Saturday, October 14, 2006
Miracle Play
Two nights ago I flipped through my mother's Order of the Eastern Star Bible, which was given to her when she held the post of Martha on Guam in 1969. Inside the front cover I discovered notes she'd written that intrigued me, typed, here, verbatim as she wrote them:
John 10:10 [the last part of which she had underlined in the Bible]
Setting the stage for personal miracles ["personal" was written above the previous and a "^" pointed to it as an insertion]
My initial reaction was astonishment; not that she had written the above in this Bible. It has been my mother's habit, since before I can remember noticing (which was sometime when I was a child below the age of 10), to regularly read the Bible, to write discoveries and notes about what she's read on the fly leafs, other empty pages, along the margins, and as well, to underline and highlight passages she considers signficant. What astonished me was, first, that these notes appeared in a Bible that she has not used to this purpose except for what was written above, and, second, the subject about which she wrote.
I checked to see if the Bible (which is very small; the pages are 3 1/4" by 5 1/4"; the thickness is just 1") contains a mini-concordance, imagining that she might have copied this information from the concordance for further study. It does not.
I read through the notes, again, imagination fully activated. I drew my mother, at some time probably before we left Guam, deeply disturbed by or deeply yearning for something; so much that she desired a miracle. This, in itself, surprised me, as I've never thought of my mother as the type to pray for miracles; intervention, perhaps; maybe making her wishes known; but never demanding, never asking, specifically, for a miracle.
I tried to imagine for what sort of miracle she might have prayed. I remembered that not she, nor any of her children, had any health problems at the time. A couple of us kids were, between 1969 and 1973, indulging in some rebellious behavior, mostly at school, some of it at home, but my mother was always
tolerant of our teenage behavior, to her credit and to our benefit. No wonder, actually; as a teenager, she painted her bedroom black, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to shock her parents. I also remembered that it was between 1969 and 1973 that my father's alcoholism roared away with him. Most (although not all) of his destructive behavior occurred during this time. During the last year, before he retired, being meticulous about never going to work drunk or obviously hung over, her began to come home for lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon home drinking. His seniority, luckily, allowed him this. As well, almost all his colleagues were both alcoholics and soon to retire, so this behavior was a buddy thing. It was during this time, too, that one of my sisters became increasingly incensed and upset with my father's alcoholism. His and her relationship turned volatile. Another one of my sisters absented herself from home almost constantly by becoming a dedicated, vociferant member of the Assemblies of God Church. Although I retained a peculiarly even relationship with my father for the most part, talked to him a lot, learned a lot about his life, it was during this time that I called him an "idiot" in the course of an argument; his response was to slap me, the only time he ever struck me. As well, because of the ugly relationship between one of my other sisters and my Dad, I became increasingly vocal around my mother about how his behavior was affecting the family and once demanded that she divorce him.
She responded with anger and disgust at my proposal. That ended the discussion.
Remembering all this, it occurred to me that perhaps the "miracle" for which I imagined my mother prayed was direct intervention in my father's life in order to rid him of his alcoholism and help cleanse, so to speak, the family. As I considered this, my personal portrait of my mother took on an exaggerated poignance. It was almost unbearable for me to imagine the image of the woman I've known all these years brought to her knees in fervent prayer for a miracle of any kind. I was sure it would have been a miracle for someone else, as she is a naturally a modest person and I could not imagine that she would consider that she needed a miracle for herself.
Finally, I decided, I'd show her the notes and ask her why she'd written them, expecting to lead up to a conversation about The Time She Asked for a Miracle.
She read the notes, looked up at me with a smile and said, "Well, what do you know! I wonder when I wrote that!"
Surprise number one. "So," I responded, "you don't remember when you wrote this?"
She shook her head. "Not at all."
"The subject," I ventured, "was miracles..."
"I see that," she interrupted, continuing to review the notes, shake her head and smile.
"I was wondering," I continued, "if you might have written this because, at some time, you wanted a miracle, maybe decided to pray for one and wrote these notes for coaching purposes, you know..." my voice was thinning, as was the fantasy I'd built around the notes.
She looked at me, surprise registering in her eyebrows. "No," she said. Not, "I don't think so," or "I can't remember." Just, "No."
I pressed on, confused about whether I was pleased or disappointed that I hadn't discovered a "new" aspect of her character, "Well, I was thinking," I said carefully, "that maybe, you know, around that time Dad's alcoholism was just raging, maybe you thought about praying [I was afraid, by now to intimate that she actually had prayed] for a miracle on his behalf."
She snorted, as though the suggestion was unthinkably foolish. "I'm sure not!" she insisted.
"Oh. Well, then, do you remember ever praying for a miracle?"
"Hmmm..." she mused, "no, I don't think so."
Although this is completely in line with what I know of my mother, still, I couldn't let those notes go; I mean, why else would they be there? "Not ever?"
"I haven't ever needed any miracles," she said. Flat. Straight. No doubt.
"Oh. Well, I guess these notes are in there for another reason."
I headed back to the living room (my mother was at the dinette table cheating at her crosswords), back to the drawing board. It was impossible for me to simply drop the object of my curiosity. After some minutes thought, an idea occurred to me. Maybe, I thought, the notes have something to do with an Eastern Star meeting. Back to the table.
Mom looked up at me, noticed the Bible still in my hand. "Now, what?" She wasn't perturbed, just indicating that I was becoming trying.
"Well, I was wondering, could these have something to do with you being Martha?"
She reached for the Bible, looked again at the notes. "Maybe," she said.
"Do you remember what Martha symbolized?"
"Oh, goodness, child, of course not! That was years ago! I didn't even want to be Martha! The only reason I got elected was that the order was so small that everyone else had already held an office!"
Well, that was a surprise! I decided to look up the office of "Martha" on the computer. This is what I found, at this website:
"Oh, yes," she said. "I think so. That sounds familiar."
"So," I said, "let me ask you this. Was it common, in your order, for sermons or talks to be given about the virtues of the offices?"
Her eyebrows lifted. "What, exactly, do you mean?"
"Well, you know, like in church, a sermon about the virtues of a Christian life, did anyone ever give talks at the Eastern Star meetings?"
"Oh, yes."
"Would it be reasonable to consider that one of the talks would have been about the virtues of Martha?"
"Absolutely. The Masons were always doing that, talking about our degrees and such. Who was that man with the loud, awful singing voice? He talked a lot in the meetings."
"Don Mendenhall [who I'm sure is now looong dead, so I have no problem mentioning his name]."
"That's the one. He probably spouted off about all the offices. He was that type, you know."
"I'm sure. Would it be fair to say that the reason you wrote these notes was that he was 'spouting off' about Martha and you figured it would be wise to put down what he said, since you were Martha?"
"I'm sure that's the only reason I would have written that."
So, it seems, the woman I thought my mother was previous to discovering these notes remains unchanged. I'm relieved. Why? After our conversation, I considered what might have been bound to happen had these notes been discovered by us daughters after she died, without the ability to ask her why they existed. All my sisters and I have a much more, hmmmm...romantic, I suppose, bent than my mother [it's my father's doing]. Although we may have come up with more than one possibility, I am sure all our inventions would have twisted our imaginings of our mother toward her being a, oh, I don't know, secretly long-suffering?...poignant?...sad? person, when she actually is not.
Sometimes, my mother's personal strength of character is almost unbelievable. Sometimes, even I, after all these years of closeness to her, find myself seduced into reworking her image into one to which it is easier for me, marinating in my myriad foibles, to relate, yet still fantastic to contemplate. This is why, when I begin such a project, I am grateful that she is here and I can check my imaginings directly against the reality. I'm sure, after her death, the memory of her formidability will give all her descendants occasion to weave curious, half-true legends and myths about her, anyway. I am sure, as well, if there is any kind of an afterlife, my mother will double over in delighted laughter at the absurdity of the myths and legends we weave about her being and her life. Because I am here, though, have been here for so long, and will be here to the end of her life, maybe the absurdity factor will have a chance to be outweighed by the reality factor, which I'm sure my mother, in life and in afterlife, would prefer.
It started raining late last evening. It's been raining all night. I had to stay up well beyond my mother's retirement, open all the windows and doors, turn the lights low and revel in the thick air, the cold breeze and the sound of rainfall. It looks like the rain will continue all day, into early Sunday. Since I've yet to make the pumpkin cranberry pecan bread (it's been too warm in the evenings to contemplate using the oven), maybe mixing the batter and pouring it into muffins tins, warm and fragrant morsels for Mom's breakfast, would be a good idea.
I'll sleep on it.
Later.
John 10:10 [the last part of which she had underlined in the Bible]
Setting the stage for personal miracles ["personal" was written above the previous and a "^" pointed to it as an insertion]
- dream big dreams
(vision of the imagination) - Believe it will happen.
- Think big thoughts
"As a man thinketh in his heart - so is he."
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Faith attracts miracles.
You control own thoughts. - Believe with a big faith.
Promises of God. - Put faith into action - work through faith - act as if you could never fail.
My initial reaction was astonishment; not that she had written the above in this Bible. It has been my mother's habit, since before I can remember noticing (which was sometime when I was a child below the age of 10), to regularly read the Bible, to write discoveries and notes about what she's read on the fly leafs, other empty pages, along the margins, and as well, to underline and highlight passages she considers signficant. What astonished me was, first, that these notes appeared in a Bible that she has not used to this purpose except for what was written above, and, second, the subject about which she wrote.
I checked to see if the Bible (which is very small; the pages are 3 1/4" by 5 1/4"; the thickness is just 1") contains a mini-concordance, imagining that she might have copied this information from the concordance for further study. It does not.
I read through the notes, again, imagination fully activated. I drew my mother, at some time probably before we left Guam, deeply disturbed by or deeply yearning for something; so much that she desired a miracle. This, in itself, surprised me, as I've never thought of my mother as the type to pray for miracles; intervention, perhaps; maybe making her wishes known; but never demanding, never asking, specifically, for a miracle.
I tried to imagine for what sort of miracle she might have prayed. I remembered that not she, nor any of her children, had any health problems at the time. A couple of us kids were, between 1969 and 1973, indulging in some rebellious behavior, mostly at school, some of it at home, but my mother was always
tolerant of our teenage behavior, to her credit and to our benefit. No wonder, actually; as a teenager, she painted her bedroom black, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was to shock her parents. I also remembered that it was between 1969 and 1973 that my father's alcoholism roared away with him. Most (although not all) of his destructive behavior occurred during this time. During the last year, before he retired, being meticulous about never going to work drunk or obviously hung over, her began to come home for lunch and spend the rest of the afternoon home drinking. His seniority, luckily, allowed him this. As well, almost all his colleagues were both alcoholics and soon to retire, so this behavior was a buddy thing. It was during this time, too, that one of my sisters became increasingly incensed and upset with my father's alcoholism. His and her relationship turned volatile. Another one of my sisters absented herself from home almost constantly by becoming a dedicated, vociferant member of the Assemblies of God Church. Although I retained a peculiarly even relationship with my father for the most part, talked to him a lot, learned a lot about his life, it was during this time that I called him an "idiot" in the course of an argument; his response was to slap me, the only time he ever struck me. As well, because of the ugly relationship between one of my other sisters and my Dad, I became increasingly vocal around my mother about how his behavior was affecting the family and once demanded that she divorce him.
She responded with anger and disgust at my proposal. That ended the discussion.
Remembering all this, it occurred to me that perhaps the "miracle" for which I imagined my mother prayed was direct intervention in my father's life in order to rid him of his alcoholism and help cleanse, so to speak, the family. As I considered this, my personal portrait of my mother took on an exaggerated poignance. It was almost unbearable for me to imagine the image of the woman I've known all these years brought to her knees in fervent prayer for a miracle of any kind. I was sure it would have been a miracle for someone else, as she is a naturally a modest person and I could not imagine that she would consider that she needed a miracle for herself.
Finally, I decided, I'd show her the notes and ask her why she'd written them, expecting to lead up to a conversation about The Time She Asked for a Miracle.
She read the notes, looked up at me with a smile and said, "Well, what do you know! I wonder when I wrote that!"
Surprise number one. "So," I responded, "you don't remember when you wrote this?"
She shook her head. "Not at all."
"The subject," I ventured, "was miracles..."
"I see that," she interrupted, continuing to review the notes, shake her head and smile.
"I was wondering," I continued, "if you might have written this because, at some time, you wanted a miracle, maybe decided to pray for one and wrote these notes for coaching purposes, you know..." my voice was thinning, as was the fantasy I'd built around the notes.
She looked at me, surprise registering in her eyebrows. "No," she said. Not, "I don't think so," or "I can't remember." Just, "No."
I pressed on, confused about whether I was pleased or disappointed that I hadn't discovered a "new" aspect of her character, "Well, I was thinking," I said carefully, "that maybe, you know, around that time Dad's alcoholism was just raging, maybe you thought about praying [I was afraid, by now to intimate that she actually had prayed] for a miracle on his behalf."
She snorted, as though the suggestion was unthinkably foolish. "I'm sure not!" she insisted.
"Oh. Well, then, do you remember ever praying for a miracle?"
"Hmmm..." she mused, "no, I don't think so."
Although this is completely in line with what I know of my mother, still, I couldn't let those notes go; I mean, why else would they be there? "Not ever?"
"I haven't ever needed any miracles," she said. Flat. Straight. No doubt.
"Oh. Well, I guess these notes are in there for another reason."
I headed back to the living room (my mother was at the dinette table cheating at her crosswords), back to the drawing board. It was impossible for me to simply drop the object of my curiosity. After some minutes thought, an idea occurred to me. Maybe, I thought, the notes have something to do with an Eastern Star meeting. Back to the table.
Mom looked up at me, noticed the Bible still in my hand. "Now, what?" She wasn't perturbed, just indicating that I was becoming trying.
"Well, I was wondering, could these have something to do with you being Martha?"
She reached for the Bible, looked again at the notes. "Maybe," she said.
"Do you remember what Martha symbolized?"
"Oh, goodness, child, of course not! That was years ago! I didn't even want to be Martha! The only reason I got elected was that the order was so small that everyone else had already held an office!"
Well, that was a surprise! I decided to look up the office of "Martha" on the computer. This is what I found, at this website:
The fourth degree or "Sister's Degree" is based on the story of Martha whose brother Lazarus had died and was brought back to life by Jesus, found in St. John 11:1-45. According to this degree:Back, yet again, to the table. "Mom. Does the office of Martha have anything to do with faith?"
" . . The structure of Freemasonry in its obligations, emblems, and principles is so peculiar, that we, Master Masons, above all other men, are taught to respect undeviating faith [underlining mine] in the hour of trial. The great doctrines of Masonry are all borrowed from the Bible. Our devotion to Masonry is chiefly founded upon this, that we believe the Bible to be the Word of God, and therefore our principles, which are derived from the Bible. were written by the finger of God . . ." (16)
In Morris' Dictionary, Article "Christian Masonry," we read:
"The Orders of Knight Templar and Knights of Malta together with many of the degrees and orders in Scotch Masonry are intensely Christian in their doctrines, their ceremonies also embody events in the life of Christ. Some of the side and adoptive degrees have the same reference i.e.., the Cross and Crown, etc. This fact of course forfeits the claim of such degrees and orders to be styled Universal Masonry." (17)
SIGN: "Clasp hands, and kneeling, look upward in an imploring manner. The sign alludes to the appeal of Martha on first meeting Christ after the death of her brother Lazarus.
A Mason seeing this sign writes his name on one side of a card, and on the other writes, "Believest thou this?" [underlining mine] which is the pass of this degree. He then hands the lady the card.
"Oh, yes," she said. "I think so. That sounds familiar."
"So," I said, "let me ask you this. Was it common, in your order, for sermons or talks to be given about the virtues of the offices?"
Her eyebrows lifted. "What, exactly, do you mean?"
"Well, you know, like in church, a sermon about the virtues of a Christian life, did anyone ever give talks at the Eastern Star meetings?"
"Oh, yes."
"Would it be reasonable to consider that one of the talks would have been about the virtues of Martha?"
"Absolutely. The Masons were always doing that, talking about our degrees and such. Who was that man with the loud, awful singing voice? He talked a lot in the meetings."
"Don Mendenhall [who I'm sure is now looong dead, so I have no problem mentioning his name]."
"That's the one. He probably spouted off about all the offices. He was that type, you know."
"I'm sure. Would it be fair to say that the reason you wrote these notes was that he was 'spouting off' about Martha and you figured it would be wise to put down what he said, since you were Martha?"
"I'm sure that's the only reason I would have written that."
So, it seems, the woman I thought my mother was previous to discovering these notes remains unchanged. I'm relieved. Why? After our conversation, I considered what might have been bound to happen had these notes been discovered by us daughters after she died, without the ability to ask her why they existed. All my sisters and I have a much more, hmmmm...romantic, I suppose, bent than my mother [it's my father's doing]. Although we may have come up with more than one possibility, I am sure all our inventions would have twisted our imaginings of our mother toward her being a, oh, I don't know, secretly long-suffering?...poignant?...sad? person, when she actually is not.
Sometimes, my mother's personal strength of character is almost unbelievable. Sometimes, even I, after all these years of closeness to her, find myself seduced into reworking her image into one to which it is easier for me, marinating in my myriad foibles, to relate, yet still fantastic to contemplate. This is why, when I begin such a project, I am grateful that she is here and I can check my imaginings directly against the reality. I'm sure, after her death, the memory of her formidability will give all her descendants occasion to weave curious, half-true legends and myths about her, anyway. I am sure, as well, if there is any kind of an afterlife, my mother will double over in delighted laughter at the absurdity of the myths and legends we weave about her being and her life. Because I am here, though, have been here for so long, and will be here to the end of her life, maybe the absurdity factor will have a chance to be outweighed by the reality factor, which I'm sure my mother, in life and in afterlife, would prefer.
It started raining late last evening. It's been raining all night. I had to stay up well beyond my mother's retirement, open all the windows and doors, turn the lights low and revel in the thick air, the cold breeze and the sound of rainfall. It looks like the rain will continue all day, into early Sunday. Since I've yet to make the pumpkin cranberry pecan bread (it's been too warm in the evenings to contemplate using the oven), maybe mixing the batter and pouring it into muffins tins, warm and fragrant morsels for Mom's breakfast, would be a good idea.
I'll sleep on it.
Later.
Comments:
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Originally posted by Anonymous: Sat Oct 14, 10:27:00 AM 2006
The bread sounds lovely....My grandfather tended to write notes in his books in the margins, and I feel like now when I read his books, it is this lovely conversation between me and him.
It amazes me too that no matter how much we come to care for our mothers and how much we learn about them, they'll always have these other parts to them that we'll never fully know or understand. I think there's actually something beautiful about that.
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The bread sounds lovely....My grandfather tended to write notes in his books in the margins, and I feel like now when I read his books, it is this lovely conversation between me and him.
It amazes me too that no matter how much we come to care for our mothers and how much we learn about them, they'll always have these other parts to them that we'll never fully know or understand. I think there's actually something beautiful about that.
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