiful day ... a day to remember . . . our family’s first wedding! Suddenly, the house seems terribly empty, even with six children still left! And that mother who always secretly guessed that she would be quite sensible about such things as a child’s leaving home is the victim of a tough case of post-wedding blues. “Let him that thinketh he standeth...” I am comforted by my dear aunt down the street who says that the same thing happened to her over 20 years ago when their family’s first wedding occurred! But the blues do not linger long. The summer has ended. The Traveler returns from the Far Land with gifts for all the family. For me there is the menorah—the Jewish candle holder—for which I asked. And immediately I place seven candles in the holder to light on Saturday evening when I shall pray with my family the “Prayer of the Jewish Mother at Candle lighting”: “Father of Mercy, O continue Thy lovingkindness unto me and unto my dear ones. Make me worthy to rear my children that they walk in the way of the righteous before Thee, loyal to Thy law and clinging to good deeds. Keep Thou from us all manner of shame, grief, and care; and grant that peace, light, and joy ever abide in our home. Amen.” The honeymooners, radiant and relaxed, return, and the woman on the corner knows that the boy is fast becoming a man when she sees him, minutes afterward, lying on the floor in play with Bubu—something which would have been beneath the dignity of the Dependent Son. Then come the lightning days of school preparation: receptions for new faculty members and the purchasing of forgotten-till-the-last-minute items such as gym shoes and socks. The Summer of The Wedding is over. Thou wilt reveal the path to life, to the full joy of Thy presence, to the bliss of being close to Thee forever. —Psalm 16:11 268 On the Corner 1965 September ...finding everlasting significance in the present moment. Tired of staying home because of the complexity of taking Bubu along, we pack for him this year too. Both of us—Bubuand I—shall imbibe with the rest of the family that wonderful, clean, North Michigan air and the rare atmosphere of the annual convocation of professors and their families at Little Eden. As it happens, Bubu enjoys it thorough, as I do, in spite of his weight and the vigilance necessary to keep him from endangering himself and public property. Also he turns out be quite a conversation piece and maybe, we think, a bit of a missionary for the Cause of the Exceptional Child. It takes a while for high-minded, inhibited adults to make tentative gestures toward recognizing that the retarded child in the stroller is a person—indeed, that he is there at all—and some never quite make the hurdle. But children have no difficulty. Most of them have a smile, a pat on the head, a “Hi, Bubu!” for the little fellow, a hand outstretched for his handshake, or a request for permission to push him about in his stroller. The naturalness, the openness of children! What a pity that as we gain the much-needed maturity of adulthood so few of us retain that freedom to respond impulsively to the persons—all sorts of persons—we meet. Let each become all he was created to be. —CARLYLE Back home, I suffer the typical throes of a return involving great mounds of dirty clothes and “school-starting-tomorrow” emergencies. As form begins to emerge from chaos and I insist, “Let there be light,” I am in a quandary concerning which of my housewifely duties are most important. Right now, of course, there is a lot of sheer physical labor involved. But I’m impressed with the necessity for a great deal of administrative skill, not only in seeing that the chores get done, but also in remembering an appointment for this child, helping another to work out a practice schedule, making sure that the lawnmowing business does 269 Story of a Family not go bankrupt because of the failure of its partners to see ahead farther than their corporate nose. At the end of one such day when the hated role of administrator has almost reduced me to tears of frustration, I remind myself wryly that whereas I once prayed, “Spare me that I might live to see my children grown,” I now pray desperately, “Spare me that they might live to grow up.” For in spite of all the lessons I’ve supposedly learned about being dispensable, at this time of the year it’s hard to believe that my death would not cause—aside from any transient sorrow—a great deal of chaos in the lives of these few for whom I am especially responsible. Happiness may be defined as the certainty of being needed. —HESCHEL What is more elusive in the house of two People-Who-Write—and five students who occasionally have to write—than the Bic pen! Wonderful invention, that nineteen-cent variety which we all use. I buy several at a time, hoard them, hide them, watch over them, and loan them only against my will and with sharp reminders that they be returned. Yet when I want one...! Of course, no one knows the whereabouts of any of my Bics—neither the black one nor the blue one nor even the red one which I use only to make stars beside the events in my diary which I may later need for my column. Sometimes before I go to sleep at night I imagine how rich in Bics we might be if we were to remove the bottom of the sofa. Come to think of it, maybe that’s where three pair of papercutting scissors have disappeared to! Beware of what you seek; you may find it. —OLD PROVERB Middle age has all sorts of little tricks to make you aware of its moving in on you. It seems to me that these days I have more Blue Mondays than I ought to have—two or three a week a least. “At such a time,” I may once have said, “something always happens unexpectedly to redeem my day.” Well, it doesn’t—not now, not usually. The telephone doesn’t ring, except for the youth. No first-class mail. No special bonus of praise from anyone for anything. No surprises, delights, or unexpected strengths. These are days to be somehow muddled through. And though I know that some 270 On the Corner 1965 people given my set of circumstances would do a better job of it, they are not me. Once in a great while, though, there is that Light. Like last week when Mary and Elizabeth, in town for more important things, still thought of me, called me, and arranged to take me out for dinner for a few hours in their crowded day. Like today, when the lady down the street came just for anyhow—with nasturtiums! How could she know that nasturtiums do for me what roses do for many women? This is the flower that my mother planted wherever she settled down: in the thin rocky Idaho soil, the rich black loam of Illinois, the brown sand of Indiana, the clay of our Pennsylvania hill. And to see, to hold, to smell a nasturtium is—for me—a kind of meeting with my mother. Most people need more love than they deserve. —ESCHENBACH We make our first visit, The Professor and I, to our son’s home—a cozy apartment on the campus of the state university. How good it is to see these youngsters in such control of their own affairs! Far from feel ing hurt at not being needed, we are delighted. And when his son sits at the head of his own table and himself asks the blessing on our food, the Professor beams. We become our own father and mother, and we become also our own child. —FROMM October Free men set themselves free. —OPPENHEIM One often hears people regretting the fact that we no longer feel free to “drop in” to visit each other. We must wait for invitations, and so we often wait, and keep people waiting, all our lives, and never get together in that old-fashioned “easy” way with those whose company we know would be a pleasure. Myself—I’m of two minds about it. There have been times 271 Story of a Family when such a drop-in has literally saved the day for me . . . has rescued it from oblivion, and remained in my memory as a treasure. Other times I have been so embarrassed by my own appearance or the state of my housekeeping that I couldn’t enjoy the visit. (Yes, I know it’s a defect to be apologetic, but after battling this trait for twenty-five years, I have learned to accept it quite cheerfully.) I do not believe, however, as many seem to, that we have neglected this kind of visiting because we care so much less about each other. Rather, to me, it seems to be a product of the age in which we live. A case in point: On one fine gold and blue October day, feeling especially chipper I plunk Bubu into his stroller and decide to visit a neighbor down the street. She is not home! So I try another ... and another ... and another. No one is home. Later I learn that most of these ladies are working full or part time. In an age when houses sit empty and silent all day so that their occupants can make enough money to pay for improvements on way of life—including their homes—any talk about “dropping-in” and “oldfashioned hospitality” seems slightly ridiculous. Fellowship is not an accidental addition to religion. It is the matrix within which we bear one another’s aspirations. —PALMER On her birthday, our gift to the youngest is a trip to the Pagoda Inn with four of her friends—no adults accompanying them inside. Later, as we listen to their glowing reports, we sense the delight of being on the verge of the teens, where one can still enjoy eating huge quantities of food without talk of “watching the figure,” or boy-chatter. Another year or two and such innocence will be gone from them forever! The walls of her mind all hung round with such bright, vivid things! —VIRGINIA WOOLF Casually I ask the young son where he is going, that he is in such a rush to finish his dishes. He explains that he has an appointment with his friend Doug to show him through our church building. As I stack the last dishes for him, and prepare the water, I muse that there is great promise for the future (in spite of all the discouraging things one hears 272 On the Corner 1965 about the sophistication, delinquency, and amorality of many teenagers), so long as there are still fifteen-year-old boys who get a charge out of showing each other through their respective churches! See how lovely they are! How good for the eyes! How good for the heart! —F. D. WENTZEL Around our table tonight were a few of the children—college students—of persons who were special friends of ours long ago when we were in college together. This is always a pleasure to which we look for ward each year, and one of the unique rewards of living where we do. Our only regret is that we can’t possibly entertain all the children of former friends, for just now the tide is beginning to come in. Also, we suspect that besides the ones we know are here, there are many more whom we never recognize, because neither their names nor their faces tell us who their mothers and/or fathers were. Each year I take the new student list and cheek those names which, I am sure, belong to the children of old friends. But at the same time I am aware that among that mass of Milers, Yoders, Gingrichs, Kings, Swartzendrubers, and Hostetlers—plus all the new names—there undoubtedly lurk several dozen more who may go through four years of college right under our noses without ever revealing themselves as descendants of the little G. C. family as it existed in the years from 1938-1942. Every friendship is entered into at the expense of close and sympathetic relations with others who may be equally admirable and worthy of attention. —DAVID ROBERTS My neighbor-two-doors-down — (There! I’ve done it again. Some young thing reminds me that I should give an explanation of my peculiar set of directions when referring to up and down our street. Perhaps it is a testimony to the importance of the college in our lives that I invariably go up—south—to the campus and down—north—toward the center of the city.) My neighbor, whom I might never see at all except for the borrowing process, stopped to chat today as I gathered in clothes. Having filled each 273 Story of a Family other in on family news, we turned to the weather, of course. She told me how she has been enjoying my bush this fall. To prevent myself from blurting, “What bush?” I followed her eyes, and saw for the first time what has happened to our old snowball bush at the corner of the backyard. In all our years here, never has it put on such a show—and I didn’t even see it! Now, many times in a day, I glance out at my burning bush, and I always think of it as a gift from my neighbor. Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. —HESCHEL November Man is a mistake-maker. This fact is at once his embarrassment and his glory. —OVERSTREET Holding the broken lid of the little jam jar, I stand and repeat what seems to be an all too frequent expression for me: “Why does it always have to be the dear things?” Unlike many of my friends who have in herited antiques or other lovely dishes, I have few things which could not easily be replaced. So what happens? The old cracked dime store dishes, the cheap vases I wish would break but never do, the jelly glasses and peanut butter jars—these go on cluttering my cupboards year after year. Used every day, and sometimes more than a bit carelessly, they refuse to so much as chip. But the lovely Fostoria flower bowl given to me on my engagement by my mother; the antique vase from a cherished friend; the bone china cup, handled with such care—and now, the cunning lid to the little jam jar made by my sister just for me (“I hope it’s the right shade of blue for your dishes!”)—the most prized piece of pottery in the house! Why does it always have to be the dear things? I guess that’s what we all cry out when we lose something prized. In the light of such a loss, we forget just how many jelly glasses have also succumbed along the way! [Diogenes] . . . had cast away every handle by which slavery might lay hold on him . . . all things sat loose upon him. All things were to him attached by but slender ties. —EPICTETUS 274 On the Corner 1965 Most people I know can be classed as joke rememberers or nonrememberers. Though I am of the latter class, I often recall, since in our community of colleagues many have spent time in far-off places, a certain cartoon. Sitting at a cafe table are two beatniks—young man with unkempt beard, young girl with black leotards and lank hair. On his face is an expression of utter humiliation as he looks down and mut ters, “I should tell you this, before we go any further: I—I haven’t been to Europe!” Not only have I not been to Europe. I have never been in an airplane, or to California or Florida. (Not that I mind, I tell myself. After all, Rachel Carson had never been out of the U.S. when she wrote The Sea Around Us. Or to Washington, D.C., or New York City. Until this week. Then for three grand days as guest of the American Bible Society, I was able to catch a bit of the flavor of the Big City; to sit in the U.N. Security Council Chamber; to relax in a Room of My Own; to eat food I had not prepared myself; to be inspired by meeting and listening to devout and gracious persons of the ABS family, and to give, in return, my own small gift to them. Coming home I find that all has gone smoothly in my absence. Bubu has been lovingly cared for by a substitute mother each day. The rug has been vacuumed, the dishes washed. Why, then, should I be nasty and add that no one thought to take out the garbage? I refrain from carping, so blessed have I been. But I do take out the garbage, air the house, and then, in every downstairs room, light a few sticks of incense. It is refreshing to be able to use one’s wings occasionally, but good to have a grindstone to twirl again. Enjoying Him and working with Him have got to be balanced parts of one full, rich, surrendered life. —EVELYN UNDERHILL The usual is for the faculty to entertain students in their homes. Tonight the Prof and I were recipients of the Unusual—a delicious dinner at Tom’s with our student friends—at their expense. Thanks to the young, our hearts were gay! Every experience gives the clue to a new duty. —HESCHEL 275 Story of a Family Nothing seemed to work out for our family celebration of Thanksgiving...; so the Woman decided she was not in the mood for anything special, foodwise. They could take what they’d get! Then a family brimming with pretty girls asked for the company of our family (lopsided with boys) for the day. It was a good, noisy, funfilled day. And even Bubu became so excited over watching the game of PIT that before we knew it he had gnawed through the finish of our hostess’s table edge. She was very gracious about it all. We in turn can say that though the rest of us may in time be forgotten, little Bubu has undoubtedly left his mark upon this home! Never forget a kindness; never remember a wrong. —A. LINCOLN The young-marrieds come home—their first return. Not many minutes after they arrive, I am aware that the son looks pretty shaggy around’ the ears. Almost—for the habit is strong—I say it: “You need a haircut!” But I catch myself in time, and as I relax and lean back in my chair, a delicious sense of freedom suffuses me. He’s not my responsibility anymore! I don’t need to remind him! And I remember the paragraph written by Dietrich Bonhoffer concerning mothers-in-law. They still are free to love, to give, to suffer with and for their children and children-in-law. But they are forever freed—and barred—from giving advice. The golden rule is—to help those we love to escape from us. —VON HUGEL December We sanctify the present by remembering the past. —HESCHEL “Holidays,” quoted the speaker, “have a tendency to degenerate.” Yes, they do, I mused. And during the rest of his speech I sat remembering ... remembering a typical Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving from childhood days in the late twenties. Have holidays changed that 276 On the Corner 1965 much? Or has my own sense of wonder dimmed so much that it only seems so? Easter! Its memory still warms me, though our celebration of it seems terribly simple, now. No stores full of chocolate crosses lying beside chocolate eggs, bunnies, and chickens. No greeting-card cases full of inane Easter greetings. There were soft-boiled eggs for breakfast—all we could eat. There was the egg hunt in the yard, early in the morning, and a big brother who knew such marvelous hiding places. But mainly, Easter was church, with the exciting program so painstakingly prepared by the children for weeks. There may or may not be a new dress to wear, but the newness, the miracle, the sparkle was all there. Fourth of July? A few firecrackers and sparklers—but mainly the Sunday-school picnic at Blue Lakes. (Deviled eggs, rowboats, and one year the great spectacle of the man in the black rubber suit floating down the Snake River on his back with a paddle seesawing across his tummy, and himself singing “Just a Song at Twilight” in a strong but funereal voice.) Thanksgiving—church, first of all, then two families eating together of goose and suet pudding. And spending the day—until chore-time— visiting, with the children inventing all sorts of exciting pastimes with out aid of radio, TV, or the usual stack of Milton Bradley Educational Games. And Christmas? A tree, to be sure; with real little twisted candles on wee snapperholders, and a glass bird that could be clipped to a limb. Red and green ropes strung by That Brother, crisscrossed from one corner of the ceiling to another, with the big red honeycomb bell hung from the middle. Gifts, handmade or handpicked, were there for each member of the family from each member. No going together to get something Big. And the Big gift, from Mamma, was rarely a doll. More often it was a pair of slippers. And you loved them all — the doll dress, the handkerchief, the thimble, the book, the pink stationery and, yes, the slippers. You loved them, kissed the givers, and put the gifts aside, later, to go naturally, gladly (today’s kids refuse to believe this!) to church. For again there was Miracle in the air; there was the Progam in which you had a “pretty long piece” and you and Mickey would sing “Little Star.” Watching modern children—our own included—and modern parents, I am convinced that holidays do have a tendency to degenerate. Like a snowball picking up sticks and grass along with more snow, much that is foreign matter makes the day bigger and more overpowering and less special. All the same, I am aware that nostalgia can be delusive too, and though I know that the holidays of my youth were truly exciting 277 Story of a Family occasions, maybe today’s children will later remember these gaudy, overdone Christmases with more joy than we seem to observe in them, as we watch them work their way through the tissue and red ribbon. We return in vain to the places we have loved. We shall never see them again, for they were situated not in space but in time, and the man who goes back to them is no longer the child or the youth who dressed them in the colors of his passion. —MAUROIS, paraphrasing PROUST What would I wish that our children remember of their childhood Christmases? Only a few things, really: the family symbols on the tree; the guests, in and out; the Nativity program with which they as small ones always favored us parents; and at least one or two times when they received a gift which utterly delighted them, or gave a gift which did the same for someone else. It is a wise father that knows his own child. —SHAKESPEARE With Special Joy I am remembering this year: The gift of a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, in the company of the giver. ... The deftness of the hands of the married son as he assembles our Moravian Star which I despaired of getting together... The colorful Nativity Mural made for by our new daughter and hung on the wall to remind us of the Reason for all this.... An evening of good talk and delicious Mexican food shared in the trailer-home of a student couple.... The crazy mess of mixing up a double recipe of our Christmas Red Cake only to find that I’d quadrupled some ingredients and must now increase the others...The late-into-the-night communion with a Special Young Person in which the masks slip, and faces are seen. ... The funny gifts of that member of the family who doesn’t believe in giving or getting at Christmas, but managed to come up with the most delightful assortment of anyone. “And I got ‘em all for five bucks!” he crows.... The luxury of moving about in a house made Christmas-clean by Mary. ... Bubu’s pleasure in a small red telephone.... The receiver he holds on top of his head, as he waves “Bye” with the other hand.... And the people! The dear minister and his wife, of my childhood church; winsome young faculty; our two Old Regulars’ bi-yearly Christmas guests; That 278 On the Corner 1966 Family on College Avenue Who Is Always Doing Something for Somebody; our student nephew and his wife; a gracious, handsome lady from the Far North, who reads “On the Corner.” ... These all multiplied Christmas joy by sharing it with us in our home. Joy is the light seen farthest out at sea. But there are always regrets: Again I am vexed by the great attention to planned gift-giving (even though I myself succumb to it); the snarling of schedules; the overdose of meetings where so little meeting occurs—all of this dumped into a few weeks which could be the most calm, the freest, the most spontaneous and fullest of fellowship in the entire year. Also, as a missionary family prepares to leave I suddenly realize that I have not reached out to them in any way. I never knew, at any time, quite what to do. Now I can see countless opportunities — gone! Mother used to say of her youngest, most spoiled, “She’s a good worker, but she doesn’t see work”—and it’s still, alas, too true! To give pleasure to a single heart by a single kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer. —SAADI On the Corner 1966 January Under every roof there is an “Alas!” —German Proverb “The loneliness of the long-distance runner”—tonight the phrase keeps turning and turning in my head and for the life of me, I don’t know where it comes from. The title of a book or play? But from where, before that? And what does it mean? What did it mean to the man who chose it for the title of his popular work? I only know what it means to me, alone, awake, aware, with family and friends all partying in or praying in the new year in the midst of fun and love and laughter. Self-pity, that emo 279 Story of a Family tion that never did anyone any good, that most deteriorating of emotions, constricts what could have been for me a creative solitude. Then, of all times, the doorbell rings, and in walks a school acquaintance from years back, whose presence at our door I can’t account for. We were not close friends; we have not kept in touch. Has she lost her way, had car trouble outside out door? Not at all that complicated. She had read about Bubu; their family, too, has a special child, and so, driving through on other business, she has just stopped in to talk. Though there are differences in being foster parents and blood parents of such children, there are also vast areas of communication in which most people cannot participate. Tonight there is not time to exchange all that is waiting to be expressed, but we are invited to vacation come summer, in their cabin on Lake Michigan. (I make a mental note: Won’t she be surprised if we accept?) We shall see. But now as we say good night—no good morning—at the door, I thank God for crazy people who decide to do unthinkable things at midnight, and end up ringing a bell, lighting a candle, and leaving a gift—all of which befit the celebration of new year. “You can always begin again.” The first sermon of our new year finds me hungry, open. The visiting minister preaches briefly (our favorite variety!) makes some oddly clever remarks about zeros to the left of the decimal point, and perils of a Thing-Life (he is a poet and the turn of his phrase delights my poetry-impoverished soul). But the sentence I remember and repeat to myself all day, all week, is one any unlettered dull person could have said, and probably has said: “Remember—you can always begin again.” I repeat this silently even while an equally silent answer rises: “Seems to me that all my life has been a series of beginningagains.” “But at least you do begin again,” comes the reply. Yes. The evil day will be when one has no will to begin again. Thank you, Redyns! Tonight at the College we see Bergman’s film, Winter Light. It is difficult to compare this Experience with the entertainment of even a good movie. With a small frame, with very few characters and limited scenery; in somber black and white—even with the inconvenience of Swedishspeaking actors (one must read the English at the bottom of the frame) Bergman is able to communicate a significant idea in an unforgettable setting. And such wonderful things he does with light! A friend who also remembers the Depression in many of the same ways we do eats with us tonight. The menu, reminiscent of our table in 280 On the Corner 1966 the little house in Filer, includes: salmon cakes (absolutely and only one apiece, no matter how many times one counted them through slit lids, while the blessing was being asked), potatoes boiled in jackets, stewed tomatoes. The only thing I did not recall was how Mother made those salmon cakes. Nobody would have wanted two of these dry thin things which reached our table tonight. At the L-M tonight, The Professor and I used some friends’ tickets and sat in the A-Reserved section. Admittedly these were better seats than those to which we are accustomed; we could even make out the facial features of the speaker. But somehow I was uncomfortable. I felt like an impostor—the way I feel in a hotel or a dining room whose prices are beyond our means. Without being judgmental, I hope, of the people who sit in the High Seats—after all, someone must sit there—I still feel more comfortable among the peasants on the bleachers, with our own blue tickets, than among the gentry, with the borrowed finery of creamcolored tickets! In church this morning I sit dully, not even wondering when the angel is going to move the waters. And then it happens. The hymn number is announced, and before I even turn to it, I know what it is—”Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” A stinging behind the eyelids reminds me that I am, after all, a sentimental old woman at heart, no matter how hard I try to ride herd on those tendencies. For this was my grandfather’s hymn, and to hear it after all these years is like having the essence of him burst upon me for the first time. When we lived with him I was too young, he was too old, life was too daily, we were too close. And so I had thought, what was so special about this old man, anyhow? But in the singing of the hymn today somehow the significance of his life falls into place. Beyond the imperfections which I had witnessed and of which his children were aware, emerges the man who loved and gave himself for the church, who was always on the side of progress, who in his generation was a light. At the same time he was one who had time to write sheafs of letter-poems and to make a score of intricate pen-flourish drawings over the years, for a little granddaughter he had never seen. We sing, and I see him standing in his own pulpit, a tall-man now bent, large nose, great drooping ears, thin white hair and heard, but with joy in his old eyes: “Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace. … 281 Story of a Family It is always with a bit of sheepishness that the woman on the corner admits that she has a great liking for mystery and detective fiction that is well written. And now she has a new author whose name she will keep looking for. Harry Kemelman’s delightful Friday the Rabbi Slept Late is not only good detective fiction; it is of theological interest. Long after I have forgotten the plot (ordinarily that happens a few days after I’ve finished reading!) I shall remember what the rabbi told the Catholic chief of police concerning the difference between most Jewish and most Christian praying. January’s Bonuses: A surprise call from the special Michigan person who has been an honorary member of our family ever since she mothered us when each of the last two children was born; the reading of Daughter’s literature project—an illustrated book entitled The Boy That Somebody Wanted; dinner with our relative in the country—one of the most openhearted, open-house families we know; a letter from a most special friend, written in a snowstorm, received in a snowstorm, and recalling gladness and sadness shared. February Do not be disturbed about being misunderstood; rather, be disturbed about not being understanding. —CHINESE PROVERB Bubu has witnessed, these wintry evenings, much chess playing in the living room. He too would like to play, and makes power grabs for the chessmen, only to find himself a very unpopular fellow. Tonight, however, one of the boys heeds the urgent noises and pointings which plainly indicate his wishes to challenge any comer. The chessmen are set up. Bubu draws up a big chair and seats himself importantly, then begins his game with a fervor. Chin on little uncoordinated left hand, he simu lates a moment of thought, then pawn-in-hand, he takes mincing jumps all over the board, removing this queen, that knight, another bishop in a grand coup, always careful to place his winnings on his side of the board. Finished with his clever move, he waits obediently for his rival to show his skill. But he knows, and we all know, who will win. Because I was curious to know what she would do with this literary form, I have finished Eugenia Price’s novel. Alas! too many people 282 On the Corner 1966 already know what my opinions are concerning the state of the so-called “Christian” novel, but though the artistry in this one seems little better than the usual, I can believe the book could be really helpful to one who has never understood how God can work through tragedy without willing it. Last year the youngsters watched Cinderella on TV with the usual pattern of noncommittal interest. True, those boys followed it all the way through, apparently enjoying this old familiar tale brought to life in operetta, and at the time I did not think of the “group dynamic” affecting the reactions of our own Princess. Her response too, was animated, but nonverbal. Tonight, however, when we watched the rerun, our room was full of six twelve-year-old girls, and the place was buzzing, alive with exclamation: “Oh, isn’t she LUVley!” “What a gorgeous dress!” This girl joined in with the star as she sang; another swayed in rhythm with the happy Cinderella. Then I realized what a constricting influence five older brothers can have on the emotional expression of a very feminine girlchild. It was MY DAY—beloved Wednesday, when I am free to go and come like many other Hausfraus of my age; the day when my Right Hand— Mary—comes to watch over The Little Fella, shine up the house, and gives me the little taste of freedom and leisure which makes it possible to be happily committed to the house for the remaining six days of the week. My list was formidable but not depressing—these were all things I wanted to do, but cannot do except on this day: writing, visiting, un hurried shopping. Then at noon—Wham! a sudden brief illness sent me to bed. In the throes of aches and pains, vertigo and nausea, all I could think was—how awful to waste this day! Why couldn’t it have been any day but Wednesday! In such futile regrets I continued to waste the day. … There are among our acquaintances some highly economical and disciplined persons who, I would guess, have very few wasted days or materials or emotions to regret. I can’t imagine them feeling (as I often do) that they are being sought out by the Button-Molder. (Remember Peer Gynt’s fear of that Personage who gathered up all the weak and neutral who were not good enough for heaven nor bad enough for hell?) From my view their lives appear ordered and purposeful; my own, erratic. Times like these, when I stoop to such unfruitful comparison, I end up being 283 Story of a Family comforted by Merton’s words: “It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need for forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.” These days as I watch The Little Fella grow in all the ways that a child is supposed to grow—however, more slowly than most—these days I find myself repeating inwardly, “I believe in love.” I repeat it not to convince myself, but simply because the evidence before me is so overwhelming. To see graphically what love has done for one child is to be continually reinforced in one’s faith in the power of love. This morning he awoke, unbouncy and pale. For half an hour he was uncharacteristically content to let me hold him—indeed he insisted on being so held, hugging me with his legs as well as his arms when I tried to put him down. So he was held, with all the appropriate rocking, soft singing, pats, and sweettalk which naturally accompanies such a performance. The indisposition soon passed, and as he played away the day in his usual tireless and inquisitive ways, I forgot about the little rocking session. But at one point in his play, I entered the room to find him kneeling, his naked dolly in arms, rocking back and forth against his heels, crooning the sweet noises, gently patting, rocking, crooning, patting. “And now Love has come full circle,” I thought. Watching, I again affirmed with the Great Ones that Love is the Greatest . . . that Nothing Done In Love Is Ever Lost ... that All That Is Not Love Is Death. And I know that love given to a child is the fundamental gift—for the simple reason that it enables him to love. February Bonuses: A fun-filled midwinter social with students, in our home. These can fall flat; this one didn’t, God be praised! … A newsy letter from Hisako with a picture of her little Tomomi, born on our daughter’s birthday … The reading of Robichaud’s Apple of His Eye—lovely! … A late-at-night steak dinner here at home in honor of the publication of a friend’s book … An exciting Just-for-Anyhow box of presents for the whole family from our Kansas friends … Auntie’s assurance, during a pleasant luncheon at the other Auntie’s house, that the ancient Sears Roebuck catalog which I have coveted these many years will one day be mine—she’s “got me on the list.” … The delight, however chilling, of finally getting my hands on Capote’s In Cold Blood … And not the least of all the mercies and graces of a merciful and gracious Creator—the weather! “He giveth snow like wool.” 284 On the Corner 1966 March He who withholds kindness from a friend forsakes the fear of the Almighty. —Job The days go by on this corner. Some entire weeks seem so dead, and my task so isolating, that I cry out with the psalmist, “Shew me a token for good.” Other times for days on end there is so much pleasant excitement and surprise, or such a rash of minor calamities, that I can’t even get around to reading my mail. This week was one of those freaks, like the program of which the Young say, “It’s so bad, it’s funny.” Car trouble (my fault), an unrecorded check (again, my fault), a day in bed (hit and run virus), a horribly garbled newspaper account of a talk I’d given (and I had thought I had such rapport with the audience!), a day when The Little Fella managed unprecedented feats of destruction, spaced nicely throughout the morning: a new package of paper towels unrolled and properly demolished while the doorbell was being answered; trails of cleanser across a newly waxed floor, deposited while washer loads were changed in the basement; two pounds of almost-thawed liver pulled down from the cupboard and draped over himself and other kitchen appendages while I fended off a hated telephone salesman; and an unreachable pan of rising dough—O lovely stuff for little fingers—reached and explored while Mother made a quick sprint to the garbage can. To top it off, one of the big children suddenly ran a 104 degree temperature. After the bedlam of such a week I sit tiredly in church, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, only dully repeating, “Shew me a token for good.” Straightening the books on the living room shelves, I reflect on what a bookshelf might say to strangers who take time to notice. I once thought one could learn much about a person just by seeing his bookshelves. Now I see how deceptive, how partial such a judgment can be. These shelves now reflect not so much a person as a pilgrimage—and even that would be apparent to scarcely anyone except myself. I am a binge reader, and many of the books accumulated here say more about where I have been than where I now am. Indeed, over the past five years I have added few books, for whereas I once loved to possess books just because they were books, I now depend on libraries and friends for the first introductions. I buy only those which I feel I must underline, reread, or loan. So here they all are on the shelf—books bought because I loved books; books given 285 Story of a Family by friends who knew what kind of book I might enjoy owning, and books given by friends who did not know but gave anyhow; books bought in the white heat of a mystery, or devotional, or “Letters Of—” binge; a very few books bought because of their continuing usefulness; here they are, all mixed together. And there are empty spaces, too—some of my best and dearest books have been snitched by the big boys, and are to be found in their rooms upstairs. So here are the bookshelves, and I defy anyone to try to read me by noting the titles! One of the more complex woman-gifts, it seems to me, is hospitality. Over the years I have tried to isolate the chief ingredients of this gift as I find myself on one end or the other of it. Last weekend, in Iowa City, we again experienced the variety that most baffles me. We were greeted as warmly as if we were the most welcome guests of the year (of course we weren’t; everyone is welcome at this house!). We were pampered as if we were royalty. Our private living quarters (somebody had graciously moved out for us) were the last word in homeyness and convenience. All the food offered us, from the simple breakfast served in our private apartment to the family dinners in our host’s home, was exquisite artistically as well as exciting “culinarily.” Yet this royal treatment, to which we are so unaccustomed, was offered in such a way that we knew not one uncomfortable moment. Added to all this was the exhilaration which the stimulus of lively friends always brings. “What a home!” we kept saying to each other afterward. But we have also been in homes where the genius of the hospitality seemed to be the casualness with which guests were received; where no particular preparation seems to have been made for our coming, but where nevertheless we experienced singular meeting and at-home-ness. Between and beyond these two varieties exist other shades and types of this wonderful gift—hospitality. Each has taught me something new about the complex gift; each has shown me a face of love which has left me wondering; and each has convinced me that this is a gift to be accepted and shared—not to be inspected and compared. Spring vacation is usually a time when we muster our dwindling work force, make a schedule of housecleaning, yard work, storm-window removal, and related unpopular tasks, and zip through them in great order. There was plenty of sly rejoicing this year when the poor weather conditions precluded such celebrations, but we still retained what was meant to be the prize at the end of the workweek: a day in Chicago. 286 On the Corner 1966 The plan was to visit the Art Institute and a few stores which the three younger ones wanted to see. Alas for our plans. Three flat tires and some three exasperating garagemen later, we arrived in Chicago at the time we had planned to leave. Having arrived, in spite of coming through great tribulation, we weren’t about ready to turn around and go back. So we phoned the college son who offered to baby-sit, and stayed long enough for The Princess to visit her beloved Thorne Miniature Rooms, for the next older one to admire with a woodlover’s eye the furniture and wood carvings and to stand fascinated before Albright’s “That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do,” for Mother to sit a while in her favorite Impressionist room, for Father to trot about seeing as much as he could see, and for the remaining teenager to be thoroughly bored! Additional gifts of March: Spring vacation—and once again those hilarious times around the table, sparked by the three big reunited boys. Somehow, it sounds a little like familiar music—however out of tune—to the woman on the corner, but it’s completely baffling to the daughter-inlaw who grew up in a family of girls, and who insists that her husband isn’t like this when they are in their own home! . . . Spring vacation—and I have time to browse a bit in the local bookstore where the clerk—bless her—recommends what turns out to be the best book I’ve read in years: Elizabeth Achtemeier’s The Feminine Crisis in Christian Faith.... And so the gifts of another March are given, and amid dailiness and dullness and occasional despair, I do receive, after all, His “tokens for good.” April People who are wrapped up in themselves make small packages. —Old Proverb The Sunday-school teacher puts a perfectly legitimate question to her class of small Elkhart County citizens: “Can anyone tell me what happened on Palm Sunday?” To a man they answer, “Tornado!” The memory of the 1965 disaster is still fresh. Some of those children lost homes and friends and relatives. Then too, the new tornado-warning system keeps us all aware, throughout the long spring and summer tornado season, of the grim possibilities. Angry letters are printed in the local newspaper in answer to one citizen’s complaint that the sirens disturb the peace and strike fear into children. By far the majority of the letters support 287 Story of a Family the city government in its warning technique, I have no quarrel with it, but I rather agree with the man who wrote that though his property was completely destroyed by that tornado, he still prefers to walk in faith rather than fear, reasoning that the odds are against his being hit again soon. And so I, like him, listen to the warnings and keep the radio on for further news. Whenever the time should come that the announcer reports a tornado within a few miles from the city and heading our way, I shall gather my brood and go to our none-too-safe-anyhow-basement. In the meantime I think that parents who rush their children in frenzy to the basement without even waiting to hear what the situation is, might well be just as cautious about installing seat belts in their cars and insisting on their use, and about teaching their children safety and responsibility concerning bicycle riding on the streets. How many times have I had to veer sharply or screech my tires because a child suddenly decided to ride on the street instead of the walk, and made the change without even glancing at traffic! Friends ask if I am used to my new bifocals yet. Contrary to expectation, I found it not too difficult to get used to them—physically. But psychically! Somehow I always associated bifocals with advanced middle age. Just like I associated stiff joints and arthritic pains and high blood pressure with old age. Now beset by all three and bifocals too, I have to reorient my thinking concerning these symptoms. On the other hand, maybe I should take a good stiff look at myself! In Toledo for a visit with two different Lutheran conventions where “The Nameless Ones” is being given, I am again convinced that I am not “Churchwoman” material. Conventions, programs, business sessions, reports, masses of people, and brief, superficial small-talk that costs nothing—all these bore me violently, however necessary they may be to promote a woman’s involvement in the church program. But, sitting beside one such churchwoman as we eat, talking at length with another as we wait for a meeting to begin, driving with still another between cities, I discover that there still may be a bond between us. And visiting on successive evenings in the two homes where the husbands and the wives both give themselves so wholly that the seeds of friendship are planted . . . so wholly that one knows renewal and nourishment in the inner person—this is further proof to me that we do not need to have similar gifts to be enriched by each other. 288 On the Corner 1966 What a joy to have the man in whose presence you have found such meeting to say, “Send me a copy when you have it written, won’t you?” (“It” referring to the litany he thinks should be written for Bubu), instead of the usual “So good to have met you!” How many such polite phrases as the latter we give and receive, expressing no interest in continuing or enriching a relationship. And perhaps it must be so, for we cannot expect to find a friend in every casual acquaintance—indeed we could not bear the weight of all that giving and receiving. Some encounters are forgotten just because we are human and cannot possibly remember everyone we have ever met. But I do not forget soon a tall woman with whom I have had past-midnight fellowship, who ignores the usual polite good-bye to look me forthrightly in the eye and affirm, “We shall meet again.” Indeed, some way or another, we shall. Erik Routley, whose books have delighted me for a number of years, became flesh and blood for me as we met the sturdy little man from Scotland and heard his lecture on certain aspects of church music. In a minor excursion from the main point of his speech he told of a certain American hymnal in which appear musical directions for each hymn. From his mouth they sounded ridiculous, as they likely are, though most of us wouldn’t have thought about it. Later, as I sat through a long business session in another church, I idly picked up the hymnal and from my hour of boredom I was “saved by Routley” as schoolchildren are “saved by the bell!” For this must have been the book to which he referred, I thought, as I noted all those directions. How does one sing “grandly,” “broadly, with movement,” “sprightly,” “tenderly”? And as I write this, I just wish there were some way to translate this humor of the Routley inflection as he purred, “Or this one . . . simply)” Stopping in to return a dulcimer, the young son and I chat a while with the grandfather of the family, the only one home today. We talk of what he has already planted and what he will plant; what he has been doing during the winter months, and what he will do now that spring has come. He shows us the lovely hand-carved spatulas and spoons in a colorful assortment of beautiful woods. We go away, each of us carrying a reminder of this fine Kentucky gentleman and his craft: a pancake turner of pale, beautifully gained wood (what kind did he say it was?) for me, and a little osage orange spoon for the boy who loves wood. The Boy says 289 Story of a Family to me, as we drive home, “Think how much I could learn if I lived near him!” The Gifts of April are usually enough in themselves without the bonuses which I usually list in this place. But this April is slow; the balmy air, the profusion of spring flowers, the leafing trees and green ing grass—this is all to come. And so I turn to the memories of other gifts: the reading of St. Matthew’s account of the Passion, in solitude, on Good Friday morning: a surprise visit from Sally—contact with whom is always refreshing, so alive and energetic she is; a letter from Arlene with, as always, clippings and quotes, but the greatest, her love which shines through all the random contents of her big long envelopes: Japa nese (or was it Chinese?) noodles in the hut on College Avenue, in honor of a friend’s birthday; another incomparable Bergman picture, Through a Glass Darkly, which, as is usual with his pictures, is an Experience, never an entertainment: our twenty-third anniversary at which we con gratulate each other for managing to stick together, and celebrate with a family dinner, complete except for one young man who is engrossed in a more important relationship . . . how well we do remember). May What is the use of running if you are not on the right road? —Old Proverb Whenever we are anticipating the coming of friends whose gifts in entertaining are outstanding, I make less effort than usual. But this time I did think I’d at least wash the dining-room curtains the day before—not, of course, for our guests, but just as a spring rite. The curtains promptly disintegrated in the process, and so we and our charming friends ate our Mayday breakfast before the bare bay windows. But laughter was around the table; Spring was outside the windows: green little leaves, an early lilac, and the lovely salmon of Japanese quince dabbed our morning fellowship with a color the curtains would have dimmed. Our friends, the ultimate in hosts, turned out to be super-guests as well; the coup was their comment that we really shouldn’t put curtains across the picture outside the window. A young son is asked to contribute a few words, along with representatives of other age groups, in our morning worship on Mother’s 290 On the Corner 1966 Day. He speaks briefly on the theme, “Remember now thy Creator,...” and we accept it as the gift which, he says, he wanted to contribute toward, but had no money. He would never have had money enough to replace such a gift! In the meantime the earning members of the family have ruined an entire day for me by presenting me with a gift designated for Mother’s Day, Fourth of July, Birthday, Christmas, and next Easter. I never even thought of owning a dishwasher. So rattled and baffled and incredulous am I that on the Saturday when it arrives my List disintegrates, and all I had hoped to do is forgotten. How the givers enjoy such discomposure! Even the married children at Bloomington, must call home to see “how I took it.” I take it with joy. Again I say it, and again no one really believes me, that I am so weary of MotherDaughter banquets that I will never speak at or go to another. True, I usually make a worthwhile contact in fulfilling my obliga tions—but is it worth it? And has not this whole Mother’s Day Bit gone to seed? At the end of the season I feel like the very bright child who, nevertheless, did not care to spend as much time reading as one would expect. His explanation was that he wants to live life, to do things, not just read about it. And I think we’d all be better off concentrating on being mothers, doing our job, rather than celebrating the fact, and embroidering it with a lot of sugary fiction. I have no love for that lady long ago who invented Mother’s Day. In some ways I think it has done more harm than good. (After reading this strong statement my family may at last believe me—for who is going to ask me to speak, at their M-D banquet, knowing my sentiments?) Spring, so slow in coming this year, suddenly bursts upon us here, and in my journal I mark this sixteenth day of May with exclamation points. At last I believe that summer, winter, seedtime, and harvest will keep returning as appointed, however late the signs might be. But in all this vivid array of changing seasons, is there anything comparable to Seedtime? There are countless days in my year when I could read that repetitious one-hundred-fiftieth psalm without a flutter of life. But on May 16 of this Year of Our Lord I could repeat it time after time, and each time it would be a New Song: Praise Him. . . . Praise Him. ... Let everything that breathes praise The Lord! When I was a child, the birthday most important to me, next to my own, was my mother’s. Somehow I cannot rid myself of the habit 291 Story of a Family of celebrating in some small way even though she has been gone many years. I pray in John Baillie’s words that I might rejoice in her memory, knowing that “though she has passed into mystery, she has not passed beyond Thy love and care.” I make a cup of coffee her way—the meth od she used when she came home from work and needed a quick lift: a measure of coffee in cold water, brought swiftly to a boil, then removed from the burner, left to settle, and finally imbibed—shoes off, feet up, in the easiest chair in the house. Today I so prepare, so drink, and it is like a sacrament. Don’t kid yourself, I tell the daughter of this long-gone mother, You are sentimental. At least on May 22 of any year. The Professor has another of his bursts of domestic activity. About twice a year, if we are lucky, he is suddenly aware that the place is falling to pieces about our ears, and he takes off a Saturday to patch it up. The leaking faucets are sealed, screens repaired, heavy things moved, loads of trash taken to the city dump, and if there is time even the suckers and dry twigs are removed from the little trees and shrubs on this corner. Today an additional brainstorm develops: Bubu must have an outdoor pen for the summer; he shall have it now. By nightfall, in addition to all the other semi-annual repairs, a beautiful large play yard is waiting for The Little Fella to explore in the morning. The Professor retires with that semi-annual glow of assurance that he really is the lord of the manor. We all agree, verbally. Late at night, after all the others are in bed, the soon-to-be-leaving son philosophizes with his mother concerning the familiar rebellion one sees among students of college age. He is no different, he asserts; he too finds it necessary to break away, prove his independence. But why, he asks, do some of them speak so bitterly of their parents, and of the church? He offers a partial explanation: as he sees it the ones who are the most hostile have been made to feel somewhere along the way that their father or their church or both were always Right. And then this child, so quick, all his life, to tell us what is wrong with us, so slow to utter one clearly complimentary word to his parents, gives unwittingly the perfect gift: “I’m glad,” he muses, “for a father who never gave us the impression that he had all the answers.” May, always a bonus in itself, brings additional gifts: a delegation of ladies from our first pastorate, 20 years back, is in town for a WMSA meeting and stops in for a pleasant hour. The Professor and I sit through 292 On the Corner 1966 a banquet at which our son, introducing fellow members of his group, shows us a face we had rarely seen before; our favorite college junior (now turned senior) delights us with her inimitable, in-character speech recital. And Bu-Bu, glowing, rides the trike at the Rehab Center all-by-himself from one end of the hall to another where waits a glowing Mamma! June To say good-bye is to die a little. By now the Professor and I and—hopefully—our friends have accepted the fact that we are not talented socializers. We’re glad there are great banquets, meetings, rallies, and reunions for those who do like them. Still, general social occasions, involving hordes of people, do not particularly draw us. This year, however, we broke with a tradition we never consciously decided upon, by attending—for the first time since our graduation—the Alumni Banquet at the College. Since we were part of a class famous only for its lack of class spirit (indeed we once voted against promoting any class spirit!) and since this was not a big year for that class (“big” years being multiples of five), we did not expect to find many old classmates at our table—and we did not. But renewing acquaintance with the one who was there made the unprecedented worthwhile. Again I had to remind myself that in spite of strong opinions about certain social functions and solemn meetings, I usually learn something or enjoy someone as a result of going. The time nears for another bird to spread his wings, and we are glad, knowing that in spite of all our insufficiency—and inefficiency—as parents, still, we have done for him what we have done, and he is not likely to need us much more. The farewell rounds begin. The Brothers Three take their respective wife and girl friends out for dinner. There is a last evening, unstructured, loose-jointed, as is our style; but still a good evening with girl friends, in-laws, cousins, family, wandering in and out, eating together late at night the strawberry shortcake which the cousins have brought, talking of this and that, nothing solemn. But when we take him to the train for his Akron orientation, twenty suddenly seems very young to the woman on the corner. And several weeks later, when in Chicago we see him for several brimming hours and watch him board his plane for Hong Kong via Tokyo, not only does twenty seem young; Hong Kong seems very far, and three years very long. Still we can’t really be solemn. We have to smile at the handshaking ritual, and laugh ruefully 293 Story of a Family when the young man who never kisses things like parents and sister explains that this is a special occasion, in celebration of which he will bestow this special honor. And now we move furniture, exchange rooms, shake up the household, until it appears as if we are trying to remove all traces of the one who is gone. The living room rug, we think, will benefit by a shifting of sofas and bookcase to distribute the wear. The youngest boy moves into the room his brother has vacated—a room of his own for the first time. His former roommate takes our bedroom on the first floor, while we move to their vacated room—colder in winter, hotter in summer, but larger— and with a closet. In the clutter and flurry of making these changes, the woman realizes that there is nothing like housecleaning to take the edge off a loneliness and—admit it—a wistful sadness she had not quite anticipated. One of the products of our latest household reorganization is that I now have a place for a desk, in front of a window from which I can observe Bubu at play in his outdoor pen, and in a room whose door can be firmly shut, permitting one to leave all the litter as it is without pushing it aside, piling it up, or hiding it from The Little Fella. These days, grateful to the boy who lets me keep the desk in his room, I look toward it often and hungrily, thinking of all I expect to accomplish there before the summer is over and I am again a full-time baby-sitter. But I must wait to indulge this longing until my Right Hand returns from ten days of camp at Little Eden where, I hope, she is having fun enough to strengthen her for taking over the household while Mom writes, sorts, files, and ENJOYS. A special child needs a great many special things: special equipment— braces and splints, straps on the pedals of his trike, grown-ups with special patience, a special amount of time, and a special way of appraising his growth. AND special clothes which will take patch upon patch at the knees and which he cannot pull off, unbuckle, or rip away. At last I discover the perfect answer—the tough little hickory-striped Lee suspender overalls. I remember them from childhood when many little boys wore them, but I look in vain for them in stores and catalogs. Finally one day in a laundromat I see a toddler in those Lees. I ask his mother, a stranger, where she found them, and she tells me of a store in little Shipshewana. As I enter the tiny country town, I am overcome by nostalgia. Who can 294 On the Corner 1966 understand it but one who has lived a part of his childhood in such a small place? (Ours was Dakota—population 250.) And the store! This is the kind people write about affectionately in autobiographies. Such stores have all but disappeared from America, I suppose, except as period pieces maintained for the curiosity of the sophisticated. But this is not a showpiece—it is for real: just an old-fashioned dry goods store (but with all kinds of new-fashioned fabrics and products) maintained for the people of the community. I walk around, delighting in the stacked bolts of dry goods, the straw hats and boots, the long white stockings for little girls, the cotton bats and the notions and all the rest cramped together in this small space. Grateful to the good Amish and whoever else it is whose way of life demands these products (what a shame if the store were modernized!) I take home with me two pair of special hickory-striped Lee overalls, size 3, for the special Little Fella on the Corner. Other June gifts: The lovely wedding of our pastor’s daughter in which the whole church was invited to share the joy of the occasion; supper, in company with a cousin’s family, at the home of my girlhood Sunday school teacher (since we three women had all shared for a time a common church and community, there was delightful talk of old times, old places, old friends—a pleasure which seems to grow on one with the years); a neighborhood barbecue in the middle yard, organized to say goodbye to the entire family of the right house, to the daughter of the middle house, and the son of the left house-on-the-corner. July Kiss not thine own son if an orphan stands by. —Persian proverb If the weather decides to make this one of the hottest Julys we can remember, then surely there should be compensations. And there are— the very first Sunday afternoon an old friend of both of us arrives for a two-day visit. In these days of unhurried, easy renewal of friendship, we realize again the treasure we have in this particular friend. We think we have not known anyone in whom we could see within the span of the time we have known her—such growth in the graces, and we wish that we could give similar evidence of such charity, such real interest in and care for others, such forgiveness and acceptance. Even if we had not seen this, 295 Story of a Family we should have had the gayest of times because of the lively conversation which always accompanies her visits. When I first read, on the Seminary bulletin board, the proverb about sons and orphans, I had an insight into why, over the years, I have come to shy away from accepting or giving family kisses and caresses in the presence of others, especially those unmarried or childless. Though I never analyzed the feeling at the time, now I realize that subconsciously it must have seemed a flaunting of a relationship, a gesture of shutting out, of drawing a circle around that which was mine. Much is written and spoken about the beauty of family, or mother, or connubial love. But it is never beautiful when it is exclusive in the presence of others. Our friend Erich Fromm (of The Art of Loving) would say that under such circumstances it is not even love: that the mother who “loves” her own child but does not feel warmth toward other children not her own, does not even love, really, her own child. A friend mentions how nice it is that people can pick up where they left off, after years of completely ignoring each other. I used to say this too, and believed it was true. But now, when I reflect on what has happened to many of the friendships which I once would have thought to be vital for a lifetime, I’m not sure. We can, in a sense, pick up where we left off. But friendship as a source of continuing strength, it seems to me, has to be nourished. That which we love, we care for—we water, we feed, we shield from cruel cold or equally cruel heat. Such care is costly; and maybe that is why so many vital friendships turn into casual, pleasant relationships, picked up now and then. Friendship, to C. S. Lewis, was the greatest joy life had to offer; but he could not understand why anyone would want to know more people than he could make real friends of. It seems to be our lucky month, in spite of the heat, because of the rare guests who have come to us. On the hottest night of the summer, an unforgettable family shares our small-town lives and overheated sleeping quarters. At last I am able to meet the rabbi and his family who included The Professor on family jaunts in Israel last summer, and gave him friendship. The time is too short for me to be appalled at my casual hotweather hospitality (those regrets always come afterward) but it is long enough for the miracle of rapport, for the exchange of book-talk, childrentalk, Israel-talk, and life-talk. It is long enough to realize again that one does not make friends; he recognizes them. 296 On the Corner 1966 The first letter arrives from Hong Kong three days after our worldtraveler has sent it, and each person in the family reaches for it eagerly. Most, however, let it drop after struggling through the first sentence of the closely written page. After two readings to various family and friends, my eyes burn with strain. Some lines never are deciphered, and in desperation I just read them orally as they appear, e.g.., “I’m buy some tenses and pushmitter bons.” Later we decide he may be saying something about playing tennis and badminton, but we still think perhaps we should take up a collection to buy him a typewriter. Again we are reminded, as we read the glowing account of his first days in “the greatest city in the world,” that life with this One is not always easy, but it’s never dull. For a few days, mid-month, there is respite from the stifling heat, and in those days we discover that we do too still like to cook (or write, or paint the house, or baby-sit), that we don’t feel nearly as old and worn out as we did last week, that our minds are quicker and our bodies stronger than we had been led to believe. For a few days that big fan which we finally broke down and bought several weeks ago looks utterly ridiculous. As refreshing as a cool day in a sweltering summer is the weekend we spend with our son and daughter-in-law. He is playing in the opera orchestra, and we go down to see “Boris Godunov” (but really, to see our family). The boys agree they can adequately care for Bubu in the absence of parents and sister who usually perform the chores of baby care. (They actually have no choice but to agree!) And so we are free, for a whole day and a half, to enjoy our children in their pleasant apartment on the university campus. We even enjoy the opera—I, for the first time, actually, since it is given in English. Hats off to Indiana University who performs all its operas in English, and to Robert Shaw whose chorale sings the Passions in the language of its audiences. (I never did think it was polite of people to use another language in the presence of those who could not understand it—unless, of course, they didn’t know the prevailing language! Additional gifts of this Hot July: Swedish Inga, special friend of one member of the family, spends an evening in our home, charming us all with her old-world curtsies and her independent mind, so much so that we, too, hate to see her leave our little town. Another birthday, and Auntie arrives, nasturtiums in hand, to escort me to a few bright morning hours 297 Story of a Family of coffee and talk. Later, That Neighbor makes my day special with a houseful of friends and one of those exquisite luncheons that only she can create. And now comes the news that one of my favorite detective authors, Harry Kemelman, has created a new Rabbi story: Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry. The prospect of another good book to read is in itself enough to make special an ordinary day. August Everything done in chard is communion with God. —UNDERHILL On the first Sunday of this new month a visiting preacher speaks about the Good Samaritan. Already I have forgotten the title of the sermon, its outline, and most of its pertinent points. But one sentence will be remembered: The essence of the Good Samaritan’s act, he said, was that “he gave up some of the fullness of his own life that another might live.” This is what it actually means to be like Christ (Christian!), to be a neighbor. And now this sentence is the bearer of joy to me as I recall many of those who have given up some of the fullness of their lives that one little child with so many strikes against him might live more fully. This morning a slight headache sent me to the cupboard for the aspirin bottle, and I took the pills, glad there were such marvelous little miracle workers, but also glad that our family rarely needs medication of any kind. Aside from the very important and even life-saving properties of many pills, one is overwhelmed by the multiplicity of medications for every conceivable purpose: there are pills to keep us awake and pills to put us to sleep; pills to pep us up, and pills to slow us down; pills to curb the appetite, and pills to enhance the appetite; pills to prevent concep tion, and pills to increase the possibility of conception! One is amazed— and almost scared—contemplating both the present and the possible future consumption of pills for all types of mankind’s woes—not just his illnesses. Maybe one day there will be pills which will give us wisdom, courage, compassion, patience—all those wonderful things which at present seem to come only through suffering. Is it possible for families who vacation every year to know a joy comparable to that of one to whom vacations are rare, occurring only once in many years? Having accepted the gracious invitation of that New 298 On the Corner 1966 Year’s Eve Guest, we suddenly find ourselves enclosed in a wonderful (modern!) cottage in the woods overlooking Little Bay de Noc in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Our first day, a day of unremitting rain, we almost hug ourselves and each other with the joy of being here. Nothing to do but what we want to do! Books, games, food, and records litter the big table; the fire in the heater is cheery, and the whole family screams out a game of Pit. When have we last heard so much laughter in our family? For a whole week the nine of us live together in three little rooms, without one sour note, one tramped-on-toe, one regret or iota of boredom. We enjoy each other, often talk of and write to The Missing One on the other side of the world, meet our neighbors, have good fellowship (and good smelt) with our benefactors, eat when we’re hungry, sleep when we must. And not one person says or even seems to think, “Wouldn’t it have been a blast if Bubu hadn’t been along!” As we close the door of this magic cottage we realize that we probably will not return even though they say we must and we say truthfully that we’d like to; but for what we have had here together we’ll be saying “Thank you” for the rest of our lives, to a certain family across the bay. Driving home, I had long thoughts on Togetherness. This word bothers me. I am affronted by the manner in which “togetherness” has been sought out, planned for, and promoted by good people. As such, it seems a phony goal. I believe—and the experience of the past week has underlined my belief—that togetherness, like grace, is something that is “given,” not made. Or it is like true humility and other fruits of the spirit, a by-product. By pushing people together and planning a common pastime, one may get physical proximity. But genuine togetherness is a miracle, and we do not order miracles—we just accent them with utter delight, with open-handed joy. So do I now accept the gift of this past week. Now, back to work: and last on the schedule of Special Things Which Will Not Get Done This Year If I Don’t Do Them While I Have Baby-Sitters is a refurbishing of the Professor’s office. For a day we work together, moving books, arranging shelves, adding a new and colorful coffee cup, an Israeli poster. a green plant, the Kim vases, and some flowers from a neighbor’s garden. Finished, I have a sneaking suspicion that it makes little difference to him. But at least it is more cheering to me as I stop in now and then to drop off his lunch. 299 Story of a Family August always brings its assortment of friends, making a rich and fruitful bounty to enjoy at the end of a Long Hot Summer. There were the Book-Friends, outstanding of which were Isaac Singer’s In My Father’s Court, Goertzel’s Cradles of Eminence (wish I could have read this when my children were small; I wouldn’t have tried so hard to be “a good mother” and maybe would have been a more interesting person)), and the delightful Every Second Thought. And the People-Friends! Remembered are a chili and corn meal in the backyard with our dear ones from Texas; a “Last Supper” with our Miss J and her Mr. J; a visit with the lady on East Douglas who gives me roses for bread; farewell eatings-together with friends and neighbors going to Africa and to Germany and other points east and west; a surprise lightning visit from our Kansas family; and the welcoming home from England of my Main-Street friend. But let it not be said that gifts of the spirit are all that fill the heart: What about the gift of a newly, bluely-painted kitchen—from a son who thinks it needs painting, so buys the paint and applies it, just like that? A fine capstone for a great summer! September The service begins when the meeting is over. —from the Quakers Now come the dusty days of Summer’s End, when the heat, the fever of preparation for another school year, and the tying up of loose ends after vacation have taken their wages. Now one is eager for a new schedule, for a return to a more disciplined household wherein One Breakfast is served. Only on Saturdays, now, can the young wolves prowl about the kitchen making their eleven o’clock egg sandwiches, hot chocolate, and French toast (leaving trails of cocoa, syrup, and egg-yolk, despite the warnings of the she-wolf). No matter how one longs, in May, for a break in routine, nothing is more welcome than the September return to law and order. We sense that the Young would also admit such relief were it not so unpopular to agree with one’s parents. For years I have been eying my files, all those letters, all that junk which one day must be reckoned with. Now, each afternoon during the hour while Bubu sleeps, I begin doing what I’ve been plotting to do for all those years. The first file is opened—my mother’s letters to me and 300 On the Corner 1966 mine to her, written during my seventeenth year—and my plan is simple. I shall read, type out any significant lines, save a letter here and there if it is really valuable, and burn the rest. After all, they are, as the poet suggests, “all dead paper.” Which is all very well while contemplating the task. Reading the letters is another matter. What was dead suddenly flames to life—the hurt, the awkwardness, the wonder of growing up—it all comes back—even the late-at-night weariness of washing out, every night, one’s hose and underthings because they were all you had. It comes back—the rare anger and everlasting love and tiredness of a mother who occasionally sent a dollar bill for hose when she could squeeze it out of a monthly salary that was far less than half of what our 17-year-old makes in a week! And so I discover again that the “past is not dead—it’s not even past” and again I know that never can I willfully destroy that which refocuses, even at the cost of hurt, a relationship sometimes blurred by death and the passage of time. Rosh Hashanah!—and today I remembered privately and with gratitude a number of Jewish friends to whom this is, of course, a Special Day. But again I had to chide The Professor and myself: Why is it that although these good people always send us greetings on our Christian holy days, we never remember them on theirs? In this, as in too many things, one perceives in oneself the arrogance of the Majority—a pretty awful thing to happen to a member of a minority group once fiercely persecuted for its religious beliefs! News of Operation Joy—Engaged!—arrived today on the birthday of one of our favorite young friends. Though it would have been fun to be surprised, we weren’t, really. The Professor and I rejoice to cross off two more names from our hypothetical List. Against the tide of masculine support, my own frail, feminine vote barring football participation for the youngest son is powerless. All the same, I do score a point or two. We draw up and sign an agreement concerning study, grades, and bedtimes, which by the end of the first month of operation, turns out to be reasonably effective. There are fathers, I tell The Professor, who do not permit their sons to play football. But this father, this father remembers how he sneaked time for the sport in his boyhood, running all the way home after practice so as not to be missed at chore-time. He remembers the stolen sweets too vividly to deny his son. Mothers tend, I suppose, to remember statistics about broken 301 Story of a Family bones, paralyzing injuries, and deaths resulting from The Game. That such a Two can become One is, I suppose, a testimony to the miracle of marriage. It doesn’t take much to save a day from oblivion, to give a jolt to jaded senses, to inexplicably lighten a depressed spirit. It doesn’t take much—in fact, sometimes the stimulus is so inconspicuous that one has to pause and think back, “Now what was it that suddenly polished up this day that—up till then—was such a bore and a drag?” From the treasures of this month I recall these Day-Brighteners: a Virginia family who stopped in only to inquire about their relatives, our neighbors, but who stayed to meet us—really meet us as we talked in our living room on a hot noonday in early September; a private letter from the faraway son—a letter not of doings, but of being, and feelings, and readings, and dreamings; a courteous repairman who dropped everything to fix the mower; an altogether unexpected meeting in the vestibule of old Kulp Hall, with my remarkable friend Margery, who had just deposited her daughter here; the goodness and love radiating from a simple yet utterly delightful woman met in the waiting room at Crippled Children’s Clinic (besides her own three teenagers, this ample-hearted lady has six foster boys—none of them brothers, and one handicapped—all of whom she has cared for for seven years); the birth of Kiersten, an almost-grandchild, we feel, since her parents, The Professor’s nephew and wife, are especially dear to us; then there is always the surefire Day-Saver—one which I can produce at will—a trip to the public library with its culmination in an armload of books whose intriguing titles and gorgeous jackets are enough to promise joy, even though I may not have time to open them today! October Try to see your ordinary daily life as the medium through which He is teaching your soul, and respond as well us you run. —Underhill October on our Corner is ushered in, always, in the pleasantest of ways. There may or may not be brilliant foliage on our maples; there may be a splurge of “October’s bright blue weather,” but then again, the more fitting bit of verse might be: “The day is cold and dark and dreary.” We might be in shirt sleeves or in sweaters, jackets, or raincoats. But of one thing we can he sure: as long as our Princess is around there will 302 On the Corner 1966 be joy and brightness around our table as we celebrate with her another birthday. This year it is not an ordinary birthday, however. The little girl who never in her life asked for new clothes (because her interests were elsewhere) is gone. Her birthday gift, by request, is a shopping tour for a skirt, blouse, and sweater of her own choosing. Having chosen, she is radiant, and we welcome her to the teens with the traditional cake decorated not by those childish candles, but by a single red rose. As a young preacher’s young wife, I used to wonder how old I would be when it would no longer be a strain to listen to my husband’s preaching. To that question I have still to find an answer. One friend says it’s no strain at all for her. She always knows she’ll near something good from her husband and she always does. But she’s a particularly strongminded and confident person and, I suspect, an exception. For most of us, I’d guess, it’s rather worse than speaking ourselves, in which case we can’t be objective at all. But here we are, in the seat of judgment, and at the same time identified intimately with the one who is holding forth. No matter how many times we have been gratified by his good sermons, or heard good reports from others who have heard him, we subconsciously feel that this time may be the glaring exception: this time he may forget, or repeat more than usual, or become too complex, or preach too long . . . to say nothing of calamities like a crooked tie, or the misplaced strand of hair, or an unruly trouser cuff. No one but the preacher’s wife knows with what inner relief—and surprise—we tell him, finally, that he preached a good sermon today. Today I do so to The Professor, who preaches rarely, to be sure, but usually illuminates when he does. After reading “Letters to the News” in our local paper today, I experienced hearty confirmation of a long-standing personal feeling which I never before expressed: that the last thing I’d want to be, however nec essary they are, is a “fine, public-spirited citizen.” A letter from a relative of a relative, giving information about the beginning of my father’s family in America—in the early 1700’s—excites in me all kinds of wild dreams about ancestor-hunting. Of a sudden I realize that only a few years ago I couldn’t have cared less when genealogies were being discussed among the relatives. “A sure sign that middle age has set in!” I think. But I am not regretful. Indeed, I’m grateful that I have come to the place where reflection on my beginnings brings joy. About this time of life, one writer has said, we finally admit that many 303 Story of a Family things we wanted to do will not be done; we won’t get around to painting that picture, or learning French, or studying the violin. True! But while relinquishing some of these dreams (and others like them) with regret (I really did want to paint “A Nokomis for Mrs. Nuzman” and “October at Fifth and Madison”) at the same time I latch onto new interests more conceivably within my grasp. And I pray greedily for Time to organize a reasonable story of our family beginnings for the children to enjoy when they reach their mid-forties. The newest conversation piece at our house is a 1902 Sears Roebuck catalog—my legacy from a dear aunt who knew how much I wanted it! Not only does it provide a window into the turn-of-the-century culture; but for sheer entertainment its value is tremendous. We realize this after an evening when the whole family, including visiting Son and Wife, and nephews and their wives, are convulsed by the reading of a one-page, fineprint description of “Our $18.00 Giant Power Heidelberg Electric Belt.” Now the storm windows are in place, at last, after weeks of hinting that everyone else in the neighborhood has complied with the rules of an Indiana winter-to-come. The Professor, however, says that his timing is not to be compared unfavorably against his next-door-neighbor’s, who had to get things done earlier than usual because he was marrying off his daughter. That daughter’s wedding, by the way, on a bright morning at Month’s-End, is a cameo of simplicity and grace which we will long remember. An “unbeliever” asks whether I really feel as grateful and optimistic as I sound in the usual summing of the “bonuses” at the end of each monthly column. Strangely enough, I do, in retrospect. But for her benefit, I have ferreted out a few Exasperations, Disappointments, and a Sorrow from this October, in the hopes that they will somehow make her happier! I remember: a talk given at one of our country churches, a talk that turned out to be such a perfect fiasco that I felt guilty taking the pillowcases and the five dollars; Buburemoving the pillowcase and cover from one of my good pillows, then biting out great chunks of the foam rubber and throwing them in glee about his room (at which point I came in . . . ); my washer conking out not inexplicably but from sheer, premeditated overloading by the one person in the household who should know better; being introduced again as “a busy housewife and mother,” and so, again, having to explain that it isn’t true, that I’m actually lazy; reading in the Herald of the death of a person once known and loved 304 On the Corner 1966 years ago . . . I had always hoped to meet him again and exchange talk of what had happened to each of us since we last met. To know that this could not be was sudden sharp sadness. November When his eyesight became too poor to read books, he began at last to read himself. —William Barrett, about Nietzsche The first snowy Sunday—it has to be a Sunday—of any winter grabs at the heart in a special way. It is as if all the snowy Sundays of one’s life are distilled here and now. The mood seems pervasive—all members of the household appear to be caught up in the warmth, quietness, and singularity of This Day. With dinner over, each goes about his own private celebration of Life in his own way: the oldest and youngest seek their rooms to spend the afternoon with books; the two in between gravitate to their respective preoccupations—one to his friends, the other to his basement shop. While The Professor tucks in Bubu for a nap and snitches one himself, I am lured to the kitchen. On such a day there seems only one way to celebrate, and so I mix and knead the dough for good brown bread. This bread, I sing in a silent psalm, is not bread for the body, primarily. It is soul-bread, and into it goes my gratitude for this first snowy Sunday of the new winter! Today he is fifteen, and at this stage the way to his heart is truly through his stomach. Nothing pleases him more than this extra birthday surprise: Saturday morning breakfast—whatever he wants—at Azar’s, with his brother (who drives a car) for an eating companion. It calls for a rare demonstration for a young man of this precarious age—a bear hug and all the trimmings. The rather large kiss carries the aroma of syrup and bacon, and one can imagine by the coins returned just how much food he has put away. Thanks to some overdue education on the part of parents and schools, children these days understand much more about birth than they did a generation ago. But perhaps less about death? In my day birth was the hush-hush subject; death was faced more openly. We children went to funerals, saw raw open graves unrelieved by all the trick greenery, and viewed dead people who looked dead (I can even remember seeing one 305 Story of a Family young mother in a shroud). Now death has become the obscene word, and the whole subject is so smothered by euphemisms and a sheer, obstinate, cosmetic deception, that we almost convince ourselves that we don’t die. Almost. But I shall die, and I will not be sold on a softening campaign. Rather, I look with admiration upon the Lutherans who, in their attractive family “calendar”—Table Talks* in which subjects for table conversation are suggested by means of art and questions, have approached the subject boldly. “Who has died in my family’? . . . Do I know their death day? Should I in some way remember it? Should there be some day in the year when I think about the day I will die? I will need courage and hope.” Today, November 13, is the forty-sixth anniversary of my father’s death. Remembering, I give thanks that he gave me life. Remembering, I give thanks that our own children will all be able to remember their father. Remembering, I admit that though I do not wish to die, I know that I shall; may courage and hope be mine in that hour. David and Lisa could hardly be called entertainment. This picture, based on actual case histories, presented in the book by the same title, is the finest movie I have seen. It is an experience in which each viewer tends to participate with more or less identification, though David and Lisa themselves are struggling through mental illness. Through them one sees not only his own symptoms of illness, but a society in which we are all increasingly fearful of coming close to one another. Not only has neighboring dwindled, and even the handshake become more rare all the time; but within our own families the tendency is to isolate ourselves from each other. Indeed, the rare family who persists in freely showing affection by unpremeditated pats and kisses and touches and hugs, is looked upon with horror by many good people. (Surely there must be some Freudian explanation that would induce a big boy to kiss his mother playfully when she hands him an unexpected treat?) Our student nurses, I am told, see this film three times in one day in the course of their studies. I think it would be good for most of us to get such a concentrated dosage. If you ever have the chance, I tell my friends, see David and Lisa. You’ll be a better parent, a better child, a better person for having this glimpse of yourself. After long months in the hospital following an accident, she was being feted at a tea to which were invited friends she wished to see. With * Table Talks may be ordered from the Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, Minn. 55415. Price is $2.50 plus .20 mailing charge. 306 On the Corner 1966 shame I had to confess to the honored guest that I was probably the only one included who had not in any way acknowledged her hospitalization. “You were sick and I did not come unto you,” I had to say. To be included under such circumstances is the kind of rare kindness that rebukes one into making certain that such neglect shall not happen again. I have great respect for people who get other people together. Our hosts tonight would not have invited us to their home for a meal, but their visitor knew our son in Hong Kong, and even had pictures of him on his slides. And so we were asked to come to meet him. The meeting was a joy, both from the standpoint of meeting the guest himself, and the proxy contact with our son. But along with it we met a fine family who posed as go-betweens. Such unselfish hosting is becoming rarer all the time. We hail it gratefully! November’s gifts: A never-to-be-forgotten Thanksgiving shared with Aunt and Uncle, cousins and cousins’ children in the woods-home of our Bluffton, Ohio, relatives. This was the nearest thing to “Over the river and through the woods” we ever did on Thanksgiving Day. . . . A quiet Sunday morning worship service made special by our dear daughter-inlaw’s reception into our church. . . . The once a week, every week, special day when the blue envelope comes from Hong Kong. December I must rejoice without ceasing, though the world shudder at my joy. —Ruysbroek December opened with an appropriate gesture of love—an exquisite breakfast with my neighbor-friend (how often does one find this rare combination—truly friend, truly neighbor?) before her fireplace, on my “day off.” Time was—only a few years ago—when we were free to run in and out of each other’s houses, keeping in touch without trying. But times and our circumstances have changed, and now we must plan for meetings if we are to have them. Thanks be to God for a friend who makes meetings possible by constantly opening her home to all kinds of people! 307 Story of a Family Bubu is ill, and miserable as he is, he is still canny enough to enjoy this illness to the hilt. A great one for ceremony at any time, now he is adamant. He must lie with his head on two pillows, facing the TV (on, of course). He demands a pacifier. Great-grandmother’s wool shawl must cover him. Mother must pull up a chair beside him and hold his hand. Now he’s all set to be sick! All of this is demanded with such sweetness that no one can resist him—and no one does, for we know that in a few days he will be well, and so independent that we can’t even get him to sit on a lap. Such a child can’t really be spoiled by too much attention at such a time. En route to the airport, the college son and I eat a late breakfast together at Azars. In a rare burst of communication this usually silent one talks of himself, of his family, of his relationship to his brothers and parents, of books he is reading, and of ideas he is exploring. What parent can ever ask for such sharing? One can only take it when it comes, however rarely, and be grateful. A few hours later he is on a jet, en route to Paris and to his destination—the home of his Swedish friend where he will spend two weeks. He has earned the money and the right to spend it for this one lavish gesture if he so wishes, and he goes with our blessing. Still, I tell him ruefully, I do envy him. I’ve never even flown! And for me, at eighteen, to think of flying to Sweden for the holidays would have been as unbelievable as for him to think of going to the moon today. “Why was it such a special Christmas?” we asked ourselves after it was all over. There were reasons why it might not have been. For the first time in the life of our family, a face was—in fact, two faces were missing. Though we’ve never made a fetish of “togetherness,” still, one notices such omissions. Our faithful friend down the way was in Germany; our good neighbors were in Boston; the few remaining friendly friends who usually stop around at this season didn’t, for one reason and another. We didn’t hear from either of my sisters. One of our two Christmas dinner guests dropped out. Then why was it the most “all is calm, all is bright” Christmas season I can remember? Thinking it over, I know that it must have been the Grace of it all. Most of the Expecteds were gone; the Unexpecteds took over. We had made few plans for guests during these days. Behold, we had guests around our table every single day during vacation, and sometimes twice a day. There was the day before Christmas Eve when our Amish friend came in the morning, and stayed to eat soup with us and to visit into the 308 On the Corner 1966 afternoon. There was Christmas Eve when the married children joined us and we turned on the tape recorder for the benefit of the Hong Kong Kid. Although the table conversation was pretty garbled on tape, we think he got the idea and Bubu entered into the spirit of it all by giving a special rendition of “Bow-wow-wow, whose dog art thou?” There was Christmas Day, with our special guest turning out to be Mrs. Santa herself, so laden down was she with her own brand of delicious caramel apples, tangerines, party mix, candy, games for the big children, and toys for the Little One. Then followed the long slow quiet afternoon, the beginning of many vacation hours to be spent playing the new game of Scribbage, while renewing friendship. In that wonderful limbo of hourless days running into hourless nights, that dateless stretch between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, the Wonder and Grace of the Unexpected continued; an evening with the lovely family from Mayflower Place; the day following when a young nephew of the Professor’s and his family of little children livened up the place in a rare mealtime visit; the late-night visit of two brothers (recent alumni) and their wives with whom we drank tea, ate Dobisch Torte (thanks to Gen!), and solved the problems of humanity; a cozy afternoon with tea and candles at Phoebe’s; our favorite Editor arriving as a surprise supper guest; and of course our Bloomington children in and out of the house every day. … On and on it went, right up to the climax of New Year’s Eve when the house was suddenly quiet, all mine, for hour upon delicious hour in which I paced myself: an hour of reading followed by an hour of preparation for tomorrow’s dinner followed by an hour of meditation and “resolution” followed by a half-hour of washing up followed by … so it went, from six to twelve—a glorious six hours of renewal. People, Time, these were the gifts of Grace that made the season richer than ever. But there were others: the pervading closeness of our absent ones which intensified rather than diminished the joy. And the tangible gifts—the blue tablecloth, the two coffee mugs, the green sweater (knit by Herself for her mother-in-law), the lamp, the towels, the electric shoepolisher (count on Smitty to spend his all on a holy waste!) Add to it all the gift of a little child’s presence, an exceptional child to be sure, but one who kisses his new shoes goodnight, strokes a real live baby with gentleness, and in a thousand ways reminds us that whatever is done for him is done for the One who makes Christmas the joy that it is. 309 Story of a Family On the Corner 1967 January He gives snow like wool; he scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He casts forth his ice like morsels; who can stand before his cold? —Psalm 147:16, 17 A more generous person would simply accept and enjoy, but while these reactions were my strongest ones, I must admit to an accompanying vexation for never having thought of such a celebration myself! Our friends long ago instituted this New Year’s breakfast to bring into their home the families whose children were friends of their children. For this affair it is the children, not the parents alone, who determine who shall be the guests. Through a leisurely morning we drink coffee and wander in and out of the kitchen where a giant, special potato salad, cold cuts, and all manner of hot breads (baked by a daughter) seem to keep reproducing themselves. Each time we return to the living room, we sit in a different place, renew another acquaintance among those of our own age group, or learn firsthand what one of the younger generation is studying in grad school, or is planning for next summer. (The youngest of the younger generation tend to congregate in rooms away from adult scrutiny, but the college and postgrads have outgrown the need for bunching, and proved good company as they sit among us.) What a wonderful institution, this breakfast, we all agree on the way home! Why didn’t we ever think of anything like it? With a burst of whirlwind energy he blows through the door on a cold January night, a long “European” hand-knit scarf trailing from behind his neck, his suitcase stuffed, an extra cardboard box with foreign lettering falling where he drops it as he embraces us with an affectionate exuberance seldom seen in him since he was a child. Home is the traveler, and tonight he is full, full, of the past three weeks. We would know, even if he did not say so, that the Christmas vacation in Sweden was “Wonderful! Wonderful!” Always one to delight in gift-giving (even as a child he could never happily “chip in and buy a group gift,” but had to supplement such a gift with a choice of his own for each person), he has not even unwound the great scarf from his neck before he has torn open the big box and delivered to everyone the gift he chose for each in the 310 On the Corner 1967 little town of Värgärda. Far into the night he tells of this unforgettable Christmas with a warm and wonderful family, in a land where this season is rich with traditions, glowing with candles (“You never saw people so candlecrazy!”) And from the Special Girl’s mother, he brings a gift for me—a lovely little redbird carved from wood—sure to become a traditional Christmas decoration for us from now on. After he has collapsed on his bed, I remember how, when he told us last fall that he planned to use his summer’s wages for this trip, it seemed to me a great deal to spend in three weeks. But now I see that it was a bargain, from beginning to end. Good thing, isn’t it, that prudent parents can’t make all the decisions for their children! In the wake of The Return of the Native, a new idea comes to us. Since all the boys visit the kitchen before they go to bed anyhow, why don’t we have a late meal “like they do in Sweden”—a light repast, with candles and quiet, before bedtime? Everyone is enthusiastic as we initiate this. We know that we shall probably not do it every night (we don’t seem to be able to sustain a New Idea without change for very long). But in the meantime, we enjoy it. Much as we love the four-year-old asleep upstairs, it is pleasant to have one meal together where squeals and spilled food and water are out, and grown-up conversation, laughter, and prayer over a warm drink and “fixins” are in. Tonight the box from Aunt Ruth furnishes our candlelit table; another night it is Phebe’s coffee cake; sometimes we are down to crackers and tea. But so far, always it is Special. Sometimes one is so pressured by the appeal of advance advertisement of new books that he neglects to read books of the recent past which, now out of the limelight, are still superb. Petroukas’ A Dream of Kings is not a current best seller, but I have found it a most moving novel. Sometimes it seems that it would be easier to keep the mind open if one could keep his ears shut to all the propaganda dictating what we should eat, wear, read, think, be, and do. For years I have been telling my self that instead of concentrating on the new books section of the library, I should start at one end of the stacks, and respond to hooks as they leap out at me; respond, regardless of the age of the book! You tell yourself he must be a little homesick or he wouldn’t say these things. You remind yourself that when he was home you two often found yourselves at cross-purposes. Still, getting one of these intimate, private, and special letters in which the things that matter most to him—and to 311 Story of a Family you—are openly discussed, in which affection is unashamedly confessed, in which mistakes are candidly admitted—getting one of these letters can bring a lift which makes one feel, suddenly, that everything is all right, and being a mother is an incomparable joy. There are days like this, I’ve been told. Maybe they’ve happened to me before, but though I recall joy with ease, my ability to remember misery is poor. There was hail; there was a snowstorm which was so bad that a coveted trip had to be canceled; Bubu was sick; the luncheon with a friend had to be dropped because of the roads; and the slightest details of housekeeping seemed to reflect the spirit of the day by perversely refusing to come out right. Never were the words of the cliche so comforting to me, I think, as I climb into bed mumbling, “To-morrow is another day.” February He who sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on a wound. —Proverbs 25:20, RSV Take a snowstorm at the outset of a “seven hour” automobile journey (that makes it eleven hours); add, after two harrowing hours of driving, two boys with sick stomachs, a shortage of sacks, and no chance of pulling off to the side of the turnpike; throw in a disabled heater and insufficient heavy clothing or blankets (especially after one of the afflicted ones resorts to a turned down front window in lieu of a sack); as a crowning touch induce the third party of the four to come up with the same sickness; what do you get? What we got was one of the weirdest trips in our family’s history. The faithful children who have kept the hearth while we were gaily enjoying our Pennsylvania weekend open the door to us at an hour nearer morning than night. We stumble in, pale and foul, and fall into beds—most of us too sick even to bathe. The next day the two Faithful Ones stay home from school to care for the sick. The medal of honor, we think, belongs to that fellow who—entirely of his own volition—gets out into the freezing weather with bucket, hose, and hot water, to salvage the honor of the much-abused Mercury. We defy anyone to put That One into a “Those Teenagers!” category. After a day or two of convalescence we can also sing the praises of the other teenager who, through it all, took care of Bubu without a sigh. This, we know, was a trip we will not forget. But it is weeks before I find myself remembering anything but the ride home 312 On the Corner 1967 ... weeks before the grim details fade, and memories of the joys of reunion with friends and relatives (and a certain house on the hill!) spring up like flowers out of muck. Someday, one of these days soon, I say to a friend, I am just going to quit discussing weight reduction. We agree that discussion of it doesn’t help much. What does help launch me on my current Lenten Carefulness is two days of being unable to tolerate any food. On Ash Wednesday I step on the scales, and, gratified, I think that I can, after all, make at least token headway. February fourteenth passed without a ripple at our house. The woman on the corner did think of serving something special and red for dessert at the “Nachtmal.” Doubtless others of the family were faintly aware of the day, but on the whole we have all grown out of the valentine stage. But the fifteenth! First there was a delivery boy with red roses. For me! Who would ever send red roses to me? The card read, “The Eldest One” and I—ungrateful wretch—was delighted to reflect that our son has such a good wife that she would remind him to send his old mother red roses on this last valentine opportunity before their extended tour of duty outside the country. Later, in conversation with that wonderful son and daughter-in-law, I try to express my joy. “Yes,” she says, “I was so proud of him! I didn’t know a thing about it until he had sent them! It was more fun than getting them myself!” But seldom does only one lift come to me in one day. Weeks can pass dully, but there comes a day when I am bombarded with grace, Today was one such. Following the flowers, a friend stopped in for one of her rare visits. She brought a new brand of instant coffee which she thinks is the best yet, an armload of books, and a cheerful ten-minute visit. She left by the back door as the mailman came to the front with a letter from a sister—an equally rare Happening. This is, I muse, indeed, THE DAY THE LORD HATH MADE, and I am glad and rejoice in it. One of our favorite nephew-families spends Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning with us. We enjoy seeing how the Small One has grown, and Bubu is fascinated with the live doll, whose hand he strokes gently. He deposits himself beside her and he shall not be moved. Again we are impressed by this child who, though so curious and swift, unreliable and unpredictable that he must be watched constantly in order that he might not wreak havoc on himself or on numerous delicate 313 Story of a Family machines around the house, can still be trusted with little children. He has not learned yet that by pushing, biting, hitting, or kicking, one may sometimes get what one wants. Depending, that is, on what he wants! Note to myself: I must call my friend on Main Street to tell her what a hit her breakfast-roll recipe scored with the family yesterday morning. In fact, we liked them so well and will probably use them so often on Sunday morning, that by giving me that recipe she has inspired me to set a precedent. Indifferent cook that I am, I hereby issue a recipe from The Corner: Sunday Breakfast Roll Preheat oven to 400 degrees 20 minutes before rolls are ready to bake. 4 cups flour 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind 1 cup (2 sticks) margarine 1 package or cake yeast, dry or compressed 1/4 cup very warm water 1 cup milk, lukewarm 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup sugar 1 tablespoon cinnamon In a large bowl, combine the flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the salt, and grated rind. Cut shortening into the flour mixture. Sprinkle or crumble yeast into the very warm water; stir until dissolved. Scald milk and cool to lukewarm. Add the dissolved yeast, lukewarm milk, and eggs to the flour mixture. Toss lightly until thoroughly combined. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight. Divide dough in half. Roll half on a well-floured board into a rectangle 18 by 12 inches. Sprinkle with half the mixture of 1 cup sugar and the cinnamon. Roll up tightly beginning at the wide side. Cut each roll into 1-inch slices. Place, cut side up, on greased baking sheet. Flatten with palm of hand. Repeat with the remaining dough and sugar-cinnamon mixture. Bake immediately in a hot oven (400 F. ) for about l2 minutes. Ice while warm with thin mixture of confectioner’s sugar, water, and grated orange rind. Makes 36 rolls. For our little visiting nurse, it is the last day to knock herself out in behalf of our Bubu. Her tour of duty with him ends at the semester. The student nurses assigned to him come and go, but this one took her assignment as a serious duty. She was determined to do all she could to move along the ever-so-slow wheels of Public Welfare in order that this child should be accepted at Aux Chandelles. A tedious job, to say the least! But today, her tenacious efforts and our more lackadaisical ones 314 On the Corner 1967 were rewarded. Bubu has been enrolled for next term, and we are all glad, sensing that to him as to the other one hundred children involved, a walk through the doors of Aux Chandelles is, literally, a walk “Into the Light.” March While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. —Genesis 8:22 When I praised the Bic pen in a previous column, I had no idea that bread was being cast upon the waters and would return “after many days.” Today one of the world’s most gentlemanly of gentlemen, who also happens to sell Bic pens, replenished my chronically depleted supply of that commodity. A dozen pens! “I’ve wanted to give them to you ever since I read that,” he smiled, as he concluded the presentation with his inimitable Japanese bow. Speaking of bread upon the waters! This was a verse that puzzled me no end in childhood. First of all there was that image of a chunk of my mother’s bread—the big thick end crust, it had to be, since that was my favorite part of the loaf. One imagined standing by a coulee—that swift, sometimes scary, stream of my Idaho childhood—or even by the Big Ditch. You would throw the crust in, then go away. After many days it would come back to you (to your own little ditch in front of your house?) and, according to the Bible verse, that should be a very good thing to happen to you. But who, I puzzled, would want that soggy bread, full of typhoid germs and all that? He has indicated in every way he knows how—and believe me, his ways are many and cleverly unmistakable—that he wants a drink. But we are busy talking, and we ignore him. After a few moments we become aware, in the midst of our conversation, of a dragging sound, followed by a plop: drag, plop; drag, plop. Here he comes, walking the only way he can—on hands and knees. But he has visited the refrigerator, and in his hand is the milk pitcher which, in spite of his uncoordinated grip upon it, spills a bit only when used as an auxiliary hand to propel him into our presence. And when we smile, and come to his aid, and our guest squeals to find us so calm in such a calamity, he merely looks at us with the first bit of disgust I’ve ever detected in him: “I told you,” that look says, “that I wanted a drink.” 315 Story of a Family Tonight we have a guest at our candlelit Nachtmal. And she has brought with her the goodies—a coffee ring with raisins and things inside. Once again I forget my plans for Lent, and partake gratefully of the bounty. And I think, as we visit with our benefactress, how much good fellowship in this world would never come into being without the shared meal! “Oh, Mom,” wails the six-footer who is asked to move his size twelves so I can pick up the newspaper lodged beneath them. “What’s the matter with you? You’re always trying to wreck that ‘lived-in’ look!” He was responsible for the lessons in his Sunday school class this morning, and though he had prepared his lesson, he was not quite prepared for the response. This tall high-schooler took his little foster brother in tow, and, in the circle of his high school friends, he discussed what it means to have such a child in one’s home. Soon another class drifted in, then another, having heard interesting sounds through the curtain. The tall fellow came home glowing with satisfaction. “He did everything I told him to. He sang for them, walked for them, and even kissed them. He was really cute. But the nicest thing,” he added, “was that they liked him so much. You just feel warmer toward your friends when they show real interest in someone like him.” Yes, I thought, you do. And I would like to nominate the three classes as Exhibit A opposite the sometime picture of that Troublesome-Teenager Cliche. “Be sure,” he writes, “to keep account of the money you send me. I want to pay it back when I’m earning again.” Keep account? Since when does love keep accounts? To list the little dribbles we send now and then to make it possible for you to have a few extras would be like making a list of the meals you’ve eaten at home, or the number of times I gave you a bath, or songs I sang or stories I read to you when you were small. It would be like listing love-pats and kisses, birthday cakes and outings—all the little things that were done for you not because they were necessary but because we loved you. You know well that we have always had a horror of a certain kind of account-keeping: number of souls “saved,” number of meals served to guests this year, number of funerals and weddings at which one officiated. But to keep account of love-gifts horrifies us even more. When the day comes that we must keep account of such gifts, then they will have ceased to be gifts of love. 316 On the Corner 1967 This is the time of the year when certain accountings, however, must be made. And though our status makes income tax forms far less formidable than they must be for many people more affluent, we still don’t feel able to cope with those forms—especially when we remember that last year we made a mistake that hurt pretty badly several months later! So The Professor takes them downtown to the man who makes a business of helping out people like us, who obviously were made to live in a less complex society! One of the hardest things to do in all of life is to get inside another’s skin—to feel what they feel, to “sit where they sit.” We have our little ways of trying, but mostly they are feeble efforts at best. The man I admire is the one who refuses to be satisfied with the shallow knowings with which most of us content ourselves—the man who does not simply try to imagine how another person in a specific situation may feel, but who leaps into the situation himself, up to his neck and sometimes over his head. Such a person has a right to write a book called Black Like Me. Such a person has a right to appear on the “Today” program and tell what it is like to be a migrant worker. This morning such a man did appear, and told of his year of living as a migrant worker. Five minutes with such a man outweighed, for me, a half-hour sermon on the age-old theme of “Our Christian Duty to Those Less Fortunate Than Ourselves.” April For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come ... —Song of Solomon 2: L 1, 12 (RSV) “Give me a kiss!” one of us would beg, and we were proud of his compliance. “Say hello!” “say good-bye.” “Shake hands”—all these orders he has learned to obey happily But would he ever, ever, we wondered, volunteer these social amenities? The socialization of Bubu has been a long, slow process. These days, however, we see a quickening, since he goes to school daily. And today! Today the response of love is unmistakable as, in the midst of a happy dance in time to music he stops at my chair wraps his arms about my arm and gives me a resounding smack on the elbow. His first voluntary kiss! I blink quickly and tell myself that women have cried for more stupid reasons. And I thank God for another touch of 317 Story of a Family grace upon the long, slow, and sometimes lonely way that Bubu and his family travel together. Again spring comes slowly to our part of the country, but in one day we see it unfold in all its glory. This is how we do it—rather like the process by which photographers speed up the opening of a flower: We begin at our own little city in northern Indiana and drive straight south. With each 50 miles covered, we find the grass a shade greener, the air a bit warmer the tiny new leaves a little bigger, until, having reached our destination—Bloomington—we find we have arrived at spring: balmy air, green leaves, and gorgeous patches of redbud—all this and the joy of being with our children, too. Tonight ten of us ladies sat around Viola’s table, eating the exotic food, and talking as if the opportunity would never come again. As a matter of fact, such chances do come seldom enough—and then they aren’t “chances” at all: somebody has to step forward and make them happen. We’re so glad Viola took this courageous step that we determine it must be done again next year. All sorts of wild suggestions and promises are made: for instance, a certain woman on the corner invites the group in for a quilting to be held at some later date. Since most of the group happen to be nonquilters, this seems to have real entertainment possibilities. We shall see. After many postponements because of Bubu’s little illnesses at last the morning cines when Doris and I can have the breakfast together planned weeks ago. In her colorful living room the morning sun sparkles through the cut-glass bowls of strawberries—her last ones, she tells me, saved in the freezer for this occasion. There is an unforgettable aura about a meal prepared, a table—even a coffee table—spread, so obviously, with love. And there is always something special about the meetings we have, this friend and I, over such a table. Even if “all” we talk about is our children! Thinking of that living room, I suddenly realize that this friend of mine has never “shown me through the house.” Though mistress of one of the loveliest of homes (judging from that living room) she seems to possess it without being possessed by it, and therefore one can really enjoy its beauty. My pet peeve is being taken on a tour of a house when I haven’t requested it; and my gold medal for courage goes, surely, to that 318 On the Corner 1967 woman who politely declined when such a tour was forced upon a visiting group of women. It’s one of those slow days when nothing much is happening Also, the check hasn’t come, so there’s not much to celebrate with. But after school when a babysitter is available, I go to The Professor’s office and invite him out for a cup of coffee with me. “How wonderful!” he beams. “What made you think of it?” “Oh,” I replied, “I just wanted to celebrate—it’s sort of a special day for me.” “A special day?” The Professor beetles his brow and one can see the painful probing for the significance of this day. “Let’s see, April, April—Jon’s birthday? Νooo-OH! OUR MARRIAGE!” After twentyfour years, we can laugh together over his prodigious memory for Special Days and enjoy our cups of coffee together as much as we’d enjoy steak at Tony’s. Later, though, one of the children reminds us of the way we traditionally celebrated our wedding anniversary, up to the last few years. We had decided long ago that once we had a family—even one child—the wedding anniversary could not be properly enjoyed alone; indeed the Wedding Day was, most importantly, the beginning of our life as a family. And so we always celebrated—when we could—with the children, at home. I would wear my wedding dress, and everyone else would dress to the teeth. We ate around our own table, a special meal, with a special cake—often donated by my neighbor-sister. “Why don’t we do that anymore? ‘ they ask today. I really don’t know, I say, but promise that next year I shall get out my gown, and, since it will be our twenty-fifth anniversary, we shall celebrate in the old style—even if there will be vacant chairs about the table. In a few days of warmth, the gay spring flowers blossom. Then come long weeks of cool, even cold, weather, which, one thinks, cannot possibly last but which does. But the flowers last too! Never have the spring flowers bloomed so long, kept fresh, as it were, in a month-long, refrigerated climate. And now at month’s end comes this gorgeous snow through which, on a last-of-April morning, one sees the lovely salmon of the Japanese quince outside the dining-room window; little green leaves from the hedge, and, in our neighbor’s flower bed, red and yellow tulips flaming against the snow’ s whiteness. Ah, and there’s that cardinal again! 319 Story of a Family May I went down to the nut orchard, to look at the blossoms of the valley, To see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom....” —Song of Solomon 6:11 (RSV) Maybe if I write it here, and read it again at the beginning of another May, I can remember and be prepared. But who—in an academic setting, at least—is ever quite prepared for banquet-ridden May? Not that it is not joyous; it is! Not that I don’t enjoy eating with friends and colleagues, as well as strangers; I do! But so much, all on a heap! This year it all began with the annual church banquet for its high school juniors and seniors and their parents—always a fun occasion, when one sees one’s own child in a new light, and enjoys the interaction with other parents of these fine kids. Then came the pleasure of being a speaker at the area Mennonite Business and Professional WMSA— a new and rewarding contact. Add a pleasant luncheon as guest of a home demonstration group—most of whom were in their seventies and eighties; add a testimonial banquet (is anything in the world more boring even for a good cause?); add three in one day—a church mother-daughter breakfast, a seminary-women’s breakfast, and a seminary-sponsored Mexican dinner. Then begin again with a seminary “Dean’s Dinner,” come along several evenings later with a faculty banquet, wrap it up on the last Sunday afternoon of the month with an Associated Seminaries’ tea, and sandwich in between the strogonov dinner at David and Viola’ s and the evening-out with a lively student friend. Postscript: the evenings—such pleasurable ones for us—when groups of seminary students were in our own home. This is May on and around the comer where lives a dejected woman who had hoped by June first to lose fifteen pounds. So many lovely celebrations in May! In a way, in our climate, at least, nature celebrates Life in May—so why shouldn’t we all? In Connecticut, a dear young friend is “coming of age” in the Jewish community. How we would like to be at the service of worship followed by the celebration of her Bat Mitzvah! But though we can’t be there, and do not even know the appropriate Hebrew greeting for Debra on this special day of hers, our loving thoughts surround her. 320 On the Corner 1967 By now the children know pretty well how their odd old mother feels about Mother’s Day. The married children call, though, however apologetically, and such a call “makes the day” for me, any day. The kind lady on the corner across Franklin from us, sends a card telling me what a wonderful mother I am—which card is put in its proper perspective by a grown son’s snicker as he reads it—and his consequential presentation of “an imaginary bouquet of roses” which he brings from behind his back in genteel style. Other than this, Mother’s Day at our house is like any other quiet Sunday, unmarred by any actual, symbolic, or artificial deference. I do not judge mothers who like it otherwise; but I do prefer it this way for myself. At our table tonight is Paul, an engaging young man from Taiwan— about twenty-five years old, we would judge. Such brightness shines from him as he tells us how he first “came to know” Jesus, that I almost wish I could remember the first time I ever heard of Jesus! He became a Christian finally, he says, because of the Mennonite Paxmen in his country. “They were so good, I wanted to be like them” was his simple explanation. Before he leaves we feel we have learned a lot about goodness. We wish we radiated goodness in a degree approaching that of our guest. Maybe then we, too, would look fifteen years younger than we really are! Writing a letter to the Absent One across the world, I find my mind recalling a line from Dreiser’ s The Bulwark; a searing story which I read years ago. Old Solon, the Quaker, is dying, and his mind is preoccupied with the welfare of his children. To the daughter who has caused him much sorrow, but who has now come home to care for him, he whispers, in his semiconscious state, “If thee has not the Inner Light, where will thee go?” I try to explain to my son that his father and I, contemplating our children, do not ask that their faith should take the form of ours, nor hope that they should interpret every item as we do. We want them to find their own way, not blindly follow ours. We only hope that they will resist any pressures to close their eyes, or to turn away from the Inner Light— that “True Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” We hope—and we believe. A taped message from that Absent One arrived today, and with it he almost walked into the room and sat down with us. With his usual 321 Story of a Family flavorful reportage (plus some exaggeration, we suppose, since he sees everything more imaginatively than most of us) he gave the riots of Hong Kong rather full coverage. Though he assured us that they were not as bad as reported, his graphic portrayal of a demonstrating group suddenly turning and converging on him, the only Westerner in sight, did ripple the surface of our composure a bit. Seeming to sense that this might happen, he added, “But don’t worry, Mom, I won’t...” and at this tantalizing point the tape ran out. It was the fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration of friends. On the calendar I had carefully checked a date three days before the anniversarywith the note “send letter to P.E.’s” Three days later, letter unwritten I read on that same appointment calendar: “Fiftieth Anniversary—P. and A. E.” And once again I sighed to see another good intention go down the drain. “Oh, well,” I consoled myself, “I’m sure they got so many cards they couldn’t even say whether or got we sent one!” Maybe they couldn’t, but I could. For some strange reason one never gets quite the charge out of “meaning to do” that he gets out of actually doing! June Awake, O wind and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its fragrance be wafted abroad. —Song of Solomon 4:16, RSV After trying to reclaim June as a part of “summer vacation” I have given up. There is little possibility of establishing that long-dreamed-of Summer Schedule in a month broken up by commencement, Bible school, the beginnings of summer school for Bubu, and weddings. So we plan to muddle though the month of June and start in earnest with the Schedule when the youngest (now my only dependable household helper) returns from her ten days of camp, halfway through July. That doesn’t leave much of a summer, and so I make lists, determined not to be so overwhelmed by the lack of remaining time that the goals for this summer will not be reached. This summer, says the list, my Helper will learn to run all the appliances without my supervision; to sort clothes for the laundry; to master several “company” meals; and she, not I, will be responsible for getting those school clothes ready. I love lists. But they are deceptive, I know. Having made such a list, one experiences a sort of euphoria—as if everything is accomplished, οnce it is written. We shall see! 322 On the Corner 1967 Twenty-five years later! Our college class—or a remnant of it—meets and laughs and renews acquaintance. Patient wives and husbands who were not a part of the class drag themselves with their more or less enthusiastic spouses to the reunion luncheon; then to the “Class of 42” table at the Alumni Banquet; and finally to the Elkhart home of one of our former class presidents, where we stretch out the joy of reunion as late as possible. For a class with a notorious lack of “spirit” (at one time we voted not to have any) there was a good deal of pleasure in each other’s company as we filled one another in on “the years between.” Besides the big reunion, commencement brought other memorable treats. House guests—an old classmate, and the Lady From the Hill Across The Tracks of our old home; the Very Large Experience of listening to St. John’s Passion, given by the music community of the College; our married children’s homecoming and the joy of entering with them into the excitement of preparing for a term of service abroad. Tonight we sit before the TV with more than the usual attentiveness during the 5:30 local news. Never has there been such news! Project Breakthrough (a summer program meant to reduce regression for retarded children between school terms) will have coverage, we are told. Since our Bubu is enrolled in it for the next six weeks, we hope against hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ll see him on the screen. As we watch, suddenly there he is—wavering, unsteady on those two feet, but walking toward us in his little plaid overalls. Only an instant, then gone. But we all sit back with great grins of satisfaction, as if we had witnessed his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize. We hug the unsuspecting child and say silly things like “Did you see...?” Looking back, we can’t recall having seen any other children, or even hearing what the announcer had to say about Project Breakthrough! One thing that has always impressed us about this child is his sensitivity to the feelings of adults concerning him. He seems to have antennae which immediately assess the situation, and so he rarely intrudes on one who is wary of him. With others he immediately responds—opens like a flower—and sometimes for no reason that we can readily see. It is not merely a matter of getting attention or not getting it. It is something felt. Tοday I stared as I saw him reach out to the stranger who had stooped to talk to him—saw him reach arms around the neck, and seriously plant 323 Story of a Family a kiss on the cheek of the man who had paid him no more attention than many adults pay him. How did Bubu decide to do this unprecedented thing—to give a kiss to a stranger! How could he know that this man was the father of such a child as Bubu himself? Today through the mai1 there has come a list of “bad things” gleaned from a book mentioned in this column. I decline to answer the sender because I sense that communication is hopeless: to begin with, from the very book which yielded all these “bad things” I recall only a valuable in sight about prayer! I am sad for people why spend their lives going abut documenting what is bad—about people, about books, about “the times.” Where, other than in God alone, can one expect to find perfection? Surely not in a book! Even the Bible can yield some racy language for the one who looks for it. We live our imperfect lives in an imperfect world. We enjoy roses, ignoring the thorns as well as the manure which enriched the soil from which the gorgeous blooms sprung. I keep reading books—not “good” books or “bad” books—books in which various pictures of life with its inimitable mixture of good and evil are found. (The only “thoroughly nice” books I’ve read have tended to be thoroughly phony—because life is never, here on earth, “thoroughly nice.”) And I, like every reader, am responsible for what I remember from the books I read. I cannot purge books—or life—of that which is offensive; but I can decide what to look for. Through some oversight—a neglect, I think it was, of a little mimeographed sheet containing a tentative list of candidates for an upcoming church election—I suddenly open my eyes and find myself on a committee. Not being a committeewoman, I am appalled. But the crowning terror comes when the non-committeewoman is asked to act as secretary for the committee. At this point, one can only weakly offer the information that never in one’s lifetime has she acted as secretary for any organization how can she be trusted with official minutes? To which the chairman, a past master at administering committees, dryly comments that this is a good time to learn how to write minutes. With grimness I clasp a pen, look down at the paper, and start recording; but .there is already beginning inside me the whir of Busy-Wheels which are out to destroy my peace of mind. 324 On the Corner 1967 July The meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy. —Psalm 65:13, RSV The business-at-hand, in July, on the corner, is ever the same. There are only minor variations on a few themes: to settle oneself and the family into some kind of summer routine; to endure the heat when it’s hot, and be properly grateful when it’s cooler; to enjoy to the hilt the three family birthdays which fall in this month. This year the two youngest are sent packing, the boy far south for a month with relatives, the girl north for her annual ten days of camp. And the Little Feller goes happily to school each day. Project Breakthrough—whatever it may turn out to mean to him—is indeed a breakthrough for his mamma. Having delivered him at his school each day, she retreats for the next four hours to her little room at the Seminary where she writes, sorts, files, and reads (all of which are impossible to attempt in his presence) until it is time to pick him up and head for home again. On the list of Dear Hearts and Gentle People who have made this July pleasant for us: the Relatives who gathered here for an evening with a sister and her family who shared pictures and talk of their Spring Trek around the globe; Kin from the other side of the family, our overnight guests while in town to marry off a son to a local daughter; the Ladies young and old around our daughter-in-law’s quilt in Topeka; and of course our dear young-marrieds, in and out of the house, waiting on visas, saying tentative good-byes, and waiting some more. Another birthday. Tonight, in retrospect, I ask myself as I do annually, Will I ever be so old or so sad or so jaded or so self-forgetful that this one day out of the year will not be a day of utter joy? It has always been that way—thanks to a mother who made our earliest birthdays so truly Our Special Days. It doesn’t seem to matter whether there is little or much acknowledgment of the day by others; whether there is “loot” (as the children put it) or not; whether I am physically on “top” or “low.” Whatever the weather, physically or emotionally, the fact remains that it is my Day of Joy. As a matter of fact, this year it was another of those fabulous days when everyone, it seemed, outdid themselves in my behalf... A new 325 Story of a Family dress from a sewing friend; a dinner-out with my Main-Street sister; let ters, cards, bookmarks, sheets, roses, Bic pens, purses, Peanuts books, telephone calls, a pitcher, tea, a gift of money, doughnuts... It’s not right, it’s not fair, I tell myself, to be treated thus. But I love it, once a year. Oh, yes, and that one Special Card! The Special Card is one of the tall variety which, one senses immediately, is not going to be complimentary. The innocuous “Happy Birthday” on the outside is completed on the inside by “Old Tiger!” and the appropriate illustration. The endearing words come from the college son, and I get the message! His sheepish enjoyment of the family laughter ensuing, assures me that: (1) the “tiger” image is not without some grain of relevancy, and (2) he has some affection for the old girl anyhow. Speaking of sons calling their mothers “Old Tigers”: I am reminded of how often, around our table, there has been a frank, yet affectionate “putting into their places” of the elders by the children. The Professor usually laughs and adds weakly, “If I had talked to my dad like that...!” But I think he really enjoys the fact that his sons can openly and with good humor tell him off. Seeing how it has worked out under our own roof, I must agree with Niebuhr’s observation: “An amiable disrespect of parents is more compatible with love than an enforced obedience.” The List as regards the summer activities of The Princess, made last month with gritted teeth and grim inner determination, was not made in vain. She does learn, with reasonable agility, how to run the applianc es; and she does so on marginal time between baby-sitting, cooking, sewing lessons, music practicing, and other personal and household responsibilities. But I am reminded of my mother’s complaint, “It would be so much easier to do it myself, but she’s got to learn!”—a complaint I never fully appreciated till now. A complaint I thought I would never make, even silently. Butmother to daughter to daughter—Life has come full circle. And again I wonder how my mother managed to “keep her cool.” If a poll were taken, I think bleakly, standing in the door of our daughter’s room, if a poll were taken among mothers of early-teen daughters, what would be the number-one gripe? Surely, it would have to be—how could it be anything else—the state of their rooms. Unmade beds. Dressers littered with dirty hose, bottles and creams, hair-rollers, 326 On the Corner 1967 pictures, letters and books. Clothes lying in circles on the floor—untouched since they were stepped-out-of. Clean skirts and sweaters thrown into a corner with clothes ready for the hamper. Times like this I like to forget that what I see here is only a little different from what my mother saw in my room some thirty years ago. (The main difference—this girl has more of everything to lie around.) But I am cheered by the observation of a newspaper columnist, who says that any young girl of this age who keeps a neat room is probably abnormal and bears close watching; possibly the services of a psychiatrist are indicated! Hannah Greene’s I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is one of those rarities, a book you read, but do not release from your consciousness for days and weeks. Even months afterward, you happen to say to a friend, or she says to you, “Have you read I Never Promised ...” and if you have both read it, you are “en rapport.” Just plain fine writing, a sensitive psychological approach, restraint, and integrity in character delineation make this book the years’ best for the woman on this Corner. August Thine is the day, thine also the night; thou hast established the Luminaries and the sun. Thοu halt fixed all the bounds of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter. —Psalm 74:16, 17 After years of inactivity in this department, the Professor has become a marrying parson. It is a month of weddings for us, and we both enjoy it. The season opens appropriately with the wedding of two of his Seminary students; following this, a student-friend combination (students and friends of both of us) enters the Holy Estate; then come two children from two families of our friends. Each ceremony is simple and impressive in a different way; each bears the unique stamp of the participants upon it. We won’t soon forget that wedding in which the father of the bride delivered the finest wedding meditation we have heard—a sermon free of the usual sticky sentiments centered on bride and groom, and based instead on an appeal that their common commitment be one of caring for the people around them. Maybe it takes a non-minister to get some fresh breezes blowing in the wedding-sermon department! 327 Story of a Family So deeply involved were we both in the second wedding that we almost felt like a third set of parents. These were our children, too—youngun’s we had seen through four years of college, whose growing friendship we watched with interest—who, singly and together, sat often around our table. To help with their wedding seemed not just an honor, but a natural outgrowth of our intertwined relationships. And this was the wedding in which that vivacious Mother-Of-TheBride was involved—that one who long ago said some brave words about Food at Weddings. Those words were fortified by deeds as we joined in a most joyous and delicious wedding feast. All in all, it was an occasion which, like a family wedding, not only called for a new dress for the woman on the corner, but turned out to be an intense interval of grateful worship. En route home from the wedding, a young son retraced with me a vivid part of my life—the early teens—as we stopped over for two jewellike days in one of my old-home communities. The rolling landscape of northern Illinois, all green and gold in the perfect August weather, could scarcely have looked lovelier. Nor could I have had a better companion; one sensitive enough to understand the depth of my feeling for these homesteads, schools, groves, sidewalks, roads, churches and cemeteries. Young enough to be curious and old enough to be appreciative. Together we peered into the windows of the house where I lived with Grandpa, a house scarcely changed from the early thirties when I first came to it. Together we marveled as I noted that even the garden was in the same place as when my mother last planted it, that the ferns still grew around the porch, and that the woodhouse and garage were as remembered, except for a general decay. The apple tree whose blossoms reached into my upstairs window was gone, but otherwise, so little had changed! Together we studied the schools, the church, the old Shoemaker homesteads, the tombstones in a cemetery full of relatives (including two sets of his great-great-grandparents and most of their children). Togeth er, then, we came back into the present as we visited with his uncle—my brother—and relatives he never knew he had. Reflecting on these two days, I realize that this eon has given me the outstanding gift of my summer, a gift to cherish always: the sharing, without sign of boredom or condescension, of a segment of his mother’s past. It was a segment I have always remembered with joy, but now the joy has been multiplied because of its being communicated to a child of my own. 328 On the Corner 1967 My private summer project has been to gather together all the old “Hill Journals” and “On The Corners” in an orderly fashion, for the benefit of the children. Nonreaders of the column up to now, they may one day enjoy following the family through the thicks and thins, and so I plan to augment our private family history in this fashion, eventually Xeroxing copies for each. Today I make a check beside that item on the List: First stage accomplished. All material gathered and prepared for copying. The Xeroxing will have to come later, when we aren’t saving money for a sabbatical. At the “Singer Style Show” tonight, the yοung dressmakers appear in their summer’s handiwork and receive their awards. This mother, never of any practical help to a sewing daughter, didn’t expect miracles, but was delighted when her daughter’s dress was included in the top ten. I couldn’t help feeling terribly inadequate, seeing these ten-to-fourteenyear-old girls modeling their own dresses and exhibiting a skill which I cannot approximate in my forties! Today the women on our block met a charming new neighbor who, with her family, has moved into the house several doors north of us. When I discovered that she was an art teacher, I asked if she planned to be teaching. “Oh, no,” she replied, “not until Johnny is well settled in school, at least—and that will be three more years. You see, if, when he’s grown, he turns out well, I want some of the credit. And if he doesn’t turn out well, I want to have the satisfaction of knowing that what happened wasn’t be cause of my neglect in those early years!” It’s comforting, we middle-agers reflect, to meet new-fashioned young mothers with old-fashioned ideas! September I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you. —Psalm 81:16 September, a time of ripeness and culmination in nature, is, as usual, the time for beginnings in the family. Back to school! From youngest 329 Story of a Family to oldest the pace suddenly changes. No more late sleeping. No more ignoring of bells and schedules. No more refrigerator-raids at all hours of the day. The Little Feller becomes an all-day student at his special school; the highschoolers are off to a new start without a murmur; the college boy, after an initial depression over his classes, changes his registration and attacks his studies with more zeal than he has shown for years. The Professor, too, is glad to be back in the classroom. For the Young Marrieds, there is the continuing School of Patience—still waiting for the visas they now fear may not come at all. The young man on the other side of the world has a new school too—Vietnam. For the Woman on the Cor ner there is the School of Freedom: suddenly to have 4 1/2 hours a day to manage without interruption from the Little Feller is, she discovers, an educational adventure. What cheer a change of pace brings to the pilgrim! He knows he’ll get tired again, and that what is now invigorating will in time become burdensome. But for now I rejoice in the newness of life that Back-toSchool brings. I recall the Shakespeare jingle which was our first little boy’s first memorized verse: Jog on, jog on the footpath way And merrily hent the stile-a A merry heart goes all the way, Your sad tires in a mile-a. It could not have been a lovelier day to say farewell to the uncle who inadvertently introduced me to the World of Books by supplying me with my first “very own” volumes back in the twenties. October’s Bright Blue Weather was blowing around us on the hill, and even the somber trappings of Death could not dispel the cheerful memory of that uncle leading our singing with a flair comparable to that of only one other church chorister I have known—“Prof.” Later in the day I took a quick sprint through the halls of what our little fellows used to call “Da Punishing House”—and the familiar faces and friendly handshakes recalled to me the joys of shared life in this lively community. A few more hours on the Hill—with the House we loved and the People we love, and the View that never failed to send an empty gaze back full—then home. For this full day of joy and sorrow I give thanks in the words of the canon we sang so many years ago in chorus: “Oh life is good and death is good, O life is good and death is good...” 330 On the Corner 1967 Over the years, muses the Woman on the Corner, there have been surprisingly few people who really rubbed me the wrong way. But at the very top of that short list would be a group of people I could call “the sentence-finishers.” Nothing annoys me like haying people finish my sentences. Invariably such callous persons never supply what you really would have said, had you been given the chance to say it. (Anyone with enough sensitivity to know what you would have said, would have enough sensitivity to let you finish in the first place!) One of my most frustrating experiences with this happened years ego when a well-meaning person asked me why I no longer wrote as much as I used to. Then, without giving me a chance to answer, she said, “It’s probably because...” followed by “You feel ...” followed by “Is it that you don’t...” followed by “Or might it be. . .” All these suggestions were given in rapid fire, and all were entirely off my wavelength. If she had given me opportunity to utter one phrase in answer to the initial question, she would have known my reasons. But the poor woman closed the conversation after her final suggestion, and went away without ever knowing why I don’t write as much as I once did. My one regret in the ensuing blessed silence was that she didn’t know that she didn’t know. There are days of activity when one doesn’t stop to think who he is or why he is. There are days when one is riding high —all’s not only Right with the world, but Great! There are days of anxiety, of waiting, of grief— none of which one would ask for, but all of which can somehow strength en a person. But the days I dread most are the days like yesterday, the Blah Days. I read the scribble of my lone journal entry for that day: “A No-Person, waiting for the Button Molder....” In the Dear Hearts and Gentle People Department the month was a good one for us on the corner: a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast with our good “country cousins” and their All Girl Orchestra, the occasion being the TV viewing of the CBS Special on the Mennonites; a late-intothe-night, around-the-table session with Syl and Nancy whose superb listening and speaking skills bring unexpected insights, and result in some important decision-making later; a dinner-out with my Main Street friend (one of our usual semiannual flings staged on her birthday and mine); coffee and catching up with Jill, home from Germany after two years; the regular Thursday evening and Sunday noon fellowship with our Young Marrieds; an on-the-spot response to a Sunday night on-the -spot invitation from our friends on Wilson Avenue. Recalling these and 331 Story of a Family other real meetings this month, I say—and it’s been said before, “Blest be the tie that binds.” The TV Special seems to us to be, along with the news broadcasts, worth the price of having TV in the home. Tonight’s was the one we would have hated most to miss: a program which proved, as one critic later commented, that you don’t need all that money, stage-setting, costuming, and people to produce a really good program. You need one man afire with an idea. Eric Hoffer held us spellbound for an hour, just sitting in a chair on a bare set, and talking. One didn’t need to agree with his ideas to be overwhelmed with the vitality of his mind. After seeing and hearing him, even the better TV programming suddenly seemed contrived, lackluster, and not very Special at all. October The voice of the Lord makes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forests bare; and in his temple all cry, “Glory!” —Psalm 29:9 At fourteen, her thoughts are not as available to me as when she was four—nor would I want them to be. I remember, in bits and pieces more vivid than the memories of any other period of my life, something of what it was like to be fourteen. I remember how I cherished the privacy of my own room. I remember regarding my mother with affectionate tolerance, the kind one reserves for the OLD or SIMPLE. I remember looking into the mirror oftener than when I was younger, seeing each blemish, whether of inheritance or adolescence, and thinking my secret thoughts. It never occurred to me what thoughts my mother may have had as she looked at me. But new I have a good idea of how my mother might have felt: She saw her daughter in all her wonderful fourteen-year-oldness. She saw the hiddenness, the love-hate ambivalence, the bursts of confidence, the crushes, the new humor and independence. She also saw herself at fourteen and made inevitable comparisons. And, in vignettes all around the edges, she probably saw that nearly-grown-up-woman-child at vari ous stages of her growing up. Today, while a fourteen-year-old girl stands at the mirror brushing her long hair, I see a tousled, pajama-clad two-year-old sitting pensively on 332 On the Corner 1967 the bare floor in a shaft of morning sunlight, dust beams dancing around her bright-brown hair. And I hear the small voice answer my pedestrian “What are you doing, Honey?” with “I’m jis’ sittn’ in the sunshine, helpin’ God.” Report from the Dear Hearts and Gentle People Department: A busy student nurse-niece steps in long enough to stir up a zowie Mexican cheese-dip, and stays to dunk Fritos with us in the smoky October dusk. The daughter of dear Idaho friends comes to scout a few eastern colleges. However much we want her to decide on our college, however captivated we are by her charm, we apply no pressure, probably because we are cowards: What if she’d be disappointed later, and blame us? Much as I admire and enjoy her, I seldom see my neighbor two doors north. So on a chilly morning we arrange breakfast at Azars together, complete with her small daughter who enjoys sampling various kinds of jelly, a cache of which she has discovered on the counter right behind her while we have been busy talking! The birthday of a friend on Mishawaka Road brings together a handful of women—her relatives and friends from twelve to seventy—on a sunny Saturday afternoon. And a young nephew, taking a breather from teaching in the Big City spends the weekend with us. He is the perfect kind of guest—one who does not need to be entertained, explained to, or dusted for but who just moves into family status without orientation. How long does it take to find a friend? How often can one count on making a new friend? Friendship, I’ve often repeated, is a miracle. It can’t be asked for or planned for. It happens. Years may go by without this happening, however amiable one finds many of the people he meets. And then one day, it happens, all unsuspected. Like this week, when we took Ann to Holland, Michigan, to meet her next hostess, who would introduce her to Hope College as we had introduced her to Goshen College. At some time during the hour, as we sat drinking coffee in that living room, rapport sprang up between two women, strangers. And I knew, and she knew, though it was all unspoken, that the possibilities for friendship were present; that if there should be further nourishing at any time in the future, the seeds would grow. 333 Story of a Family The understandings which the Little Feller has brought into our sphere of thought and life have been many. One of the greatest is learning just a bit how parents of such exceptional children feel. Sitting, not where they sit, but near to where they sit, one soon identifies with their joys and their fears, their compassion and their hostilities. When we as foster parents begin to talk of a sabbatical, then there begins for me a new anxiety: What will happen to the Little Feller? As I mentally search among friends, relatives, church “brothers and sisters,” I am dismayed to discover that I cannot think of one person why could or would step forward and say: We will be glad to care for him next year! In the ensuing emptiness, I think of all these parents to whom this question must be a constant fear: “What would happen to this child if I should die? Would anyone love him, if not for his own sale, if not for my sake, then even for Jesus sake?” The anxious question echoes without an answer. But there are miracles of love and acceptance in the world. A telephone call from a sister drops the bombshell: “We would like to come up North for a year, live in your house, and take care of Bubu.” Whether or not the arrangements can be worked out, I suddenly know once again that there are still people in the world who believe in losing life to find life. It was fourteen years age this month that one of my most memorable reading adventures began. I had never read War and Peace, though I had read allusions to it for years. In spite of the fact that never since the age of six had I been a nonreader for any appreciable period of time, the great size of this book was a formidable obstacle to that young mother of fourteen years ago. There were six children, the eldest nine, the youngest ten days. There was hand-to-mouth living and an unfinished house. But, as in any place, any situation, there was Time. And that Time was mine to spend according to my priorities. I chose to spend some of it on War and Peace. Each time I nursed the baby, I picked up the heavy book also, and in bits of twenty minutes, throughout the days of that lovely autumn, I digested War and Peace. No book could have been more suited to being picked up with pleasure, yet put down without a sense of urgency to continue. Never before or since has it taken me so long to get through a book. But it is the most vivid reading “experience’ of my life, one remembered with warmth and gratitude. 334 On the Corner 1967 November The eyes of all look to thee, and thou givest them their food in due season. —Psalm 145: l5, RSV The more I reflect on the emotion of gratitude, the more I see it as one of the greatest endowments of the human personality. To be grateful is to be aware of the grace of life; to be truly aware of the grace of life is to be gracious in one’s approach to persons pleasant or unpleasant, as well as in one’s reaction to circumstances pleasant or unpleasant. The Jews in their worship have retained this centrality of gratitude far more than we Christians have: “Blessed” is the key word; “Baruch ata Adonai”—“Blessed art Τhou, O Lord”—is the key phrase of every prayer. The typical Jewish prayer repeats over and over, “Blessed art Thou who givest ... who doest ... who bringest ... who createst...” Blessed, Blessed, Blessed—“Baruch ata Adonai!” Listening to a typical Protestant prayer on a Sunday morning there are, to be sure, a few “We praise Thee’s”; but mostly the key words seem to be: Give us...keep...watch over...endow us...fill us...be with... All perfectly legitimate askings, but perhaps out of proportion to the praise. Thinking on these things, my November prayer is simply, “Blessed art Τhou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, from whose band poureth the grace of life.” “Baruch ata Adonai”: Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who giveth family and friends. There was, this month, the afternoon hour of tea with my neighbor-friend, before her open fire. (Baruch ata Adonai, for genuine meeting.) There was the sixteenth birthday of our youngest son. (Baruch ata Adonai, for sons and daughters!) There was Thanksgiving dinner with Walter and Mildred, the house bursting with cousins and cousins’ children, and such good talk around the table. (Baruch ata Adonai!) There was the pleasure of finding myself, at the orchestra potluck, seated beside that second cousin who shares my first name, and with whom I enjoy little more than a yearly chat, even though she lives scarcely more than a mile away—Baruch ata Adonai! “Baruch ata Adonai”: Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who giveth responsibilities of mothering. To prepare the packages of books and sweat shirts, of fruitcake and cookies, for the son across the world from us, and 335 Story of a Family to anticipate his response is like participating in a sacrament. Grace is present wherever love is present. (Baruch ata Adonai!) To live in the timeless limbo of a hospital stay with the Little Feller who doesn’t know what it’s all about; simply to be there when he calls at night, to rub the back, give the water, sing the song—for this privilege, too, one cries, “Baruch ata Adonai!” Not all women have the privilege of comforting their children. Some mothers have to leave, and their children in our ward cry quietly at night, too frightened to ask for help. For the privilege of being a substitute mother for those who couldn’t stay—“Baruch ata Adonai!” “Blessed art Thou, O Lord,” who gives such strength and courage and love to the parents of the deformed baby across the hall; to the father who comes in each evening at six, dons the smock, and holds the child with tenderness for several hours; to the mother who comes late, at eleven, after work, and does the same. Gratitude is present wherever love is present. “Baruch ata Adonai!” Blessed art Thou, O Lord, for small joys remembered. Today, unwrapping a piece of gum (a seldom thing for me) I pause to consider the foil. Suddenly I remember what pleasure these little pieces of tinfoil brought to me as a child. We would carefully peel off the waxy white paper and, if we were very small, run with the foil to Mamma, why would, by twisting it about her finger, fashion for us a tiny “fairy” goblet, or a little cup and saucer. In a day when most of the children I know have too many toys, too expensive ones, and too little time to enjoy a fraction of what they have, I am grateful for the memory of small joys, of homemade toys—the foil cups, the tissue-paper-covered comb, the clothespin fences, the oatmeal-box doll beds, the spool wheels, the stick horses, the orange-crate desks. “Baruch ata Adonai!” Blessed art Thou, O Lord! How often, during my lifetime, have I had to express gratitude for the pleasures and the instruction that have come to me through books. And today, coming across my tattered first poetry anthology, I am overwhelmed by the memories of books enjoyed as a child. Those were not the days of the plethora of picture books which our own children enjoyed. Caldecott Medal books were nonexistent, and people in our circles were not then aware that there were such things as the Newbery Award Books (though I did read, and love, Dr. Doolittle). 336 On the Corner 1967 But even the indifferent and the poor books—by today’s standards— gave me the Joy of Reading—a lifetime gift, as it turned out, and one of the most important gifts any child can receive. There were all the “Series” books: The Little Colonel, The Rover Boys, Elsie Dinsmore, The Bobbsey Twins, Five Little Peppers, Grace Harlowe, and of course, later on, all of Louisa May Alcott’s books, read many times. Then there were the awful books from the Sunday school library (awful only in retrospect): Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer (good for a cry anytime, along with Elsie Dinsmore), and, in the same category, Mother, Home, and Heaven! Later came Jane Eyre, St. Elmo, Old Curiosity Shop (my Dickens favorite, read over and over as I identified with Little Nell). So it went, and suddenly I was in my teens, in another world, and with new book-vistas opening every day. “Baruch ata Adonai!” Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who givest books for the hand to hold and the eyes to read, and the mind to embrace! December Praise the Lord From the earth... fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! —Psalm 148:7a and 8, ASV At least once in every five years, I used to tell myself, a woman beyond the age of thirty-five might do well to attempt something she thought she would never learn to do. As her age advances, perhaps the importance of such an effort increases. Some may learn to drive a car, or take up painting or tailoring or upholstering. When I was thirty-five I proved to myself that I could cut the boys’ hair, after all. I was nearly forty when I learned to swim. But now I am long overdue for some new attempt. And the opportunity has come: each Sunday afternoon I give to the Elkhart Temple (Temple Israel) and begin learning, painfully, the rudiments of the Hebrew language. Having joined the class three weeks late, my first session leaves me all but hopeless. But by the next week I have caught up with many in the group, surpassed a few, and proved to myself that I am not too old to learn a new language, however slow my pace may be as compared to thirty years ago! The Dear Hearts and Gentle People who entered our door this December were fewer than usual. We had barely started on our “List” with that most 337 Story of a Family refreshing Mr. Ruth as our first guest, when the flu struck—an unusual occurrence at our house. (Ordinarily we seem to take the flu only in those years when we’ve had flu shots!) It was also an occurrence which brought the usual quick ministry of the Lady-Next-Door—hot meals for those who could eat, and a solicitation far beyond what our ills might call for. I am repeatedly chagrined that this neighbor always seems to find out when we are even slightly sick; yet she can have been in bed a week, and we hear about it only after she has recovered. Maybe, I tell myself wistfully, among those who passed by the man who fell among thieves, just maybe there was one who actually didn’t see the poor man, and so passed by on the other side! Blessings, though, on those whom do see and respond. Every Christmas, it seems, has a flavor of its own. Last year we were happily flooded with guests, planned-for and unexpected. This year was quite otherwise. There was a weekend in the hospital for the Little Feller; there was family illness so general that scarcely anyone felt up to par for much of the season. And so the List was finally abandoned. We wanted to share our Christmas with this person, that family, in our home ... but we didn’t. Still, there were the perennial joys. As usual, Christmas Eve found us gathered for our Christmas Family Occasion: a simple (soup) supper at a festive table, with everyone “dressed up,” followed by gift-opening in the living room. Since there was little food, the table was flaming with candles—all we had in the house, about thirty of them—and the Little Feller, in his Chinese cap, was awed at the sight. Just as we were ready to sit, his mother came with gifts for him. She had not seen him for two years, and was hardly prepared for the little guy who walked up to her politely, put out his hand and said “Hullo” to the “Lady,” then joyously opened the gifts she had brought him. Later, we told each other that if we had planned for her to come at a time when she would be most impressed by his well-being, we would have chosen that precise moment of the entire year. We were glad to reflect that her Christmas must surely be happier for her knowing that the child she bore is a loved, secure, and happy little boy. But in all the candle-glow and deep joy we were aware of the missing link. For that son whose Christmas away from us is in a land of war, of danger, and, as he puts it, of “all the beauty gone”—for him we took a roll of colored film, hoping thus to share a little bit of this, our Second Christmas Eve Without Him. No one said it, but we wondered: Will he indeed return to share again such an Eve with us? And we pray that he shall. 338 On the Corner 1967 A colleague has passed his German proficiency and now he must make good on an old promise: that those, who helped him shall be taken out for dinner if and when. So, a crisp December evening finds us joining him, his good wife, and the two Main Street ladies who helped him most—in a gala, delicious dinner at a Michigan Inn. I always wondered how Coq au Vin tasted! Now I know. I still wonder, though, whether that heaped-up plate of smorgasbord appetizers (herring in cream, smoked oysters, caviar, potato salad, cottage cheese, spiced apples, slaw, corn relish, pickles, jello salads, macaroni salad, salmon and tuna salads...) may have been responsible for my inability to fully enjoy the main course which followed? Ordinarily new houses leave me cool or lukewarm. At best, I may admire a certain new house, yet have no twinge of covetousness, no wish for such a house to replace the one we have. (I love our conventional 1926-or-thereabouts square white house on the corner. It is the kind of house I had always wished to live in.) But the house where we visited friends tonight was different. Though I didn’t covet it for myself, I still had to acknowledge that of all the new houses I’ve seen in the past twentyfive years, this is the one in which I could live most happily were we to be ousted from our “Rudy Senger” house! Each Christmas, indeed, has its distinct flavor, yet they all tend, in retrospect, to flow together. If it were not for this journal, I tell myself, I could not distinguish one from another when I look back more than a year. And yet the recalling of Christmas Memories is a common experience of Western man; over the two thousand years since Christmas happened, our literature has been enriched by such recollections. Even the TV screen blossoms with an occasional special which somehow brings our own memories into focus. Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory happily was repeated again this season; and will be, one hopes, for many seasons to come. Somehow this note of living remembrance, set against the awful reality of the news broadcasts, helps to create a balance—to restore, per haps, the bit of hope we need to keep believing that Love really is stronger than Death. 339 Story of a Family On the Corner 1968 January Praise befits the upright. —Psalm 33:16 The opening of what is planned as Travel Year for the family on The Corner is appropriately celebrated among a galaxy of world travelers gathered (not as world travelers, but as friends) at 1916 Woodward Place for the Annual New Year’s Breakfast. Our own projected travels seem so unreal that I do not hear much of the advice that comes my way. I can only tell myself “A year from now, I may wish I had believed enough in our plans to really listen!’’ As it is, I just sip coffee, eat Susan’s incomparable rolls, and bask in the pleasant company of one of the most congenial groups of people imaginable. The talk of such things as customs lists, money problems, sanitary accommodations in Turkey, and Mother’s nightly washbowl laundry duty in the hotels—all this talk swirls about my head, interesting in the way such talk might be interesting to a person who never plans to travel. “Blesses are those who have not seen, yet have believed”? Alas, I am not thus blessed. He went back to school today, the Little Fellow did, after a two-month absence—an absence punctuated by two hospital stays, learning to live with, then without a heavy cast on one leg, and learning to walk again. If we had any doubts about how well he remembered his classroom, his classmates and his teacher, or how he would respond, these doubts dissolved the minute the door was opened. With a great cry of “Hullo!” he opened his arms wide, tackling his teacher with hugs, and was in turn tackled by his little friends “He’s back!” “He’s here!” His mamma standing at the door, was completely forgotten, utterly ignored, and glad to be so! Two end-to-end speaking appointments this month help me finally to put into words some reactions which have been churning about in my head for years. The first appointment was with a group of our own church women, rural for the most part but like all the rest of us living in modern homes in a modern age and for the most part content to do so! The second was with The Woman’s Club, Afternoon Literature Section, of our town. Both had asked me to discuss the same subject. 340 On the Corner 1968 I came to the first group, and, being a little reserved myself (among strangers), I waited for someone to talk to me. Finally I made a few feeble attempts at conversation, but they fizzled out. After my talk, during which I was never sure if I had their attention—so few actually looked at me while I spoke—two women who were particularly interested did move over beside me and ask questions. A few women shyly thanked me as I left. Most of their names I never learned. In spite of the envelope in my hand which was supposed to be a gesture of appreciation, I felt that I had been a complete flop. The next day, at the Woman’s Club, I was immediately introduced to all present, and as each additional member entered the room, special introductions were made. As I talked, I had lively attention; and the apparent emotional involvement ranged from spontaneous laughter, through smiles, expressions of amazement and disbelief, nods of agreement, and shakings of the head, to spontaneous tears. An energetic discussion followed all through the social hour, and the women were too busy asking questions to discuss the recipe for the dessert which was served. (I noticed, how ever, that they did make a point of asking the hostess about it before they left.) One after another, every one of that roomful of women spoke to me personally before she left, expressing sincere appreciation for this new look into the world of mental retardation. On the way home I tried to figure out what made the difference. Was the speaker that much more scintillating the second day? Was one group vitally interested, the other only casually? Were the “town women” superficial in their expression of gratitude, the ‘‘country women” honest? The answer to all of these, and other questions which I asked ins self was, I was quite sure, No. Yet this is a pattern which has been often repeated for me and for other women who occasionally speak to women’s groups in our community. For me it points up one great lack often apparent (though not always; some communities and many individuals are exceptions) among our own church women. It is not, I think, lack of interest in important issues. It is not lack of desire to communicate. (I knew these women were not unfriendly, but perhaps just reserved in the presence of a stranger—as I was myself.) But it is pretty evident that we have much to learn about graciousness, simple good manners, taking the initiative with strangers. All our traditional ‘‘good works” we should have done, but we should not have left these graces undone! Should not the woman who can offer a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord also have the grace to give thanks to her friends beautifully and sincerely? I ask the question not only of my readers, but of myself. 341 Story of a Family Knowing the answer—for me, it least—I do resolve to work harder to break down the wall of reserve behind which I, too, hide upon occasion. I am grateful, at January’s end, For the voice of an old friend speaking my name in that inimitable fashion... For the Big Snow, transforming plain little Goshen into an enchanted fairy-tale village... For the birthday of our Special Child, marking for us nearly five years of special opportunities, graces and gifts... For the weekend visit of an always-welcome nephew who makes himself at home without being told to do so—even lying on the floor to watch TV... For a really good TV drama, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”... For a breakfast “out” with my neighbor... For being included weekly in a small discussion group of mothers at Aux Chandelles—learning to sit where they sit and feel what they feel... For, every night, a good book to read, even if I do fall asleep over it after five minutes! February The righteous man is not afraid of evil tidings. —Psalm 112:7a February opens on a somber note for us here on The Corner. Each day we watch the TV news with apprehension, and wonder as the Tet Offensive unfolds, if we shall surely see the son and brother again. But we do not worry, knowing how he would hate it, knowing it would help no one. We just plain refuse to indulge in the waste of Worry over anything. Weeks pass; then on a bright, cold day two good things appear in the same mail: a letter announcing The Professor’s grant for study in Israel, and—Oh happy Day!—a letter from The Besieged One in Saigon. One Day of Grace is followed by another. Midmonth, suddenly there comes the news for which our married children have waited over eight months; the news they despaired of but which I doggedly persisted in believing would come (though that faith was thinning with each passing day). The visas have arrived! By month’s end, “last” family gatherings at her house and his house are over and we stand in the airport station watching our children take the first step of the long journey (long only in miles) to India. 342 On the Corner 1968 The only way Evelyn Underhill felt she could really help people spiritually was to “get them one at a time.” The only way, I’ve found, to really meet anyone is to meet them one at a time. And so I have long ago elected to avoid, whenever possible, the mass meetings and to arrange instead to meet people individually. But this does take arranging! Much of the automatic fellowship of the past is long-gone. Granted that large groupings are sometimes indicated, necessary, and enjoyable; granted that we sometimes receive our first important introductions to a friend at such a meeting. Still if we are to learn to speak to each other on another, deeper, level, we have got to meet face to face, unhurriedly. And if such depth in friendship is desirable, we have got to make room for it. No longer will such room appear automatically. How many potentially deep, strength-giving friendships never develop simply because we do not consider them important enough to make time for them! Valentine’ s Day, often neglected at our house since the days of the Valentine Box have been left behind by our teenage family (though I most always plan—too late—to make at least a red dessert that night!)— Valentine’s Day turns out to be a celebrated day this year. Carnations from Tim and Kari give fragrance “to all that are in the house”; one of the best pictures yet of the Little Fellow is presented, attractively enlarged, by the Eldest, why is experimenting with his new camera. His wife brings an international cookbook we have been wanting and in return for all this bounty I give the family—a perfectly ordinary dinner. Sometimes we get a little weary of reading and hearing about the generation gap, and of how parents and teenagers should strive to communicate. We weary of the endless gimmicks suggested to effect such communication, and the cries of “Alas!” when the gimmicks don’t really work. Remembering my own teen years, and how unthinkable it was for me to discuss my inner life with even an understanding mother (though I did discuss it freely with my friends and even some people of my mother s generation!) I am not about to flip because my own teenagers evidently feel the same reserve. Let the counselors and the pastors teach parents how to “leave the doer open”—yes! (Though how one is suddenly taught this when his 343 Story of a Family children are in their teens escapes me. I would think that such an opendoor policy must have its beginnings at the beginning of parenthood and before!) But given an open door, no teenager, no parent, should feel guilty if the youngsters choose not to walk through it, should they? Is not this the age when they should be forming attachments outside the home? When they should be questioning sharply the set of values handed down to them? When they should begin to “leave father and mother” in hundreds of little ways so that when the big leave-takings are indicated they can be really free to leave? (Or better—free to really leave?) I’ll admit that I too would like to know, oftener, what our four teenagers are thinking. But if I would know, it could be an indication that certain strings which have to be cut in order to make their personhood possible are not being cut on schedule. Then, too, I remember my own youth, my mother’s acceptance of my silences and my contrariness, and my own natural, unconscious return to confiding in her—confiding, however, no longer as child to mother but as person to person. I am grateful, looking back over February, for a chance to tell, once again, a group of churchwomen about our Special Child and his Special School… For a Saturday lunch with our two “adopted” young-marrieds, J and J... For a shared breakfast with Carol at which we compare ideas about fourteen-year-old daughters... For good foreign-car mechanics like Gus, who rescue us from the clutches of slick garages... For the letter of that young man in graduate school who seems to think it entirely normal and natural to communicate occasionally with a gray middle-ager on a corner… For (yes, again) Bic pens and the man who dispenses Bic pens—this time with a great flair in honor of our projected sabbatical! For adventurous children who are not tied to Mother, Home, and The Great American Way of Life… For a brilliant young Miles accountant who, week after week, gives an evening to a few dull people struggling to learn to speak a little modern Hebrew. March Let not those who hope in thee be put to shame through me. —Psalm 69:6a 344 On the Corner 1968 One symbol which has had increased meaning for me over the years is “the cup.” I have a friend who, whenever she came through our town, would bring a lively Bone China cup for me as a gift. (I wish I had all those cups from her and other friends! Some women I know keep theirs intact by carefully doling their use for special occasions. But The Professor prefers to have every cup of coffee served to him in one of those cups. “If it breaks, I can always buy you anther,” he says. Indeed he can—but though they do eventually chip, crack, or break, he never has bought a replacement! For some reason, each new cup I receive, each special cup from which I drink, recalls for me the varied symbolism of The Cup over the centuries: “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup”; “My cup runneth over’; “In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, with foaming wine, well mixed...”; “I will lift up the cup of salvation”; “Father, if it be possible, remove this cup...”; “... and likewise [he took] the cup, and gave thanks.” The cup of suffering, the cup of joy, the cup of salvation, the cup of judgment, the cup of fellowship, the cup of blessing—; whenever I give or receive a cup as a gift, whenever I held a cup in my two hands (not properly by the handle!) and drink in the presence of loved ones, I am remembering the old and rich significance of The Cup, remembering that “Likewise he took the cup and blessed it.” One of the recurring phenomena of all times, a phenomenon appearing once again in our day, is long hair for males. An interesting mental pastime is to note what kind of people get hot-and-bothered about it, see it as a moral issue, and wonder why “such good parents” allow their sons to wear their hair so long! In my observation, a good many of such objectors have, or would be amenable to having, pictures of Sallman’s Christ—long wavy hair and all—hanging in their homes. Not only that, but they probably have pictures of their grandfathers as young men with furry sideburns and hair equally as long as many of those on today’s streets. And yet, to them, this latest bid for longer hair is a moral issue! In the meantime, I can’t restrain a certain feeling of smug satisfaction as I see hordes of our girls with long, so-called “hippy” hair, going scotfree! It’s about time they got off the hook! Still, one wishes wistfully that those who object to the longer-haired or bearded young males might listen to them and find out just why they elect to count themselves out of the clean-barbered-middle-class-crowd in this way. 345 Story of a Family We had planned, the three of us, to meet again after more than ten years. We could barely believe that all the wrinkles were ironed out, that our schedules really meshed—but there it was: Esther had her plane ticket, I had our VW, and we would meet at Arlene’s. That weekend, after two weeks of near-perfect spring weather, had to be the time when a last winter storm descended viciously on the one little pocket of Pennsylvania where we planned to meet! Was it too mach to ask? After consolatory phone conversations with the one whose plane did not take off, the two of us remaining settled down to a weekend of rare fellowship. In a snowbound limbo which blotted out family responsibilities, time, and future plans, the two of us tightened up and made shipshape an old friendship, and ventured into new waters with mutual understanding, honesty, and compassion. Reflecting, on the journey home, I reiterate that a rare friendship doesn’t “jis grow.” It needs nurturing, time, attention. March over, I AM GRATEFUL. For deadlines which stir one out of apathy and eventually result in a glow of accomplishment, no matter how insignificant the task completed. For orthodontists who, besides doing what must be a rousing business with people whose children have miner cosmetic irregularities in their teeth, can make possible a decent bite and a bit of self-confidence for the boy or girl who at one time was called (behind hands) Buck-tooth. For our young married friends who stomp in every time they hit our town. What a lift to a couple who now openly admit that they have passed from the young-adult category to the Middle-Aged catch-all! For women like Marcia who can turn a piece of English wool into a respectable garment for a lady twice her age who never ventured beyond aprons, curtains, nightgowns, and housedresses. For the technology that can develop tape-recording, marvelous device whereby one can hear the voice of a Saigon son, complete with sniffles (“I’ve got this cold I can’t shake, Mom”) and all the inflections, imperfect pronunciations, and wondrous modulations which remind you that he is still very much the kid who left home two years age. And to be able to hear that voice not once, but over and over! For one zany friend who is not wise and sensible about money! We’ve occasionally met a really miserly person, or a spendthrift of the common variety, but most of our friends are like us—just middle-of-the-roaders who try to take care of their money, balance the books, and spend, save, and give in moderation. But there’s this woman who, though she no longer has a husband to pick up the pieces after her, simply ignores 346 On the Corner 1968 money. She has no idea how much she has in the hank just puts it in and takes it out. She hands a blank check to a repairman, hoping to avoid embarrassment. When the paperboy comes, she rifles drawers, baskets, cupboards, sure she will find a bit of money she has stashed somewhere. (She does.) Lately she found, in an old book, a fifty-dollar check dated twenty years age. New this week she sends a tenner for me to give to one of our children. Found it stuffed in a glove in the back of a dresser drawer, and didn’t know what to do with it! April Lord . . . let me know how fleeting my life is! —Psalm 39:4 When a man dies, the significance of his life suddenly appears in bold relief. We on our corner had nothing to add to the words written and spoken concerning the great man who was assassinated in Memphis. But we too watched, and we prayed and suffered with our countrymen black and white who truly mourned the violent death of an apostle of nonviolence. We flinched at the casual remarks of “Christians” on the street and in stores: “Well, he asked, for it!” And we were glad to note that our children were even more deeply moved at this man’s death than at the death of that young president with whom they had identified. We supported the fourteen-year-old who, with another friend, canvassed the community for funds to stock the Martin Luther King Memorial Shelf which they themselves initiated in their local school. There are all kinds of ways to show our sympathy for these who mourn; such constructive action, we feel, is a good way, and we are proud that they thought of it and carried it through. One of the projects which I’ve relegated to our sabbatical year is an article concerning, in part, a segment of my mother’s girlhood. The whole project would be impossible unless I had access to the knowledge which only she or one of her sisters could give me. She is gone, and of her five sisters and three brothers, only the two youngest sisters are left. But one of them, bless her! lives in our town. On several pleasant April mornings we sit and talk about the life of a teenager around the turn of the century. After next year I hope to reward—with a finished article—the patient aunt who for hours reached back into her memory for my sake. But even if 347 Story of a Family the article never appears, I think we both enjoyed the journey we took together. A medical checkup! With what dread, at times, we approach it, putting it off at the slightest pretext; yet with what relief we usually read its results. It’s like being given, suddenly, the promise of good health for an indeterminate time. Important as it is to get a regular checkup in ease one or more of the diseases one dreads has actually invaded the body, I think it’s almost as important to go simply for peace of mind! Our twenty-fifth anniversary passed quietly, as we wished, with only a little late-night dessert with the family, our perennial guest, and the one member (with her husband) of the original wedding party who lives in our town. But I did, as projected, wear my long white dress, and wear it without making any alterations. I couldn’t refrain from remarking a bit smugly that this one feat impossible to many of my college friends who, twenty-five years ago, were much slenderer than I. Easter morning she sang, “O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?” and the choir rejoined with the joyous “But Thanks Be unto God.” When, after the service, I told her I couldn’t figure out who that attractive young girl in the choir was until she opened her mouth, she laughingly accused me of trying to earn two pieces of pie. Easter evening, around her table, she with her husband shared her remarkable parents with us and another friend. There was candlelight, laughter, good conversation and, among other delicacies, two kinds of pie. Two weeks later on a bright Sunday morning I sat again around her table with other disconsolate friends and with her mother. All her brightness and buoyancy, all her gaiety and wit, all her exuberant comments on almost any subject, all her beauty and charm were— unbelievably—absent, and I knew again how utterly death can change the scene. Yet it was her own parents who constantly reminded us all, in the way in which they conducted themselves, in the way they planned the memorial service, in the way they faced the reality of her death and helped her children and husband and friends to face it—it was they who reminded us that Death does not have the last word to say about Life. Though mourning their only child, they comforted us all with their wisdom, their sanity, their faith, and even in their grief they gave us immeasurable gifts. 348 On the Corner 1968 April has come and gone, and I AM GRATEFUL: For anniversaries—all kinds, whether they be of a birth, a wedding, or a death. They make one stop and think about the significance of the event which is remembered, and often they evoke memories which are the bearers of grace. For—yes, TV! which brings, along with and in spite of all the poor variety programs, trashy soap-operas, sagas of violence, and endless commercials, also a sense of moral involvement with the shaking and shaping events of our shrinking world. We couldn’t be among the crowds who several years ago heard a man cry, “I have a dream...” but we saw and heard it all in the aftermath of that man’s tragic death, and we knew that somehow we were implicated in that death. For our Trefoil MYF—for the vitality they inject into our church life, the hope they represent, and the faith they vindicate; for the program then gave us, recalling their service week in Chicago over Spring Vacation, and the accompanying fellowship they and their sponsors planned and executed. If all teenagers were like these teenagers, we could trust anyone under twenty! For the privilege of being a foster parent, whether or not it carries with it—as it did for the first time the other night—being a guest at a banquet given for all the foster parents of Elkhart County! For a supper invitation to a colleague’s home, where we are introduced to the charming Dutch theologians who have spent the spring in our seminary community. May The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. —Psalm 138:8 Years age I read a book about prayer in which the author, opening the subject of problem-solving prayer, stated three possible ways of facing a difficult situation: to run away from it, to fight it, or to face it with honesty and to concentrate on finding a way through it. Today I asked the school psychiatrist if it would not be easier for the Little Fellow if, rather than subjecting him to the devastation of seeing us board a plane and leave him behind, we should simply “disappear” while he is in school. Though the good doctor was careful to give no directives, he did convince us that even a small, retarded child should be allowed to face reality; that grief 349 Story of a Family should be openly acknowledged; that a vague disappearance is harder for a child to bear than an open abandonment. Even young children, he feels, should not be spared in the event of a death in the family. They should be allowed to see it through and thus to sense its finality. (The doctor should know. His own four young children in this way faced their mother’s death.) At last, today, I just did it. After months of furtively noting that those curtains on the shelf still needed to be measured and hemmed, months of quickly closing the door with “Later”—after months of dreading a job I hate—I did it! What a catharsis! What an expansive, pleased-with-oneself euphoria results from doing the nasty little job that has nagged you for so long! Having had, in February, that personal—and just a bit hair-raisingaccount of the Tet Offensive, describing in detail some of the dangers the relief workers faced or could possibly face in the future, I am a little bothered as the new May Offensive opens in Saigon, more bothered, in fact, than the first time, though this one is not supposed to be so severe. Now I know too much! I insist that I do not worry, yet for several nights, sleep evades me. And so I creep downstairs, and into the wee hours I manage to push aside anxiety by concentrating on making a “book” for a friend. This woman has much more to grieve over, much more to be anxious about, than I have. The book may not be what she needs just now, but it is what I need! Having been foster parents for a number of years, we have wished in vain that one—just one—family from among our friends here would be in the fraternity with us. For my part, I’d like to be able to share this experience as women talk to each other about their recipes, their teenaged sons’ appetites, their “busy schedules”—all these things they have in common. But the years have gone by, and though we have met many fine foster parents in our community, not one of them was from our own immediate circle of friends. When the Welfare Department sent out, through our WMSA, an urgent call for foster homes, especially homes for Negro children, we were delighted. Surely now, we thought, there will be some who will welcome this chance to carry out, at a most basic level, their strong beliefs concerning the racial crisis! Weeks went by, and we guardedly asked People Who Knew if anyone had stepped forward. The reply was No. 350 On the Corner 1968 Tonight my cup runneth over! We arrive early on Wilson Avenue, where our Bible study is meeting to say good-bye to several of the group (we’re included) who are leaving town. The celebration will include homemade ice cream, strawberries, and cake, plus all that good talk, including Hank’s stories and Lon’s repartee. As soon as we enter the door however, we focus on two brown mites—twins of two-and-a-half though they look much smaller—who have been the center of attention in this home since their sudden arrival three days ago. It takes no more than three days for these people to get a feel for some of the delights of foster parenthood, and when we talk briefly at the door as we leave, it occurs to me that we are no longer alone on this particular desert island! I am grateful that May is over, but grateful too: for all the ceremonial eatings-together of May: for the Seminary-Women’s Breakfast, the FacultyWomen’s Coffee, the Seminary-Faculty s Salad Supper, the Faculty Banquet, and our church’s annual Junior-Senior Banquet for Parents and their Juniors and Seniors. However hard these may be on the diet, they are still a pleasant part of each May in our college community. And this spring there are the added farewells which might be unsettling were it not that I really cannot believe in our going! For the nonceremonial eatings-together as well: breakfast with Ruth, lunch with Esther and Mary, afternoon coffee with Miriam, dinner with Tim and Kari, supper with the Duecks at Granger… And for the highly unceremonious eatings-together around our own table with Seminarians, with Moslem and Christian Arabs, with Dutchmen, with Afro-Americans, and ex-Amish, with the Thursdaynighter, and mainly with the usual tableful of argumentative teenagers whose facial features betray their parentage. For an hour with Elizabeth and her fabulous collection of autographs... For the fact that no one asks me, these days, “What are you reading?” If they did I should have to say, “Small parts of the newspaper and The Christian Century.” And I am truly grateful for shots, immunizations, injections, vaccinations—all these necessary preparations which make it possible for prospective travelers to bore their friends for weeks with descriptions of pain, fever, discomfort, and even immobility! 351 Story of a Family June The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in... —Psalm 121:8 “I won’t believe it until it happens.” This is the stubborn answer repeatedly given by the Woman on the Corner to the repeatedly offered question: “Aren’t you excited about your trip?” Actually, excitement is precluded by more than unbelief. In the first week of June, Commencement past, my Big Sister comes to do all those time-consuming little things which I had hoped to do: hemming up skirts, sewing on snaps, planting the tiny flower garden by the kitchen door, ironing, packing away, and making sure that food is on the table at the appointed time. Meanwhile I am so overwhelmed by final preparations for the Congo-bound son, last-chance celebrations with neighbors and friends, appointments with doctors and dentists, that I barely manage to say thank you, let alone to commune with this wonderfully giving person. I just accept, accept. Robert Kennedy is shot and is buried and again we watch the horrible drama on TV, hardly able to believe that three such similar dramas could be played out before us in the space of five short years—two of them within a few months of each other. We begin to wonder why anyone would register concern at our leaving for “such a hot-spot as Israel.” Where, indeed, is one safe from violence? Our Middle One leaves the nest, and I feel somehow that he has been cheated of extra attention which he should have had and which we were unable to give, in the midst of our own preparations. But after the long days, when all the others are in bed, I work late into the nights to finish a special book for his coming birthday: there are some things more important than trip preparations, and this is one. “Blue Is the Color of My Life’’ is a tiny sliver of Self, and I know that this One will recognize it as such. The Little Feller starts back to school again, unaware of the meaning of all this hubbub, unaware that the new family which has arrived (and to whom he responds enthusiastically) will be the Important People in his life this coming year. Quietly that family slips into our household, gently yet firmly taking over his care, as we go on about our last flurry of 352 On the Corner 1968 packing, weighing, wondering if those Russian visas will come through, and copying itineraries at the last minute when we are assured that they will be waiting for us either in New York or Copenhagen. There is a last breakfast at Azar’ s with the Tall One who is staying behind. There is a last open house in honor of the new Family on the Corner. (It is punctuated by cloudbursts, but nonetheless gay.) There is a final frantic ten minutes at the train station as we wait (because of our own stupidity) for our baggage to arrive in another car. Then there is a rush of inadequate farewells; there is rain. And through the rain streaking the window of the coach I see a bewildered little boy struggling in the arms of his aunt, thumping his chest with that eloquent forefinger, and surely saying, “I go too!” I see, too, a tall blond boy looking suddenly much younger than I had thought. The world blurs and I think: It is true; we are really on the way. How could I leave them? And now the last week of June brings many Firsts to the four of us travelers. For three of us it is the first experience in air travel (we have an excellent view of the wing). For all of us it is the first time we have picked up a factory-new car, a diamond-blue VW Variant which we are sure will never reach our destination intact if all the driving we encounter is as erratic as that in Luxembourg. (Alas—we find that Luxembourg drivers, in comparison with those of Brussels, Antwerp, Istanbul, and Jerusalem, are tame indeed!) For all of us it is our first real taste of Europe: a multiflavored feast. Our first night on the terra firma of Europe is flavored with fear and anxiety. But morning appears—and Brussels—and Bob Otto, who comes to the rescue of our two very sick children by directing us to a physician and his high-powered prescription. Not only, but also! This Friend-inneed further insists that we occupy Foyer Fraternel for the night, at the usual MCC hostel-pittance; and once we have put the sick children to bed, he and his good wife take us out on the town—to the Grande Place; to a coffee-house brimming with “ambience”; but most of all, into the warmth of their fellowship. They have made the difference between hateful and grateful memories of this great city. And long after our travels are over we will continue to say: Beyond the thrill of sites and sights, of seeing places which before existed only in books, of hearing famous bells, touching centuries-old stones—beyond all this was the simple joy of meeting those whose life-center is the same as ours. 353 Story of a Family The city is Amsterdam. The hotel is crummy. (By the time we find it—for we are late arriving here, thanks to that Antwerp traffic—the best places have been picked by tourists similar to us, many of whom we bump into on the narrow canal streets as we and they walk along with noses in Europe on Five Dollars a Day, craning necks now and then to check an address.) But it is Amsterdam. The real, true Amsterdam! And in spite of the crumminess of the place, we are glad to be here, and glad that we can all be in one room, for we still have ailing youngsters to care for. Here on the Heerengracht our window faces the canal, and we can watch the excursion boats slipping by through the murky water. We can—and do— walk to the fabulous flower market and to the Mennonite Church on the Singel; to the Anne Frank Huis on Prinsengracht. We can hear the chimes from Westerkerk—the ones Anne Frank heard in her attic room. The casement window is open toward the canal, and as I idly watch the boats pass, or absorb the sounds of humanity and its machines in the narrow alley below, I suddenly realize that none of this seems strange at all to me. Wherever I turn, whatever I see or hear (even that swooping landing, when, between the walls of hills on either side, the patchwork countryside of Luxembourg rushed up to meet us)—all seems faintly familiar, and much seems commonplace, as if this were only one of many European trips for me! The answer must surely be that I have been here before. And I have. A lifetime of reading, reading, reading can be more informative than travel itself. Such reading has a way of seeping into the subconscious, surely. And now I see that though travel can be a great privilege in itself, it can hardly give the wealth of experience which reading offers. I see too that all one’s past reading flows into and illuminates the experience of travel. Suddenly I realize that the great gift has not been this one year of travel but 40 years of the exquisite joy of reading. To one whom has read even moderately, travel may turn out to be merely a bonus; and hardly a spot on earth will appear completely strange to him. The Land of Goshen is far away. And the two boys left behind? They belong to a world somehow no longer real. Yet once in a while in the midst of wonder (perhaps over the unbelievable price of fifty cents for 20 roses in the Flower Market on the Singel) or delight (perhaps over seeing in the Rijksmuseum the original of that print on our dining-room wall)—once 354 On the Corner 1968 in a while, in the midst of wonder, delight, recognition, I suddenly get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and seem to hear a small midnight voice: “Mama, Wadda!” or see a shock of bright blond hair being flung back out of blue eyes, in that Tall One’s characteristic gesture. The June of Junes is over and I am grateful: —for dreams come true —for hopes realized in spite of unbelief —for insights, meetings, recognitions, hidden memories, resulting from the privilege of Travel —for all those who wanted this dream to come true for us, and who, in so many ways large and small, helped to make it happen: friends, neighbors, relatives, colleagues, travel agents at MΤS—all of them! —for the Special People who moved in to give us the greatest gift of all: freedom from anxiety about a home for that Special Boy. July The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein. —Psalm 24:1 Notes from a Travel Diary… Waterhuizen, Netherlands: Breakfast at the Scandinavian Inn was— at last—what Europe on Five Dollars a Day promised we might expect in Holland: superb coffee, jam, bread, butter, boiled egg, ham, and cheese. And everything so clean! ...The bicycle paths along the road are tempting. People of all ages are riding here, yet rarely does one see a woman or even an eye-catching young girl in shorts or slacks. Even on their bikes and with slim skirts, they are remarkably graceful and modest, The Daughter vows to return with her friends—after graduation from high school—to take a motorbike tour here. Rothenburg, Germany: Having bought a blue earthenware milk pitcher and a blue plastic bucket (the latter for cup-washing) we sit in the square of this quaint town watching the very German inhabitants stroll by. We are waiting for the VW (like a baby, in for its first checkup) to be serviced. Suddenly I realize that I haven’t thought of that AmericanWomen’s-Preoccupation since leaving home! And that is understandable, since nearly all the women I see on the streets are at least as thick as I am—and many of them thicker. 355 Story of a Family Fredericia, Denmark: With the help of Sven’s map we had no difficulty finding Annelise’ s grave. The Arent plot is a charming place— graveled, as all the graves are—with markers of natural boulders rather than angular, cut stones. Bright flowers blaze here—cacti, marigolds, geraniums, daisies, all arranged in stylized but absolutely lovely manner. How can I forget Fredericia, so long a part of me, the home of my long-dead pen-friend? (The children will remember Fredericia for the incomparable hot dogs—mild wieners dressed in deliciously seasoned sauce, and crisp with french-fried onions!) Copenhagen, Denmark: The lights, the flowers, the fountains, of Tivoli Gardens at dusk are just short of being garish: but along with the acrobats flipping through the air, the music coming from the orchestra shell, the people eating and drinking in the open cafes—they get through to us, reminding us that we are observing a National Institution. The pantomime we watch is in itself not all that unique. But what is special is the spectacle of the thousands of people watching it: fathers with sweatered little boys on their shoulders, old Danish dames smoking cigars, whole family groups of fair-haired, golden-skinned, charmingly clean and happy people all caught up in this familiar but delightful horseplay. Most striking to me in this horde of humanity swirling about in Tivoli and on Copenhagen streets is the almost total absence of bad taste—not a hair curler! No shorts or tight pants at all! Some mini-minis, to be sure—and a few pant-dresses. But one feels as if each person naturally wishes to honor himself and others by appearing at his best. Vorgorda, Sweden: The Nelson home speaks eloquently of Inga and Margit, as well as of all the family members who are not here. With a charming abandon they have decorated their walls with anything they like—prints, magazine pictures, snapshots, baubles, and little nothings which have special meaning for them. One recognizes here a freedom from all that “nice” attention to what is “proper and in good taste.” Yet all is, somehow, evocative of human warmth and grace—which is so much more appealing than “propriety.” Woolen fabrics of warm yellows and browns cover chairs and couches—these have come from Birgit’s loom, standing empty now. A spherical mobile, made of wheat heads stuck into clay, hangs above our beds. I can’t help but envy such everyday creativity as I see all around me here. The Farmor (grandmother: father’ s mother) asked the blessing on the food, and put questions to us, Inga translating. Who will be the next President, do you think? What will hap pen in Vietnam? Her response to the latter was whispered sadly: “Only Christ can help.” As we prepared to leave in the rain, Inga bicycled off to work, the Farmor gave me a postcard picture of her son’s church, and 356 On the Corner 1968 Margit asked us to “greet Papa and Mama” for her when we should see them at Uppsala. Uppsala, Sweden: As we walked toward the cathedral I recognized her immediately—Birgit, the lovely, vital woman I had known only through photographs and the fond descriptions of a son who spent a few unforgettable weeks in her home. Yngve too, and their daughter Karin, charmed us from the first moment, and we were at once old friends. First they showed us around the Domkyrka, where Birgit and I lit can dles at the Martin Luther King Memorial Sculpture in the vestibule. (The sculpture—on display during sessions of the WCC—bears a striking symbolism of hope: candlesticks rising out of a bonze, shattered globe, a “broken world.”... Then the four of us—Yngve, Birgit, The Professor, and I strolled through the nearby cemetery where many of Sweden’s Greats are buried. We searched for Dag Hammerskjold’s grave (they hadn’t seen it either) and though none of us are “grave-watchers” we all found it moving to stand there and remember his greatness and his faith. Hamina, Finland: In the Market Square, a vacant lot set squarely in the middle of the town, everyone was setting up his stall. The gypsies were there in their bowed wagons; horses and dogs and people were freely mixing their odors; and for the first time we sensed that we were approaching a culture quite alien to that of the Western world from which we had come. We shot a few pictures, bought some indigestibly greasy pastry, and were off through the wooded countryside, past the houses with ladders. (Is fire a particularly Finnish hazard? If not, how does one explain these permanently installed ladders leading up to the chimney of every little hut, every grand estate?) Vyburg, USSR: We had been told at the border that, contrary to Intourist information, we could NOT get insurance and rubles there, but at Vyburg. At Vyburg, where we found Intourist with difficulty, we were told that we must go to Leningrad for insurance. When we bought our benzin tickets and exchanged money, our rubles and kopeks came from a rickety drawer (in a rickety table in an unbelievably unbusinesslike office) where all denominations of bills and coins lay in untidy, helter-skelter disarray, as if dumped there from some giant change purse, and the dour attendants calculated change on an abacus. The huge station that houses Intourist was, like all other buildings in sight, austere, uncompromising, closed off… Leningrad, USSR: Repino camp—our home for the next three nights! Tent number three, our own, is actually a little hut with a wooden floor and waist-high wooden sides above which is a permanent canvas tentstructure. The beds are clean; the WCs though not quite as clean as 357 Story of a Family described by Meyer Levin in that article—are adequate; we’re just glad that our tent happens to be far removed from that corner of camp. Looking for something to eat, we wander the great strange streets of Leningrad in the rain, baffled by the lack of any indication that here...or here...is a restaurant into which one could go, sit down, order, and eat some hot food. Finally, we sit a young fellow wearing a McCarthy button. I run after him, to the kids’ dismay, and ask for help. He is a young American here on a six-week study tour. He knows the language, but can’t help us much. He and his fellow students also have trouble finding food, he says ruefully, but he himself practically lives on the ice cream sold on the streets. “It’s really very good,” he adds hopefully. So, having clued him in on the latest news about the McCarthy campaign (two weeks ago)—we persist until we find an ice cream kiosk. And now we each clutch a gray little cup of hard, maple-flavored stuff that is surprisingly good. We stand there, huddled with a gray mass of Leningradians, under shelter of an entrance to a great gray stone building. And the gray rain continues steadily. The Hermitage, a fabulous building in itself, apart from its art collection, was built as the winter palace of the tsar. We found ourselves straining to see the pictures, yet lacking the courage to ask one of those grim women (guards) to turn on lights. (Already at Repino we had discovered that lights, rain or shine, go on around nine P.M.) But Julie and Bobbie were with us. Thank God! And Julie—this charming, knowledgeable, slightly brash New Yorker—approached the guard with a curious blend of authority and courtesy, asking for a light. That guard looked confused and incredulous—but she pressed the button! The light was feeble, to be sure, and we enjoyed it only in that one room. Still, we were delighted to discover that these grim, shapeless women who seem to be in charge of everything everywhere, are “not of steel, but of granite: their surfaces can be chipped, with the right tools!... About 10:30 they came as they had promised, Ivan and his wife, Vera, an attractive couple. I had earlier met him in the communal kitchen, where he eagerly spoke to me, obviously anxious to use his English. From them we learned much about the life of a typical professional person in this country. Both highly trained in the medical profession—he a medical specialist, she a pediatrician, their salaries together total about $250 per month. No wonder they were astounded that we could buy a car and take a trip like this! We discussed the price of Russian cars, the language difficulties here, the services for tourists, the Vietnam War, the ArabIsraeli conflict: on all these, as well as on religion, Ivan showed amazing understanding and openness. Vera, who speaks French and a very pretty 358 On the Corner 1968 Russian, asked me, through her husband, what work I do. When I told her that I simply take care of my family, she sighed wistfully: “Nice!” Ivan and Vera thought we looked like “missioners” and were interested in our nonresistant beliefs, but wondered if we expect our children to accept them. Ivan explained gently that though his wife and he are atheists, many Russian people are not; his mother is religious, and is not happy with his lack of faith. Somehow we were sad to say good-bye to this handsome, friendly couple who offered us friendship... Klin, USSR: At Tchaikovsky’s hose at Klin we were asked to tie great filthy bags over our shoes before entering the sacred precincts. As I leaned to tie the strings around my ankles, my eyes caught the thick fingers of the man next to me, fumbling to tip his around his great clumsy boots; and I thought, “How incredible that I should be sitting here, jammed against a really-truly Russian soldier!” Yet actually there was nothing to it... And now, besides the rain, we again met up with our twin problems— food and benzin. How were we ever to get anything to eat? We couldn’t pick up the merchandise and show it, and often we couldn’t even recog nize what was before us in the long showcase, let alone tell the cashier how much we owed her so that she could figure it on her abacus, take our rubles and kopeks, give us a little white slip in exchange, and shoo us back to the counter to claim our goods (after the grim shapeless woman behind the counter had scrutinized the little white slip to see what she should give us.) And then—the benzin! The Professor was almost hysterical with frustrated laughter over our plight. Here, we were met by a grim stolid matron who wouldn’t take our stamps, (even though we were willing to settle for anything that would make our VW run) because the octane number indicated was one she didn’t have... There, the Professor, after waiting with the gas nozzle in the tank (customer serves himself), was finally rewarded after he signaled to a man who could see the attendant inside, who signaled in turn to her, who turned on the flow. As the desired number of liters was approached, our Professor frantically waved to the man who frantically waved to the woman who turned off the flow. (“The man” in this case was just another customer who was putting benzin into his tank.) At another station we entered and got in line only to be reprimanded by the policeman on duty (at a gas station!) that though indeed we were in line, we had not driven into the station correctly. So we were directed back the way we’d come, around a sort of cloverleaf, and in, entering 359 Story of a Family exactly the same place, only this time we had done it according to the rule, so it was acceptable… At still another station a woman, spotting our odd car, tumbled out of her own, and turned her movie camera on us! Moscow, USSR: Hungry and tired we arrived in Moscow to find the American Express Office at the Metropole closed, and we were not allowed to eat in the hotel dining room. But the Professor did manage to engage a guide for eight dollars an hour—a redhead with a beehive hairdo (the rage here in Moscow, it seems) who didn’t know too much, seemed to care less, and almost got us a traffic ticket. Though she managed to outtalk the officer, it was clear that she was more frightened than we were. Still, we did get inside the Kremlin—imposing indeed! And Red Square is actually a beautiful red... We managed to fight our way upstream like desperate salmon, and were spewed out at one of the entrances to the fabulous G-U-M store. We couldn’t believe what we saw: More people, it seemed, than merchandise, and few people actually buying the very expensive goods, though many seem to have indulged in the delicious-looking ice-cream cones being vended all over the place. Here the problem of even getting to the counter was so great as to deter us from the even greater problem of trying to tell the cashier what we wanted. Far up on one of the balconies we looked down at the incredible sight, and took a picture of it so that one day when this is all over, we shall be able to believe it... Coming back to the car we found the usual admirers—more curiosity seekers—surrounding it. The Professor replied to the man who asked (sign language), Where from? by pointing to the VW “Deutschland” and to himself, “America.” The father smiled gently down at his son with a knowing nod, and whispered, “Da, Amerikani.” The little boy, wide-eyed, nodded silently… As we turned into our cabin drive we yelled with delight to see, in the next drive, the big Dodge belonging to our New York friends. At top speed we began exchanging accounts of what happened to each family “in the meantime.” We ate near each other in the kitchen, stood outside talking, then moved into their cabin because of the chill, then out again when Bobbie shuddered, “I hope this thing isn’t bugged.” Not that we thought it was, but still... Tula, USSR: At Yasnaya Polyana we were too late to see the inside of Tolstoy’s house, but we did walk for an hour on the grounds through deep woods and by ponds and gardens, stables and carriage houses right out of War and Peace. And, far back in the forest at a Y where paths meet, 360 On the Corner 1968 we saw his grave—a simple, unmarked grave, green with uncut grass and strewn with wildflowers ... Kharkov, USSR: The most exciting thing that happened today—I’m ashamed to say—was borscht. Stopping to eat (we hoped) at another crummy pectopah (restaurant) we spied a worker eating borscht. We excitedly pointed; the smiling (for a change) waitress got the message, and we sat down to ready ourselves for the treat, never minding the soiled tablecloth, floor, and waitress. We were going to have warm good soup. But how warm, how good, how abundant, we couldn’t have guessed. Bowing over that first bowl of borscht, the aroma was so lovely, I was in tears! At the Kharkov camp we spent most of the evening with a young couple—both engineers—who stopped to admire the VW, and stayed to ask us the usual questions about America (all loaded): How do you explain the killing of Kennedy? Martin Luther King? What about Vietnam War? After admitting and discussing America’s problems, The Professor probed gently, “And now perhaps you could tell me what you see as some of your country’s problems?” The young fellow looked at the ground and from side to side as the question was repeated, and finally murmured, “No problems. No problems in USSR.” Kiev, USSR: Kiev from a distance is impressive. (We have learned to appreciate large cities from a distance; near at hand, we always get lost in them!) Cathedral buffs would find this great city a rich cache, but our kind of trip makes cathedral-hunting impossible. We are situated, however, in an attractive camp on the outskirts of the city, and from this vantage point I look over its spires and think of my friend Esther whose parents fled Kiev during the pogroms of the early 1900s. Thank God they got out, otherwise my warmhearted friend might never have been! I write and tell her of my gratitude, but with more restraint. I don’t think those letters will be opened before they reach her…still… Bucharest, Rumania: Traveling toward Bucharest, the Carpathian arc is gorgeous...we sing, we laugh, we talk about all the pictures we didn’t get, all the hilarious fun at the Rumanian border when we were invited to wash our hands of the country we had just left. We exclaim at the fine roads and the clear directional signs and the friendly people— people smile in Rumania! Even official people! And, for a change, there are flowers along the way—flowers to take the place of those garish propaganda posters of the last ten days. How good it is to find, the world over, the same flowers—roses, nasturtiums, dahlias, daisies, marigolds, zinnias, bachelor buttons, cosmos! And now here, even in the socialist 361 Story of a Family countries, there is the language of the flowers to take over when other communication fails. Constanta, Rumania: The Constanta we reached, late at night, was full up, and only private homes were available. We ended on a narrow street, in the shabby home of a Rumanian sea captain. The place reeked of garlic and mice, and there was only a sofa and a cot for the four of us, but we had no choice. So we watched while the women piled sacks of rags against the wall to make the cot into a double bed. Then, while the men went out with the jolly captain to find a cafe for the starving teenager, the two of us sat disconsolately on the improvised beds, writing in our journals. A knock sounded: the married daughter came in with a plate of tiny tomatoes, strong white cheese, and dry bread. Fifteen minutes later there was a second knock, and we were offered pitiful, shriveled peaches and small chunks of dry, odd-tasting cake. The third knock brought bottled (tepid) water and—oddly, since we had eaten the bread and cake long before—honey. This pathetic gesture at hospitality caught me off guard, and it was good for me. I would not have offered anything if I had so little (and such a poor little) to give. So again I have learned… Slivens, Bulgaria: On we go through the driving rain, exhausted. Though since USSR we are sick of camping, we turn in at the “Camping” sign. Again—no room in the Inn. But for one and fifty we can park our car, brush our teeth in the filthy outdoor sink, use the incredibly filthier WC...It rains...We talk it over. The Professor dreads going out again on those highways which in this awful rain have proved, in spite of their newness, to have been a Great Mistake. (They were constructed with elevated curbing along both sides, with no outlets for the water to run off; the result—a canal.) We had passed car after car stalled along the way, and when we began to see even stalled VWs, we figured we had better not tempt fate further.) Depositing our luggage in the director’ s tent, we put the back seat down, lay our own blanket on the flat bed, and three of us lie down—on our sides, since that’s the only way we fit, and crooked at that! The odd-man-out slumps in the front seat. At the impossible state of affairs the woman and children get the giggles, which infuriates The Professor. The night drags on; we alternately giggle, freeze, and doze; the rain drums on the roof of the VW; we are not allowed to leave camp until seven in the morning. Oh, come, Seven! Efes, Turkey: Handsome, courteous, and knowledgeable, Kenan proved to be a good guide. We didn’t expect him to be as interested in today’s clients as yesterday’s: Audrey Hepburn and Yul Brynner’s wife! Still, he performed well. Ephesus was a glory in the shimmering heat: the wide marble streets leading down to the now-far-removed harbor—these 362 On the Corner 1968 are the very streets the Apostle Paul must have walked when he left the city after his three years here. And here was the very theater in which the crowds roared, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”—where Paul wanted to go out on stage to talk to the angry mob, but gave in to the town clerk who, after two hours, was able to quiet the crowd with his sane words. Izmir, Turkey: Back at The Anba again, we returned the key we had inadvertently taken, and asked permission to take a picture of the Eloglu painting in the dining room. We took it; after which the attendant informed us that if we wished we could buy it for 300 Turkish lira. For an hour we walked the streets, and finally The Professor gave his permission for me to buy the only picture I ever longed to own—the gorgeous Lilacs. Returning to make the transaction, we were told that the price had gone up to 500 lira, so we left, content that we had tried at least. And now we indulged in our final “Izmir lunch” as we had come to call it—a cheese sandwich and fruko at the little stand on the corner, with the sad-faced man officiating. Afterward, The Professor—bless him—shook hands with the little man and behold, a smile appeared. And when we asked if the small child was his son, the fellow positively beamed. I wished there would be something more than a handshake to give him—something to change the pushcart existence stretching before him; something to make him smile oftener!... At 3:30 we were allowed on board; we watched our little VW, the last of seven cars on the barge, being swung into the air and onto the top deck: we explored our little cabin—privacy, hot running water, and everything else we need—plus cockroaches. Two days and three nights here, and then; please God, we shall be entering the Promised Land! August On the holy mount stands the city he founded; The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God. —Psalm 87:1-3 For two days and three nights the Good (roaches excepted) Ship Izmir carries us through the Mediterranean. They are long days: long hours of lazy deck-sitting; long waits in the ports of Marmara, Rhodes, and Limassol; long entertainments in ring-side seats on the aft deck when “Little Buttercup” comes aboard to sell her wares to the sailors, making 363 Story of a Family change out of a seemingly endless supply of Turkish lira, stashed in her bosom; long spaces between meals; long nights. Only the meals are brief, being presided over by “The Snatcher,” a grim-faced steward who stands poised to spirit away our plates, should we be so foolish as to pause between bites or lay down a utensil. We utter a few hurrahs—sotto voce—when the father at the next table firmly grasps his small son’s plate in both hands as The Snatcher swoops down upon it. By the morning of the Fourth we are wondering if we really want to return by sea to the good old U.S.A. next year! The Promised Land lies before us as we awaken and peer through the porthole. Whether or not Haifa derived from “hayafa,” it is indeed, on this early morning, The Beautiful to the four of us: especially to me, the Unbeliever, who thought we’d never get here. In one short day we are given enough treats to highlight a year: disembarkation; being met by Roy and Florence (who can overstate the relief of seeing, in a strange place, familiar faces at the barriers?); eating, in their cool and pleasant home, food with the flavor of America—a soothing interlude after those forty days and forty nights of “wondering” in the World’s Wilderness; eating the varied and good, but strange bread of the Nations; traveling up to Jerusalem, the Beautiful City of God; opening those letters from home; meeting our new colleagues and finding some old ones at Mennonite House; and finding there, too, a place to lay our heads until we discover our own vine-and-fig tree. All this in one day—topped off by American pie and home-talk in the last hours before sleep engulfs us! Jerusalem is a city of many colors. From the Mennonite House balcony we can periodically check on this glorious city which, like a body of water, subtly changes its hue as the day unfolds. Mornings, emerging from the haze, it is Jerusalem the Creamy. Later with the hot sun overhead, the flaws are more apparent: the beige stones reflecting the fierce rays; the rubble of No Man’s Land; the deserted bunkers; the street torn up for repairs; the baked earth blending into the baked stones: the dusty olive of cypress and shrub which have known no touch of rain since March. Then toward evening the versatile stone (of which the whole of Jerusalem seems to be built) takes on a pinkish cast, changing at twilight into a faint burnished gold. But twilight is brief; suddenly the curtain falls and now stepping out on the kitchen balcony, we see that electricity, wonderful stuff, has made a truly golden Jerusalem out of the city. Jesus Himself, 364 On the Corner 1968 even from His commanding post on the Mount of Olives, could hardly have seen such a glory! The first days in a new country are like the first hours in a new house. How often, this August, I am reminded of my childhood delight in Discovery as I explored the family’s new (old) house, all my senses bristling. The shape of a special window—the odors of the little dirt cellar— the circle of iris around the clothesline pole—the long board walk from the back porch to the woodshed—the strange look of a familiar bed in an unfamiliar room—the finding of a niche for a doll-bed, a shelf for those few books! And these days are full, as those hours were full. Perhaps the senses are less acute than forty years ago, but now, as then, there is delight, wonder, newness, shine, as we find a little house (ready for us in a month), establish banking procedures, contact schools and university, go out for our first sight-seeing drives, meet our first Jerusalem People, read the local Jerusalem Post, learn to think in terms of lirot and agarot instead of dollars and cents, listen more or less attentively to advice from all directions, try out the bus system, begin to recognize at least two or three routes through this ancient city, and—of course—eat a falafel! In contrast to our experience in USSR, there is an availability of food in The Golden City. One need not look for a place to eat—it is there, wherever you turn. It may or may not be to your liking, be it falafel, rich pastry, hummus with tehina, or merely a cup of eshel (a variety of yogurt); but it is available without the bother of looking for stores, restaurants, or even open markets—all of which are also here in abundance. Every block has a high ratio of falafel stands to shops, and there are always people there, standing, eating, or walking down the street, falafel or bagel or pastry in hand, blissfully ignoring the fact that, where we come from, civilized people do not eat on the streets. Before the month is out, we too eat on the streets, the sauce from the falafel streaming down our fingers on occasion… Falafel: round pita (flat Arab bread which when cut reveals a hollow pocket) cut in half, into the pocket of which are placed three or four balls of a deep-fat-fried mixture of ground chick-peas, a salad of tomatoes, onions, and mint, and, over it all, one of several sauces available on the open-air counter. Delicious when the falafel are still hot and the appetite is good. Sickening when both are otherwise. Filling and cheap in either case: thirty-five agarot, or about 10 cents. With a glass of one of the famous 365 Story of a Family fruit drinks—for twenty-five agarot—one is able to have an extremely eco nomical and nourishing lunch. What continues to amaze me about this country is its compactness. These biblical places—Ι had envisioned them scattered over an area comparable to a Midwestern state. So much for my sense of geography! But everything seems to be on a pile! Today, for instance, we took a one-hour drive just to get a preview of what is in store for us. In that hour we saw—from our vantage point on Mount Scopus—the wilderness of Judea, the Dead Sea, and Mountains of Moab, all in the distance but unmistakable. Traveling a bit farther up the road we saw, from the Mount of Olives, the Jericho road snaking down through barren hills. Turning the head a bit, we saw the Bethlehem road striking off in another direction. Moving the eyes clockwise one could take in, here on the slope below us, Gethsemane; the tombs of the prophets Haggai, Malachi, and Zechariah; and the Kidron Valley; and across from us, the walled city with the Dome of the Rock shining in the sun. Driving down through the Kidron Valley we came upon Absalom’s Pillar, the Pool of Siloam, Hezekiah’s Tunnel. Here, all within a small circle, were the city gates, Bethany, Bethphage, Mount Zion, the site of the Last Supper—all those places whose names have been as familiar to me as the names of friends and relatives. You can’t go downtown to buy a newspaper without passing half a dozen antiquities! Everyone in Jerusalem seems to think it is unbearably hot; therefore I feel a bit of a freak as I enjoy the baking sun while hanging out needlework tablecloths, scarves, and napkins which will dry almost immediately in the hot wind that blows across the Mennonite Central Committee compound. Is my excitement with this city making me immune to its disadvantages? I needn’t think back very far to remember how the Indiana heat prostrates me, saps my energy. But here, a miracle has occurred—I thrive in the heat! The miracle, of course, is the virtual absence of humidity… From here, at month’s end, Jerusalem seems to us a Golden City indeed. In addition to all the glorious things which have been spoken of her in the part we shall probably add our weak, but genuine, praise as the months go by. From here, too, the possibilities for a Golden Year seem good, in spite of the occasional bursts of rifle fire or the dull thump of explosions heard from a distance. 366 On the Corner 1968 September As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people. —Psalm 125:2 Here in the hills surrounding The Golden City, September is generally warm and brown and dry. Under our own vines and olive trees, however, there are bright patches of color the tiny green “garden” (lawn); the great bunches of purple and light green grapes hanging from the arbor which shades the path to the house; the velvety blue of the ripe plums in the orchard on the hover terrace; the deep coxcomb, flaring geraniums, and vari-colored pinks and bachelor’s-buttons on the higher terrace; and, on the next-to-highest one, Geveret (Mrs.) Koch’s rose garden over which Yusef the gardener hovers on these hot mornings. A friend recently returned to the States from travels abroad—including a few days here—writes, “Isn’t Israel the hottest, barest, rockiest place you ever saw?” In the meantime my letter, which has crossed hers in the mails, describes our love-at-first-sight delight in these beautiful Judean hills. She couldn’t have been in Beit Zayit! The time has come for our colleagues at Mennonite House to leave the country for the continuation of their sabbatical in Edinburgh. We celebrate her birthday, our housewarming, their leaving, and the six weeks of good fellowship we’ve had together, at an Erev Shabbat (Sabbath Eve) meal in our “dollhouse.” We shall miss this zany couple; his inimitable laugh (which our young son, nevertheless, does a fair job at reproducing—no small feat!) her grace, our discussions, and argumentations. We part friends and brethren, even if he has failed to convince me than I must revere the recognized Holy Places. The Holy Land! Without straining my brain to define “Ηoly,” I muse on my reaction to this land and its endless “holy places.” We have not been here long, but we’ve seen many of them: Gethsemane, The Church of the Ηοly Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa with its Stations of the Cross; the Temple Mount, the Garden Tomb, the Church of the Ascension, the Mount of Olives—where is the end of the list? And yet I find that most of these specific places leave me cool. Spring in little Goshen is more reminiscent to me of Jesus’ resurrection than that great rambling edifice in the heart of the Old City, with its piles of stone and its endless 367 Story of a Family scaffolding, in the main rotunda of which is the mausoleum with the marble slab, surrounded by icons and candles, velvet and braid. Even the charming Garden Tomb, though certainly more evocative of The Event, seems an unnecessary artifice. To me, the “holiness” of the Holy Land is its history and geography. To stand on Mount Scopus and view the Judean wilderness below—and, miles away, the Dead Sea banked by the Mountains of Moab, and to realize that, unlike the Holy Places built by man, this is what any woman of Jerusalem might have seen in 4 B.C.— or even long before—this sends chills up the spine and gives a sense of immediacy and continuity to the biblical narrative. Moab, over there, never fails to plunge me into an identification with Naomi and Ruth. To go down the bleak Jericho Road is to get a graphic sense of Jesus story, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho...” The churches, temples, and synagogues now standing on ruins of earlier ones, which stood over the ruins of others before them—I leave their excitement to others. And though I can appreciate the tremendous devotion which has gone into their building, rebuilding, and upkeep, my peasant spirit takes delight in a different kind of holy place. I rejoice in the holy Geography, linked with the Holy History of this Ηoly Land. Before we came to Israel we were briefed by various people who had been here. Perhaps the best advice we received was from two Israelis, now living in Elkhart, who warned us that we should be wary of advice offered to us here. “Anyone you ask will gladly tell you how to get to the place you want to go—even if he has no idea where it is. Just remember that advice is given free, but it doesn’t have to be taken.” Today this timid soul was trying to catch a bus downtown from the Central Bus Depot on the outskirts. The woman at the information desk gave an indeterminate wave of the hand to indicate that I should go across the street to beard the bus. Putting my life on the line, I dodged my way across the street to where (I thought) she pointed. There a kind woman at the bus stop told me that for the bus I wished to catch, one must go back across the street and down a bit. Dutifully I returned. At this bus stop I could not find my bus number. A passerby took stock of my trouble and directed me back across the street. There an intelligentlooking man asked me which bus I wanted. “For that—you wait over there”—he motioned to the side of the street from which I had just come. “Go through the station and wait on the other side.” I argued, “But over there they told me...” He gazed at me with stern sorrow: “They told you wrong. Listen to me, I know.” All meekness, I returned to Information where a new attendant, a man, was now seated. “For that, back across 368 On the Corner 1968 the street, past the monument, in front of Binyanei Ha’ooma. Where else?” he ended plaintively. Where else indeed! The sharav has come, a hot, hot wind drying up one’s very eyeballs. Hanna, our landlady, tells us that this wind comes from the Sahara, and it also goes by the name of hamsin (pronounced komseen)—a word based on the Arabic word for fifty. She says that the Arabs hold that there are fifty such days a year, but the Israelis think there are more than fifty, so they call it by their own word sharav. We do not argue about the word. We just shut the doors and windows and, when possible, stay inside our quite comfortable little house. Though the hamsin-sharav provides endless conversational material for the Israelis; we find it not all that unpleasant, even when we must go out. Lacking humidity, these billows of heat are not as debilitating as is a hot, humid August day in Midwest U. S. A. For two days all the buses of Jerusalem—acres of them, it seems—are primly parked side by side. The highways are uncrowded; the stoplights do not function; all shops are closed, and all places of amusement. The solemn High Holidays are here—Rosh Hashana, the “head of the year.” For two days one forgets about the Post and the Shop—normally the objects of daily visitation here in the village. For the year 5729 is being ushered in with solemnity. Our neighbor menfolk, with their prayer shawls and prayerbooks, trudge back and forth to the shul—the little green shedlike synagogue up the way, throughout the two days. But at sundown today the religious holiday is ended. Neighbor Asher can again light up his pipe; we can look forward to the emptying, tomorrow, of the overflowing “dustbins” holding the garbage which our three families have accumulated; and after three days of deprivation, we shall hear, come morning, the welcome musical horn of the Mobile Post truck! Of all the sightseeing trips we have taken, none yet has awed me like our first drive to Jericho. The road down, through the absolutely barren but startlingly beautiful hills, was like a journey into Time Past. Except for the modern road and the utility poles, these hills seemed untouched by civilization. In the eerie beauty of it all, scarcely a car passed us on the road, few signs of life appeared. It was not hard to imagine the perils of walking such a road alone either then or now—especially at dusk. The parable of The Good Samaritan clung around me like a palpable presence as we wove our way down, down, down, past the sea-level 369 Story of a Family marker, and on down to the Dead Sea, the (lowest spot on earth. And there, surrounded by deadness bloomed lovely Jericho. This was the Jericho of those stories illustrated on our Sunday school cards back in the twenties! Here was Elisha’s fountain of sweet water—how small a spring to be endlessly watering the whole Jericho plain throughout centuries! Here was the tell containing the earliest location of the oldest city (of continuous habitation) in the world, Viewing the tower excavated by Kathleen Kenyon (dated six thousand years B.C.) was chilling and somehow intimidating. But this was also modern Jericho—modern in the sense that we ourselves had living links with people here. For there live the parents of two of our student friends, and in the cool long hall of one of the families we were served the most delicious of apples—from Ηebron, we were told— and (to the uninitiated, the somewhat less palatable, but still interesting) Turkish coffee. In return for the Arab hospitality, we were able to give news of the faraway sons—a fair enough exchange! September over, we are overwhelmed by the gift of these golden days in The Land of the Book. October Walk about Zion, go round her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels. —Psalm 48:12, 13 Under the Olive Tree, on her hill, the woman reads a letter claiming that there, On The Corner, October was never lovelier. And here? October: lovely days in Galilee on the Eve of Succoth—days of sun and friendship; nights of late “soul-talk” on the veranda of the Scottish Hospice. October: Golden hours spent writing the final chapter of “the Book” in the Bet-Hamidrash of the ruined synagogue in Kafr Nahum (Capernaum—Jesus’ “own city” where He “called a little child and set him in their midst...”) October: the fun of having all our Jerusalem and Beit Jala colleagues in our home on various Erev Shabbats... October: increased absorption into the life of our neighborhood; kindred souls met from Israeli, Arab, and international communities... October: hour after fascinating hour of pacing these streets, alone or with another, walking 370 On the Corner 1968 ... going round ... numbering and, yes, talking to shopkeepers; bargain ing—at first timidly, and then with a certain dash of boldness. October: discovering the first violets . . . enjoying the aroma of first real rain. October: month of all these vivid pleasures, and many more—but, un forgettably, the month of YOM KIPPUR. Day of Atonement Erev Yom Kippur: Tuesday morning, and the city is bustling. Traffic jams; the congestion on Yafo is maddening. But by 2:00 p.m., when we arrive home, the cars on the Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv road (visible from our house) are thinning out. By dusk not a car is to be seen on the whole sweep of the big road. We have read on the front page of the Jerusalem Post the important bulletin that persons who fast must finish their last meal before 4:48 p.m. Our meal is ended, the hour has come, the Yom Kippur, the most solemn day of the Jewish Year, has arrived. The Quiet is eerie. It seems that even the dogs and birds know it is Yom Kippur—not a whistle is heard, not a child’s laugh or a slammed door. With Asher and Cynthia, Wendy and Debby, we go to the “Kol Nidrei” service at the Ashkenazi shul. (The Sephardics are meeting in the regularly used shul. Usually the two groups meet there together, but not on Yom Kippur, because of differing traditions regarding the service.) Hanna, in her black stockings, black shoes, black dress, and black shawl, comes along. (Since her son was killed she has given up going to shul, plus all festivals, all entertainments, even family celebrations at Pesach. But one does not ignore Yom Kippur.) Our men, properly adorned in their kepot (yarmulkes, or prayer-caps) join the men up front, while Cynthia and I, our own heads kerchiefed like the rest of the married women, sit with our daughters and Hanna at the back of the clubroom where the rest of the women have gathered. I had wanted to hear a good Ashkinazi “Kol Nidrei,” sung in its haunting, unforgettable beauty; but to hear that executed really well, we would have had to go to a Jerusalem synagogue. That would mean renting a room in the city, or else walking home at night through the Jerusalem Forest—something that even our Israeli friends caution us against. (Absolutely no cars, except for emergency vehicles, move on Yom Kippur, and the people of other religions who happen to be here comply with the spirit of the day....) As the service develops on the little shul here in our village, the “Kol Nidrei” is barely distinguishable. Still, the informality and earnestness is a delight to behold. All the little boys—even the toddlers—wear their black or white or blue embroidered kepot. They weave in and out of the 371 Story of a Family clubroom, sometimes resting against their swaying fathers, sometimes catching at prayer shawls, sometimes sitting attentively, or watching carefully when their fathers show them the place in their prayerbooks. Men—even the “leaders” up front—stop sometimes in the midst of a prayer, to walk around and discuss something with a neighbor, smiling, even laughing a bit; or the father might pause to welcome, discipline, or go out after a child, then return to the place in his book. Once in a while the rather noisy chanting on various pitches drops and falls into the confines of a hymn which everyone seems to know and all sing in a sudden and startling unison. (So sad, so rich, these hymns!) Then the completion of the service nears, with the repeated, “Avinu malchenu” (our Father, our King) litany rising to a crescendo, stirring even such an outsider as myself. We walk home silently in the dark, spending the remainder of the evening quietly reading, and very much aware of the Fast—even though we ordinarily don’t eat that late anyhow! Yom Kippur: The Day of Atonement, the Day itself, dawns. More hours of reading and quiet talk and—for us grown-ups—fasting. Our Jewish neighbors say little, but seem to be surprised that we would try to follow the spirit of their day this closely. To visit their shul is one thing; but to fast! For this is a real fast. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is to be taken into the mouth. Cynthia regrets that she must take two swallows of water to get her aspirin down—but in case of illness and weakness it is permissible. So the day passes for us. The men from the neighboring houses have, however, spent most of the day praying at the shul. And now, with an hour to go before sunset (the Post tells us the Fast ends at 6:00 p.m.) it is time for us go back to the shul for the final service, if we wish to hear the shofar. Entering, one can read the tiredness of the men who have been praying all day. Asher, in his fine prayer shawl, stands, hair disheveled, swaying through all the prayers (though it’s perfectly permissible to sit at certain intervals). Children drift in and out. The tall, black-bearded man (who happens to be night editor of the Jerusalem Post) keeps pushing his glasses over his head, peering at his watch and, as dusk deepens, leaning out the window to watch for these first stars. The pulses quicken. The three Cohen (priestly family) members leave the room followed by the three Levis who will wash the formers’ hands in the washroom. Returning, the Cohens cover their heads and forearms with their shawls, turn toward the congregation, and recite a blessing. Then comes the rapid “Avinu malchenu” litany—beautiful, but hurried. The cantor’s voice revives; the Spenta is repeated the required number of times and everyone joins heartily in “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” 372 On the Corner 1968 (Adonai Elohenu, Adonai echad...). And now the tall bearded one leans out the window one more time, his glasses perched on top of his bushy black hair. He peers anxiously into the sky, then gives a slight smile, a nod, a signal. From the opposite corner the shofar—ram’s horn—is lifted and blown, and its weird, tremulous, rasping wail signals the end to another Day of Atonement. In the Diaspora, this is the moment when each man turns to his neighbor and greets him with the words: “Next year in Jerusalem!” Here, such a greeting has no meaning. After a slight hush a bustle is apparent, as a table is quickly spread, strong spirits are poured into shot glasses, squares of the dry Israeli sponge cake are cut, and all are invited to break the fast. There is much greeting: “Shana Tova!” “A Good Year!”), shaking of hands, and cheerful talking. We are enveloped, included, and carried with the tide out the door onto the dark road, and, in a merry mood, to our own number 49 terraces. Through the window of the Speed house we see the Shabbat candles gleaming on Cynthia’s little table in the “lounge” and we are all invited in to break the fast again—this time on pickled herring, bread, dill pickles, tomatoes, and more dry cake. An hour of lively talk and joyful fastbreaking, repetition of many Shana Tovas and Lila Tovs (good-nights)— and we are inside our own little house again. The fast broken, this most solemn of solemn days over, we are new free at last to celebrate the birthday of our poor daughter who up to now has been absolutely neglected on the date which usually signals daylong pampering! Her brother and I spread the white cloth, deck it with roses, candles, and the small wrapped gifts, and hurry about to make the pizza with which we will do some more Fast-breaking. We sing, we eat, we enjoy. And thus ends what must surely be her most unforgettable birthday to date! Shana Tova! November Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they prosper who love you! Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers! —Psalm 122:6, 7 November, which in some dim past is remembered by us as a month of blustery winds, bare trees, and the beginnings of a long cold winter, is full of sunshine, Indian-summer brightness, green grass, roses, and ripening 373 Story of a Family citrus here. In addition it turns out to be a month of great fellowship. Helen, our Miss Mennonite Central Committee, comes and brings friends with her to sit around our table; neighbors—Asher and Cynthia, Iris and Michael, drop in for tea as they pass: our colleagues up Tel-Aviv way plan trips for our combined families, and our good pastor and his wife visit us a while on the last lap of their tour. Peace, a word heard often in unpeaceful Jerusalem! Looking for the Rubin Academy, I ask my way of a gentleman who chats with me in broken English as he guides me. “What! You leave after only one year! Every Jew should live permanently in Israel.” (As usual I am assumed to be Jewish.) “And all who can,” he adds slyly, “should live in Jerusalem.” He turns to me with a sad smile: “Jerusalem is center of world; Jerusalem lacks only one thing to be perfect—peace.” It wasn’t a peaceful month for Jerusalem. On a Friday morning I start at the thudding boom of an explosion in the distance. “A big one this time,” I muse, and idly wonder where—as any wife and mother will, who has some of her brood in the city from which the noises come. It is the market I discover, the Mahane Yehuda, where, at this time yesterday morning, I too was in the milling crowds, assessing potatoes, almonds, clementinas, and parsley! I read in the Post that directly across the street from the place I had parked the car then, the jeep was parked in which the explosive charge had been planted. The plant worked well; ten people died. But such is the spirit of this remarkable city that, next market day, the place was full, crowded with people buying and selling. Buying and selling, yes, bit also determined to go to the market in defiance of the danger. Since we are not living in an American or British Colony, but are surrounded with ordinary Israeli villagers, we escape much of the kind of social life in which we see many foreigners caught up and which we are eager to avoid. But if the particular kind of socializing we have here is to us more exciting and enriching because of its difference—sometimes, like this week, it can be exhausting, too. I recall fondly those years of my life when I was at my best late at night, and wish I could transplant them. For in our village, the normal time for entertaining is 9:00 p.m. “Do come over for drinks at nine!” say the South African Israelis on our right. (“Drinks,” by the way, usually mean—to them—tea, coffee, or mitz, the delectable Israeli drink made with a fruit-crush-syrup and water, and, 374 On the Corner 1968 to my delight, not carbonated.) On our left the English Israelis follow the next night with “So drop in for tea? At nine?” And over in Mosa, a mile away, the American Israelis insist, the night after, that we drive over to meet them “nine or soon after.” The problem is that, these days, by nine o’clock I am all but done with the day, and can barely prop my eyes open, much less turn into a scintillating conversationalist. Still, we go. And somehow conversation never lags, midnight comes startlingly soon, and we come home stimulated with the new contacts. Never ask about the cruel awakening at 6:30 a.m.! Masada! If anyone had told the lethargic Woman on the Corner a year ago that she could persevere up the serpentine path for an hour and a half of grueling climbing, and not even be stiff and sore the following morning, she would have hooted. In company with our friends from Ramat-Gan, the family did ascend the heights. The five children, we admit, ran ahead like mountain goats, and reached the top at least a half hour ahead of us. (Fortunately, we had the lunch with us.) Never outdoor enthusiasts to begin with, we oldsters stopped often to mop our faces and catch our breath. I was glad to have comfortable shoes; The Professor was glad to know that his heart was sound. Bertha was glad to see that the path was safer than it had been the first time she climbed Masada, years before; and Paul, an old hand (foot) at this, was undaunted; glad, I suppose, that we were making it. But we did persevere and, standing on top of Masada, the reward was far more than the simple joy of accomplishing what one knew (in my case) he couldn’t accomplish. Part of the reward was the magnificent, view of the region, with the mountains of Moab menacing, closer than ever, across they Dead Sea at Masada’s feet. Part of the reward was reliving the tragic and arresting history of the place, as we viewed the results of Yadin’s remarkable excavations. And a great part of the reward was simply the fellowship with Paul and Bertha who had initiated this trip for our pleasure as well as their own. Going down, we wondered if we’d be able to hobble about in the morning. But morning finds us spry; these weeks of walking the streets of Jerusalem, uphill and down, have paid off. Not only have I learned to enjoy walking, but I am benefiting from its keeping-in-shape function. By the time Roy and Florence called to invite us to go along with them, the name Wadi Kelt was familiar to us. Israelis and Americans, when asking us where we’d been or where we planned to go, were sure I to say, “You must hike back the Wadi Kelt.” Today the ten of us drove down the Jericho road and seer negotiating a rocky trail across the plain 375 Story of a Family and up the hills, we packed our lunch into the string bags and hiked down Wadi Kelt. In the shade of a few olive trees we set out our simple lunch on a rock ledge and ate together in one of the most unforgettable of picnic sites. There beside us, where we sat on low shoes, was the deep wadi, forming a gorge which separated us from the high cliff opposite. Nestled against that cliff, St. George of Wadi Kelt, a monastery dating from Justinian times, clings, its blue doors and white domes shining, its hermit’s eyries on the adjacent cliffs reminding me of these endless tree houses built by five young sons, growing up. After lunch we marched on up to the monastery where a hospitable lay brother showed us around. We saw an Elijah’s cave (there are others in Israel), a chandelier sent to the monastery by Catherine the Great, and passed a small locked building which, we were told, was the library. The Professor later had to chuckle, remembering the conversation conducted in Hebrew between himself and the lay brother. Professor “The building is very small.” Brother: “It is very small outside—very large inside.” But what sets this place apart from all others in Israel is a little incident involving a young lad, an exuberantly swung bag of clementinas, and a broken chandelier (fortunately, not Catherine the Great’s!). Out of sympathy for the lad we do not retell the story in detail too often. But we hereafter refer to this monastery as St. James of the Clementinas, and we know one young man who will never forget the Wadi Kelt. For people who do not care to remember, Israel is hardly worth visiting. Everything seems to shout, “Remember! Remember!” The geography shoe from blue Galilee through the Judean Hills to Masada, to Sinai, blazes with: “Remember!” The archaeological sites: the fortifications of Ahab’s palace in Samaria, Jacob’s well in Shechem (Nablus), the Wailing Wall, the tombs and pools and tunnels of the Kidron Valley; Rachel’s tomb in Bethlehem, Old Jericho, the Macpelah cave in Hebron; these and thousands more defy one to forget, but there are modern reminders, too. Here in Jerusalem, Americans, especially, find the Kennedy Memorial, on a commanding hill outside the city, stirring. One is bound to ask the meaning of the mill opposite Kikar Plumer (Montefiore the tombs on Mt. Herzl send one to the books for more information regarding the beginnings of Zionism. But of all the modern monuments here, specifically designed to help one to remember, surely the most impressive is Yad Veshem, the memorial to the six million Jews destroyed in our times. One leaves the Tent of Remembrance, the memorial shaft, the documentary museum, and the little art gallery with anger and wonder and fear: anger that it did happen, wonder that it could happen, and fear that, man being what 376 On the Corner 1968 he is, it might happen again. After walking through this place, somehow I find it difficult to think of buying a souvenir at the little shop in the Art Gallery. But I do buy the small stickpin (for only a lira—thirty cents) bearing the one word in Hebrew letters—Zchor: Remember! December Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.” —Psalm 24:7 December opens with a few days of rare relaxation at Florence’s, in Ramat-Hasharon. I insist it can’t be very relaxing for her, since she seems intent on serving beautiful meals three times a day; yet there it is: when two people really meet, the pleasure is never one-sided. Another of these unbelievable days arrives. Of little faith, I often say, concerning great hopes: “I’ll believe it when it happens.” Today it happened. The fatted calf prepared, the house cleaned, an extra bed made up, we leave Beit Zayit in the small morning hours and arrive at Haifa moments after the boat from Istanbul has docked. After an hour of peering over the police barriers to the decks and portholes of the white ship, we hear, “There he is! I saw him!” But it is several hours later until we are sure, and somehow I am taken aback at this young fellow walking toward me, pack on back, his boyish face smiling under the fatigue hat. I had expected someone elder, with a harder, more knowledgeable air. This—this is the young kid who left! As we drive back, as we become, in the following days and weeks, reacquainted, I find more surprises in store. Who can stop time, or gauge its effects? I only know that a son has returned: that, all appearances to the contrary, he has matured, that there are both disturbing and delightful changes on his outlook; that he can no longer be “subject” to us in the way of children and parents—but that we still have much to learn from each other. And once again, as in years past, the whole household is enlivened with his enthusiasm, his endless comments on books, people, and ideas, and his quick and eager curiosity about life. Sister Edmund has invited us to tea at the Convent of Soeurs de Sion on a hill in Ein Kerem. Here, where Elizabeth and Mary exchanged good 377 Story of a Family news, where John the Baptist was born, we sit around the tea table with those of the lively sisters who can speak English and enjoy the simple meal of tea, crackers, cheeses, and—best of all—honey produced by their own bees. There is something about the life in such a place that has always appealed to me—and still does, in spite of my contentment with the way I have chosen. It is a bleak day, and as I stared at the windows waiting to go, I silently recall the Hopkins verses memorized long ago, “I have desired to go where springs not fail...” In a few months, I’ll come back to Soeurs de Sion to read, to write, to think, to ask questions... Hanukkah, festival of lights, has come to Israel. In the Old City we’ve bought nine little clay pots for candleholders, in place of the Hanukkah menorah, and they stand side by side with our Advent candles. (This year our candles are of various sizes and colors—bought at our favorite candle shop in the Old City, one a week, over the past months.) The favorite Hanukkah foods—latkes (potato cakes) and jelly-filled doughnuts—are now available in every little open shop along the street, and we, too; sample the greasy delicacies. For the neighbor children we have wrapped a few tiny gifts to be given on successive days. We contribute a gunny sack to Debby who needs it for a play at school. (No doubt she is a volunteer on the Maccabee troops!) We lend her our flashlight for the final “torch parade” in which the children of the village march singing on the roads that spiral around the hill that is Beit Zayit—the very hill where Judas the MaccAHbee (as the Israelis pronounce it) fought the Greeks. But in spite of the Maccabees, the latkes, the doughnuts, the torches, the Hanukkah candles, to any child who has known—as Debby has—the excitement of a Western Christmas, Hanukkah hardly rivals it. As little Jewish Debby writes her English grandmother in a letter she is laboriously scrawling at our kitchen table: “Hanukkah was very nice indeed but I miss the presents of Christmas.” At Beit Jala we sit in a crowded hall listening to the Arab boys version of Christmas. With a great flair for the dramatic, they ham their way through an adaptation of “The Other Wise Man” and sing the traditional carols. One little change in an old carol at first startles us: “Nowell, Nowell,” they sing in English, “Born is the King Immanuel.” Once again we are reminded of the emotional impact of the choice of a single word! Here, Israel is worse than a dirty word, and the proud Arab will not use it. To use the beautiful—to us—Shalom to the Arab 378 On the Corner 1968 attendant at a service station is to immediately put a distance between us. The Professor, blissfully absentminded, does this constantly —even addresses them further in Hebrew —causing the family to squirm in the back seat. Such is our discomfort that as we slow down at our favorite Arab station, the stage whispers are sure to begin “Use English!” “Don’t say Shalom!” One time out of ten—if we’re lucky, he hears and heeds. The little group of American ladies in Rachel’s room chat over their tea and shortbread. Then someone happens to mention that the Christmas cards are coming in now. Another adds, “Do people write to you about how wonderful it must be to be here where it all began?” Everyone breaks into a laugh of recognition, and all of our reactions seem to be similar: “If they only knew!” I too may once have written this. Too well I remember that year after year when, noting the tendency of Christmas to start earlier and last longer and be glossier, tinselier, more expensive every year—I would wish that I might be able to remember the Christmas Event in its purity without all this! Surely the Holy Land should be the ideal place to do so! So what happen? Here we are, a Christmas-keeping minority in the land of Jews. Bethlehem is two miles away. We are surrounded by the real places and even, surely, some of the sights, sounds, and smells of that first Christmas. We sit through a few traditional programs, and somehow they fall flat. It just isn’t Christmas. Ruefully, I must admit, before it’s over, that the Event seemed more real to me back in Goshen. Also—Ι miss all that cheer and bustle and tinsel and glitter, much as I hate to admit it. And almost everyone I talk to here ruefully admits the same! Still, in spite of our lack of feeling about Christmas, we did prepare for it. On the twenty-fourth, the Christmas Eve Chili Soup was duly prepare, the festive cloth spread, all these gorgeous Old City candles brought to the table, the small cheap gifts wrapped. And when our son and our friend from Goshen came out of the rain and into the door, lo, the Star came and stood over No. 49 Beit Zayit! The lovely limbo between Christmas and New Year s has never been lovelier—even the accentuated absence of four of our family members cannot possibly obliterate the joy and wonder of reunion. “You must see this... “We must take you there” is the order of these days. And though we can’t hope to show our guests even a fraction of the treasures of this land, we try! The Chagall Windows, Yad Veshem, Bethlehem, Beit Jala, the Mount of Olives, the wonder of the Old City, including the Dome of 379 Story of a Family the Rock and the Via Dolorosa procession, Jericho, Qumran, the Dead Sea, Nazareth, Tiberius, Capernaum, Samaria, Masada, the Kennedy Memorial, Israeli Museum, Hebrew University, Ramat Rahel; all these and more are visited. In Jericho we eat two sumptuous feasts at the home of our Arab friends, and get a good introduction into Arab hospitality: let there be one pause in the conversation, and the hostess begins her theme: “YOU ARE WELCOME.” “THIS IS YOUR HOME...” And on and on it goes, “We are glad you have come. Please, THIS IS YOUR HOME! Come often! Come every Saturday!” We are forced to pick their oranges and their pomeloes, and the amount we pick, of course, is not enough; they must add more and more... The climax of these days surely must be the sunny morning on Galilee when our youngest son, having asked for baptism some months before, receives it in an idyllic spot on an inlet, shaded by trees on whose great exposed roots we sit, the little congregation shares a most joyous occasion. His sister accompanies us on the guitar as we sing folk hymns; each of his family, and his friend, in turn ask of him the baptismal queries. His father baptizes him there, quite near the place where Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes, near Kfar Nahum. And on this note we all “ring out the old; ring in the new.” On the Corner 1969 January His holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth… —Psalm 48:2 In the last moments of the old year we lit our Mary-candle, vowing to light it again next year, God willing, in the presence of at least seven of the nine who ate lemon pie around the little Beit Zayit table. Ivan and Rachel left just before the New Year came--they wanted to hear all those bells! And now it was time to say good-bye to the first of our departing travelers. Even with the two extra boys still here, it seemed a greatly diminished household when we returned from Lod airport. But it was a lovely day, and so we drove the few miles to Aqua Bella, where a new park is being developed around the ruins of a Crusader 380 On the Corner 1969 monastery. The three strapping boys had a great time. Like little fellows, they dammed up the tiny stream, then broke the dam, watching the course of the water and estimating how long it would take to reach the bridge… Matsada again, today, for the benefit of the Blonde Boy. The motherdaughter team decided against climbing that serpentine path again, and so the men made it up the mountain in record time. Our Traveler seemed intent on burning himself out, climbing up without resting, running all the way down, and later at Ein Gedi—racing up the mountain again, eager to find David’s Spring. The waterfalls at Ein Gedi are like sudden miracles, appearing in the wilderness, out of nowhere. We crept through the fairyland of rush tunnels into open spaces where, one by one larger and lovelier waterfalls awaited us. Knowing that in this very canyon, among these rocks and falls, David hid from Saul—adds an eerily exciting dimension to Ein Gedi. No place like the holy Land for multiple doses of holy days! Today we returned to Jericho to celebrate Greek Orthodox Christmas with our friends who had made us promise to return before the Blonde Boy leaves the country. In a light rain we first revisited the Wadi Kelt, which was all but deserted. The Israeli soldiers who met us on the path wondered if we had permission to be here. “Aren’t you afraid of Al Fateh? No one should come to Wadi Kelt without a gun!” Apparently we were exceptions; in any case, the last people to be killed here—last week—had guns… Again there was a feast in Jericho, almost a repetition of our last one here, but with the Upside-down-eggplant-dish replacing the stuffed potatoes. And Marwan was there again, all smiles and good English, with the little fingernail of his right hand stylishly long. Everyone was gay. The grandmother ate with us, and this time it seemed cozier, because we ate in the kitchen Again it was: “You-are-welcome!” and “This-is-your-home.” Gifts and letters were produced, to be taken back to their Goshen son, and we, too, got in on the gifts: the grandmother gave me one of her crocheted doilies, and each of the boys was presented with a little bottle of perfume by the daughter of the house! Jewish shopkeepers in Jerusalem do not, to say the least, fall all over a person to get his business. Ask for a certain article and one might get the answer, “For what? This is better…” “Why should you want red since this blue is nicer?” (Easier for him to reach, that is.) “You got 75-Watt; that’ll 381 Story of a Family cost you a fortune—use too much electric!” Without further consulting you he yells to the clerk, “Arbayim!” (“Forty!”) and officiously makes the exchange while you stand meekly, a mere onlooker. Today at a coffee bar, I asked the counterman if he would run a little cold water into the scalding Nescafe he was about to give me—the spigot was right there at his elbow. He scolded, “For what? Use milk—” “But I don’t like milk in coffee!” “There’s sugar.” “I don’t like sweet coffee.” With a look of utter disgust he turned on the tap and slammed the cup down in front of me. Chutzpah (kutzpah) is a word and concept dear to most of the Israelis I’ve met. It gives the sense of cheekiness—not pure arrogance, not utter brashness, —a sort of jaunty impertinence, a triumphant selfassertiveness. True, it has a derogatory connotation in certain contexts, as I heard my neighbor shout to his wife concerning a retreating figure: “That woman has the most amazing chutzpah in the state of Israel!” But mainly, Chutzpah is thought to be a good thing. Israelis are proud to see their children displaying it. Ephrat had been having some difficulty adjusting at school—as any child would, transplanted from an Englishspeaking to a Hebrew-speaking environment. Her mother reported to me that the psychologist was much pleased with her progress, however. The hitherto quiet, polite little English girl was getting cheeky, developing chutzpah! Wonderful! As with much that one sees here, I am forced to partly admire this trait. But I guess I shall always feel more at home around people who count gentleness a virtue, who believe that the meek shall inherit the earth in a symbolic—if not literal—sense. But such a land and such a people are becoming rare… Gardiner Scott, a slight, balding, mustached fellow who has retained his marvelous Scottish accent even after years in Jerusalem, is the heart of St. Andrew’s. Standing there each Sunday morning in his black cassock with his Jerusalem cross about his neck, and girded with his leather belt, he might appear comical as he gives the “intimations” were it not for the aura of Presence. An indefinable dignity, integrity, simplicity pervades the brief Sunday morning service when he presides, bringing forth as if by miracle a sense of encounter. But it is the prayers of Gardiner Scott that I will remember longest. Rich in faith and the pervasive piety of the modest Scottish home from which he must have sprung, these extempore prayers come from him with all the grace of perfected phraseology, yet softened by the moving reality of one “soul’s sincere desire,” and the full awareness of, and relevance to, the contemporary scene. Not a Sunday passes but 382 On the Corner 1969 that he devotes a part of his prayer to remembrance of, and gratitude for, the dead, and our ties with families separated from us… I can’t really describe a prayer of his, only to say that after months without a sense of the reality of prayer, one should find himself forced, by Gardiner Scott, to become a firm believer again.February I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people. —Isaiah 65:19 (RSV) Before coming here we were told that Kar lee (“I’m cold”) is a phrase we would hear and use often during the rainy season—the winter. True, we did hear it often. In fact, when the first rain came last October, I went up to The Shop to find women muffled up as if for zero weather. Frances, a former New Yorker, called gloomily, “Well, how do you like our winter? Isn’t it awful?” But Frances has been away from New York too long to remember what Cold is. I wanted to laugh and say, “Winter?” but I only smiled. Within a few weeks we noted with amazement that the Jerusalem streets were filled with people bundled in woolly hats, gloves, boots, and heavy coats. The weather? Well, I thought it quite pleasant fall weather—a bit of a nip in the air, but far from cold. Actually, I have been uncomfortably cold only twice in Jerusalem: once when I walked from Jaffa gate up to Davidka, toward evening, in a raw wind; once when I had to wait at the bus stop for an hour in the rain. For a few rainy weeks in December and January, it is true, we tended to sit around the two little “fires” —kerosene heaters—and wore tights, or took hot-water bottles to bed. And there was that day last month when the second snow in decades fell upon Jerusalem, closing school, and providing conversation for days to follow. But Kar lee? Not really. Only when we contemplated returning to an Indiana winter! “Shai’s brith will take place at Hadassah at 1 P.M. on Sunday. Please come.” The little card, signed “Iris and Michael,” was delivered to us several days after the birth of their son, and we were delighted to be included. On Sunday afternoon we found Iris in the reception hall of the Maternity Wing, waiting with a middle-aged couple. Iris immediately sprang up, kissed me, and introduced us to these special people from South Africa, parents of Michael’s best friend. (This friend, like Michael, is also in exile because of anti-apartheid activities in South Africa.) As people began to gather we were ushered into a large room, simply a bare room with a few folding chairs, and a folding counter where Michael was pouring drinks and setting out plates of sweets to be consumed after 383 Story of a Family the Brith (“Breet”). At the far end of the room was a glassed-in cubicle where the circumcision would take place. People kept coming—mostly Beit Zayit friends and colleagues of Michael’s at the University—and we all milled about in a most friendly fashion. No one was really “dressed up,” except the South African couple. Fannie’s and Danai’s long pigtails hung down their backs as if they were going to The Shop to do their daily marketing; children danced about; we were introduced to the new people, the chatter surrounding us indicative of a gay occasion. Then the baby was wheeled in, and through the glass bassinet we all got a good look at the beautiful child, asleep there in his cap and sweater. The mohel arrived, a large fat man, his great belly pushing out the white coat he wore, his peyot (side-curls) swinging and his long black beard waving, his black kepa atop his bald head. This was the signal for the men to get their kepot out of their pockets and onto their heads, for Michael and the sandek to put on their prayer shawls, for the young godparents to carry the child from his mother into the glass enclosure, and put him in the arms of the sandek who was to have the high honor of holding the baby during the ceremony. (The sandek on this occasion was the man we had met in the hall—the father of Michael’s friend.) The words of blessing began, and people moved closer to the glass enclosure to participate as the prayers were continued, the surgery performed, and the child exultantly named “SHAI!” by the master of ceremonies and a man of great piety, the mohel. (Shai, pronounced “Shy,” is a contraction of Yeshaiahu—Isaiah.) Michael now held his son on a pillow, reciting the usual blessings and prayers from the prayer book propped up against Shai’s tummy. The milling began after a hush, as mazel tovs (Congratulations!”) and Torah, Huppah v’ma’asim tovim wishes (for a long life marked by a knowledge of the Torah, a happy marriage, and good deeds) were offered to the parents in behalf of Shai. And now the little cakes and candies began to disappear rapidly as small fingers kept reaching up to the folding shelf. A brith is a family affair, and there were all sizes and shapes of children there. Hillel, I noticed, was terribly green, and kept whining “Ema!” (Mommy) to Ruth, who was engrossed in a conversation. The whining was not without cause, we discovered soon (all over the floor). The tall drinks and the short drinks were consumed … more joyous, informal talk … and Shai’s brith was over. For some who were there it was, I suppose, just another brith. To us, the only goyim present, it was unforgettable. This elfin child, Danny, delights me. First there is his odd little face and the precocious intelligence which seems to fit those features. 384 On the Corner 1969 Then there is that fantastically precise English and vocabulary. Eating curries tonight at the Wade’s table, we watch, amused, as his parents remonstrate with him for pushing away his plate of food. “It is forbidden food,” he explains cheekily. In still another setting, this three-year-old approaches his eight-year-old sister craftily: “I shall tread upon your toe, eh, Fretty?” Yesterday, hearing the children at play outside our lounge (living room) I ruefully reflected on the difference between the typical American child expressing his desire to go along with the older kids, and Danny. “I wanta go too,” whines Anychild, USA. Danny wails, “I should like to go as well!” Today I remember that my father was born in 1884 on this date. I muse on the heritage one can have even from a father one has never known. I like the customs of my Beit Zayit neighbors concerning family “holy days.” Birthdays are—as with us—happy occasions with special treats of food and gifts. But in addition there is special remembrance of the dead on the date of their death. A twenty-four-hour memorial candle— usually in a special holder—is lit on the eve of this day, special prayers of thanksgiving for their lives are offered in the synagogue and at home; and family members passing the candle throughout its twenty-four-hour life reflect on the life of this person. But there are limits, Fannie tells me, to the ability of the human being to properly “remember” all his relatives in this way. And so, candles are lit only for parents, brothers, and sisters, and—God forbid—one’s children. (I never heard one of my neighbors refer to such an eventuality without prefacing it with “God forbid”; the death of a child whose parents are yet living is considered the ultimate tragedy. It is the “nature of things” that children should outlive their parents.) This is one custom I plan to adopt upon our return to the House on the Corner. In preparation, I bought a memorial candleholder today, in a shop on Ben Yehuda Street… March Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving… he makes grass grow upon the hills… —Psalm 147:7, 8 (RSV) At pleasant Stella Carmel, the guesthouse near the traditional Place of Sacrifice, our MCC and Missions personnel held their spring retreat. 385 Story of a Family En route we drove up the West Bank. The lavender cyclamen and the red poppies (also called anemones and buttercups) were strewn all over the roadsides, through the rocky hills, wherever a bit of soil would allow them to grow. The retreat itself was good, with not too rigid a program, and lots of fellowship. The ladies, bless them, gave me (in return for my talks) those two elegant Arab-needlework pillow tops I had put back to buy for myself. Now, in my own rooms on the corner, I can be reminded for years to come of these good days. Returning to Jerusalem by way of the Sharon Plain, we saw the streets of every town filled with families celebrating Purim. Little Queen Esthers and Mordecais, as well as the usual variety of animal characters one sees on Halloween in the States, tripped along the crowded streets as we passed. Home again, we were invited to a Purim party out under the grape arbor. The hostesses were Debby and Ephrat, with their friends, sisters and brothers. Fanny’s Reuven and Sarah were there, and Yehudit, on holiday from her university studies, was leading them all in some rousing Purim songs by the time we came on the scene. What handclapping, what laughter, what fun! But then, Purim is about the only fun-holiday the Jews have, says Yehudit. At 5:00 p.m. the Professor took me to Ein Kerem, and I was soon settled in a tiny, but adequate, cubicle at the convent of the Soeurs de Notre Dame de Sion. Mother Edmund had placed a tiny bouquet of wild cyclamen in the room. Otherwise there was no hint of an “extra.” A narrow cot in an alcove, a table, a chair, a small plain wooden shelf: this was all, and this was enough. Though Mother Edmund complained that the windows were too high—she plans to have them lowered so that one can see out—I insisted I prefer them as they are, for beauty is distracting, and I have work to do. (An Israeli journalist here agrees. Speaking of this one day when we met on a garden path, he quoted a rabbinical sage: “He who looks up from his study of the Torah, and says, ‘What a beautiful field!’ has given himself over to perdition.”) My stated purpose in coming to this sanctuary is to finish the preliminary draft of my “book” about the Little Fellow. In the week given to me, I manage to do that, and more: I read an Elizabeth Goudge book; I explore the convent gardens, paths, and terraces, each day making some discovery—the tiny, walled cemetery where the identical iron crosses are marked with the names of sisters and the dates of their deaths; where the daffodils grow in a stylized rectangle over each grave, the huge geraniums spill over the terrace, and the cypresses, barely viewable from the outside, add shade and coolness. I think through some relationships 386 On the Corner 1969 that need reappraisal; make some firm decisions about the shape of my life upon returning to the States. (Let me never again feel diminished by my reluctance to be drawn into the activity—the good activity—swirling about me there!) But Ein Kerem, and the lovely silent Soeurs de Sion, are not just a retreat for me…not just the background for study and meditation. At table, over simple food, I meet and communicate with a French Catholic volunteer worker, a sort of mannish, tough version of Simone Weil; a big Israeli—Sabra—journalist; a theological student from Japan who knows about Mennonites through hearing Kagawa talk of them (he is a member of Kagawa’s church, and his father was a good friend of that saint); a Swiss roving journalist, a little British designer (graphic arts) whose obvious affection for his “Mum” must be the basis for our rapport; a Russian-American couple working on their PhD’s; a German danseuse, retired, absolutely the homeliest creature I ever saw, in whose cluttered rooms I eat strawberries and cream and listen to tales of her ten years in and out of Gestapo prisons; and of course, beautiful Mother Joachim—so like my own mother that I feel repeatedly drawn to her, asking her questions about her order, which began as a mission to the Jews, but is now devoted to promoting understanding between Jews and Christians. Coming home was shattering for a few hours, but mostly joyful. Lovely Ein Kerem, Soeurs of Sion, where “a few lilies blow”—may we meet again! And if not, let me remember always the peace within your walls… Helen and I went to St. George’s to hear William Carson Blake and, incidentally, to see the spectacle of Jerusalem’s religious leaders in all their finery—from the tiny red Cardinal caps to the peaked hood of the Armenian patriarch. Blake looked rather ordinary in comparison, even though he is a big handsome man. And his sermon was disarmingly simple, winsome, and short—on finding God’s will for one’ s life. We shook hands ceremoniously with His Importance at the door, and walked over to the Mennonite House in the lovely Jerusalem dark. There we ate pancakes, in Helen’ s cozy apartment, and talked ’til 12:30… Tonight the kids and I went to the International Bible Contest. It began at 9:00 p.m., and at 2:15 a.m. President Shazar was still going strong with a final speech. What a spectacle! Apart from the contest itself, it was worth coming just to observe an Israeli audience, over half of them school children, little boys in their kepot, earnestly listening for five hours without an intermission! To see Shazar and Ben-Gurion at close range 387 Story of a Family was a blast for us, but the audience seemed a great deal more interested in the little Israeli who represented them—and won (though it was hardly a fair contest … even the Jerusalem Post reported that the Netherlands contestant should have won!) To be rudely awakened in the early morning by an inconsequential telephone call is a pet peeve of mine. But for this call I would gladly have arisen at 2:00 a.m. Our first grandchild, in India, has arrived safely, and the boy has been given the name of our Little Fellow at home. All day long I go about the house remembering the day—25 years ago—when I saw his father, our firstborn. Beautiful. Full Circle. Baruch ata Adonai—Blessed art Thou, oh Lord! We left for Kibbutz Shamir after mail time. A lovely day was ours as we drove through Samaria, eating our oranges and one sandwich apiece by the roadside, beyond Nablus. The lilies of the field were all around us; the green wheat in the Valley of the Dancers was voluptuous; Samaria never looked lovelier to us. On up, past Tabor, past Tiberias, past Zfat, up, up—and there we found Shamir, on the hillside, with the Razins, Musa and Dora, waiting for us. The hospitality of their tiny apartment was heart-warming. Dora could speak little English, and I, little Hebrew; so our daughter acted as interpreter. This particular kibbutz, being in the corner of a triangle with the former Syrian mountains on one side, Lebanon on the other, was under constant shelling from ’48 to ’67, and the place is honeycombed with shelters and trenches. But Dora does not like to talk of it… We visited, slept on the hard little kibbutz beds, ate in the huge dining hall, visited the children’s houses and clothing centers, showed each other snapshots of our children, talked of their Chicago son who knows our Chicago nephew—and next day, went home again, down through Samaria, stopping at Jacob’s Well and at a wayside market where I bought an ancient goat-bell for the Little Fellow to tie onto his tricycle’s handlebars…April “They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord....” Jeremiah 31:12 We decided to see some new country today, Helen and I, and took the train to Tel Aviv. The train ride gives one a different perspective on this particular slice of Israel. Hills and valleys not visible from the road, carpeted in green grass and wildflowers, appeared. Tiny stations tucked away from the sight of road travelers, revealed themselves to us. In T-A 388 On the Corner 1969 we met Florence, and the three of us went shopping in a large department store. There Helen delighted in the forgotten displays of luxuries, and we delighted in Helen’s enthusiasm. I bought little; but then, just as we were leaving, I found it: exactly what I wanted for that Grandson—a little silver Kiddush Cup with “Yeled Tov” (Good Boy) in Hebrew letters on its side. I borrowed twenty-five lirot from Florence, and splurged without a backward thought. At noon, then, we met Lucille and Bertha, and Helen treated us all to a fine dinner at a downtown hotel. Home—tired, happy, and inordinately pleased with That Cup! Pesach! Hanna came over, just as we were getting ready to leave for our big evening—the Passover Seder with Asher and Cynthia. She insisted on showing us through the Hagadah, besides rounding up more copies for us. Cynthia had invited her also, but no, she would not relent—she has “resigned from life” since the death of her son two years ago. And yet I think she really wanted to be with us, as, dressed in our best, we went over about 7:30, our two men looking quite authentic in their kepot. The Seder (Say-der; Asher pronounces it “Sider”) began as Debby sang the “Ha lilah ha zeh” (“On this night…”) quite nicely, and we all followed, more or less, as Asher bumbled through. How he loves his Head-Of-TheFamily role! The Seder went on and on. Poor Wendy couldn’t stay awake until dinner was finally served. The Passover meal itself began with a hardboiled egg served in a sherbet glass, and covered with cold water. Cynthia put an all-too-generous pinch of salt on each egg, and then we broke it up with our spoons, making of the egg and water a rather sick-looking mess which, except for the excess salt, was surprisingly good! We asked the significance of the egg, but nobody knew. Wonderful chicken soup with matzoh balls came next, and Cynthia was exuberant to see that the balls floated lightly on top. (The matzoh balls—sort of dumplings—are a test of a cook; those of a poor one will lie heavily at the bottom of the soup.) Turkey followed, with potatoes, two salads which our own young chef had offered as his contribution, chocolate mousse and fresh fruit mix, coffee, and of course four glasses of wine, completed the meal. (Actually one needn’t drink four glasses; four sips will do, with the glass being filled again at the appropriate places in the service.) There was more reciting of prayers and blessings before the evening was over. Elijah’s wine-cup was filled and poor, tired Debby was sent to open the door and stand there while Asher recited some more invocations. (Elijah didn’t come.) Debby found the Afikomen, and was promised whatever she asked for (all this was whispered secret), and about 11:30 we rose to go home. Had this been a Seder anywhere else in the world, the final words would have 389 Story of a Family been, “Next year—in Jerusalem!” I was sad to think that next year, in deed, these words would be appropriate for us to use. But for now, we were glad to be in Jerusalem, grateful for this joyous Pesach Seder, this dear family. And Asher was to say of this, his family’s first experience at including “goyim” at their Seder—“Quite the nicest Sider we’ve had, eh Cyn?” We decided to join the Maundy Thursday walk from the Upper Room (one of them) to Gethsemane. Our information source was incomplete, and so we found ourselves in the ridiculous situation of being trapped in a group of Swedish tourists having a VERY HIGH mass in Christ Church. Crunched against the wall, we couldn’t escape until our row was sum moned to the altar rail for communion. By then our group was long gone, but we drove out to the Kidron Valley in hopes of catching up. There we found them, a bit beyond Absalom’s Pillar, so we parked the car and joined them. And we did stand in Gethsemane and listen to the Gethsemane story, and to the Christ-Have-Mercys of the Devout. I was wistful of such devoutness; but for some odd reason, the story seemed quite removed from reality in this setting, peopled by these solemn Westerners in their cassocks and crosses… Early—“very early in the morning cometh” the four of us to St. Andrew’s. In the chill mist we watched the sun clear Mt. Zion, casting its reddish glow on the creamy stones of Dormition Abbey opposite us. We shivered through the Sunrise Service, but we were glad we came. Later there was communion at St. Andrew’s, lovely service, and that was our Easter—with the mundane addition of a simple ham dinner, and the pleasure of Ivan’s and Rachel’s company for supper and after-supper games. They won all the high scores, of course. These intellectuals! Besides, they had played the game before… Communion at St. Andrew’s is the simplest, most dignified of services. (I recall how we work and plan at home to make “a meaningful service”!) Here it is always the same, on the last Sunday of the month, and always new. The sermon is even shorter than the usual fifteen minutes, so the service still remains under an hour from beginning to end. The single silver chalice and the plate with bread are covered with the stiffly starched white cloth. There is the simple blessing, when Gardiner Scott lifts the plate, “The Lord Jesus, the same night he was betrayed, took … and gave thanks…” Then there is the unassuming passing of bread— “Take ye, eat 390 On the Corner 1969 ye…” by the lay-elders, down each row, and the eating of the bread as one takes it, instead of waiting for a signal to be given for a ceremonious, unison swallowing. “In like manner … the cup …” blessed and passed from one to the other, the elder wiping it with a spotless napkin before it goes to a new family group. There is no choir at St. Andrew’s, no bulletin, no special music on organ or anything else. The organist is a man who cares about the church and its music, and who leads the congregational singing as deftly as a chorister, never dragging, yet never hurrying us through. True, the singing is not as “good” as the singing in the Big Church. But if I have learned one thing from Gardiner Scott and St. Andrew’s it is that worship ceases to be worship when it becomes self-conscious. What would people at home say about St. Andrew’s? I don’t know. St. Andrew’s is special as Jerusalem is special; the same circumstances do not obtain—the congregations cannot be compared. But, I do know that I would like to find, on returning, that our services there could be as natural, as simple, yet spirit-warm, as this. And as brief. About 8:00 in the morning the first of them appeared in the road leading up past our drive. It was the beginning of a morning-long stream, the three-day-marchers on the last leg of their annual trek. Singing, clapping, walking, or marching briskly, they came, and came, and came. There were the young and vigorous—boy and girl soldiers, marching bands, kibbutzniks (all had to be 16 years or older to qualify), a Japanese contingent with its rising-sun flag, a Swiss contingent, American, French, African… Pot-bellied men in shorts, their chests full of ribbons from previous marches, pulled their panting women up the hill; here was a blind group, and scattered throughout were people in casts, braces, and on crutches. There were balloons, flags, and tambourines waving, and here, there, everywhere, were the high spirits, the precision singing and clapping, even after three days, even with five more kilometers to go! The Professor and I watched, and we agreed that only a very young, very idealistic country could produce such a phenomenon as the Three-DayMarch. May The Lord bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children’s children! —Psalm 128:5, 6 391 Story of a Family About 6:30 Fretty came over to invite us to their Lag Ba’omer bonfire. We were instructed to bring our own food—particularly potatoes—to roast in the fire. What time? “About 6:15.” Already fifteen minutes late, we quickly folded up the supper we had begun, and carrying our little rush stools and potatoes we went to the field, third terrace down. Then followed another of those hilariously unorganized Wade parties. The bonfire had not yet been lit—indeed, the wood hadn’t been gathered, so we all set about to find what burnable material we could. Blankets were spread on the plowed field, and the invited families drifted in. Irrepressible Fannie was there with Sarah, Reuven, and Zvi. She had just had a tooth extracted, and was in pain, but nothing seems to dampen her spirits. She sat there all evening, holding a great white handkerchief to her mouth and talking at top British English speed. Ruth, with her boys Gai (Guy) and Hillel were there also, as well as Fannie’s sister Hanna and children, plus Frances and Aran with their daughter Vered. Nobody seemed to be able to tell us what Lag Ba’omer was all about, but eventually—about eight or nine o’clock—we had a great bonfire, inedibly burned potatoes, a few inches of deliciously roasted sausages (wieners), and—throughout—a great good time which could successfully challenge any well-organized party we ever attended in the States. Everything was finished on schedule today. Even the oven got its cleaning! At 12:30 we boarded the local bus for the Jerusalem bus dept, waited for the airport bus, arrived at Lod, and waited some more. Finally, after an hour overtime, we climbed into our BOAC and were on our way, incredibly, to India. In spite of the basic wonder that this should be happening to me at all, the tedium of the trip was such that I had to think of the little girl who with the three younger brothers flew from her parents in Germany to grandparents in Canada. Asked about the trip by the waiting grandparents, she replied (in German) that it had been “stinkingly tedious.” I’m quite sure that the reason they food-and-drink you so often on these jets is simply to relieve some of the boredom. But New Delhi materialized; there was our son hanging over a balcony, wearing a kurta and looking ill—which he was. We were escorted into an ancient-looking little taxi where our handsome Sikh driver waited to usher us into one of the most unforgettable drives of a lifetime. On this seven-hour journey from Delhi to Mussoorie, his hand was never off the horn; bicycles, people, cars, trucks, cows, all seemed to take their time getting out of the way, but that driver never gave up. At each close call the Professor’s nervous laugh seemed to spur this daredevil on to greater 392 On the Corner 1969 and greater feats; eventually that Professor suppressed the laughter… We stopped for breakfast at a tiny dirty stand where we ate the most amazing of omelets. One egg (for each person) was beaten into a great frothy mass which I couldn’t believe had come from only one egg, then fried in lots of fat, and made tasty with peppers and onions and unknown factors. On our way again, we passed through the Sawaliks, a most fascinating range of mountains, ragged and “moth-eaten” with odd erosions and malformations. Our son-and-guide informed us that it not only looks old—it is an extremely old range of mountains—much older than the Himalayas, whose foothills we would shortly see. After the Sawaliks came the Dun plain, and in hot Dehra Dun we went into an air-conditioned restaurant for a sundae while our driver got his beard washed and strung up in that fascinating Sikh style. Then, having summoned courage and strength for the final stretch, we went up, around, up, around, up, to Mussoorie. A long walk through the bazaar gave me—not tired feet, but a stiff neck, the result of twisting from side to side to see the wonders! Another stretch of dusty road, another climb, and we arrived at our destination—Woodstock Villa, where lived the particular Small Object of our journey. Our lovely daughter-in-law ran out to greet the dusty travelers, and shortly afterward I was holding my first grandchild, a lovely boy of nearly two months, who immediately smiled into my eyes. In that first smile I saw at once—to the delight of his mother—his maternal grandfather’s grin… Another leisurely day on the hill. I hope our children don’t mind our lack of eagerness to see and do, come and go. We enjoy “just sitting quietly and smelling the flowers” like Ferdinand. The “flowers” are the incredible view from the balcony of Woodstock Villa; our children, functioning responsibly as husband and wife, as parents, as teachers; neighbors, who treat us as family; the graceful coolies, ayahs, sweepers; old friends; The Grandson, most pleasant and responsive of babies… These quiet joys are what we came to India for. Anything else we may see and experience here is strictly bonus. This afternoon we walked up (“Does the road wind uphill all the way? YES, to the very end”) to Oakville where we watched the boys playing tennis as we sat in the shade. Later we trudged on up to the top of this ridge, to the marvelous view of other ridges, other valleys, to the “Secret Talking Ground” of all those Woodstock students over the years. For some strange reason we were overjoyed that the way back home was all 393 Story of a Family downhill. Even my days of tramping Jerusalem’s up-and-down streets did not make this climbing easy; what would it have been without such preparation? The Professor reached the end of his tolerance of a beard today. He is tired of the feel of it, tired of the way it has of becoming the topic of conversation whenever he meets someone he knew BEFORE (and there are plenty of such here). I fully agreed, seeing how uncomfortable it made him, but first I took a picture. And now we all know, or will know, how he looks with a beard, which is what we were clamoring for all these years! My first ride on the cycle today, and I was glad I took it, for I have had a few fears concerning it. But it was delightful. I went to the bazaar behind my son, to get a few more odds and ends. No more sleepless nights worrying. Sure, something could happen. It could happen, even more easily, in a car between Goshen and Elkhart! She awakened us with her knocking, and then whispered, “The snows are out!” “Oh no,” I thought, “Do I have to climb that hill again— just when I thought we were escaping it for good?” We gulped down our Red River Cereal at the Hilliard’s, and then—the climb. But the reward of seeing the snows was more than worth the climb, and it was the perfect ending for our visit here. Later, in church, The Professor led a brief beautiful service of dedication for our grandson and his parents; after-church pictures were taken of us all, and of our charming hosts, the Hilliards; a special curry and pilau awaited us at home; a high tea with the missionaries at Ashton Court rounded out the day. After two weeks of reunion and discovery, the next steps followed fast: Packing Day, Leaving Day, Good-bye Day; the wrench of realizing, as I kiss the bare back of my grandson, that he will be walking and talking before I see him again; the indispensable overnight ride on an Indian train; a hot (117 degrees) day in Delhi; a short flight; a swoop down over the enchantingly familiar Israeli landscape; and a great good feeling of at-homeness when we discover that Rachel and Ivan have come to meet us, and to convey us back to our own vine and fig tree! June The Lord watches over the sojourners. —Psalm 146:9 (RSV) 394 On the Corner 1969 We met again in the Old City, Amalia and I, and I brought her the Tibetan toe ring and Calendar Brooch I had bought in India especially for her garish tastes. Our weekly jaunts are numbered, and we savor each with a special joy. The morning was spent in cleaning and rearranging the Dollhouse to make room for the two welcome guests—my brother and sister. A cheesecake was baked, and other small things were readied. On schedule we drove to Lod, and on schedule they came: she, looking trim and relaxed, he towering over us with a crazy Pop-Eye beard. I had forgotten what a huge man he is, this brother! Though in deference to tired travelers we had scheduled nothing for this first evening, they were ready to plunge into Israel, and so we spent the evening walking Jerusalem streets eating falafel, and later sitting down at our favorite little open restaurant on Yafo for a sampling of other Arab dishes. Today we headed for Bethlehem, where we visited the Church of the Nativity, then drove out to Shepherd’s Field where, with the permission of the guard we sat on rustic benches near the chapel, spread the cloth, set out a crusty loaf of “Angel” bread, Israeli cheese, and Jaffa oranges all brought in my trusty string bag—and ate together. Big Brother was overwhelmed, I think, at the impact of this little meal. And, true, even we sensed a quality about the occasion which made the thought of that kind of elegant, expensive restaurant meal to which he is accustomed, seem superfluous and even crass. Because of the setting and the simplicity of the food itself, a sacramental dimension was added… Refreshed, we headed for Herodium, and found the climb to the top worth it, not only for the view of the ruins, but for the view of the Judean desert surrounding this massive fortress. My admiration for Herod—however unwilling it must be for such an evil man—grows when I see each additional masterpiece of construction for which he was responsible. From Herodium we set out to find the site of the ancient Tekoah, home of the Prophet Amos. And we find it at the top of a bleak hill—a place where someone has made an effort to plant a sycamore tree in his honor, and where a droll Arab boy delighted my brother’s heart by his cheeky posing, cigarette in mouth, for a picture. Galilee was lovely on this, our fourth family visit—and Upper Galilee, even lovelier. This time, instead of stopping at Banias, we drove on to the Golan Heights, the Professor having Mt. Hermon on the brain. However, since The Hermon was not snowy, and since we would have had to pay to take the risk of the poor road up her side, we stopped at the Druze village 395 Story of a Family of Magda Shams, and turned around. Instead of going back the way we came, we drove on across the Golan Heights, past deserted villages and the sad, empty city of Kunetra. Only army jeeps passed us on the road, and it was a bit eerie up there. Had we known that shelling occurred in Kunetra that very morning, the eerie feeling might have been accented with some real fear! Amazingly—we thought later—no one stopped us. We came home by way of Safed (Zfat) where we caught a whiff of that inspired atmosphere which fed the Jewish mystics who here formed the Kabbala, and we looked down a cliff to see an ancient cemetery wherein many of those revered mystics were buried hundreds of years ago. We had been told not to miss the renovated Old City section, now an artist’s colony. Very nice it was, but somehow, to me, a bit phony. But this is the fad—the “thing to do” with these Old City sections of towns, whether they be in Safed, Akko, or Joppa. Better, we suppose, than letting them crumble and disappear, but—“Lord, let it not happen to Jerusalem’s Old City!” The Baha’i gardens in Haifa were magnificent in the early morning dew, and at the shrine we were met by a dedicated Baha’ist, formerly a Christian, who explained that this is not a tomb but a memorial, and asked us to remove our shoes. This large, pleasant lady with two chins (and a fascinating pink necklace which for some reason held me spellbound) explained, without being too overbearing, something of the Baha’i faith. Leaving the gardens, we were stopped by a little old lady carrying an artist’s portfolio with watercolors for sale. At The Professor’s nod, I bought one, of Jerusalem Hasidim—for the princely sum of three lirot. Surely we should get more than ninety cents pleasure and memory out of that! This trip would be our last to Jericho, and so, after accepting once more the gracious Farran hospitality, exploring (quickly, because of the dreadful heat) Qumran and Old Jericho, we knew we must take that swim in the Dead Sea today, if ever. At Ein Feschka we took the plunge, dressing for the ordeal in the high reeds and rushes. We were no sooner in the water than we wondered why we hadn’t done it before! How utterly relaxing—just to sit back, clasp hands under the knees, and bask! I could have lain there for hours, but the sun was setting, so we reluctantly crept out, dipping ourselves in the fresh-water pool to remove the brine, and leaving on our suits to cool us en route home through the hot desert. (A day later, Ein Feschka was off-limits for tourists, as Syrian shells burst near this spot, killing a woman who, like me, prepared to take her first, and last, dip in this famed brine. 396 On the Corner 1969 We started early, arriving in Beersheva at the height of the market bustle near the edge of the city. Our curiosity was satisfied: this was a camel market, plus a market for all kinds of other livestock, rugs, old jewelry, brass, and just plain junk. Each Bedouin woman had her wares plunked down in the dust on a filthy cloth or rug, and squatting about were other Bedouins in the process of bargaining. In contrast to this marketplace was the quiet of the camel market where groups of men sat quietly near the camels, taking their time arriving at agreement, then sealing it with formal handshakes. All sorts of camels were there for the bargaining--lovely little things, still suckling; mangy, calloused old things, and some, cutting quite elegant figures. But look at any camel’s face, and you see the silliest-looking animal in the world! The walk through the Mea Shearim quarter, where the ultra-orthodox Jews live in close community, is worth taking if only to read those signs hung across the streets by the “Committee for Guarding Modesty”: “Jewish Daughter! We do not tolerate anyone walking through our streets immodestly dressed.” The full two weeks is over: we’ve been from Dan to Beersheva, from Akko to Joppa, from Tel Aviv to Jericho, and it’s been a good and full relaxing family fellowship. At home tonight we eat a simple supper of pizza, and spend the evening singing hymns and songs together, as Big Brother has requested...And now, our guests gone, we begin the sorting, washing, packing, leading up to our own exodus. And in between are sandwiched: a last communion at St. Andrew’s; lunch with the GardinerScotts; visits to surrounding Arab villages to study a particular battle of Saul; farewell to the Great Gal at MCC who is leaving for her own vacation; a last fellowship—a chicken barbecue—at Beit Jala with our wonderful Israel family—all the MCC and missions people who can never again be for us mere acquaintances; a last coffee with the Arab girls at MCC; tea with Michael and Iris, Asher, and Hanna; spaghetti with Yehudit and Tamar, the two Israeli girls who have been so helpful with the Professor’s Hebrew studies. And I end the month, this last, fabulous month, staying up late to finish my little book of Psalm selections for Amalia, who “believes in Gawd” but has never read the Bible… 397 Story of a Family July If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! —Psalm 137:5 July, a month of farewells: Amalia and I meet for the last time at Jaffa Gate. We have little time, but all of it is ours, free and relaxed. We drink our “limmon tea,” exchange last-minute gifts, part quickly. Shalom, shalom. Geveret Koch is given the Arab-needlework batik—blue, blue, for her blue “henhouse.” A real gift, since I want it myself! She gives the children what she knows will please them: a recording of “Jerusalem of Gold” for Daughter, a little Arab finjan (coffee pot) for Son. Toda raba, toda raba… Tamar stops by with a record of Hasidic Songs and Dances. Toda raba! Shalom, lehitraot… A last trip to the Nassers, a last shower of Arab hospitality: cold drinks, fresh fruit, Turkish coffee, and all the “We shall miss you”s and the “You are welcome”s. Good-bye, Good-bye… A final visit with the Tel-Orens, complete with Hannoch’s most-convincing-hand shake-in-the-world, Sharona’s rapid heartwarming talk, their greetings to be given to Elkhart friends. Shalom, shalom… A last trip through this city we love. Past Hechal Shlomo and the Monastery of the Cross—buildings representative of the many which we never saw on the inside, but which became landmarks for us. O JERUSALEM, IF I FORGET THEE!... A last contact with Ivan and Rachel, this one so typical of all our contacts with them, their appearing when we need them! They have come to help pack the car, sweep out the final dust from the Dollhouse, wash that last dish. Good-bye, good-bye… Yehudit, the Sabra, hand outstretched for a final Shalom, shalom… And now, the refrigerator defrosted, the stove cleaned, the floors mopped, the bills paid—nothing is left but the final farewells: Asher brews us a last cup of coffee, and tells us that he and Cynthia (now on holiday in England) are having trees planted in Kennedy Memorial Forest in our names. Michael and Iris with Shai, and Hanna and Asher follow us to the VW. Hanna envelops the daughter in her arms, whispers to her in Hebrew (Hanna is so proud of that girl’s Hebrew!), “No people like you … no people like you!” Kisses, handshakes, blessings… Shalom, shalom, wonderful neighbors; and may it truly be shalom! Out on the highway we are far beyond the Castel before we remember The Professor’s sports jacket, hanging in the wardrobe of the Dollhouse. Forget it. Maybe the Budget Shop at Goshen will have another: And now our heavily loaded little car arrives in Ramat Hasharon, where the ends of the perfect circle meet: Here we ate our first meal in the Land of Milk and Honey; here we eat our last meal, with Roy and Florence and their 398 On the Corner 1969 children. Baruch ata Adonai! Blessed art Thou O Lord! Shalom, shalom, dear friends! Shalom within, shalom without. In the harbor at Haifa the Queen Anna Maria rests, waiting, to take us from one home to another; from farewells to welcomes… July, a month of welcomes: Welcome aboard! And we are pleased with our cabin facilities as we examine what will be our home for thirteen days: four comfortable bunks, an adequate bath, four closets, a dressingtable-desk with four drawers, and two chairs for comfortable reading. This brief life of luxury also includes an abundance of food. In time we learn to order less than is offered, and some days the sickening rock of the boat frees us from ordering anything at all… Welcome to Athens! Tour tickets and passes in hand, we leave our ship for a sortie into lovely, hot Athens. The flavor of Athens is unique, the architecture light and clean and airy after the heavier lines of the Middle East ruins. And what is there to compare with the Acropolis and its paragon—the Parthenon? For me it has a kind of mystical appeal hard to explain, and so I am amazed how tired and blah most of the tourists seem. It is hot, but the heat is dry; and we surely haven’t been overtired by much touring! Of course, we four didn’t need to wait for this climb until we were sixty; also, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a year of walking in Jerusalem to toughen me for this morning’s little sprint. But when those tired tourists come to the souvenir shops—oh, then what energy they have! Athens, I hope I can return to you. I wish all those I love could see you in this shimmering July heat, to remember you as “a thing of beauty…a joy forever.” Welcome to Pompeii! Two days past Athens we again prepare to disembark—this time for a brief tour of ancient Pompeii. But then comes this Landing pass fiasco. The line is too long, the service unbelievably slow; it is soon apparent there will be no tour unless somebody lights some dynamite. Somebody does. Irate Greeks and Israelis start yelling and pushing; the officials are overcome, and end up wildly handing out passes to each comer. We end up with passes for Helmi and Shervy Nagar, Naomie Nason, and Aleye Ogurich, and are given clearance. But fiasco is still a relevant word: on board our bus we discover that though the guide speaks English, no one can understand his English. A dashing young Greek from Brooklyn promptly takes over, translating the guide’s English into Brooklynese, then Greek. “On tha right, ya see tha Isla Capri—only ya don’t see it, unless ya got better eyes!” Oh well, we did see Pompeii, or at least a bit of it. And that tragic lava encrusted figure of the man with 399 Story of a Family his hand over his nose and mouth—his gesture made a special kind of sense to us, as we recalled our first visit to the ship’s Sauna yesterday… And now, Welcome to a long, long week on the Atlantic, too much of it spent in the bunks or deck chairs, sporting a slightly green complexion, and wishing nothing so much as that this voyage might end. Welcome to New York City! The plans were, the schedule was, that the Queen Anna Maria would dock at 8:00 a.m. She docks (oh, many muggy hours, stepped-on-toes, boring Orpheus-room-conversations later) at 3:15. By 5:15 we are through customs. Then begins the long wait down in the bleak dock terminal, with suitcases for chairs. Out of twenty-six cars in the hold, ours would be number 25. When at last it hovers over us, the time is 11:45 p.m., and I am firmly stating that never again will I take an ocean voyage—particularly with a car… Getting clear of NYC at midnight is simple, though, and once we are free of her we begin to see an incredible country—vast, strange, and rich beyond words. Welcome to gas at half the price of Israeli benzin! Welcome to hotdogs and hamburgers that taste like hotdogs and hamburgers! Welcome to clean restaurants, clean restrooms, clean countryside; to cold water given without asking, to doors held open for you, to thank-yous and windowwashings from service attendants! Welcome to the sight, at dawn, of the rolling Lancaster County countryside: indecently, voluptuously beautiful to eyes which have been trained to search out beauty in the neutral colors of a desert land. Welcome to relatives at Akron, with whom we spend a day renewing family ties and washing and drying clothes the Great American Way. Welcome to our old home at Scottdale, the house which sheltered our infant family, the hills we loved, a special gathering of relatives, friends, neighbors, breaking bread with us on The Hill; a special cake appearing for the most bewildered of birthday-women… Welcome to the House on the Corner! At six we roll into the driveway; Little Fellow lunges out to meet us, nervous, but knowing; the Tall Blond is in our arms; beloved neighbors have joined the wonderful Keepers-ofOur-Hearth in setting forth a welcome picnic. I walk through my house, a stranger. I sit by the Little Fellow, trying to understand his speech, and feel a stranger. I’m floating; it’s not real; it is real—it’s not… Will I be able to catch hold of life here, far away from Jerusalem My Happy Home? … After hours spent talking with sons about the draft, we are worried and disoriented. 400 On the Corner 1969 But Little Fellow has happily kissed us good night. The big boys, I can tell, are glad to have a home. In spite of worry, disorientation, strangeness, I think it will be good to pick up life here on the Corner again. I think “tomorrow will be fair.” Shalom, shalom. August Goodness and mercy ... follow me all the days of my life. This particular August is a strange limbo in which I wander like a puzzled child. Some days the feet are firmly in contact with terra firma; some days I seem to float in a semi-disembodied state, not quite aware of what is real and what is only apparent. Can one be said to have a home at all if he has left his Soul-Home to return to a house-on-the-corner which is also a home? How far out into the current of this swirling life about me can I go without surrendering all freedom of choice to the vicious undertow? An inner voice says: Resist at all costs—you need not be drowned! A hundred gentle, condescending voices answer: Like everyone else, you will forget your intentions, and your life will be sucked back into the current. I believe, I doubt, I wait, I wonder. On tiptoe I walk through this fragile month of—not August, but culture shock. Sitting more or less placidly on The Corner year after year one gets the feeling that nothing much happens in a given twelve months. But coming back after a season elsewhere, even the small changes are shocking to the senses, and one thinks, “The way to make things happen is to leave town!” Actually, the changes are not all that great, I guess: a neighbor has a new kitchen; North Hall and the A & P have disappeared; the Public Library has its beautiful new home; babies have been born; a neighbor, church friends, have died; the hair quotient on the campus has gone up; there are slight alterations in the rules for collection of garbage; my washer and refrigerator are on their last legs. But the returnee who at first is tempted to think that “things have really happened” in his absence, must often conclude, upon closer inspection, that this is largely an illusion. In somewhat the same way that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, change may sometimes be in the mind of the onlooker. In those few days before his latest set of parents leaves, the Little Fellow’s anxiety is apparent. To which family does he belong? Who is going to stay with him? True, the days are full of play and fun. But at 401 Story of a Family bedtime his “old mama” puts him to bed, and the fears surface. Between strong avowals of “I love you bery much” come the strained reaching after the familiar: “Where Aunt Roo? Where Uncle Bob?” When, finally, he sleeps, I go back to my room with anxieties of my own. Will there be a long hard pull ahead for him, for us, as we attempt to restore his confidence in these people who walked away and left him last year? Then—miracle! He has said goodbye, one morning, to the Family who gave him such loving care this year. Another day of play passes. Bedtime comes, and he falls asleep happily, with no hint of strain. The days which now follow bear out the reality of what we sensed that first, relaxed night. It is as if the puzzle pieces fell into place for him as his interim Parents drove away: Dad and Mama, away back in the dimness, had told him they would be back. They came back. He can trust them. They are his family. And now—life as usual. Now alone with my new-old responsibilities, I find that a trip to the supermarket is imperative. Confidently I set out with a list. Several hours later I return limp, distraught, as near to a nervous breakdown as I ever hope to get. And I have a new insight into one possible reason for the super-energy demanded of the U.S. Housewife on any given day. The woman who has one or two at-home dresses, one or two street-dresses, one or two dressy dresses is spared the energy needed to decide which of twenty to put on in the morning… Buying bread, milk, rice, flour, beans, fruit, at the little shop in Beit Zayit was simple—you couldn’t go wrong. There were few, if any, choices. But Kroger’s is another matter. Of ten or twelve possibilities for green beans, which shall it be? Fresh? Frozen? Canned? If canned, then which variety? Read the fine print, compare the weights, juggle the figures. Then there’s bread. At Beit Zayit it was— just bread. Only on Friday morning did I have the choice of the Hallah— Shabbat loaf—or the ordinary “Give us this day our daily” bread. On Kroger shelves there are Monks breads, Pepperidge Farm breads, Kreamo breads, and a half-dozen other trade names alone. Among the Kroger brands, shall it be Rye? Wheat? White? Cracked Wheat? Cheese? OldFashioned? Sandwich? Italian? French? If rye, the choice is frightening: Jewish rye, Bismarck rye, Old-World rye, American rye, Black Forest rye, Party rye, just plain rye, our rye… From my first shopping tour I come home, trembling with tiredness, though it is still morning. In the aftermath of those wild hours, I go about this big white house with a grim, hands-on-hips purposefulness. I had thought we lived “fairly simply.” Well, from now on the simplifying will be more drastic. Too many clothes. Too many pots and pans. Too many 402 On the Corner 1969 gadgets. Too many duplicates in every department. It occurs to me now that the sin of affluence is not merely to have more than one “needs,” or more than another has, but to have duplications which demand the making of countless little decisions (which dress? which pan? which table-service?) that consume energy and do not really serve the human beings for whom I am responsible inside and outside this house. Now the long slow task of sorting and filling boxes begins. And a spotlight of insight begins to shine around some tired old words—“careful and troubled about many things…” On our first morning in opulent America the richness, even of nature, made me want to cry out: Too much green! As we progressed I added: Too much variety! Too much efficiency! Settled on The Corner again, it was: Too many decisions! Too many possessions! But there was another commodity heaped upon us, about which, somehow, even the most ascetic person could not complain. In the first difficult weeks of attempting to readjust to a culture which, in only one year, had become strangely foreign, the love of our brothers and sisters in this Community-of-faith was the indispensable ingredient. And that love came quickly, in many guises: That first wave, across the street, from Jack and Eleanor; our first visitors, eating soup with us even before our bags were unpacked—Rabbi David and his Pearl; then, following in quick succession, coffee at Winnie’s, dinner at Paul and Bertha’s, tea with Elizabeth, breakfast with Evelyn and Verna, lunch with Verna and Mary, coffee with Lon and Kathy, tea at Florence and Elizabeth’s, Sunday-atthe-lake with the Lehman tribe, supper with the Retired Adult’s Sunday School class, lunch with Esther, tea with Miriam, visits from the IsraeliSwarrs and the Arab-Farrans; offerings of flowers, food, and—of course—a box of Bic pens from dear “Mr. Bic.” Finally, at month’s end, Love included us as witnesses to a marriage ceremony of such rightness, such beautyof-spirit that we still find no words to describe it. Too much of so many things, here on this green, maple-shaded corner. But who can say that he has ever loved too much, or received too much love? September …and uphold me with a willing spirit —Ps. 51:12 403 Story of a Family The weeks pass, and the routines of another autumn return. One by one we traipse to one or another of our fine specialists, for that overdue attention to our eyes, our teeth, our innards. We soon are concluding that our chief job this winter will be to support faithfully the medical profession with our wages, our gifts, and our tithes. (Another good reason for the simplification of our desires, the paring of our needs!) The Professor goes back to the Seminary, the big boys to the College, the teeners to High School, the Little Fellow to his Aux Chandelles … a nephew ends his sojourn of a month with us, a niece begins hers... Young life flows around and in and through this house on the corner. For The Woman it’s a time of joy. The coveted Shalom Bayit—household peace—is hers, at least for the moment. Moving about in our own rooms again (how spacious, after our little dollhouse under the olive trees!) I ask myself wonderingly if this detachment I feel will be a casualty of our eventual readjustment. Is it a law of life that the old ruts must necessarily claim us? Are we too staid for new patterns of living to take root? These are days of reflection and wonder. No promises are made, no bold predictions are offered. But we note that the gathered family, having come together again for a few more brief years before the necessary and right “diaspora,” is united in new and subtler ways. Though separated from each other last year, each of us was led to similar conclusions concerning a desired alteration of style of life. Though never a demanding, “Gimme!” family, they are now refusing things that we all took for granted over the years: new school clothes, desserts, regular visits (by the big boys) to Azars late at night. All along the line, from oldest to youngest, the “in” words are Simplify. Make Do. Do Without. Man does not live by bread alone … and homemade ice cream, face it, is for most of us a dispensable luxury. Particularly it is so in a setting like last evening’s, when the Seminary faculties met for their first Social of the new year. Bread and tea would have been enough, with all that superb fellowship potential. But I suppose I shall have to give up on that little dream; only dire poverty would permit us to assemble without that abundance of good food on hand, to keep us from becoming too preoccupied with “meeting.” And so we have the barbecue, and all the accompaniments, climaxed by homemade ice cream, pièce de résistance! And then, fat and full, we settle down to chat as fat and full people do. And though, frankly, that 404 On the Corner 1969 sharp edge—so necessary for keen appreciation of good food—was long gone by the time we had arrived at the Cold Stuff, still, a good bit of chitchat revolved around this treat. While I helped my friend grind away on the freezers earlier in the afternoon, I realized that the making of homemade ice cream is really less a matter of food for the body than sustenance for the nostalgic soul. We make it—at least in part—because of the memories it conjures. For me, those memories were awakened strongly as I ground away, knee on the freezer-top. Forty-odd years fell away, and there I was, sitting in the sunshine of an Idaho summer. It all came back—watching my brothers bring the block of ice home in a burlap bag in which it was crushed with a sledgehammer on the cistern top… Begging to turn just a little bit and finding that, indeed, just a little bit was all I could turn it by the time they let me try… Waiting for the moment when the dasher came cut, and we could attack it with spoons… Leaning close to watch the clean rag being twisted and screwed into the hole left by the dasher, as mama deftly packed the freezer… Opening the cellar door so the precious cargo could be carried down into the cool darkness to wait for the birthday celebration in the evening. On such occasions we didn’t preface this treat with a meal—birthday cake was the only accompaniment, and so the full sweetness and richness of the “Delectable Mountains” in our soup plates was adequately appreciated. I never like to miss a Mothers’ Coffee at Aux Chandelles, though some times I have no choice. It is an elite sorority, and I always feel somehow undeserving of membership in it. Only one qualification exists, and your retarded child, whether “trueborn” or foster—fulfills that requirement. Here we learn from each other quickly, alertly, because we have a common reservoir of emotions, of experience, of suffering. Here we find a rare understanding, and a full acceptance for our children that we find nowhere else—not even in the church! Here we enter into each others’ specific problems with keen identification because most of us have “been there”—or mighty close to “there.” Having been exposed to so many large-hearted women in one day, I al ways come home feeling grateful and optimistic. Yet most of these women are very ordinary. Few are highly educated or exceptionally articulate. Just women—raised to extraordinary courage and kindness by the gift of a Special Child. 405 Story of a Family While we were in the Land of The Book, I read few books, for two reasons. One—I should have had those glasses changed before I left. Two—there was too much to see, too much living to do, too many fantastic people to meet, too much to learn. So I settled down to an education without books. Along the way, however, I did gather recommendations of books I should read upon our return. Almost as soon as we were home, I took my list to the bookstore and ordered them in paperback. Last week my shelf of Israeli/Jewish books arrived, and in these golden end-ofsummer days I am tantalized by their presence. I pick up this one, then that, longing to give myself to their reading. But I plunge seriously into only one: Life Is with People, by Zborowski and Herzog, an anthropological study of the culture of the shtetl. (The shtetl was the small town, or village, of Eastern European Jews which existed for centuries virtual ly unchanged until World War II when their millions were liquidated.) As I read, I sense at once that here are the roots from which my Israeli neighbors, my American Jewish friends, sprang. Reading on into the book I understand characteristics and habits of those friends which I only noted before. I recognize them on every page, hear their talk in the buses and shops, their laughter cascading from their kitchen windows, their prayers in the shul. Most of all I am plunged again into the “feel” of a Jerusalem Shabbat, that unique experience which will color the word “sabbath” for me for the rest of my life! Never do I close a session of Life Is with People without a wave of homesickness. I look over my shelf and bless the poor eyesight which forced me to live, to enjoy life with those people, not just read about them. I take up a book, and thank God for the good eyesight which now enables me to relive that joy of withness and to enter into a fuller understanding of it. October Thou dost beset me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me. Last year at this time we were a part of the crowds at the Wailing Wall on the eve of Simhath Torah—the day which ends the Feast of Booths—Sukkoth. Simhath Torah means “Rejoicing of the Torah” and we nostalgically recall the black-caftaned, fur-hatted Hasidim doing just that—rejoicing in dance and song around the Torah scrolls held up in their midst. Remembering, I have my own quiet little Simhath Torah cele bration as I today recall how the spirit and the words of one Book have framed my life and have affected my major—and minor—decisions. 406 On the Corner 1969 The sit-on-the-floor, dip-and-chip, sing-in at Ellen’s tonight wasn’t meant to be a Simhath Torah observance, but its rousing spirits came as close to the wild, free joy of those Hasidim at the wall, and the horah dancers in Independence Park, as we normally could expect to get here. The Midwest, if not the U.S. in general, is still a place where the expression of emotion is done mainly behind closed doors—otherwise it must suffer the frown of middle-class decorum. Lon and Kathy served us steak tonight, and in the spirit of the Old Testament we ate with zest. Among the ancient as well as modern Jews one notes a lack of the dichotomy of sacred and secular, body and spirit. Life—for them—is whole; joys of the flesh and of the spirit are interwoven; desires and appetites are to be exercised, not despised and crushed. All have possibilities for good within the context of covenant-living. The sin is to despise the gifts of God, and one can show this by asceticism as well as by overindulgence, though the most common form of despising is that of indifference—the appeasing of one’s appetites without joy. “Enjoy! Enjoy!” is the invitation to mealtime. Our hosts tonight know how to set the stage for such enjoyment. A crisp salad, a hot bread—that’s more than enough to enhance a steak. All this, and good talk, too. The complaints directed against God in the Book of Job and in many of the Psalms make a lot more sense to me than they used to. “Complaints against God,” one man has written, “are much healthier than indifference to Him.” Healthier also, we might add, than fearful silence. And maybe, just maybe, there is a lot more room for laughter and fun-making in our God-talk than we were taught to believe. “It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh in His presence,” says George Macdonald. The Jews of the shtetl lived in a God-oriented society. God was “so much a living reality” there that people would often complain—with affection—“If God lived in the shtetl, He’d have His windows broken.” Complaint against authority, against “conditions” is a human need. Maybe there’d be a lot less work for psychiatrists and counselors if more of us in our generation had been allowed to complain against our fathers and—as Job and David did—our heavenly Father! Sometimes the Woman on the Corner grits her teeth and says, “Never again!” Volunteering has a way of involving one in a lot more work than seems apparent in the harmless phrase, “a little volunteer work.” I had 407 Story of a Family thought it only right that I should offer my services a day a week to the school which has done so much for our Little Fellow. Visions of stuffing envelopes, typing letters, filing reports, gave me courage to take on this small service. I didn’t expect to be asked to take charge of the library— which would entail the making of decisions, and cataloging judgments, to say nothing of the routine typing and filing. I had wanted to be a “slave”—not an in-charge person. Wryly I take on the job, with a good bit of fear and trembling. I don’t know about this volunteer stuff: I offer to help The Professor find materials and methods for his Sunday school class, and end up teaching the class. I volunteer to keep a child for six months, and here I am, beginning my eighth year with him. I ask for a putter-job, and get Work. If I had it to do “over,” I tell myself, I’d choose a paying job, which I could quit without loss of face, when the going got rough. So I tell myself … and in the same breath thank God that I don’t have it to do “over.” God knows—and I know now that only the dynamics of volunteering can force me to operate above the level of mediocrity. It seems true that the college scene has changed greatly in the last few years, and the gap between the world of the parents and that of their children has widened frighteningly. Goal-orientation, the timeconcept, style of life—these are matters in which many alert sons and daughters disagree violently with parents, and can no longer accept our viewpoint. They feel they must do what challengers of the status quo have always done—react in “radical” ways. Our friend Hubert points out that the etymology of the word suggests “getting to the root.” One does not need to heap either excess blame or excess praise upon these young to acknowledge that “Christian” churches, homes, and colleges could use a few shocks to give us insight into how far we have cut ourselves off from the Christian Root… But the Generation Gap has always been here, they tell us. And sometimes the gap has been literal. I remember a favorite blouse which sported tiny slits in the sleeve at the shoulder. Miraculously, after each laundering, that blouse came back to me with the holes neatly stitched shut. Just as miraculously, my mother found the holes open whenever I wore the blouse. Not a word was spoken, but the game continued for months. Fortunately for us both, Mother tired first. With great good humor she acknowledged that I had to be free to sin my own sins! These are the days when desperate program-chairmen send word to each other via the grapevine, that another traveler has returned from distant 408 On the Corner 1969 lands, and is available for speaking appointments. Accordingly I go hither and yon, but not really unwillingly. For I am still steeped in the spirit of the year that is behind me, and to spend an evening trying to share some of it with other women is not a chore. Whether it is “Jerusalem, My Happy Home,” or “House of Olives” or “Women of Israel”—I am only too glad to speak. As Jessamyn West wrote, “Like all lovers, I enjoy speaking of my Beloved!” November Ηe gave gifts to men... This November morning an acquaintance has pointed out how cheerless and ugly a Goshen November is. I’m always a bit puzzled by the degree to which sensible people allow themselves to be emotionally intimidated, if not imprisoned, by weather and geography. Though I do find sunshine and majesty of nature exhilarating, Grace—as I have experienced it—has hardly been dependent upon my physical environ ment. And now that the flowers and sunshine are gone, now that the maples—Goshen’s chief glory at other seasons of the year—are bare, what better time to rejoice in the Grace of Life? Grace. Of all the old-fashioned words, why is this the one that has leaped into life for me now, in these rich middle years? Each one of us, says St. Paul, has been given his own share of Grace. Why has my share been so great? “Grace,” writes Rabbi Heschel, “resounds in our lives like a staccato … only by retaining the seemingly disconnected notes do we acquire the ability to grasp the theme…” Looking back over nearly fifty years of living, the theme seems heartrendingly clear on this gray November morning, yet to make notations of those resounding staccato notes would be as endless a task as it would be joyous. I won’t attempt those notations today. But let me move through this day, this month, this winter with an openness to Grace—Grace which will come, not with my asking, not with my desiring, not with the regularity of the rising and setting sun nor the predictability of the seasons, not in any expected amount or manner. But Grace, I know, will appear; that all-out-of-proportion, unexpected, undeserved, unasked-for Grace will appear. “He gives gifts to men…” 409 Story of a Family After five weeks of being a part of our household, the Tall Gal moves out into her own apartment. Though her words have been few, her quiet ways, that articulate smile (always seeming to hover on the verge of the verbal) will be missed at our noisy dinner table. To have had her with us has been one more touch of Grace. The possessions surrounding me here on the Corner-house—how few of them have monetary value! And the ones I value most are mere baubles, cherished for their symbolism alone. The basket from Geveret Koch (May she rest in peace!) could not have cost more than sixty cents in Jerusalem’s Old City market. The “Fairy Flower” (as the Third Grader, years ago, called it when he had finished it) framed now, and hanging on the dining-room wall, will hardly arrest the art connoisseur—should one happen into our home. The tiny glass paperweight Jill brought me from Germany couldn’t have cost her much. Yet Geveret Koch lives again every time I set eyes on the basket; the whole wealth of one son’s gifts lights up my day whenever I look at the Fairy Flower. To hold the smooth dollop of ruby glass in my hand—as I often do—is to be warmed by the image of the beautiful and sensitive girl-woman who gave it to me. Dollars and cents are totally irrelevant in a gift which carries with it a genuine reminder of the giver, thus becoming a true bearer of Grace! The eyes of our guest tonight shone in the candlelight as she assessed the appearance of the table. “But it looks like a celebration!” she cried. It was a celebration. We celebrated her coming to us and bringing to our table her own charming brand of aliveness. She may carry the rather weighty title of Churchwoman-in-Residence among the seminarians. But tonight she was simply a sharer, with us, of the Grace of Life. To some small extent, I suppose, we are regulators of Grace. Evelyn Underhill wrote one of her “pupils” something to the effect that Grace is always surrounding us, ready to break in upon us, but that we condition it by closing or opening the doors and windows by which it could gain entry. Forgiveness offered, conscious gestures toward the breaking down of walls that divide us—these are doors which, opened, are sure to invite Grace. The arrangement to eat breakfast with a friend may or may not result in Real Meeting; one thing sure, such a Grace likely will not be given if no first steps are taken to make it possible. Ruth and I ate break fast together this morning. We didn’t plan the outing for the purpose of receiving something more than food and friendly chatting. But having 410 On the Corner 1969 opened the window a crack, we both realized that Something More was added; something more strength-giving than pecan rolls and coffee. Thanksgiving: a Day of Grace. I ask Why? True, we gathered up the nieces and nephews who happened to be around, plus a young man suddenly left “without a country”; we even foraged about as late as Thursday morning and came up with a quartet of our long-haired son’s long-haired friends. The food was ordinary. The conversation was not really all that scintillating. Yet the Something More was present to such an extent that a big boy, nibbling in the kitchen as I cleaned up the mess, kept saying, “A good day—one of our best Thanksgivings, don’t you think?” A friend remarks, “Don’t you cheapen the concept of Grace by attributing every lift of the spirit to its presence?” I reply, “Don’t you limit the concept of Grace by refusing to recognize the lilt of its presence in the most ordinary experiences?” It is only when the reality of Grace rips loose from its prison of sacred, theological language and comes to warm me where I sit in my daily-ness, that I can believe it is anything more than just a sacred, theological word! And so I move through the month of November more aware of Grace than of Grayness. Life flows about me. Our own children and the Gentle Young who drift in and out with them (some stay a few hours, a night; some settle down for weeks or months) … our invited guests … callers. Through all of these Grace may suddenly appear and brighten the fabric of my days. A letter, a telephone call … a handshake … a kiss … a small success … a distress of spirit … the irking daily disciplines of commitment … on any of these Grace may alight. And if it does, it can make sense out of the inexplicable, turn an ordinary conversation into an unforgettable meeting, bring the promise of hope to a defeated spirit, and fan a spark of joy into a contagious flame. Amazing Grace! December They rejoiced with exceeding great joy… Along with Grace there’s another old-fashioned word that I have come to value. That’s Joy. It’s a word symbolic of a reality which erupts from 411 Story of a Family the depths and, as I understand it, has little to do with the popular notion of “happiness.” Among “good Christian people” it is at times so scarce that one must drastically reevaluate the term “good Christian people.” Yet the Bible seems to assume that Joy is a mark of the Follower of The Way. The Man of Sorrows was a Man of Joy if we are to believe His words, His prayers, His free actions, His reputation among His contemporaries, enemies as well as friends. Joy, said Tillich, Divine Joy, is found only at the depths of life. And that must mean that it can coexist with anguish. The Good without the Joy, said Heschel, is a Good half done. And that must indicate, if it’s true, that there’s a lot of half-done goodness coming out of our dour righteousness. Dear God, I pray, let me be remembered as a “joyful mother of children” any day, rather than “an upright pillar of the church.” New joys all over the place this December! First there was the Love Feast. Aware, one Wednesday evening this fall, that our K Group was a little taken aback by my experimental refusal to serve refreshments, I made one of those unpremeditated, grandiose promises: The next time we meet at our house, it will be for dinner, and we shall call it a Love Feast. And so Joy itself ushered December into our home, as those twentyodd, crazy, wonderful individualists, with whom we have shared smallgroup life for years, sat at table with us. The meal itself—spaghetti—was simple enough to prepare that I asked myself why we didn’t do it before. The long table stretched from one end to the other of our living room; there were candles, candles; there was laughter and joking, and some serious talk as we said our farewells to the group. O Hanukkah, O Hanukkah, come light the menorah! Let’s have a party, we’ll all dance the horah. Gather ’round the table, we’ll give you a treat, Svivonim to play with, levivot to eat. And while we are playing, the candles are burning low, One for each night, they shed a sweet light, To remind us of days long ago. Tonight the House on the Corner went absolutely candle-crazy as each of the sixteen youngsters standing around our table lit a menorah (the seven older) or a candle (the nine younger). We wished for cameras to catch the Joy in those lovely young eyes. Yet—how could a camera have captured it? We’ll settle for our memories here. I think back over 412 On the Corner 1969 all the children’s parties that have been a part of our family joy … many are now hazy and hardly distinguishable from each other. But there was something about this borrowed celebration—something—at any rate, we know that when we have forgotten the details of most of the happy, candlelit occasions in our home, the Hanukkah party may still be vividly recalled. Joy is … Kari and Lois stopping in unexpectedly, sleeping on our living-room floor… Joy is a last Hebrew-conversation class before the Holidays eat up our Monday evenings… Joy is hours and hours of editing slides, slides which we will view, I’m sure, very seldom, but which will have power for years to evoke past joys, gone days, the fresh loveliness of the little children-now-grown… Joy is experimentation, at the suggestion of the Young, with the idea of a Christmas Without Presents—a strange, exhilarating, not entirely fulfilling, yet most educational experience… Joy is Joe and Elaine, Howard and Miriam, John and June, Pat—and all the other Christmas guests without whom there would not have been giving and receiving to balance the strange absence of the gay packages under the tree… Joy is Clarence and Alice stopping in with some Christmas Cheer… Joy is a little boy with chicken pox. Joy is being included, we stolid middle-agers, in a party made up of young graduate-student couples… Joy is letters and cards from Jerusalem … telephone calls to and from family and friends across the country… Joy is sending the youngest to help in the cleanup in Mississippi… Joy is standing beside a friend at the back of the auditorium, watching the Aux Chandelles version of the Nativity—surely the most moving reconstruction I have seen to date… Joy is Christmas Eve’s chili soup and Christmas Day’s rice eaten with one who can recall with nostalgia our sharing of the sacred Christmas meals last year in our little Dollhouse in the Judean Hills… Joy is a book which brings delight, and no book has brought me more delight this season than The Joys of Yiddish placed on my table by that neighbor who always senses what is the right gift for the moment-that-is… Joy is finding the eyes resting again and again on the Hebrew SHALOM—now a part of our living-room “furniture”; and remembering with love the family who brought it to us as a welcome-home gift… Joy is lighting the New Year’s Candle, lit for the first time last year in Jerusalem; and eating lemon pie by its light, in company with Verna, and with Mary, who was present at its first lighting… Joy is the awareness of the Newness that burst on the world-scene with Jesus… Joy is seeing that Newness reflected in people around me… Joy is remembering those who have made me most aware of the Joy that flowered from the life and death of Jesus: my mother, from 413 Story of a Family whom, surely, I received the physical capacity for joy; a certain Sunday school teacher who guided me in those first years of awakening to the joy of commitment; a professor who believed that my joy could be channeled into words which would deepen the joy of at least some who read them; a flamboyant woman-saint who in her kooky way incarnated, for me, the joy of Jesus; sensitive men and women friends who shared, at various times, places, the joy-at-the-depths with me; a loose-hanging, free family, the most basic context for the sharing of joy; an impaired child who lives and moves and has his being in Joy… In the pain of remembering and the peace of remembering, I find that my joy is full. On the Corner 1970 January Life ... is unfair. —J. F. K. The first article I read in the New Year leaves me with this one small phrase uttered—in what context I do not know—by the young president whose life, it would seem, was unfairly, violently ended in our time. The words haunt me. The truth hurts. How well I know that life is unfair—I who have been given so much good that I didn’t deserve, spared so much ill that I had coming to me! It’s easy to see why the idea of reincarnation appeals to many: here is a system which has the possibilities of eveningup the score, at least. I can’t remember the time (even as a child, I felt it) when I was not uncomfortable about the richness of my own situation in comparison to that of others I knew. Throughout my growing-up I cried out again and again with Ivan, in Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, “I want to be there when we find out…” I want to see the score evened-up! At the same time, I’m aware that here and now we can help to evenup the score. I am not afraid of the Social Gospel; Jesus preached it in Matthew 25, and as I sense what He did with His life, I think that passage is pretty close to the heart of what He was getting at. I am afraid of my own tendency to a piety which can satisfy the demands of that passage (Matthew 25:31-46) by praying, expressing “intelligent concern,” sending money and clothes, and bypassing the Way of the Cross completely. 414 On the Corner 1970 Hubert Humphrey, commenting on the words “Life is unfair,” adds that life’s unfairness is not entirely irrevocable, and that “we can help balance the scale for others, if not always for ourselves.” But how few of us are going to voluntarily change our way of life to do so! The New Year begins as others have begun: that incomparable breakfast with the Beechys (which we missed last year); a few more open days and nights before the schedule-stockade hems us in; days spent more or less lazily, getting up when we wish (for me, it’s when the Little Feller wishes); following where the spirit leads; listening to each other a bit more, perhaps; just, BEING; nights spent sitting up late with the family, talking, or breaking into a spontaneous songfest; gathering with friends for amiable exchange of ideas, as we did around Jack’s and Eleanor’s grand new fireplace (ah, that homemade bread!). Then there is, for me, the added pleasure of the inevitable list-making, wishful planning, or whatever term happens to cover the now obsolete phase, New Year’s Resolutions. This is an activity I would not willingly give up. Sometimes it even helps me to get things done, to embark on a new course in some small way. To date these meditations at the years beginning have not made a new person out of me, but I’ve never asked that they should. I’m grateful for small nudges, for imperceptible growth toward the Goal. And I purely love List-making! In all Elkhart County there are probably few individuals who would have enjoyed so wholeheartedly tonight’s treat. Part of the treat was tangible and part—surely the greater part—was not. Our Israeli friends shared falafel with us, but more, we shared together nostalgic associations of the Land of the Falafel. All of downtown Jerusalem was in each morsel: the crowded streets, the scurrying Hasidim, the roaring green buses, the open falafel shops, one after the other, punctuating every block. And again it seems incredible that one short year in a strange land should so completely capture me that I think of it in terms of the home to which I will return as soon as possible! “One kind act is better than a thousand head-bowings in prayer,” said the Saint. I agree. And one kind thought executed into action is better than a thousand intentions. One wearies of hearing, “We must get together,” “We must have you folks in soon”—and (how well I know) one wearies of saying these weak words over and over. Then comes a Thelma who doesn’t bother saying the words until she can make a firm invitation 415 Story of a Family out of them, who plans for a meeting in the middle of her teaching day— plans, and carries out the plan. Over a lunch of soup and sandwiches we have not quite an hour together—enough time to refresh each other, renew the joy of friendship. Who said there isn’t enough time for meeting, these days? Yet most of us go on living under the delusion that there truly is not time at out disposal. The card is not dropped into the mailbox, because we ate waiting until we can write a long letter; the cup of tea is not offered because we are waiting for time to make something special to serve with the tea; the friends we’ve been wanting in for dinner—they won’t be sharing the dessertless spaghetti meal because we’re waiting until we can do it up right—shine the house, set a proper table, and prove our cooking skill. God be thanked for people who don’t wait for everything to be done “decently and in order” —for the spur-of-the-moment-ers, the let’s-do-itanyhow-ers, the dropper-in-ers. And God forgive the rest of us who keep on saying that we’d like to do it, but… Years ago there was a gorgeous day when “all the vapours of God” visited our Hill. Rain, hall, sleet, snow—what a circus! Today the visitations were different but even more exciting. Weeks pass without anyone coming to the door—for me, that is. Oh, yes, the doorbell rings, the telephone shrills, but ordinarily it’s for one or the other of the Young, and I end up feeling like a secretary toward the end of the day! But today was my day. First came the mother of some M.D.R.’s who are linked with our M.D.R. sons. Through the pleasant morning and over a sandwich at noon we exchanged the joys and pains of our sons’ involvement with this aspect of discipleship; then came the lady from Woodward Place in whose home we’ve spent many hours, but who has rarely been here; barely was she gone when a vivacious college girl, friend of a friend, dropped in to chat, leaving me just enough time to resort to sandwiches again, for supper, and arrange the furniture for the K Group. And I was thankful to be one of the fortunate ones who can be home when the doorbell rings. He is seven years old, and now we can add to the list of memories of five shiny-eyed boys and one big-eyed girl, each eyeing his very special cake on his very special day, another memory: Another small boy—this one with the left eye slightly askew—radiating pure joy as he gazes at the red, green, blue, and yellow train lit with seven candles plus one—atop the engine—to grow on. For a very special boy we wish a very special 416 On the Corner 1970 year of growth, and we affirm his being a part of our family by singing the riotously off-key Happy Birthday Song—sure proof that he belongs to us. February To share... is to have more of everything. We have much to share, much to discuss, yet there are complications! She has a small child, one of those bonus-babies trailing years behind his older brothers and sisters. And I have a child who, come winter, is prey to one respiratory infection after another, and is likely to come down with something new on the very day I had planned to meet my friend in her home. But after months (years, even) of trial-and-error (all error) today was Our Day. As I ironed, she mothered—and the grace of meeting was ours. For one hour. When shall I learn for good-and-all that the big package can contain an empty box; that the small one may hold the infinitely precious gem? That an hour shared may mean an astronomical multiplication of joy? Most of our friends have rather strong opinions (feelings!) concerning the Middle East problems. Tempers can flare and bitterness can inflict wounds even here in “quiet little Goshen”—thousands of miles from the scene of the conflict—when good people line up on one side or another. Having lived in the milieu, counting friends among both Jews and Arabs (here, as well as in Jerusalem), we find ourselves hopelessly lodged near, if not on, the fence. In Jerusalem, our Israeli friends knew of our sympathies with Arab friends. Our Arab friends knew of our sympathies with Israeli friends. Perhaps they both felt a bit sorry for us that we were unable to take upon ourselves the angers of only one side. Returning to the States, I practiced my own absurd brand of reconciliation. (After all, no one else seems to be getting along so famously with theirs!) For my Arab friends (and Arab-sympathizer friends) I brought Jewish gifts; for my Jewish friends, gifts crafted by Arabs. And here in our home the two strains are blended without apology…Hebron glass; a menorah … Surif needlework; a mezuzah … olivewood boxes; a Hebrew Shalom … a Jerusalem Cross; a Star of David… When, as happened tonight, Arab student and Arab sympathizers mingle with us around the dinner table, no sign of our Jewish empathy is removed from sight. When, as occasionally happens, Jewish friends eat with us, no apologies are made for the obvious identification we feel with Arabs. So far our approach hasn’t ironed out all the difficulties between 417 Story of a Family the two “Brothers” but we’ll keep close to that Fence, hopefully, so that we can at least see both sides. Sometimes the mood among the Young these days seems to cancel the importance of past and future. Much as I sympathize with some of the moods, causes, and angers of today’s Under-Thirtys I remain unconvinced about the lack of necessity for building on the past and entertaining hope for the future. Perhaps I am a sentimentalist, but I suppose I shall always feel a need for maintaining a healthy tie with my own roots, and for attempting to keep alive a similar awareness among our children… And so I keep observing a few simple ceremonies—birth-days, death-days, special days of the church year—to reiterate my connection with, my debt to, the past. Today, on the twentieth anniversary of my own mother’s death, I light the memorial candle. Each time I pass during these twenty-four hours I am reminded of some facet or other of the complex interconnec tions of our two lives. If the children ask, “Why the candle?” I answer, “My mother’s death-day” and leave them free to ponder—however briefly, however inwardly—their own connections with a grandmother they never knew except through the memories of their mother. Will the time come, I ask myself, when I will have lost this crushing sense of gratitude for the year that ended last July? Once, twice, three times in barely over a week I have responded to invitations to share some of that Year with groups of women. To date, I accept eagerly every time the opportunity is given. Yet when I actually face an audience, the anguish returns: Why should this have been given to me? I look over the gathered faces and know that few, if any of them will be given a year in that exciting land—and only by some real fluke of fortune will even one of them have the freedom of opportunity I had, if she should by chance be given that year. Standing there, all of a sudden I want to ask, “Why do you want to listen to me? You don’t want my warmed-over experiences! How can they possibly mean anything to you?” But in the midst of anguish the miracle, the old miracle of sharing seems suddenly possible. I am once again humbled by the generosity of these people who have the greatness of spirit necessary for vicarious joy. They are saying to me by their open and expectant faces, “Break your loaf with us; we’ll all eat of it.” I do; they do; and behold, there is the miracle of multiplication of loaves and fishes! And in this way, an old, old way, 418 On the Corner 1970 life is shared, and many who will never go to Israel tell me that they have been there… To the person who does not live to himself, the varieties of opportunity for sharing himself are endless. … She came back from India where, in the weeks of her visit, she had spent herself with scarcely time for breathing: Coming home, then, she again made the rounds, speaking to this church group, to that women’s gathering. But such wholesale transactions were only the visible part of the iceberg. This woman is one of those whose way of life is to see and respond to individuals. Lucky me, to be one of those individuals! Back in town only a day, she still took time to deliver the one gift from India which she knew would mean most to me: a slide of our little grandson. Only recently I took to the air; my first experiences of flying were in connection with our sabbatical last year. But today (in company with a friend who tells me that the gift of this flight is my Birthday, Christ mas, Fourth-of-July, and Veterans’ Day gift for the next five years), I have experienced my first real thrill in flight. “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever”—and on this clear day I was able to trace an often-traveled path between our old home in western Pennsylvania and our House-On -The-Corner. Somehow, to be able to see from above what I had known so familiarly from the ground was spirit-expanding. People who give me things are always giving me so much more than they are aware of doing! Especially when we open the package together… March … recognizing that they were only strangers and nomads on earth. —Hebrews 11:13, Jerusalem Bible When I was twelve we moved our home from the Snake River Valley of Idaho to the fertile, rolling hills of northern Illinois. The implications of that move were so far-reaching, the changes so dramatic, that I still look back to that first year in our new home with wonder and excitement. The culture, the people, the countryside, all were far more foreign to me than any of the cultures, people, countrysides I was to meet later in our travels through Europe and the Middle East. Every day brought new ideas, surprises… 419 Story of a Family Like … the first theme I was asked to write in seventh grade: March First, Moving Day. Sitting there in that little one-room schoolhouse (I had come from a modern school in which I had a different teacher for each subject; here I was in the school where my mother had studied years be fore—at these same hinge-top desks—a school with 19 pupils in seven grades!), sitting there—I puzzled over the meaning of the theme title. I had never heard of the phrase, never been exposed to the idea of a moreor-less fixed date on which people moved, if they were going to move. Now I see that working out that little theme was my first fray into the fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology! I don’t think the idea of a fixed moving-date ever did get through to me … for I was a daughter of pioneers, the child of a man who had an itching foot, was not considered prudent, kept on the move. It may well be that he was not prudent; it is likely true that our mother, after his death, would not have needed to work as hard as she did, had he been tied to fixed moving dates. Still, I’m glad for my heritage. Such a heritage has made it easier, perhaps, to be somewhat of a pilgrim and stranger, both in terms of material possessions and in terms of ideas. Any day is moving day! Any day is moving day… One aspect of attending Faculty Banquet always heightens my anticipation. Who shall we be seated with? What new ideas will come to me as a result? What fresh understandings of these people as persons? What surprises by way of rapport or lack of it? How will our life, my life, their lives, be changed—however imperceptibly—because of this one meeting? After eleven years of attending Faculty Banquet the fascination remains—indeed, it is intensified with each new year. And I have yet to attend one such affair which has left me unmoved in one way or another. Things moved, all right, around our table tonight. Once in a while I get the urge to bring people together in potentially volatile combinations… There are these two poets we know—a carpenter-poet and a theologianpoet—and I thought, What fun to expose them to each other! The fire works which followed in this case were neither threatening nor hostile. They were just purely beautiful, as one after the other of the two poets held forth. And one of the most beautiful displays was the apparent awe with which each of the two listened, open-mouthed, to the other! 420 On the Corner 1970 Another moving day far away, in the foothills of the Himalayas, a little child moves beyond the first year of his life in our world. And the woman who has been transformed into a typical, adoring grandmother by his birth a year ago—this woman lights a little candle for him, sets it in the kitchen window, and dreams of the day when she will walk the streets of Goshen with his hand in hers… For nine Sundays, now, we have moved together, pitching our tents briefly at Bethel, at Shiloh, at Shechem, at Capernaum, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Hebron, Beer-sheba, Jericho. Today our association on this Ten-Day Tour of the Holy Land terminates as we gather in “Jerusalem” to eat the Passover together. The young friends of high school age (that wonderful age, that terrible age where we all must hover, vacillate be tween childhood and manhood!) enter into the mock-Seder with all the proper combinations of joy, fun, and serious attention to the details. And once again I am convinced that the learning process is greatly enriched by Doing. One of the pleasures of the middle years is the increased facility with which one is able to move back and forth from present to past, from past to future, and to find delight in all three dimensions of one’s life-in-time. The closing week of this moving month, March, finds us—my older sister and myself—merging memories, realities, and hopes. We drive together to visit, in a neighboring state, one of the two surviving sisters of our mother. There in her cozy rooms we talk of old times, and eat at her table—finding that none of her competence-with-food has been lost over the years. There we also meet other old friends and relatives who in the process of reviving old memories, manage to pack the days full of new ones for us to take along as we leave. In our brother’s home, farther upstate, we eat the incomparable roast he has been preparing for us over a period of many weeks—first by careful selection, then controlled aging and skillful trimming, and finally, by really professional roasting … we reminisce about our last year’s weeks together in the Holy Land as we view his slides … we spend a leisurely hour in the little cemetery where our father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, not to mention aunts, uncles, cousins, great-grandparents—lie buried. I have always said that it matters little to me where the bodies of these dear to me are finally buried. Yet, this day I discover that the little 421 Story of a Family cemetery by the Freeport Mennonite Church is one of my most favorite-ofall places in the world. I must acknowledge that it does mean something to me to be able to come here, read the names of all these who were connected in vital ways with my own existence, and give thanks for my “roots.” Someday soon (my sister and I affirm that we want to make this an annual pilgrimage, at least through the lifetime of our aunt) I want to come back armed with materials to make tombstone rubbings. Perhaps I may want to hang them in my study to remind me—in still another way—“that no man is an island, entire of itself…” April He took him by the hand… Leafing through the Gospel of Mark, I am warmed by the warmth of this Man Jesus as He carried out His vocation with crazy, impaired, beautiful, needy persons. He didn’t theorize about them in an ivory tower; He didn’t, as a rule, heal by remote control; He didn’t merely look with compassion and then go home and pray for them. He took them by the hand. Even the child who was used for an object lesson was not pointed at; he was brought into the circle, and Jesus “put his arms around him.” I wonder… I wonder how much of what we sincerely wish to share with persons is lost because we cannot bring ourselves to “take them by the hand.” Looking through the month of April, another gorgeous April, it is the Sacrament of the Touch that is poised like an aura over the events noted in my appointment book… On this particular evening “they took us by the hand,” even though we are no longer members of their K-group. And so we broke bread with them at this farewell supper for several members of the group. In Bill and Phyllis’s large room the long table stretched almost from end to end; shoulders touched, food was passed from hand to hand, life was shared, anxieties exchanged: ‘‘Strong hands to weak, old hands to young … around the … board, touch hands!” One of the gifts of Youth to Age in our time is, I think, a new perspective on touching. Some years ago I noted with concern that I myself was becoming squeamish about touching people—I who had 422 On the Corner 1970 come from a family in which we freely expressed our affection and friend liness by bodily contact. I noticed that I was not the only one among our friends whom shook hands less and less, and while I viewed the general tendency to withdraw from people physically as symptomatic of a deeper withdrawal, I seemed powerless to do anything about it… It took observation of, and identification with my own college children and their friends to free me from the artificial restraints which I had accepted from the surrounding society. It took watching such beautiful tableaus as this: He was my son, yellow hair sticking out from his head like a stack of newly threshed straw; She—she was some girl I’d never seen, long skirts swirling, long hair flying. Coming from opposite ends of the street, he on one side, she on the other, they recognized each other and called out in delight. Running toward each other, they met in the intersection of Eighth and Franklin, and there, oblivious of cars and people, they flung arms around each other, and spun about in a graceful and free dance of friendship. No, they weren’t dating, they weren’t engaged. They were friends who had shared deeply and shared gaily; why should they not celebrate this meeting? Some people, I know, worry that sexual freedom is bound to follow such a relaxation of our old selfconsciousness about touching. But watching these kids I’m convinced that simple touching tends to defuse tensions and contributes to a much more healthy sexuality than does a self-conscious prudery. Passover was celebrated at our house this year. Our motive, however, was not to be good Jews, but to somehow share with as many people as possible this beautiful ceremony. We won’t vouch for its authenticity (we were glad there were none of our Jewish friends present to trip us up!) but we did attempt to touch the spirit of this service of remembrance which from ancient times has not changed too much. Little Feller, in his prayer shawl and kepi, had been carefully tutored by his sister so that he, as the youngest member of the family, could indeed sing “the four ques tions”—at least in a token way. “He took them by the hand…” Somehow I like that better than the “touch hands’’ bit—particularly when it comes to handshaking. I have a standing peeve against the dead-fish handshake, and it is difficult for me to even want to know a person who touches my hand limply when I held mine out in good faith. One of our Passover friends was John, Irishman and priest. He truly stood in Christ’s tradition last night when handshaking 423 Story of a Family time came around, taking us by the hand in a most convincing symbolic gesture of brotherhood… We took her by the hand … they took us by the hand … he took me by the hand … the story of our April, many times repeated, in infinite variety: Miriam, Alice, and I sharing lunch and a rare talk-session while our three husbands are in Pittsburgh at a Festival of the Gospels. Our boy-family and our daughter-in-law’s girl-family (what is left of both) noisily and joyfully interacting around a typically loaded Lehman table on a Saturday evening. Hands touching across seas and continents as our Pesach greetings come and go between the House on the Corner and various houses on the hills surrounding Jerusalem. A breakfast with Kathy. An hour with Anni. And then, on the last Friday evening of the month, a drive to South Bend to the Erev Shabbat service at Temple BethEl. The lone Gentile in the service, I might have felt quite forsaken sitting alone in the back seat; but the speaker of the evening is our wonderful friend and favorite rabbi, David. After the service, as everyone files to the reception hall to greet the visiting rabbi and drink coffee, I am greeted with “Gut Shabbos” by the friendly Jews of Temple Beth-El, and I return my best Jerusalemese: “Shabbat Shalom!” Even so, I hang back, slinking at the end of the line, a bit self-conscious about introducing myself on this occasion when their new overseer is being greeted. But not for long. Enveloped in the arms of this loving, radiant man, kissed and kissed again, hugged and introduced and hugged again, basking in the genuine delight which my coming has given him, answering the loving queries about his dear friend, The Professor, exchanging enthusiasms of good books—all in a few moments—then more kissing, hugging, touching of hands, God bless yous, Shaloms; and once again I know as I have known in so many ways this month, that “Somebody touched me … and it must have been the hand of the Lord!” May How beautiful are the faces of people returning home! —K. Hulme God, who “set the solitary in families” set me in a family for which, as long as I live, I shall give joyous thanks… 424 On the Corner 1970 We were seven: my mother, my three older brothers, my two older sisters, myself. All two years apart, except for my sister and me who were nearly three years apart. (I always figured it took longer to make me…) We didn’t have much money; we didn’t have, from my infancy, a father; we didn’t have the security of relatives nearby—the nearest were some 2,000 miles away, almost none of whom I saw until I was nine, and then only briefly… We did have—what did we have?—each other, I guess. And that, not for very long. I was twelve when our home was dismembered and the diaspora began. In the May before my twelfth July birthday, the seven of us sat around the table all together for the last time in our lives. (True, we did meet once, briefly, at the wedding of my sisters ten years later, but we were all in one spot only long enough to have a quick picture taken of us before one brother had to leave.) Even at our mother’s burial, we were not all present. I don’t think I had faith that the six of us remaining would ever meet again in one place, at one time, after the death of the one who had been the mortar which held us together. But our eldest sister had the faith, wrote the letters, made the telephone calls. And now, thirty-eight years after our last family meal together, twenty years after the death of our mother, we were on the way to meeting. How beautiful are the faces of people returning home… And it was home to which we were to return—our childhood home. A centrally located point might have been less expensive for most of us, but it seemed “altogether fitting and proper” that we should return to the Snake River Valley in Idaho, where we had lived together as a family so briefly (for the six of us, only twelve years of more-or-less complete family life) and where two brothers still lived. The jets scream out from Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois, Texas… How beautiful the faces of those returning… The jets come to a screaming halt on the Boise Airstrip — Dear God, what a big sky they have out here! How beautiful the faces of those looking with love on the returned! The gray-haired man on crutches with our mother’ s soft face and mild brown eyes—the only father I ever knew—His still-dimpled wife … how beautiful… Their children, now set in families of their own … how beautiful the niece’s husband, the grandnieces, the grandnephew, the nephew’s wife, all met for the first time… how beautiful, all this life stemming from the brother who would take me up in one hand, balance me there, and spank me with the other. How beautiful the faces, the open, western faces of the people on the bus as I travel along familiar roads down the valley 425 Story of a Family in view of the (how beautiful!) canyon, though sagebrush hills, to Twin Falls… My brother the Innkeeper and his wife—how beautiful…the son, the new daughter-in-law, the spacious room at their Inn — beautiful! And now, while waiting for the rest of the family, I am given freedom and a little Karman-Ghia, and I come home. An evening with Lucy, my most cherished childhood friend, and her husband … beautiful … the lined face of an old neighbor—incredible that Blanche should still be here, salt-and-peppery, witty as ever, and our own mother gone twenty years!… I walk the streets of the little town where God set us, solitary, in a family: here is the house I remember best, but here is another—how tiny it is! I was five when we moved from this one, and I remember the big orange spider on the porch…Here is deserted Central School—but where have they gone, those ditches we used to straddle? Here is the playground where we nearly broke arms playing Flying Dutchman, the tubular fire escape where we sat to eat our lunches… How beautiful, how sad the ghostly main street! So many staring, empty stores. Here Dillinghams’ Drugs served the best butterscotch sundaes in the world. Here the print-shop initiated my brother as a printer’s devil. Here is the bank building that faithfully guarded my sixteen dollars and eight cents (until it had to be withdrawn, as all our accounts had to be, to pay for the move to far-off Illinois). I walk through the dusty grass of the cemetery, outside the town, and every row of stones brings familiar names, yet names which conjure only fragmentary pictures. Fred Weatherly. Wasn’t he tall and thin? Lewis Rich—all I can remember is a dazzling smile. Jess Gilmer: they sang “O Come Angel Band” at his funeral. Irma Deal Showers…oh, I wish I had a flower for her grave! Our nearest neighbor, she taught us piano in exchange for “taking care” of Clarence. I had not known she was dead… How beautiful are the faces of people returning home! Our Brother the Printer, handsome in his dark suit and blue tie, his mane of graywhite hair properly distinguishing his position in the family, sits at the table’s head, with our Brother the Sausage King and Our Brother the Innkeeper flanking him. …Beautiful…The sisters—we three “little girls” now all in our fifties (well, almost) sit listening to escapades which we by reason of our purity and innocence had been spared hitherto… For one gala evening we sit around a festive table enjoying the prime rib roast which the Innkeeper has personally supervised and upon which the connoisseur of prime rib roasts—The Sausage King—has put his stamp 426 On the Corner 1970 of approval. We eat and we share memories, we laugh, and flashbulbs fail to operate, even with the help of the few faithful in-laws who are with us. And we say good night. For one bright morning five of us (Holiday Innkeepers must be about their business) pile into a car and drive, nostalgic and merry, through the flat countryside—oh, beautiful—which was the land of our beginnings. It is said that we can never return to the places we’ve loved because they are situated in Time, not Space, and dyed the color of our imagination… I don’t know. I only know that it was beautiful… A final picnic with the local nephews and nieces and their children, then the dispersion—a dispersion which, in spite of our mouthing the expected words about repeating it, is not likely to be tied up in one bundle ever again… To return to the places one has loved with persons one has loved is, after so many years, a strange and intense inward journey. I welcome the respite of a brief night and morning with Boise friends, and again the Big Bird swoops down to take me back to the House on the Corner… How beautiful are the faces of people returning home… June “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” As a young girl, I was fascinated to meet people who had never moved from the house in which they were born, or who had never been out of the county or state… Remembering my own attachment to one or the other of the many houses in which we had lived, or the localities in which we had made our home, it was not difficult to feel a bit of envy for those whose roots were so undivided. To move out of a house or a community can be painful; to move out into a new situation physically or psychologically can be terrifying; to have to locate certain events in one’s life by first determining where one was living at the time can be exasperating. With every move, the roots undergo a subdivision; with every new locale, loyalties are split; with the explosion of new people into one’s life, the simple life can evaporate into a dream. Yet, had I the choice, I would never opt for any other kind of existence. To have been born in the little grey shack of pioneers, to have lived with a family in a succession of tiny houses where four of us slept in a room (if we were lucky), to have had, at thirteen, with the fragmentation of our family, the compensating joy ineffable of a room of my own for the first time in my life; to have moved on into a series of apartments, shared 427 Story of a Family with an always-weary mother who still was able to turn anything into a home; to have begun the cycle again—another series of little houses, a damp tent, a new house, or the shell of a house, on a hill (it did somehow eventually become a home, forming and holding the new family which came into being within its log walls—), a house on a corner, a temporary transplantation to a little dollhouse on a Judean hillside, then a return again to the corner-house—all this I would not want to give up, disrupting as it may sound. To have soaked up the sunshine in a fertile basin of the majestic Rockies, roamed among the rolling hills of northern Illinois, settled on the flat, undistinguished plain of northern Indiana, perched on a hillside in western Pennsylvania or on the holy hills surrounding the Beautiful City of God—; to have enjoyed mildness, dryness, coldness, humidity in the climates of the west, the east, the middle-west, and the Middle East—; to have exulted in the glory of the four seasons in a place where temperatures rarely reached zero in winter or over eighty in summer, and where autumn leaves were invariably yellow, and springtime aspen leaves quivered against the darker evergreens; or in a place where rain poured, day after day, in torrents, and deafening thunder sent less brave children to their mothers; where “forty below” was not unheard of, and we walked to school breathing or trying to breathe, through layers of scarves; or in places where the autumn leaves on your hill or on your corner were such a glory as to send you to your knees; or in the country where the rain being “over and gone” the flowers do “appear on the earth” immediately, as if by magic… To have known the friendly informal life of a little western hamlet; the farm and small-town mores of the Bible Belt, the reserve and conservatism of the East, the melting pot of Jerusalem—To have been a part of all those houses, landscapes, climates, communities, has been to be hopelessly divided, yet hopefully united with all lands, all climates, all people… Especially the people. And this June as usual we have reaped great returns from our many moves, however painfully those moves may have divided us. But we have also gained from the many moves of the people who have come into our home, or into whose homes we came. Supper with John and Ruth (Pennsylvania, Africa, Indiana), lunch with Roy and Florence (Pennsylvania, Ontario, Israel), a few pleasant days with Ruth and Susan (Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Texas), supper with Huberts (Pennsylvania, Virginia), with Ivans (Oregon, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Virginia, and God-knows-where-else), with Cyril and Shirley (South Africa, England, Israel, Indiana), an evening of pictures 428 On the Corner 1970 with Stella, Louella, and Mildred (Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, India, California, Indiana), an incomparable weekend with Esther (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C.), a hilarious supper-cum-entertainment on the lawn of Nick and DuBose and their wacky family (Washington, Illinois, California, Alabama, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Edistoe Island, Indiana), breakfast with Evelyn (Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Jersey, England, Japan, Ethiopia), an evening with Sue (Ohio), Dean (Kansas), Mary (Indiana, Scotland, Africa), Devon (Ohio, California, Indiana), and John (Ireland, Connecticut, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana —). To have all these was to have the world in our home. I remember how, as a young mother, I discovered for myself that though there may always be room for one more in the family, it does not necessarily follow that life can go on as simply as before. To be a mother of many children is to be divided into many different kinds of a mother… and though I would not want to have one less than I have, sometimes it’s fun to speculate how simple life might be if we had only one child, if I needed to be only one mother. But I am a multiple-mother, and as such I have had the usual agonies of fragmentation. I am not one, but seven mothers. Yet in this case division is an intermediate step to multiplication. And for me, being sliced into seven mothers has multiplied my joy. So, too, each person who comes to me as a new friend causes still another division, another drain on energy, another distraction — and another miracle of multiple returns. He has, indeed, made everything beautiful in its time. July They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude… —Wordsworth A young friend recently tried to convince me that gratitude is passé. Gratitude passé? His naive statement had one overwhelming effect on me. Ever since, I have been even more sensitive to the graces which I find surrounding me both in the inner space of the spirit, and the outer space of my world. And at the end of this pleasant July I find myself focusing 429 Story of a Family with gratitude upon that phenomenon known as “the inward eye” or—less poetically—the photographic memory… What Abraham Joshua Heschel calls “the holy joy of remembering” is made even more joyous when remembrance is accompanied by pictures flashed upon the inward screen—colors, facial expressions, shapes, arrangements—all conspire to bring alive what cannot ever be repeated, yet, so long as memory serves, cannot ever be lost. Pictures of certain moments of this July flash upon the inward eye, returning to bless me, to encourage me, to rekindle my joy, revitalize friendship—and, yes, to shame me. From the skeletons of a few words scrawled on the appointment calendar, full-blown color photographs bloom on the inner page. How can I regard them without gratitude? Here, then, are some of those pictures— A whole album of photographs from those few Esther-days—days when my friend from D.C. finally came to share with me something of the joy of our Israel-year: Esther, sitting in the little cherry rocker, reading my journals as if they were the bread of life (how she would love to go to Israel—land of her own people!)… Esther, standing with me in the little Shipshewana antique shop where I am mesmerized by That Blue Chair … Esther, eating French-fried mushrooms with me at Troyers … Esther, in nightgown, hair down, propped up in bed, talking of her children. These pictures remain to warm me long after the dear friend has flown back. And every picture with an Esther in it is glowing. That salad! Try as I might, I haven’t been able to duplicate it on my own table, even though my ingredients are identical, even though the clear glass bowl should help to produce the same effect as hers…crisp lettuce, tossed in the Fostoria bowl with half-thawed chunks of golden pineapple, huge black pitted olives, and small yellow-orange cubes of cheddar cheese. Though I am hardly a connoisseur of either good food or table settings, though I would have thought that the fellowship would be most significant to me—yet what I vividly remember of the evening is That Salad—“a thing of beauty and a joy” to behold them, on Miriam’s table, and now—on that inner table. A small Chinese restaurant…six people crowded around a table…four Young—faces smooth, faces bearded; two Middle-aged—faces middle-aged! Forgotten, in retrospect, the food; forgotten the conversation; remembered 430 On the Corner 1970 simply the grouping: Janet sat here, Elizabeth there, Perry, John, there. Simply a snapshot of students and professor and their wives, celebrating the earning of a new degree. Celebrating life. Celebrating the fruitful interaction of students and teachers from the beginning of time… “And this is my sister Kitty—” I am sitting on a chair in an office. My friend has brought the little packet of photographs as he promised. Here he stands between his parents. Here is the peasant house which he has helped to modernize for them. Here is his mother standing before her cupboard with her “blue and white and speckled store.” I look at the sister and say: “But of course! I would have known her!” In fact, none of the photos have surprised the pictures I already had in my mind. For in chance remarks, vignettes sketched in passing, this friend, without ever “sitting down and talking about the family” had in truth, with his colorful and passionate words, presented to the inner eye such clear portraits that the actual photographs were merely a confirmation of what I had already “seen.” And what is left to me of that pleasant summer evening when one set of guests shared their stories with us, then left early after which the other set stayed on into the evening to give us a rare report of the Mission Board meeting? The stories are gone. As for the menu—what did I serve that night?... This picture remains: Paul, sitting in the rocker by the lamp, face lit with enthusiasm as his recital entertains and inspires his listeners. This picture remains, plus the strong conviction that the ingredient missing in most P.R. men I know (but not, happily, in Paul) is irrepressible Bounce, undeflatable Joy! Vignettes of a life and a death: One—Sunday morning. I am on my way to the crib-room, he is on his way to his Sunday school class. We nod and smile and pass, and in the moment of passing I think, “A good man. A really good man.” Two—an hour later. A class member rushes into the crib-room asking for a blanket to place under the head of the Sunday school teacher who has suddenly become ill. Three—dinnertime. My neighbor is at the back door, the screen between us: “He is dead.” Three Sunday morning pictures … always returning when I hear his name. What factors trigger the shutter on that inner camera? Most of that day in Shipshewana is blurred. What did we do? What did we talk of? A goodness, a rightness, a pleasantness remains, and one picture: I am 431 Story of a Family in the car somewhere on Highway 20, with Mildred and Carol—I can see their faces—we are talking of freedom and grace and joy. And I am suddenly aware that, as usual, I am talking too much… Who was sitting where at that table? It was a good day, I remember, a meeting in honor of a visiting friend. And I remember absolutely nothing of our conversation or food. But there is a picture: at my end of the table I sit talking with a young man who has dropped in. I see the chair, the window behind him…and I know why the inward eye recorded only this one flash of memory from that day. For at my end of the table there was a meeting—a real meeting—taking place because an apology that needed to be made was made. Color it green of the riverside trees coming into the kitchen through the big window; color it a kaleidoscope of tempting foods; color it the earthy colors of Ernie’s and Mary’s hospitality; color it a bright moment around a family table…a moment to keep and cherish. August May … the whispering of my heart (find favor) in your presence … Yahweh, my Rock, my Redeemer! —Psalm 119:14, The Jerusalem Bible Happiness … 2. A state of wellbeing and pleasurable satisfaction… —Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary This August, happiness is...joining in all kinds of celebrations: Like the Hershbergers’ fiftieth anniversary, on a flawless Sunday afternoon. (Surely these lively people haven’t been married fifty years! As friends mill about we look at the wedding pictures, seeing grandsons in the face of the young man who peers from the photo, the granddaughter in the face of the young woman.) …Like the farewell-supper for two members of our former K-group, in Hank’s and Mary’ s pleasant backyard. (A special treat—seeing this backyard for the first time, after meeting for years inside their house, at night.) …Like the watermelon-and-crullers party, celebrated with fellow seminarians in honor of C. J.’s birthday…Like the welcome, in the church fellowship rooms, for Gene and Mary. (Though we don’t make a banner and fly it, we, out of all these fellow church 432 On the Corner 1970 members, have the honor of having been members of the church where Gene began his ministry; the Professor participated in their wedding; Mary and I learned much about each other during several years of interaction in a small group. And so in a very real way, for us to welcome them into our congregation is to celebrate a homecoming.) Happiness is…to participate in the Unexpected: Like when Henry and Donnie, Africa-friends of our son in Africa, drop in and sit at table with us on a hot August noon… Like when the Mussers and their incredibly agile offspring stop by, on a Sunday twilight, to deliver a book, and stay to become acquainted… Like a rare invitation to the “Commune” where steak, theology, and mosquitoes are shared at the backyard picnic tables… Like the delight of a new taste treat—groundnut stew, courtesy of Jean…Like the surprisingly well-executed My Fair Lady at the Bristol Opera House, performed by the Elkhart Civic Drama for the benefit of Aux Chandelles. Happiness, this August, is to watch a young boy’s wholehearted obsession with a new “toy”—which in this case happens to be the big wheelbarrow on Fannie’s farm. What does it matter that the uncoordinated legs and arms cannot possibly keep the wheelbarrow going in a straight line? What does it matter that the barrow is so heavy that pushing it knots the muscles and draws out the sweat-beads? For a very few minutes this guy has the run of the universe, has heaven in his grubby hands. However impaired his body, his brain, may be—his joy is perfect and unconfined! Happiness is to have known Hubert and Mildred during this year; to have shared with them in K-group; to have had them within walking, biking distance, here on our street. And happy-sad is to say good-bye as they return to their Virginia home. Happiness is…a warm Sunday morning at Reba Place. Having heard of this fellowship for years, we finally decide, one morning, to travel to Evans ton. There, in the lucid informality of a small group of people committed to each other and to the kingdom, I find tightnesses dissolving, flowers of hope opening. And though I know that no one kind of community has all the answers, I am aware that these people have together wrestled with basic questions, and have acted out decisions that for too many of us remain “theoretical considerations.”…Happiness is meeting there old friends from way back, and not needing to wait until after the service to do so. Though we walk in late, friendliness rushes to greet us: Vera, from 433 Story of a Family Israel, flashes us a smile, a wave; Eunice finishes her song and cries out a hello, explaining to everybody that these are old friends; Don gets up, comes over and shakes hands. And the service goes on, as if our coming were a part of it, not an interruption. Later, in the Playhouse, we eat with the small group whose fellowship-dinner-Sunday this happens to be; we are a part of the participating audience as the children give their usual after-dinner performance of extempore singing and drama; we visit around the cable-spool tables. Leaving, I sense that I will be coming back to Reba Place now and then for reinforcements. Happiness is…riding my blue bicycle, alone, early in the morning. When one does not have a room of one’s own, he should have some substitute. (An apron over my head is not enough for me; besides my aprons aren’t big enough for that.) This August, the solitary pre-breakfast rides are my alternative to a room of my own. There is a freshness, a stillness, to life at this time of day, particularly when one does not need to be giving his attention to another person at his side or in front of or behind him. The early morning bike ride, far from being a selfish luxury, is—I think—a sensible acknowledgment of my own needs, needs which, if not attended to, can cripple the joy and spontaneity which are basic to my ability to share life with these to whom I am responsible. And so I unashamedly indulge in my ride. I will not invite you, or you, or you to go with me. It has been said by wiser men than I that the ability to use solitude creatively and joyously is basic to the ability to love. And that is what I’m learning to do these fine, dewy August mornings! September I am so glad that you are here. It helps me to realize how beautiful my world is. —Rilke “While friendship has been by far the chief source of my happiness…I cannot understand why a man would wish to know more people than he can make real friends of.” This quotation from C. S. Lewis’s autobiographical Surprised by Joy, copied into my notebook over fifteen years ago, passed on to others because it rang a bell with me, now injects itself into my thoughts at the end of this exciting September. I suddenly realize that I no longer agree with it. 434 On the Corner 1970 That’s the trouble with opening one’s mouth, or worse, writing what one thinks. There it is, to box you in, label you, for the rest of your life and even longer. If one’s alive, really alive, one changes. New experiences and insights rearrange—even transform and reverse —one’s judgments and feelings. Yet the little black letters on the white paper endure (even though the paper may yellow) and what you have written fifteen or fifty years before, threatens to engulf the person you have become. Most of us end up being pretty defensive about it all, since our background has taught us that along with hard work and thrift, consistency and an unchanging outlook are prime assets for successful living. Most of us are defensive…However, one of our sons breaks all the molds in this respect. If he is embarrassed by his record of mind-changes and shifting enthusiasms he at least can laugh at himself. “Do you really believe that?” his concerned professors and friends have asked over the years. His cheerful reply: “Well, that’s what I think today. Ask me again tomorrow!” Earnest people despair: “Will he ever settle down to anything useful?” As for me, I mostly just enjoy him. How refreshing to live around a person who is not congealed, rigid, defensive. I notice too that such a person tends to be less judgmental of others. When, late one night, we seriously discuss his approach to life he grins, “Who knows? I may make a profession out of serious dabbling.” And who knows, I reflect, maybe the world needs a few cheerful, undefensive dilettantes! Following my son’s cue, I try to be less defensive about what mindchanges have come to me over the years. Now I am apt to say, “Though I may have written otherwise ten years ago, last year, this is what I think today.” Concerning the Lewis quotation, I can now disagree openly, amending it as follows: “While friendship has been by far the chief source of my happiness … I can understand why a person would wish to know many, many people who will never be his friends in the strict sense of the word.” Life is too short, we are too frail to bear the intensity of many great friendships. One of the sadnesses of existence is that we occasionally meet people in whom we recognize the possibilities for mutual rapport, and it hurts not to give one’s self wholeheartedly. Yet, being human, we are limited, and must usually settle for a milder, less involving relationship— “mutual acquaintance.” Related to this is another quotation which has become a part of me over the years—Albert Schweitzer’s passage on “Influences” which I first 435 Story of a Family read years agο in John Baillie’s A Diary of Readings. So many people, he says, gave him something or were something to him without knowing it. Perhaps he never exchanged a word with them; perhaps he had only heard of them; perhaps his acquaintance with them was casual. If we could meet the people who have particularly blessed us in some way, and could tell each of them what passed over from their lives into ours, they— and sometimes we—would be amazed, says Schweitzer. “Hence, I always think that we all live, spiritually, by what others have given us in the significant hours of our life.” Certainly some of life’s greatest gifts to me have come through people who were not my friends (as I define “friend”) at all. As Schweitzer affirms, influences can flow from one person to another without benefit of the current of a deep friendship. I think of people I have met this month, people who unknowingly have brought with them to our encounter Joy, Insight, Hope, Laughter, Tenderness, Silence, Openness… A brief, intense encounter at the annual Seminary-Faculty steak supper, with a person whose surface I had never even tried to penetrate. We will likely never become great friends, in the restricted sense of the word, but life-changing gifts are exchanged in that brief interval, I know…A first visit, long overdue, to Stevie and his radiant mother. We don’t really “move in the same circles” yet I know that on some level there has been and will be an exchange of “gifts.”…A meeting with a poet whose work I have respected: Edith Lovejoy Pierce and I will never move into friendship, yet what a rich hour it was up there in her Evanston apartment, finding ourselves immediately en rapport, speaking together of things which are at the center of both our lives…A Women’s Retreat where so many fine and lively women from our conference district gathered; where so much potential for deep and satisfying friendships undoubtedly existed—and there was opportunity only to dabble, really. Yet, from people I may never see again, I learned— especially in the smaller groups—new ways of looking at myself, at them, at my world. Yes, I do wish to know more people than I can make real friends of! I am glad that all these September meetings took place. All of these people have helped me to realize “how beautiful my world is.” Then comes month’s-end and with it, the Child-Woman about whom my son has written, months ago, “I hope that one day I can bring to you a daughter-in-law like her. I know that you two will love each other at once.” He knew. And now she comes—frail-strong, gay-serious, bright- 436 On the Corner 1970 deep. She comes to make the first tentative contact with his family. And I sense immediately that she will be a Joy and a Song to me (and perhaps a friend?) as long as I live. October Just to be is a blessing… Just to live is holy. —Abraham Joshua Heschel October: SHE is seventeen. I don’t think she knows it, but each of her birthdays (as well as those of her brothers) is a day of remembering forme… Not a birthday of one of the Seven passes without my recalling, secretly, the moment when the gift was given. And again I give thanks. But in her case there is an additional exercise of memory. I can’t imagine what it might be like to be a boy of seven or seventeen. But each of her birthdays, at least from five on up, have taken me back to my own childhood. What was my life like as a child of six? ten? fourteen? and now seventeen? One of the cries of the younger generation, they say, is that parents have forgotten what it is like to be young. Being blessed (or cursed?) with a sharp memory for feelings, odors, tastes, textures, from my first two decades, I think I do remember very well indeed what it was like for me to be seventeen. And maybe that explains why my patience sometimes evaporates: it can be exasperating to look at your daughter and see unmistakable traces of yourself! The Doctor, Hebrew-reading crony of The Professor, has reached some sort of milestone in his life, announces his wife, as she invites us to a surprise party. What is the milestone? She will not divulge at this point. We speculate, then realize it doesn’t really matter. If he’s passed a milestone, then he should have a gift. We wrap up a black kepah (yarmulke, or prayer cap) for him, and go to join his Oaklawn colleagues and friends who have gathered to wish him well, whatever the milestone. Turns out that it’s his fiftieth birthday. Being fifty myself (but unaware that fifty is anything more than the usual birthday milestone) I congratulate the new member of the club. Fifty, I think, is a good age to be. And, as I have felt at every previous stage of my life, and will continue to feel, I suppose, I would rather be fifty than any other age, younger or older. I hope the good doctor feels the same way. 437 Story of a Family The Little Fellow enters the hospital for eye surgery, scheduled for the next morning. Before he goes to sleep, his aunt brings a package—a chime telephone with buttons to press. Press one particular button and out pops the Operator! His joy is complete. He must go to sleep with the telephone beside him. After surgery, his first words are not “Take it off, please!” (I am reminded of that painful awakening after his first experience with leg surgery when, out of his meager four-year vocabulary he could summon only one word, directed to the cast: “Off!” which he moaned over and over, alternately with “Wadda!”) “Take it off, please,” will come later as he tries unsuccessfully to reach his bandaged eyes. Now his one-track mind hones in on the present center of his affections: “Please, I have my new telephone?” Darkness and pain are manageable with the beloved telephone at his fingertips, even though the restraining straps limit his arm movements. And his mother blesses people who always seem to be able to choose the right gift. Before we made our last move some ten years ago, I told friends, “I hope we can find a big square white house.” Though we lost heart as we searched for any house in the land of Goshen, we did eventually find just what I had dreamed of, here on the corner. From the beginning we felt at home inside these walls, and over the years the only changes we have made are minor—except for the recent construction of livable basement space (the joint gift of an inheritance from The Professor’s parents and the building skill of our youngest son). Nor do we have big plans for future renovation. We have to smile when certain people look about our house and come up with something like, “Hmmm—this is a good solid house. Lots of possibilities for remodeling!” Since both the Professor and I are perhaps too easily satisfied with the place as it is, someone else will have to take advantage of all those possibilities someday…and we hope they won’t have a chance for many years! But even we acknowledge that occasionally paint is needed. And I would hardly be honest if I were not to express a certain joy as I look around my newly painted rooms. True, the color is the same—I couldn’t part with my delphinium-blue yet—but new slipcovers on the sofa, and new wall-hanging to hide an awkward door, a rearrangement of our few undistinguished pieces of furniture do lift the spirit and brighten the prospect of another cold, dreary Indiana winter. Even as late as my late thirties, one of the most boring subjects in my estimation was any discussion of genealogies. I tried to listen politely to my elders excitedly discussing some relationship they had discovered. Inexplicably, when I turned forty or thereabouts, I was amazed to 438 On the Corner 1970 discover that I was actually becoming interested, almost against my will, in my “roots.” Far from becoming an enthusiast, at least I followed a few leads, contacted relatives whose connections with our family had been marginal, began to attend Family reunions, visited cemeteries where my forebears—a few of them—were buried, and kept a haphazard file against the day when I wouldn’t have anything “more important” to do. This fall, however, my interest is revived by a happy chance. A friend of The Professor happens to be at the AFSC in Philadelphia and in some context mentions our name. A worker there overhears, asks questions: and in time we discover a whole branch of The Professor’s family tree of which we had not been aware. The upshot—two of the most pleasant days of our October, when the cousin and his wife visit us. It is a visit of such rapport and joy that we can only speculate in awe what loss would have been ours, had we missed these relatives. A further bonus: Ruth, in leaving, asks if I have any bulbs to share with her, so she can plant them and be perennially reminded of these happy days. And so I do what I have been thinking of doing for ten years—I dig up those pink lily bulbs, give some to her, and reposition the rest. I too shall have a perennial reminder of “Our New Relations.” November Oh, life is good and death is good… —Old Canon Perhaps I am naive, a shallow optimist. But in the fifty years I’ve lived, I haven’t been able to shake off the persistent conviction of the basic goodness of life. Yet even as I write it, I am aware of a sense of betrayal, for I know that “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places”—far more pleasant than for most of the world’s people, and for many who have found life a burden and death a grim joke. Even though I am personally convinced that good can be salvaged from any suffering and death that I may experience, yet I know that there are horrors to which people in every age have been subjected which—were they to happen to me—might well change my view of the goodness of human existence. Even so, I must speak from what I know: and on that basis, I must confess with the old canon, that Life is good and death is good.” Life is good. And in the beginning weeks of this November it has been especially good to our family. Another son has returned safely from 439 Story of a Family his years abroad. For a very few weeks the family is almost complete— only the “Indians” are missing.... Then once again the dispersion begins: Number Four Boy leaves for his 1-W assignment in Chicago; Number Five Boy, for his old home in Pennsylvania. But before they go, many noisy, wild, and wonderful mealtimes have been ours, and usually there have been additional merry souls around the table with us: college students; the lovely Child-Woman who sits by Number Three Boy; special visiting friends of Number Two Boy; a family to share Thanksgiving Day with us; Jerusalem Helen! More often than not the evening meal has moved naturally into a spirited festival of folk-country-gospel music, to the Little Feller’s delight, and with the aid of his rhythm band instruments. And life is good. Life is good in retrospect, I find, when our K-group launches a new series. Each of us will try to summarize his life, his vocation, his intentions and hopes, for the benefit of the others. Hopefully, new levels of understanding might result by taking time out to learn a bit more about each member of the group...Hopes are realized and—at least for me—surpassed, as we see our brothers and sisters newly, having become better acquainted with their backgrounds, their assessments of themselves, and their struggles and aspirations. In preparing to take my own turn, I see patterns in my life which I had not seen before. I even begin to realize what my vocation might very well be, and find new joy and freedom and contentment in accepting that vocation. Life is good in its dailyness. Looking over the appointment book now that the month is over, I have to admit that most of these days were made up of sheer routine—dailyness—which might have been deadening except for the patches of grace. Yet those patches of grace needed the background of dailyness to set off their shine, just as a vast night sky enhances the glory of a single star... But those patches of Grace!...The breakfast with Thelma and Mary Lois...The two evenings with the Russian film version of War and Peace... The over-lunch visit of Kindred-spirit Ann...The Twelve Days of Helen: “Come and stay as long as you can I had told her. “We’ll put you in an upstairs room where you’ll have quiet; we won’t make any demands on you—you can continue your recovery here...” On and on my pen ran. So she comes and what do we give her? Anything but Peace and Quiet! We should have been forewarned as, on the way to the airport, we receive 440 On the Corner 1970 news of a death in the family which we know will take us on a three-day journey, leaving her to cope for herself as the remaining family members spend their energies comforting and cleaning up after the Little Feller who is to succumb to flu in our absence...We should have guessed that this was only the beginning, to be followed by all manner of bizarre emergencies: Droppers-in, calling for Impromptu company-meal after meal, more noisy singing around the table, more basement-beds; forgotten appointments; emergency chaufferings; all of which added up to Joy, but hardly Peaceand-Quiet. After celebrating a zany Night-out alone, in commemoration of those still, late Jerusalem nights we enjoyed together, I send her off to her next stop, hoping that she will somehow recover. And secretly I hope that in spite of the drain on her flagging energies, she will remember the craziness of this household with more nostalgia than she might have remembered a haven of Peace and Quiet! “And death is good...” Or should one amend the old canon to say, “Death can be good”? The first death among the Professor’s brothers comes with the shock of suddenness. Yet in spite of grief and, for the immediate family, certain loneliness and a pervading sense of loss, there is somehow a holy joy enveloping those brothers and sons and their wives and children who have been called together by death. An almost-tangible love and tenderness, an almost-visible openness is present as we sit talking at the kitchen table, as we meet the lovely new daughter-in-law, as we refurbish our communication with the other members of this family who have had so special a place in our own family’s affections. At the funeral we are surrounded by thoughtful people who seem to be wearing the somber expressions entirely appropriate to the occasion; yet those who have been closest to this zestful man seem the lightest of spirit. I find myself hoping wistfully that my family upon my death might similarly be able to say by their shining faces, “Oh, life is good and death is good.” Death is good when, among other things, it brings people together in new humility and caring. I remember how, in the midst of the sorrow of my own mother’s burial, there was the joy of meeting people I had not seen for years. I have a memory of standing beside the as-yet unclosed grave, that cold February day, talking with a friend and articulating that very joy. On this latest day, too there has been joy of reunion, not only with family, but with friends. And those few who join the gathering at the 441 Story of a Family cabin especially to meet the Professor and myself, bring an additional warm glow to the already kindled fires of love. Leaving, I glance over to the churchyard and I think, “Where Grace has been acknowledged in life, Grace will be present in death. Peace, Brother!” December We are molded and remolded by those who have loved us... In the life of an ordinary household there are, in spite of the “goodness and mercy” following one every day, long or short stretches of ordinariness, of aridity. There are days, weeks, months even, when one doesn’t feel up to par, when things don’t jell, when joy seems dormant. But one never knows when that Other is going to break in, break loose, and inject a glow at the center of life... The thirty-one days of this December-on-the-corner have been— almost without exception—just such glowing days. An inexplicable aura, an exploding joy, a pervading sense of grace are present day after day. Each member of the family, all those who come in and go out, seem to be blessed with charisma; loving gaiety reigns at the dinner table, and communicates itself to the guests. Even while it is happening we are aware that Love has loosed a rare Christmas gift among us, and we let ourselves be swept along, not needing to ask Why? From Where? How long will it last? For what purpose has it come? At such times I find myself especially “melded and remolded” by the individual encounters with loving people: One of my favorite couples stops in on a Saturday morning to talk, and to tell me of their coming wedding. Though they insist they want nothing to eat, I do convince them that, since the grill is ready to be heated, the patties made, they should at least have a quick hamburger before they leave. In the fifteen minutes it takes to prepare the food, a sudden inspiration seizes me. Leaving them to talk together in the other room, I spread a white cloth on the kitchen table; place the big Swedish candle in the middle. When I am finished, gleaming Fostoria goblets hold their milk; matching plates—their sandwiches; cloth napkins complete the preparations, and somehow what began as a quick snack ends up as a sacramental meal, a sort of “prenuptial mass.” And there are other encounters: an Azar breakfast with a winsome college girl, a last meeting before she returns to her Virginia home; a candid, quiet, good hour...those long telephone conversations late at night, with a troubled friend—involvements which painfully hollow out 442 On the Corner 1970 the spirit that it might one day be able to hold more joy...the open house at Russ and Marge’s where we meet Woodstock people who know our Woodstock people, and who give us the gift of added testimony to the sweetness of our grandchild! And we are “molded and remolded” by the Brotherhood: It’s a good month for the morning worship services at the Big Church. There too, it seems that some kind of special grace is present. There is the morning when Don’s “I have no man” sermon brings the gift o