Come Into God's Presence With Singing

In Psalm 100, one of a number of Psalms I memorized as a child, we are told: ” Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands...Serve the Lord with gladness. ..Come into his presence with singing.

Hymn singing in church has been and still is a vital part of our worship and our discipleship. Our hymnals, next to the Bible have been our most formative resource.

Christians have been singing as long as there have been christians. After finishing his last supper with his disciples, Jesus, on the very night when he was betrayed, sang a hymn with his disciples before they all went out to Gethsemane.

Our Jewish spiritual ancestors sang. The 150 Psalms in the Old Testament is the Jewish “book of hymns.”

John Wesley in 1761 wrote “The 7 directions for Singing “ and they continue in our Methodist hymnals. In our current United Methodist Hymnal.1. Wesley directed us to, “Have an eye to every word.” and to “above all to sing spiritually with an eye to pleasing God more than ourselves or anyone else. We are to direct our singing to the Lord. So our hymn singing is “To the Lord.”

I am not a musician. But I keep singing anyway. I enjoy singing and was allowed to sing in the Candler chorale in Seminary at Emory University.

I love to sing and I love to cook. So I sing around the house, especially in the kitchen. My daughter Beth likes to laugh and tell that every time she brought a boy into the house after a date, I would be in the kitchen banging pots and pans around and singing, “His Eye is on the Sparrow and I know He watches me.”

One learns more than they want to know about themselves when they have grown children.

My parents loved to sing. My mother sung solos in church as a young woman but she was 38 when I was born. I never heard her sing in church but, from my earliest memories, I learned every hymn in the hymnal from hearing my mother sing them as she did household chores.

As a teen, it embarrassed me to bring friends home when Mama was in the kitchen singing hymns. Today my dear mother’s singing is one of my happiest memories.

I do not have a great many memories of my father as I was only nine when he died after being bed ridden for over ayear. But his witness in life and song had a profound influence on me and some of it tied up with his gospel singing.

I remember hearing Papa sing several hymns still in our UM Hymnal. Also he sang other hymns like, “I’m a Child of The King.” My sister, Louise told me that on his deathbed, Papa sang all the verses of “Palms of Victory,” an old hymn about the first Palm Sunday.

G.K Chesterson wrote a few lines of poetry about the lowly donkey that Jesus rode that first Palm Sunday. Chesterson has the donkey to say:
“Fools! For I also had my hour…
One far fierce hour and sweet…
There was a shout about my ears
And palms before my feet.”

The donkey was telling us…Whatever or whomever Christ touches he dignifies…whether a lowly donkey or a lowly person.

In the devastated South still struggling to recover from the Civil War and in the Great Depression, I did not need lessons in "self esteem." We were taught in church that we were so loved and important that Jesus died to save us." My dying father was so sure that heaven was his destination as if his ticket was already in his hand. And I was a witness as I learned the lyrics and tune to:
“Never Grow Old:” by hearing Papa sing:
“I have heard of a land
In the far away strand
Tis a beautiful home of the soul
Built by Jesus on high
There we never shall die
Tis a land where we’ll never grow old”

Charles Wesley, the Bard of Methodism wrote over 65 hundred hymns. When we learn the words of Wesley hymns we are also learning Bible truth. For example, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” is truly a “message of the Holy Spirit” in song. It contains 14 references or allusions to scripture passages.
“Breath, O breath thy loving spirit
into every troubled breast!
Let us all in thee inherit,
let us find that second rest.
Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
end of faith as its beginning,
set our hearts at Liberty.”
“Finish then thy new creation
Pure and spotless let us be
Let us see thy great salvation,
Perfectly restored in thee
Changed from glory into glory
Till in heaven we take our place
Till we cast our crowns before thee
Lost in wonder, love and praise.”

Bishop Arthur Moore, A South Georgia native and one of our greatest bishops said about Charles Wesley’s “O For A thousand Tongues to Sing.” “We sing “O for a thousand tongues to sing” and do not use the one tongue we have.”

Wesley’s “A Charge to Keep I Have” reminds us as Christians have been given a “charge to keep and a God to glorify.” We have also been given a particular charge or calling that is unique.

When we sing, “When I survey the Wondrous Cross, by Isaac “we are also hearing a good sermon about the cross and the doctrine of the atonement.
“When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the prince of glory died
My richest gains I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.
“See from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did ev’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.”

One of the hymns I connect with my parents singing is “He Keeps me Singing.” The hymn is still on page 110 in Cokesbury,

The words and music were written by Luther Bridges,(1884-1948) a Methodist pastor and evangelist from Georgia. He was away in a revival meeting in Kentucky when his wife and three children were burned to death in a house fire. Bridges was so devastated and dismayed he stayed to himself for many months.
My mother told me about them meeting Bridges and hearing him preach and tell the sad story about how he came to write “He Keeps Me Singing” in the midst of this great sorrow.
The first words are; “There’s within my heart a melody.” Jesus whispers sweet and low
Fear not I am with you
Peace be still
In all of life’s ebb and flow,
“Jesus, Jesus , Jesus,
Sweetest name I know.
Fills my every longing.
Keeps me singing as I go.”

Many of our most beautiful and effective hymns were written and sung in the midst of tragedy. It is in crisis times that we are stopped in our tracks and say, “Where is God when bad things happen.” Strangely, we do not stop often think to say, “where is God when good things happen.”

When things are going smoothly, we tend to focus on other things, our work, our vacation, holidays or the latest movie or ball game.

But let sometime happen… losing a spouse, a job, or discovering you or a loved one may have heart failure or cancer and suddenly life changes and God is back in the picture. Crisis and tragedy serve the function of bringing us back to the recognitions of our limits and our mortality.

My brother Tom dropped out of church for a few Sundays as an older teen. One day he ran into our town’s mayor who told Tom he had been missing him at church. Then he said, half in fun, to Tom, “One day you are going to die and I will say, “poor Tom, he had to die before we could get him back in church.” Tom came home, told Mama about the conversation and asked her to wake him up in time for church the next day.

Some of our favorite hymns were written in times of distress. The hymn, “What A Friend We have in Jesus“ was written by Joseph Striven after his fiancée was drowned the night before their scheduled wedding.

It is said that George Matheson wrote “O Love That will Not Let Me Go” after his fiancée’ broke her engagement to him when she learned of his impending blindness.

In reflecting on my spiritual journey, I was influence by hymn singing. As a child of 11, I was sitting in the Methodist Church where I had been baptized as an infant, listening to the words of a hymn we were singing and pondering the first Biblical question I ever remember giving thought to. We were singing:
“Alas and Did My Savior Bleed.
And did my sovereign die,
would He devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I.”
A few years later some of our church musicians, contrary to Wesley’s advice, took liberties with Isaac Watts’ hymn and deleted “such a worm as I” and replaced it with the more palatable “sinners such as I.”

We might debate the question of whether or not someone should change the lyrics in a hymn after the poet has died. But most of us think it is a nice change. We do not mind being “a sinner.” We may even brag about being a sinner, but none of us relish the idea of being called a “worm”.
This was before WWII, a time when we believed that human beings were getting better and better. All we needed was better education and more bathtubs.
Then we learned about the Holocaust in Germany, where one of the most enlightened and educated nations killed 6 million Jews. We learned about the atrocities of Japan, another educated and prosperous nation…and on and on. Worms?

The evidence is in. Education and prosperity and even social action ...all good things…all much needed things but they cannot save us. They sometimes only may increase our capacity and opportunity for evil?

That day at age 11, sitting in church I was paying attention to all the words of this old Isaac Watts hymn and especially the words, “was it for crime that I have done… Christ died upon the tree… amazing pity, grace unknown… and love beyond degree. “

I was thinking…”how in the world could the sins I commit today have anything to do with Jesus dying on a bloody cross 2000 years ago?”
I was then a thoughtful obedient child. More serious than many I think because of the illness and death of my beloved Papa two years earlier. I suppose I was somewhat like the little 8 year old girl who wrote her pastor one Monday morning.
“Dear Pastor. Yesterday you preached about loving our enemies. I do not have any enemies yet. But I hope to have some by the time I am nine. Love, Mary.”

I could not think of specific sins I had committed, but somehow I grasped a profound truth. I accepted the mystery that God to be God could see into the future as well as the past and Jesus had shed his blood on the cross for me and my generation as well as those of his generation.

I have not mentioned everyone’s favorite hymn, “Amazing Grace,” by John Newton who had been a slave trader and became a Christian and an Abolitionist. (Note: this is important...not every "Christian " was an abolitionist but every "Abolitionist" was a Christian. No other religion had seen the evil of slavery and worked to defeat the powerful world wide slave trade)

I have not mentioned two of my favorite hymns, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “All Hail the Power of Jesus Name.” We must also include the greatest of all, Handel’s “Messiah” and the “Halleluiah Chorus” that lifts us to our feet in awe and praise!

And let me mention Fanny J. Crosby (1820-1915) the blind poet who wrote the lyrics and music to over 8 thousand hymns…many of your favorites and mine. Many Cosby hymns still in our Cokesbury and United Methodist Hymnals, are, “To God be the Glory;“ “
“Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice.
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice.”
Come to the Father
Through Jesus the Son
And give him the glory
Great things he has done.”

Cosby also wrote the words and music to: Blessed Assurance”;
"Blessed assurace...Jesus is mine...Oh, what a fortaste of Glory Divine...Heir of salvation...purchased above...Born of His spirit...Washed in His blood."

Thank God, we can come into God’s awesome presence with singing and say with the Psalmist, “let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.“ May we say with our life and with our words, “This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior all the day long.” AMEN.

1. United Methodist Hymnal, Roman Numeral page 7.

IRAQ

Interesting Facts recently reported about Iraq.

1. The Garden of Eden was in Iraq.

2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq , was the cradle of civilization!

3. Noah built the ark in Iraq.

4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq

5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq!

6. Isaac's wife Reb ekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq!

7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq.

8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq.

9. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel.

10. Amos cried out in Iraq!

11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem.

12. Daniel was! in the lion's den in Iraq!

13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq.

14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall" in Iraq.

15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into Iraq.

16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq.

17. The wise men were from Iraq

18. Peter preached in Iraq.

19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called Babylon, which was a city in Iraq!

And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is second? It is Iraq! However, that is not the name that is used in the Bible The names used in the Bible are Babylon, Land of Shinar, and Mesopotamia The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers, more exactly between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The name Iraq, means country with deep roots.

Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant country in the Bible.

No other nation, except Israel, has more history and prophecy associated it than Iraq.

The following verse is from the Koran, (the Islamic Bible)
Koran (9:11 ) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace .

(Note the verse number!) Hmmmmmmm?!

Love Thy Neighbor

Neighbors were an important part of life in the twenties and thirties. Our neighbors were in and out of our home all the time. Sometimes it was to borrow a cup of sugar or an egg to finish out a recipe. Sometimes a neighbor would stop in to share vegetables or cookies.

But often the visits were just to sit and talk. It was not uncommon for several neighbor women to visit with my mother on our front porch late afternoons after a long day of work.

On evenings our front porch seemed to also be the gathering place for men, women and children after the evening meal (referred to as "supper") at night. The porch had several inviting rocking chairs as well as a swing with space enough to seat three adults.

While the adults were talking, the children played "hide and seek" or "kick the can" out in the front yard or on the unpaved road in front of our house.

I have fond memories as a child of being in and out of the homes of the Finchers, the Parnells, the Moores, the Hornings. And they visited with us daily.

Then there was a quaint lady from out of town, who, with her children, would visit us overnight and sometimes for two or three days several times a year. I remember sitting on our front porch (along with various friends and neighbors) near sundown one afternoon.

We looked down the street and saw this lady and her children coming toward our house. I said to Mama, "Here comes Mrs. Johnson (I'll call her)."

Someone asked Mama why Mrs. Johnson and her children often came to our house. They lived miles away. The answer seemed simply enough to Mama. "We were neighbor to them on the farm," Mama said.

As I have told in another post, Papa made the difficult decision to move off their farm into a nearby Textile community after the onslaught of boll weevils that all but destroyed their annual cotton profits as the South was trying to recover from the devastation of the Civil war.

The former neighbor lady, Mrs Johnson was short and heavy. Her dark hair was pulled straight back in a bun. Her only daughter and older child was "Mae." Mae was thin and very subdued. She was even more shy than I! Mae walked just a little behind her mother on the sidewalk as they made their way down our street. The three little brothers followed their mother and sister in a procession.

I can visualize them now as they walked toward our house. Mama welcomed them, gave them supper, found a bed for the lady, and put pallets of folded quilts and a feather pillow each on the floor for Mae (and me). Mrs. Johnson sleep in my bed. Mama also put a comfortable pallet of quilts on the floor for the three little boys.

I do not remember what, if anything, Mae and I talked about before we fell asleep side by side on the floor. The lady had a husband but we never saw him. I overheard someone say her husband was "sorry’ and "no account".

Children were "seen and not heard " in those days. So, of course, I did not ask. But I learned by listening. In these days before Television, this was a mystery somewhat like a soap opera.

While visiting with us, Mrs. Johnson would always get up early, and she would come to the place where Mae and I were sleeping on the floor and say, "Rise, Mae." I thought this was "funny."

Incidentally, we sometimes referred to mentally ill people as someone who "acted funny" or had "gone crazy." I thought the Johnsons "acted funny" and we both laughed at some of their ways and cried for them.

Looking back it may have been wife and/or child abuse that caused them to leave their home so suddenly, walk five or six miles and show up at our house. As far as I know they came and went without explanation. If Mama knew, she kept her own counsel and always treated Mrs. Johnson and her children with respect, preparing food and bedding for them as respectfully as she did when her own sisters visited.

After all, we had been "neighbor to them" on the farm.

How Do Women Preachers Dress?

I am going to be a preacher,” she told me. “Wonderful,” I said. Of course, I knew that she was talking about her role in the upcoming youth Easter drama, but I was excited for her nonetheless. Then she asked, “Should I dress as a woman or a man?” I told her that she should dress as a woman and that she was going to be a great preacher.

I was troubled because her question represented an uncertainty as to whether or not a woman could be a preacher, so much so that she considered dressing as a man necessary to more accurately portray the role she had been given in the play.

Her church ordains women as Deacons. From time to time, women even fill the pulpit as guest preachers, though obviously not enough to give her a clear impression that she did not need to dress as a man in order to play a preacher in the Easter drama.

The uncertainty about women in pastoral roles demonstrates just how effective the culture in which we live is undermining the teachings of a local church. The Bible we read gives us countless examples of women working for the Lord and leading young churches. Our scriptures are bold to say that “. . .in Christ, there is neither male nor female. . .,” and that in the last days God will pour out God’s spirit on all flesh so that our “. . .sons and our daughters shall prophesy.”

How then do we find ourselves, at times, uncertain and ambivalent about who God can call to do God’s work? Consider for a moment that women have been allowed to vote in our country for less than a hundred years. Generally speaking, the arguments against women voting sounded high-minded and moral. The Holy Scriptures were often invoked to undergird arguments against women voting. Of course, voting was not the only thing that women were not allowed to do. There were any number of professions and careers that were off limits to women simply because they were women. Preaching was high on the list of occupations unsuitable for women.

Today, the list of careers that women cannot pursue is whittled down to one – preaching — and then only in certain pockets of the Christian faith. Of all the activities that society once deemed off limits to women, preaching remains.

Those opposed to women preaching unfailingly state their position with passages from the Bible that would seem to suggest that women should not have leadership roles in the church. I would grant that there are such passages of scripture, but there are also passages of scripture that would suggest just the opposite.

So then, the question becomes not so much what the Bible says, but how do we read what the Bible says. Will we read it as people who long for the days when women were denied freedom and opportunity, or will we read it as a people who believe that the God who said His spirit would be poured out on all flesh is, in fact, doing that very thing even as we speak?

Today the pastor of Pingdu Christian Church in Pingdu, China is a woman. This church was started in 1885, when a tiny woman from Virginia ventured, on her own, 120 miles inland to share the Gospel in a city that had no Christian witness. That woman’s name was Lottie Moon.

Lottie Moon was appointed as a missionary to China by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. No, she would not have been allowed to pastor a church in the United States at that time, but it was fine for her to go where no man was willing to and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Today, pastor Wang Xia, leads multiple congregations and meeting points, along with her pastoral associates, telling the same story that was told the residents of her city long ago by Miss Lottie Moon.

Baptists have had women preachers throughout our history. We have just not always appreciated them as such. Even today, as Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary prepares to reconstruct Miss Moon’s Pingdu house into an on-campus historical display, the living legacy of Miss Moon’s devotion to the cause of Christ is ignored and rejected by Southern Baptists. They have trademarked her name, but they have shackled her spirit.

They are happy to use their fundamentalized version of Lottie Moon to raise money for their enterprise, even while they ignore and demean the gifts and callings of her spiritual descendants.
We honor the legacy of Lottie Moon, and others like her, when we help our children, our sons and our daughters, listen to whatever God is saying in their lives. We keep that legacy alive when in faith we, along with our children, say yes to God’s call in our lives.
No doubt Catherine B. Allen says it best in this months Baptists Today, “The stones in Fort Worth will cry out a message the seminary has officially rejected. Ye who have ears, listen to what the Spirit says!”
(The article above copied from a Baptist paper)

The "White Experience" during Secregation.

Remembering the " White Experience " during Segregation in America. African American friends tell us it is difficult for white people to understand the "Black experience." This was the phrase my husband and I heard over and over from Black friends in the Fifties and Sixties in church and civic groups and in our home when African Americans were visiting with us. It is true. This lack of understanding by any of us who have not walked in the shoes of another is the stuff of which hostility and even riots are made!

Perhaps some will find it interesting to hear something of the "White Experience." Of course none of us, whatever the color our skin happens to be, can speak for all. I was born in 1923, when the South was still trying to recover from the destruction of the Civil War and the beginnings of the Great Depression.

In our town many Caucasian workers worked from "sunup to sundown," twelve hour days for a meager living in one of the textile mills or anywhere they could find employment.

Cotton farmers all over the South during the Great Depression and the Boll weevil epidemic were giving up on trying to make a living in farming. My older cousin Aubrey Simms's told me he remembered as a boy of six, the very night in 1922 when my father told his father about his decision to sell his farm and move to town. Aubrey said his Dad replied, "Uncle Wilson, I will go to share cropping before I will raise my family in a Mill town."

Apparently my father, a hard working and intelligent Christian man in failing health, thought this his only option. I am told he worked in the Old Porterdale mill until he became disabled. He was bedridden for over a year and died when I was nine.

Most of the Black men we saw were the collectors of garbage or worked as unskilled laborers in one of the cotton factories. Textile Mills had been moved South for cheap black and white labor after the Civil War. They found plenty. Many southerners can point back to the hard working "Cotton Mill" experience as a part of their inheritance.

Many Black women worked as cooks and housekeepers and in child care for the poor white workers.

Sad to say, we each had our own schools and churches. Most of our schools had been destroyed and school tuition and books for high school and college were beyond he means of most of the people, Black and White.

It was customary and considered proper to socialize with ones own race. Thus Black workers come into the homes of White people through the back door to distinguish it as a service rather than a social call.

Class distinctions were also important, but were not always so obvious, nor so rigid. As Margaret Mitchell had Rhett Butler to illustrated in Gone with the Wind, with white skin, one could possibly make money by hook or by crook and sooner or later get legal and/or "respectful" and move up the social ladder. Possible but not likely?

The white experience was that many, if not most, white men and women were also poorly educated (or schooled...some, like my father who was "self-educated") and worked 12-hour days. In those days, it took both paychecks to survive. Most children stopped school and went to work as soon as they were old enough. The burning of schools and churches in the South after Sherman's march through Georgia at the end of the Civil War had taken its toll.

When I came on the scene, this was the custom. This I saw and pretty much accepted in my childhood as "just the way things are." We had no social contact with African-American people at all. We had never heard the term “segregation, "integration "nor "discrimination.”

All the black people we knew were servants who seemed accepting of their status. As a child, I had noticed that Mama always treated kindly the "Colored" women who sometimes worked in our kitchen. My intelligent and hard working widowed mother worked as a weaver in the Cord Weave Shop of Osprey Mill in our small town. The "Cord Weave Shop" made heavy cloth used for tent making, to reinforce auto, truck and tank tires among other such uses.

In those days it was a common practice for the Colored or Negro cook to eat at a "cook table" rather than with the family. A cook table was a table on the side of the wall where we mixed and rolled our bread, etc. The dining table was in the center of the room and sometimes nearer the stove and therefore warmer. Mama would always ask the Black lady, much to her seeming dismay, to sit at the dining table with us in cold weather. I suppose this seemed the same kind of paternalism that white workers dealt with from textile officials who gave out Christmas bags of candy, fruit and nuts to everyone in town - black and white - and who built schools and churches and tried to be good to all their "mill hands."

The textile mills jobs also required feet, eyes and brain but the workers were referred to as "hands." We referred to Black people as "Colored people" or "Negroes" – often with the Southern pronunciation "Negra" close to the sound of the "N" word. We were corrected in school (and sometimes in home) and told to fully pronounce the last vowel, "Negro." We thought it would be insulting to say "black, " as in "old black Joe". And it was considered ignorant by educated Caucasians then as now it is considered insulting and criminal to say the "N" word.

Incidentally "color," as on a "color chart" is not a good way, in my judgement to define any of us. I have never seen anyone with "black" skin. On a color chart, skin might be discribed as dark brown to light beige. Neither have I seen "white" skin. Caucasian might accurately be described as having light ivory to dark beige skin. ( But snow is "white" and it is no compliment nor insult for Christians to be told they can be washed "whiter than snow." We are taking about " soul" washing not skin.) Perhaps one day we will describe ourselves as either Caucasian or Negroid, instead of the inaccurate description of "Black" or "White" or the divisive "European American" and "African American" ?

Being from a Christian family, I never saw any African American person being physically mistreated. But in addition to many kindnesses, I also observed some indignities against them. Whether we are African American or Caucasian, many of us are sad to know that our intelligent, hard working and good parents and/or grandparents had little to no educational opportunities in the south until after World War II.
When I was a young teen, an attractive and bright young "Negro" girl came into our kitchen and said something to me (not to my mother) to let me know coming into our house by the back door was discrimination rather than just "custom." I had never before thought about this.

My husband Charles, 4 years older than I, remembered one young Negro man having rocks thrown at him as he ran away from “stealing” some apples from an apple orchard. Charles was a young boy at the time and didn't know for sure, but his fear was that the young man might have been seriously injured. Remembering these kinds of treatment against African Americans is tragic. This made a profound impression on Charles, although he did not know the people who owned the Apple tree or any of the people throwing rocks at the young man as he ran away down a railroad tract. Charles said he stood there as a little boy feeling afraid and ashamed and knowing in his heart the horror of the situation.

Charles and I often talked about this. This kind of behavior was so foreign to the Christian concept and the experience of Peter and Cornelius in the Bible that God is no respecter of persons. Even earlier, the Jewish law of gleaning taught that even a sojourner and a stranger was to be cared for and allowed to pick grain or fruit to eat from others' fields as he passed by.

Yes, there has been world wide slavery and class distinctions from the beginning of written history. It was still a fact in Bible times but never condoned in the Bible as some have claimed. After all, the major celebration in the Old Testament is the Passover of the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt slavery into freedom.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, slavery was already a world wide practice along with “survival of the fittest.”

As G.K. Chesterson said, "the end of slavery was begun when Jesus died … although it took the church years to become powerful enough to defeat the powerful slave trade."

The South was only beginning to recover from the Civil War when the economic depression hit. After World War II, when things began to get better, and Charles and I became committed Christians, we spoke out for Civil Rights long before it became a politically correct posture for whites to take. We took some licks for this stance from those who did not see the need for such "quick change."

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , A gifted Christian minister began to "speak out" with conviction, many Caucasians became informed and educated enough to join him in his fight to the death. Then in the Methodist Church we had white men and women like "Mrs M. E. Tilly" and others who held Methodist feet to the fire until most of us woke up and saw the evil of segregation.

In the 60's my husband, Charles Shaw was pastor of Trinity Methodist Church. Silas McComb had been the church caretaker for many years. His wife died and Mr. McComb asked my husband to participate in her funeral at their church, the Metropolitan Church, an African- American Methodist Church. Miss Lottie Duncan, our Trinity Methodist Church secretary, and I went to the funeral. The people in the church welcomed us warmly. I observed they read from the same Bible and sang from the same Methodist Hymnal as we did. Why were we not friends and co-workers?
Perhaps we can recover from some of the bitterness when we realize the issue of slavery is not altogether a Black and White issue! Less than 8 percent of the people in the South had “owned” slaves. Most were white but a few wealthy Black people and a few Native Americans also owned slaves.

History reveals there were white Abolitionists who gave their life for freedom and Civil Rights from the beginning of African people being sold by some Black Africans to some White slavers. From my own experience, I know of many white people who worked and prayed tirelessly and some who died for the end of segregation and for equal rights for all people. Today we see some White and some Black "racists." Hopefully it is a minority and most of us want the best life possible for all people.

A FALLEN SOLDIER RETURNS HOME

AIRLINE CAPTAIN writes:
" My lead flight attendant came to me and said, "We have an H.R. on this flight." (H.R. Stands for human remains.) "Are they military?" I asked. 'Yes', she said. 'Is there an escort?' I asked. 'Yes, I already assigned him a seat'.
'Would you please tell him to come to the flight deck. You can board him early," I said.

A young army sergeant, the image of the perfectly dressed soldier, entered the flight deck and introduced himself. I asked him about his soldier. The escorts of these fallen soldiers talk about them as if they are still alive and still with us. 'My soldier is on his way back to Virginia ,' he said.

He proceeded to answer my questions, but offered no words. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him and he said no. I told him that he had the toughest job in the military and that I appreciated the work that he does for the families of our fallen soldiers. The first officer and I got up out of our seats to shake his hand. He left the flight deck to find his seat. We completed our preflight checks, pushed back and performed an uneventful departure.

About 30 minutes into our flight I received a call from the lead flight attendant in the cabin. 'I just found out the family of the soldier we are carrying, is on board', she said. She then proceeded to tell me that the father, mother, wife and 2-year old daughter were escorting their son, husband, and father home. The family was upset because they were unable to see the container that the soldier was in before we left. We were on our way to a major hub at which the family was going to wait four hours for the connecting flight home to Virginia .

The father of the soldier told the flight attendant that knowing his son was below him in the cargo compartment and being unable to see him was too much for him and the family to bear. He had asked the flight attendant if there was anything that could be done to allow them to see him upon our arrival. The family wanted to be outside by the cargo door to watch the soldier being taken off the airplane. I could hear the desperation in the flight attendants voice when she asked me if there was anything I could do. 'I'm on it', I said. I told her that I would get back to her.

Airborne communication with my company normally occurs in the form of e-mail like messages. I decided to bypass this system and contact my flight dispatcher directly on a secondary radio. There is a radio operator in the operations control center who connects you to the telephone of the dispatcher. I was in direct contact with the dispatcher. I explained the situation I had on board with the family and what it was the family wanted. He said he understood and that he would get back to me.

Two hours went by and I had not heard from the dispatcher. We were going to get busy soon and I needed to know what to tell the family. I sent a text message asking for an update. I saved the return message from the dispatcher and the following is the text: 'Captain, sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. There is policy on this now and I had to check on a few things. Upon your arrival a dedicated escort team will meet the aircraft. The team will escort the family to the ramp and plane side. A van will be used to load the remains with a secondary van for the family. The family will be taken to their departure area and escorted into the terminal where the remains can be seen on the ramp. It is a private area for the family only. When the connecting aircraft arrives, the family will be escorted onto the ramp and plane side to watch the remains being loaded for the final leg home.

Captain, most of us here in flight control are veterans. Please pass our condolences on to the family. Thanks.' I sent a message back telling flight control thanks for a good job. I printed out the message and gave it to the lead flight attendant to pass on to the father. The lead flight attendant was very thankful and told me, 'You have no idea how much this will mean to them.'

Things started getting busy for the descent, approach and landing. After landing, we cleared the runway and taxied to the ramp area. The ramp is huge with 15 gates on either side of the alleyway. It is always a busy area with aircraft maneuvering every which way to enter and exit. When we entered the ramp and checked in with the ramp controller, we were told that all traffic was being held for us. 'There is a team in place to meet the aircraft', we were told. It looked like it was all coming together, then I realized that once we turned the seat belt sign off, everyone would stand up at once and delay the family from getting off the airplane.

As we approached our gate, I asked the copilot to tell the ramp controller we were going to stop short of the gate to make an announcement to the passengers. He did that and the ramp controller said, 'Take your time.' I stopped the aircraft and set the parking brake.

I pushed the public address button and said, 'Ladies and gentleman, this is your Captain speaking. I have stopped short of our gate to make a special announcement. We have a passenger on board who deserves our honor and respect. His Name is Private XXXXXX, a soldier who recently lost his life. Private XXXXXX is under your feet in the cargo hold. Escorting him today is Army Sergeant XXXXXXX. Also, on board are his father, mother, wife, and daughter. Your entire flight crew is asking for all passengers to remain in their seats to allow the family to exit the aircraft first. Thank you.' We continued the turn to the gate, came to a stop and started our shutdown procedures.

A couple of minutes later I opened the cockpit door. I found the two forward flight attendants crying, something you just do not see. I was told that after we came to a stop, every passenger on the aircraft stayed in their seats, waiting for the family to exit the aircraft. When the family got up and gathered their things, a passenger slowly started to clap his hands. Moments later more passengers joined in and soon the entire aircraft was clapping.

Words of 'God Bless You', I'm sorry, thank you, be proud, and other kind words were uttered to the family as they made their way down the aisle and out of the airplane. They were escorted down to the ramp to finally be with their loved one. Many of the passengers disembarking thanked me for the announcement I had made. They were just words, I told them, I could say them over and over again, but nothing I say will bring back that brave soldier.

I respectfully ask that all of you reflect on this event and the sacrifices that millions of our men and women have made to ensure our freedom and safety in these United States of AMERICA .
Foot note: As a Viet Nam Veteran I can only think of all the veterans including the ones that rode below the deck on their way home and how they we were treated. When I read things like this I am proud that our country has not turned their backs on our soldiers returning from the various war zones today and give them the respect they so deserve. I know every one who has served their country who reads this will have tears in their eyes, including me.

Prayer chain for our Military.
Prayer: 'Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. Protect them as they protect us. Bless them and their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. Amen.

School in the Southland in the 1890's.

My mother was only 18 months old when her father, Charles Dick, died - leaving a pregnant wife and seven little children. As a child, Ieula Ann Dick never knew her paternal relatives, but she was told her Grandfather Dick had been the "first sheriff of Clay County, Alabama." I am told her Grandfather Dick's picture is still on the wall of the Clay County Courthouse.

Mama's young father, Charles Dick had gone hunting late on a cold Christmas Day. He became very ill with a cold that turned into pneumonia and proved fatal for Charles Dick and for many others in that year. (1886)

Soon after her father's untimely death, her maternal grandfather, Bogan Mask, moved his daughter, Elizabeth, and her children from Clay County Alabama to a small house on his large farm in Inman, Georgia. Inman was a farming community in Fayette County, Georgia, where the grieving widow, Elizabeth, gave birth to her eight child, a son. I do not know how Charles Dick in Clay County Alabama met Elizabeth Mask in Inman Georgia? But apparently Bogan Mask thought Charles Dick worthy to marry his oldest daughter?

Mama loved her Grandfather Mask who apparently tried to be a father to his oldest daughter's fatherless children. He was hard working and prosperous for the times - a farmer and a Methodist preacher. Bogan Mask also is credited with beginning Ebenezer Methodist Church in Fayette County and Friendship Methodist Church in Clayton County.

Aunt Cora, Eula's (my mother was called "Eula") older sister thought Elizabeth and her eight little children were overlooked often by their more prosperous relatives. But Mama said her mother was aware of her dependance and was timid about making her father aware of their needs.I do not know all of what was going on during the "Reconstruction of the South". But certainly Rev. Bogan Mask had his heart and hands full with farming and family as well as pastoring several churches.

My mother said she remembered the first pair of shoes she ever had. She told me how one time when her mother mentioned her feet were cold, she got down at the foot of the bed to rub her mother's feet until they were warm. Apparently the younger children were sleeping with their mother. My mother, whose IQ was at least as high as mine, had to stop her schooling after about ninth grade.

Mama had grown up to marry Wilson Baird when she was 18. Wilson was, according to Eula , "a young over 40. " Mama adored him and resented any inference that she married an "old man." I remember once visiting on our front porch with a neighbor lady gossip who told about a girl marrying an older man, she turned to Mama and said, "did you marry and old man?" Mama said quickly, "No, I did not." Mama was not a gossip. She was a good neighbor who talked about ideas (politics and religion and family history) and not people.

Wilson was the youngest son of William and Mary Baird. William had served as an officer in the Confederate Army and was wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness. William Baird was said to be a Methodist Exorter. In the history of the Methodist Church at Oak Hill, He was known as Colonel William Baird. He was listed as the Sunday School Superintendent and was one of their literate members before the devastation of the schools during the War Between the States. My father, Benjamin Wilson Baird's father had been wounded and his older sister's husband had been killed while serving in the Confederate Army, leaving his wife with a child to raise.

My understanding it that Wilson Baird, my Papa stayed on to work the farm (he was said to be a good farmer) and help his mother and widowed sister in the care of his niece, and so waited until after age of 40 to marry. I am the youngest of Wilson and Ieula's 11 children, nine of whom survived into adulthood.

I grew up realizing the personal cost of the Civil War to my family as well as others, both Black and White families in the devastated Southland. My father, who died when I was nine, was a devote Christian man nad church lay leader. He was a good farmer and although with little formal education read widely.

Mama told me a little about the school she attended. As was typical in the South, this bright little girl went to school only too briefly in the war-torn South where many of the schools and houses had been torched as General Sherman and his Army moved through the Southland "all the way to the Sea."
We need to see how we did overcome many of these problems and not continue down the road to bitterness and political division of class and ethnicity and also not continue the destruction of our hard won life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Recently,(7-8-10) I heard a member of the New Black Panthers say he hated "all white people. " (If so he hates the Caucasian descendents of Abolitionists. From the beginning of Africans being sold into slavery to some White slave owners and even some African American and some Native American Slave owners, there were many White people who were working tirelessly and some giving their life to abolish what John Wesley and other white Christian men and women called "the vile institution of Slavery. G.K Chesterson said, "When Jesus died, Slavery was defeated but it took the church many years to become powerful enough to defeat the powerful slave trade.")

Mama told me about Professor Culpepper who taught her though all the arithmetic books and into much of algebra in the little one room schoolhouse near Inman before, all too soon, she had to leave school to work in the fields and on the farm. School was a luxury few in the South could afford. When I asked Mama what grade she completed, she told me they did not have grade levels then (1890's) as we then had when i was in school (early 1930's). However, her formal education was probably somewhat equal to a ninth grade education. Strangely, this was more education than many of the women in our neighborhood had at the time my family moved there in 1922, a year before my birth.




Mama revered Professor Culpepper and told me how he took time to teach algebra to her in that one room schoolhouse. Mama was also glad to tell me, in a world divided by class as well as race and gender, her father and her mother's family "came from good stock." They valued education for the girls as well as the boys.

My Cousin, S.J.Overstreet sent me this 1904 picture of the one room Inman Schoolhouse in Fayette County Georgia. Dr. Culpepper is shown on the back row. My mother was 19 in 1904 and had long since had to drop out of school and had married. When I think of how valuable family history is to me, I know the need for all of America's children to hear the unique history of America at a time of world wide slavery and later illiteracy, class divisions and racial segregation.

Our First Student Pastorates

In 1950 my husband, Charles, our four children and I moved to Kentucky for Charles to enroll in Asbury College to begin preparation for Christian ministry. Asbury was a college offering New Testament Greek for the undergraduate ministerial student. Charles's study of new Testament Greek continued while he was a student at Candler School of Theology 1954-1958.
Charles had come home just a few years earlier, after two years as a Marine in World War II. He had obtained a good paying job with Calloway Mills. We had bought a house in his home town. So this was a difficult decision.

To make it more difficult, a long time friend and neighbor of his parents, stopped him one day and said, “Charles …you are crazy to take your religion so seriously as to give up a good job and go to preaching”

But Charles had a strong sense of the Lord's call concerning this major step. Soon after coming home from World War II, he had talked about this with our pastor Rev. W.D. Spence. Rev Spence invited Charles to preach his first sermon at Mt. Tabor Methodist, a small church on the same circuit with Charles' home church.
Then Charles was offered the opportunity to serve as pastor at the small rural North Covington Methodist Church for the summer before moving to Kentucky.
Charles had a genuine love for God and people so had a good Summer as pastor at North Covington Methodist Church.

Charles had a good singing voice where he became locally "famous" singing Stuart Hamblin"s new Gospel Song, "It is no Secret What God can Do."
1. "The chimes of time ring out the news...Another day is through...Someone slipped and fell...Was that someone you? You may have longed for added strength...Your courage to renew...Do not be disheartened...For I have news for you!

Chorus: It is no secret what God can do...What He's done for others...He'll do for you...With arms wide open...He'll pardon you...It is no secret what God can do.

2.There is no night for in His light...You never walk alone...Always feel at home...Wherever you may rome. There is no power can conquer you...While God is on your side...Take Him at His promise...Don't run away and hide. Chorus:..by Stuart Hamlin

In this little small informal church, they would take up a small offering for the pastor each week. This was in the days before a printed bulletin. Nearly every Sunday, Charles had his sermon on his mind and did not think of the offering. As he would stand up and open his Bible, one of the men would remind him, "Brother Shaw, you forgot the offering."
One unforgettable happening at that first little church was on the last Sunday we were there before we were to leave to move to Kentucky for Charles to start preparing for full time ministry. An elderly women in the congregation, dressed simply in a plain cotton print dress, came up to me at the end of our last Service. She handed me an envelope and told me it was a tithe of her butter and egg money. She said she believed " The Lord has certainly called Brother Shaw to preach" and she told me she wanted to help a little.
It was five dollars! It did help more than a little. Every five dollar bill I have seen since then, even now, I see as money that has been on the Altar of God as someone's tithe. We took as our theme song; “Living by faith…In Jesus above…Trusting, confiding…in His great love.”

During his second year in college, Charles was appointed as a pastor of three small churches in Southern Ohio, the Portsmouth Conference. One of the interesting observations about the connectional church system is that a novice pastor is often the one appointed to pastor three or more churches. Later, after more experience, he is sent to only one church with an associate pastor to help.

In the Portsmouth Ohio area, at 9:30 am each Sunday we all attended and Charles conducted the service and preached at a beautiful little church in the countryside called Cedar Mills. Then on to an 11 o’clock service each Sunday at Dunkinsville and then to Jacksonville Methodist Church at 7:00 pm. The study and serious praying involved in preparing to pastor and preach three times each Sunday was an expansive and growing experience for Charles as a preacher and as a pastor.

The Dunkinsville Church owned the parsonage down the street from the church. It was a nice little cottage of 5 rooms and a path. The short cement path led to a comfortable small “outhouse.” The parsonage kitchen had a cold water foset at the sink where we had plenty of cold water when we finally learned how to prime the pump.
Each Friday afternoon after Charles’s last class at the college, we loaded up the car and made the three hour adventuresome drive to Dunkinsville.

This, plus our few weeks at North Covington was the beginning of getting to know and love many of the “salt of the earth” Christian people who make up the small church families who gather in church buildings all over our nation. I am told there is at least one Methodist Church (United Methodist since 1968) in every county in the United States.

After the Morning worship service at the Dunkinsville Methodist Church each Sunday, one family from the congregation would invite the pastor and his family to go home with them for a bountiful Sunday afternoon dinner. These dear people treated their young novice pastor and his family with love and respect and we returned the compliment. This attitude of cooperate ministry went with us throughout our active ministry in working with many talented and dedicated lay people in churches large and small.

At 7:00 each Sunday evening, we were at the Jacksonville Church for Charles to lead their weekly Sunday service. One of the unforgetable things about the Jacksonville Methodist Church was a remarkable elderly man, hard of hearing , who was determined not to miss a word of the pastor’s sermon. So when the pastor started the sermon, Brother Brown always moved up on the platform and sat next to Charles with his hand holding his ear out as close to the preacher as possible. Charles finally got used to it, but the first time Brother Brown jumped up and shouted “Amen,” his young inexperienced pastor nearly jumped out of his skin and forgot his sermon.

God bless the memory of dear old Brother Brown. Several years after leaving that student pastorate, Charles and I had an occasion to go back through that part of Ohio so took a sentimental detour to drive by Cedar Mills, Dunkinsville and Jacksonville churches,

As we neared the Jacksonville church and community, Charles said, “I wonder about old Brother Brown…he must be well over 90 now and is probably already in heaven.” Charles had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth as we looked to the left and there was the elderly Brother Brown mowing his lawn with a push mower!

It was during this time that we witnessed a miraculous answer to prayer. Our fifth child, a daughter, Deborah was born on November 14, 1951. When she was two months she became critically ill. We had taken her to a doctor in Nicholusville who told us it was just a cold.
Two days later, a doctor in Lexington told us, Debi was not likely to recover from "Double Pneumonia." We were devastated and sent word to friends, class mates and teachers, asking for prayer. We were told there was special prayer for Deborah in chapel. Later three of Charles’s classmates came to the hospital, stood with Charles at her oxygen tent crib to pray. When they opened their eyes, Deborah opened her eyes, looked up at them and began to recover.
The next September, Charles was appointed to a another student pastorate; this one in Kentucky near enough to the college for him to commute to classes. We moved from the small apartment on Asbury campus into the nice Mackville Methodist Parsonage, a nice Cape Cod style house in Mackville KY.

Charles began his Junior year at Asbury, driving the 30 miles each school day from our parsonage in Mackville through Harrodsburg to Wilmore. He preached at Mackville at 10 each Sunday and at Antioch, 5 miles away, at 11 each Sunday morning. He also preached every Sunday night alternating between the two churches. So continued preaching three times each Sunday. These dear folks also prepared meals for their pastor and his family each Sunday. We continued to serve the Mackville-Antioch circuit until graduation in May, then prepared to moved back to Georgia to pastor the Midway, Sunnyside-Vaugh churches in Griffin.

We moved into their parsonage on Ninth Street in Griffin where we lived for four years while Charles started and finished work on a master of Divinity Degree from Candler School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta.

But we never forgot that first little North Covington church family in Georgia, those three small church families in Southern Ohio, the two precious ones in Kentucky nor the three in Griffin Georgia who loved us as we did them and believed in the Lord and believed that the Lord could call and use even student pastors.

Bed and Bath in the 1920's and 30's.

Bed and Bath in the 1920's and 30's. My family keeps asking me to write more about life when I was a child. I would like to hear from BLOGGERS of my generation and about their memories of life in the 1920's and thirties. My father died when I was nine, and so I was raised by a widowed mother. My memories may not be typical of everyone in the Southern United States.

I never had a room of my own. Never even a bed of my own. After Papa died, we moved to a smaller house. I slept in the bed with my mother. There was also a single bed in this bedroom and my sister, Mary, slept there. My brothers, Charlie, Tom, and Jack, slept in a room across the hall. My youngest brother, Jack, was five years older than I. My sister, Mary, was ten years older; so I was almost raised alone as far as sibling playmates was concerned. (The picture to the left is Ruth Baird Shaw (about age 8) with her nephew Lavay McCullough, (age 2) who contacted Polio as an infant.)

Although we were poor, it was not "poverty" in the sense of poverty today. It is said that "poor" was proud (not un-Christian pride, of course) in the South after Sherman's successful march through Georgia and all the way to the sea. It left much of the South in ashes and ended the War between the States. At least "poor" meant you were honest and not a "carpetbagger" or a "bootlegger."

In a world of class, as well as race divisionisms, my mother told me, "You came from good stock." She was pleased to then tell about her grandmother who traced her lineage back to the Revolution and her maternal grandfather who had been a hard working and prosperous (for the times) land owner and a Methodist preacher.

And we, as well as nearly every Southern family had a story of some brave woman or child facing the soldiers from the North, seemingly bent on burning the South to the ground and thus ending the horrible war. In November, 1997, I read a part of our family history when a woman ancestor faced Northern soldiers, who were about to torch their house. She let the Yankee soldiers know that her husband was also a member of the Masonic lodge. Apparently this was a common ground respected by both North and South .

In our small town, most of the people worked for Bibb Manufacturing Company. Most were hard working and glad to have a job of any kind. It took all the members of the family working to have enough income to survive. They lived on their meager incomes and helped one another in times of emergency. Almost everyone we knew had about the same income and opportunities. If someone was out of work or sick, the neighbors collected money for them or made up a "pantry shower." There was no sick leave nor other such benefits and none expected.

My mother was hardworking and resourseful, She knew how to "stretch a dollar" so we always seemed to have plenty to eat and to share with neighbors and most of what we needed. I do remember that on many occasions Mama was instrumental in collecting food supplies (pantry showers) for neighbors who had to be out of work because of sickness or other problems. Mama also lent money (without interest) to neighbors between paydays.

I remember that there was one man in the neighborhood who would make loans with interest to his less fortunate neighbors. This was considered unneighborly and un-Christian.

The salary for a full week's work was $9.90 for some and $10.80 for other jobs. I remember people jokingly saying, "If you can't make $10.80, $9.90 will do." We did "make do." To put this in focus. The overseers in the Cotton factories were paid about $100. weekly. The overseers and other mill officials were given bigger and better houses to rent on larger lots in their own part fo town. It is difficult for my grandchildren and the younger generation to understand but the word "egalitarian" was yet to be added to our vocalulary. But we were looking forward!

In the bedroom where I slept with my mother and sister, there were a couple of rocking chairs and some "straight" chairs because this was also a sitting room. The parlor or "front room" was across the hall in our house before my mother converted it into a bedroom to accommodate "boarders". This is another story.
Before going to bed, we sat around the heater at the "fireplace" and talked, or in my case, listened. I was a painfully shy child. If one decided to go to bed, it was no problem. One just went over in a corner or behind a door, undressed and put on night clothes. I remember warm flannel gowns.Today we remind our children to go to the bathroom before going to bed. In those days a "slop jar" was brought into the bedroom, and the children were reminded to"go to the slop jar before you go to bed."

Sometimes this vessel was called a "chamber pot" or just a "chamber." It was not my regular job, as I remember, but I was often told to "bring in the slop jar" or sometimes "go bring the chamber in." My mother usually did the more unpleasant job of taking it out, emptying it in the commode which was in a bathroom off the back porch, and washing it out.

The bathroom had a large footed bathtub and a commode. The "out house" in our community was before my time. However, this indoor plumbing had been added to one end of the back porch after the house was built (this smaller house on 45 Hazel Street being one of the older ones we moved into after my father's death).

At one point a gas heater was put in the bathroom, but that may have been in my later childhood. I do remember that sometimes, in cold weather, we brought a large wash tub or a smaller "foot tub" into the warm kitchen or bedroom to take a bath. The bathroom was not as well sealed as the other rooms, so it was not suitable for bathing in very cold weather. We sometimes took sponge baths. This involved bringing a large “washpan” of warm water with cloth, soap, and towel into some private corner of a room. Every part of the body was thoroughly washed and rinsed but not all at the same time. Mama believed "cleanliness was next to Godliness."

My earliest memory of bedding were sheets that were made at home with seams down the middle. I think that textile looms that would weave cloth 54 or 60 inches wide were developed much later. I remember a few straw mattresses. These were homemade mattresses filled with straw to put on beds. I remember such a mattress on a small odd-sized bed in one of the rooms. Probably there were no mattresses that size on the market. The other mattresses were factory-made, cotton-filled mattresses.

We were fortunate to also have feather bed mattresses to put on top of all the cotton mattresses. Mama was resourceful. Feather mattresses were made at home. One would buy pillow ticking cloth (pillows were made at home also), sew it the length and width of the bed and fill it with feathers. On a cold winter night it was good to sink down in a bed of feathers and under the weigh of numerous handmade and home-quilted quilts. In the 1930's we called them "feather beds" and put them on top of the cotton mattresses. This added to the bed-making time every morning. One had to fluff up the feathers and smooth it out, often turning it over, and frequently taking it out in the sun to“air the bed out."

When innerspring mattresses were added to the market, most people were glad to retire the feather bed to history.

Homemade quilts? We had large stacks of them, home-pieced and home-quilted by Mama and the women in the neighborhood. In cold weather one was weighted down under warm quilts. In summer, when company came, quilts were folded on the floor to make mattresses for the children and sometimes for adults to sleep on after all the beds were filled.

We children loved these temporary beds. To make the quilts, quilting frames were hung from the four corners of the ceiling of our bedroom and drawn up at night. I have slept many nights with an unfinished quilt suspended above. Neighbors would come to visit and help with the quilting. Any unoccupied house in the village was often put into service for quilting bees. The quilting frames were hung from the ceiling, and six to eight women would take a chair and sit on all sides of the quilt, making fine stitches in a quilt pattern that one of them had drawn.

There was much talk and laughter as these women visited while working on a quilt. The younger children played at their feet, and the older children were in and out of the house.The advantage of the empty room was that the quilt would not have to be lifted up at night and walked around in the daytime. In the evenings Mama would cut and sew various patterns for future quilting. The children would play around and sometimes be allowed to make a few stitches and were complimented if they could manage small stitches. If the stitches were too long, the mother would remove the stitches, often after the child left the room. Everyone took pride in fingers nimble enough to make practically invisible stitches.

I was allowed to make a few stitches occasionally but was not often invited to quilt, so I assume my stitches were far from invisible.

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Every school day in America, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer, the #1 disease killer of children ages 0-15. Help these Rally Kids, children who have fought or are fighting cancer, raise at least $500 each for the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research this September, National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

When my great-granddaughter, Lily, was in second grade, she began experiencing excruciating back pain. After three trips to the ER and many visits to the pediatrician, Lily was diagnosed with leukemia (Pre-B ALL) on December 1, 2008.

In February 2011, she completed over two years of treatment - including daily chemo. It has been a long road and one that has had its ups and downs. During treatment she was hospitalized numerous times for treatment and infections. She has also been diagnosed with AVN, or bone death, one of the side-effects of the high dose steroids that are part of the protocol for treatment. She missed an entire year of school, but she's now in fifth grade and able to attend school full time again.

Lily is dedicated to raising money to support childhood cancer research because, as she says, "no kid should have to be sick like this." Her long-range goal is to raise a million dollars for childhood cancer research.

She likes acting, swimming and dancing. She also likes riding horses and playing with her three dogs, Rosie, Bogey and Yogi. She has a younger sister, Sophie, who has been a big support during her treatment. They are truly best friends.