My mom had decided that since my great aunt Emma and our family friend Charlotte wanted to go hear him, and they didn’t drive, we’d all go to hear him. As a child of six, I was naturally inquisitive, pelting my mom with questions before the service began. Why was church outside and it wasn’t a Sunday? Were these bleachers called pews? Why was there such a long distance between the “congregation” and the minister? Mom patiently answered my questions, the woman who should have been awarded some kind of medal for surviving the raising of an overly inquisitive child.
And then it began. George Beverly Shea sang. I think that’s what I’d once thought the “voice” of God must sound like. Booming, full, inspired, and amazing. I listened to Shea’s voice on his songs, not the lyrics, all except for the alter call: “Just As I Am.” That one, I found myself singing along to, as best I could back then. I was oblivious to the thousands of people around me that day. I was remembering this week what might be my first memory of being lost in meditation or fully in faith.
As an adult, I’m less fixed on structure for terms that relate to a higher power by a name. I generally describe my faith in terms I learned growing up, but I’m open to a greater, more inclusive or less restrictive understanding wherein there is essentially the presence of the spirit I feel is holy, wholly.
At the end, Rev. Graham invited the audience to come forward if we wanted to be “saved.” Again, I whispered to mom, “Mom, do I need to go down there to be saved?” She smiled her angelic smile and shook her head no, saying, “No, honey you were saved when you were born because I gave you back to God. You are his child. You’ve been baptized and there’s no need to go down there.” “Okay,” I answered, strengthened in my decision to remain in my bleacher, err, pew.
Fast forward many decades. Church worship is a subject fraught with a list of “terms and conditions” that many impose on what it feels “right” to do, and when and where and how one can worship. Some Sundays I find comfort in gathering in pews or folding chairs, with longtime friends as family, surrounded by love and belonging. Other Sundays, I can walk in nature, observing the awesome wonder of the world we live in, expressing my appreciation as best I can. There’s no right or wrong for me, really, just a choice that feels like I’ve emerged from my reflection on the week as a stronger person, renewed to try the week ahead with energy and intention. I acknowledge my sins in prayer and ask for forgiveness and a clean slate to try again to do better. I don’t like hearing politics in church, ever, so when I do, I tend to bug out and head for the hills until I’m prepared to return with a calmed heart.
The week behind me had been filled with challenges, some exciting and delightful; others found me in uncharacteristic intense melancholy. I was “stuck” and I didn’t seem to be able to get out of the mud. Along my path came a call from dear friend, to chat about things we had an exciting time discussing, and that conversation cheered me greatly. I had almost snapped out of my blues, intensified by the gray, sun-scarce skies and falling rain. Even with every light in the house on, it wasn’t quite enough to turn the melancholy to cheer.
I kept my head down and kept working, a sure-fire cure for what ails you…make forward progress every day if you can. If you can’t, try anyway. Keep trying.
When she called back an hour later, I fully expected to hear more surprising delightful news. Instead she asked me point blank: “Are you happy? Is everything in your life the way you want it to be right now?” I blinked, swallowed and said, “Well, it’s okay. It will get better. Just staying focused.”
“That’s not good enough,” she said. “What are you going to do to change it?” Fast forward to my receiving a lovely good “talking to,” one that left us both reminded to never give up on our dreams, no matter how absurd or outlandishly unrealistic.
It was in that moment that I snapped to…and was grateful for someone bravely stepping out and sharing truth…I let go of the need to control. And I returned to wait patiently, eyes wide open. Whoa, Nellie. Answers began appearing everywhere around me.
Back to Billy Graham. I thought about him being the minister for so many presidential inaugurations, during the days he preached actively, and his may have been only one of the people in the 60s you could send something to by mail (for a $.03 stamp) just addressed to “Billy Graham, Minneapolis, Minnesota” and it would reach him. That’s impressive.
Plenty of time to reflect in the past 72 hours and seeing challenges met, obstacles overcome, and a renewed focus on my dreams, with no need to control the outcome. All because a faithful friend reached out to ask a question: “What are you going to do to change it?”
Can’t speak for everyone, but the more I thought about the lifelong goal of Billy Graham to serve God and help others, the words to “Just as I am,” and the words of truth I’d heard, they were signals of changes coming for the good, in not only my life but in the lives of many around me who similarly needed to know that they’re not “stuck.”
Saturday morning was priceless time spent, surrounded by 120 (we know, as we counted them) Crayola Crayons, paper, and an active imagination of a 5-year-old and an almost 1-year old and their Pippa. I witnessed unbridled inspiration at work. These are two youngsters who inspire more than they’ll ever know, and they teach equally as much as they enjoy life.
When the 5-year-old was building a house from box and paper, and little brother crawled over to “participate” and ripped the roof off while smiling, I saw an angel in action as his older brother smiled at him, retrieved the paper, and put the roof back on without even as much as a blink of an eye. A little later I suggested we put some of his little brother’s building blocks inside the house to elevate his project. He shook his head no.
“Why not?” I asked. His reply: “Because if we use up a lot of his blocks, he won’t have many left to play with.” Facepalm. V-8 moment. I’m so jazzed about the unconditional love I saw so early between two angels, seen only because I was lucky enough to be there at that moment. If only adults could be so wise.
Saturday night we blew bubbles. Well, I did. And he karate kicked and kung-fu’d them, complete with gales of laughter, a rap verse he made up by himself, and some awesome dancing to a song he heard in his head. Whoa, Nellie. Children are smarter than the rest of us. All the time.
He asked my opinion about how to decorate the roof (now safely reaffixed to the house). Wisely, I didn’t answer his question with my thought, but with another question, “How do you think you’d like to decorate it?” That wasn’t original to me. I’d learned that process from a wise creative named Thomas Bähler, whose own father used that same technique to answer the question “How do you be creative,” asked that way when Thomas was about the same age as my young pal. His answer? “I think it should be a rainbow,” he said, and he proceeded to create a marvelous rainbow.
And then another amazing angel went on an errand with me at my request. Without even questioning why, off we drove in order that I could find a way to break through one final barrier of languishing in “shoulda, coulda, woulda, used to, don’t any more,” and I emerged, quite quickly, renewed and affirmed that life has always been grand, and the past is the past and is just fine safely tucked in the past, and today is the future just around the corner. Put a bow on that box of regrets, sealed it shut and sent it off to the Dead Letter Office. Zoom! Path cleared.
My Sunday morning began beautifully, though, because before I went to sleep last night, a very overworked but very strong friend of grander faith than I have ever had reached out to me to send me an inspirational set of lyrics she wondered if I’d heard…they were new to me, but wonderful. As we “chatted” back and forth via e-mails later into the night, she asked me what had been on my mind this week. And I told her. Her reply to me and the devotional she wrote for me personally arrived this morning on my e-mail. And I smiled, uplifted, and got ready for church. She’d taken the time to start a grand day in motion. Was I ever lucky!
Made it to church, only four minutes late. Thanks to dear friends insisting I sit with whenever I’m there…I took a seat in the pew in front of them and felt welcomed. I was about to stare a hole in the stained-glass window to my left as I waited for inspiration. Nothing was flowing to mind as I waited.
Suddenly, 10 minutes into the service, the children’s anthem, “This Little Light of Mine,” blew me out of my discomfort and into sheer joy. I saw the oldest daughter of two dear friends singing her heart out, correctly with all the motions, joyfully. And then there was one voice up there not quite in sync with the rest of them.
Not quite sure who it was—she had a good, strong, voice, but she had her own timing, and her own movements—she had the “X factor” of pizazz. She just wasn’t in lockstep with the rest of the children, but she didn’t seem perturbed, nor did her fellow singers. Again, with children and their unconditional ability to love.
I’d spotted my kindred spirit up there…I understood her. At the end of the song, the audience, err, congregation clapped, and the one I’d spotted, sure enough, waved joyously to the crowd after the applause, in you know, “the God bless you, thank you, and drive safely” benediction, with joy. Reminded me of another dear friend right after she’s received a standing ovation. That unparalleled joy and showing love of music—that’s what to aim for! Sing your song, shine your light, make a difference, even if you don’t accomplish it in a traditional way.
Five minutes later, at the end of my pew came a gentleman whose appearance was slightly disheveled, though to be fair, there had been quite a bit of wind and weather that had blown all of us through the doors of the sanctuary this morning. Two people in a pew, as far apart from one another as one can possibly be spaced, because we’d both entered the pew from different doorways to reach our spot du jour.
As my mind wandered slightly during the service, I’d contemplated my seatmate, who focused straight ahead, intently, doing a far better job of paying attention, I suppose, than I was. As the end of the service approached, I’d reached the inevitable decision point. You know how, at the end of services, the minister asks you to reach out and take the hand of the person next to you during the group prayer? I knew that was coming.
And I didn’t fear taking his hand. I just didn’t want to scare him off. Sometimes when you’re in the company of people who all seem to be different in that they all seem to know each other, the separation created by being “new” or “different” can be more daunting to the newcomer.
One thing our church does well, at least by many members, is to welcome people around them with sincere greetings and warm handshakes and exchange of kind words. I love that. Two of my three seatmates/buddies behind me grew up in this church, and they are primo at inviting people to join them. But it was all about my duty to be welcoming, and it was just me and the stranger in my pew.
After the sermon and the acolytes had extinguished the candles, the pastor was inviting us to stand. So, I stood and moved gently down the pew to the stranger, all the while thinking that, even though he didn’t know me, I hoped he trusted me to stay there and not take off out the door wanting to exit before the rest of us. He stayed firm.
The pastor then invited anyone in the congregation to come forward to the altar rail to pray as long as they wanted to (shades of Billy Graham again) as the organist began to play, and we began to sing, all the verses of “Just As I Am” (Really? I’d forgotten just how many verses there were. Oddly I didn’t have to look up at the big bouncing letters on the screens…they just came back from my retrograde memory).
With the first note of the song, he left the pew and went down to the altar to pray. My three pewmates behind me jettisoned down the same direction so that he wouldn’t have to be up there alone while praying. Still others went down to pray. I stayed behind. Before the end of the song, he returned to our pew again. For that entire song, I’d felt his pain. Whatever was seemingly troubling him, or was it me, just seered through me like a lightning bolt. I began to find tears welling up and then stinging my eyes as they rolled down my face. Darn it. Why did I have to cry? BFF says, “Don’t fight the feeling when you cry; you need to cry.” Okay. Noted.
When next the congregational prayer time came, I reached for his hand and he held mine securely. His hands had seen a hard day’s work, but they were gentle as he held mine in his. I placed my left arm on the right shoulder of the young man in front of me, whose hand I have held the past few weeks. He is an amazing child whose struggles with a spectrum make his accomplishments more powerful than grownups twice his age.
Children, you know, feel everything even when they don’t understand it. He saw the tears in my eyes and moved his left hand around his chest and up onto his shoulder placing it over mine, comforting me. A powerful healing and repair of my spirit of hope happened, and I felt it. As the prayer ended, the gentleman looked at me, even though my red eyes and tear-stained face were probably pretty scary.
“God bless you,” he said, as he looked deep into my eyes, waiting for mine to look back and see his spirit behind his face. I did. I found my voice and said, “Thank you, and God bless you.” He smiled and said, “He has blessed me. You see, I’m an evangelist and I travel all around preaching God’s word, and starting all kinds of trouble everywhere,” he said with a light smile. I knew what he meant. Disrupting status quo can freak some people out, but the true search for a higher power, some call it God, some call it Spirit or the Divine, means searching your own soul for truth and finding kindred souls and spirits who resonate on the same wavelength you do, I think.
As he left the church, a friend behind me said she’d seen him outside the church before service began, seemingly walking past our church and down a few blocks towards the main intersection. She said, “I guess he decided to come back into our church this morning.” I nodded and said, “Yes, he did. He picked our church to join us this morning.”
People have their choices of worship across our twin cities. Some congregations gather together because they believe the same thing. Others gather in mega groups to provide a haven from those who believe the same thing or their thing or our thing. I’m the most multi-ecumenical person I know, in that I feel at home in every denomination and those places without, because I’m there to hear a word of hope and reassurance that this world with all its imperfections is not “all there is.” And I find comfort in that.
I went to church this morning, and “they took me to church this morning.” The little girl who waved broadly and smiled at the crowd when she’d completed her song. The gentleman stranger who revealed himself as an evangelist before leaving the congregation. And, the appearance of loved ones in my life throughout the past four days, finding their way into my world from places seen and unseen, and the powerful lessons of never giving up on your dreams really packed a wallop. Yet, I was rejuvenated rather than exhausted with the transformation that happened.
My takeaway from the activities and experiences is this: angels are all around us, some we see, others we can’t spot. We have this day to express love to all those in our lives, whether we know them or not. Children are the most honest group of people you can ever hope to meet. The love of children heals adults with hugs.
As our nation heard from young adults in Parkland, Florida this week, the future of our country is in good hands. We are right to have hope, even when you think it’s time to throw in the towel. This is not about politics. It’s about the willingness of young people to speak up and take a stand, any stand they wish, but to speak up and express their opinions. These young people who needed healing the most were the ones doing the healing by reassuring a nation that they were determined is the major gift of the week. Powerful.
And while Billy Graham went to his heavenly home this week, if you’ll allow me my childlike construct of what we all call “the next place,” it seems that hundreds of angels appeared in our world to continue his spirit of goodness, love, light, and sharing what they believe with those who will listen.
To share unconditional love with others is a wonderful goal of the day, every day. Tiny bubbles blown into the air that caused a child to laugh with joy and gift me with his wisdom; the silent expression of love that an energetic infant makes as I hold him close and he surrenders his energy to my shoulders, to take comfort and rest; worship songs from old hymnals reminding us of rituals of childhood that were as much a part of our DNA as they remain today. Sharing time with friends and loved ones, in person or by phone or by e-mail—all these things together represent so many reasons to be joyful, optimistic, and unceasing in being hopeful about tomorrow.
Just as I am, indeed. Rest in peace Rev. Graham and thank you for reminding us through your life that one person can make an impression, one that can last a lifetime. Here’s to a grand week ahead for everyone.
