Poet, Author, Composer....
Reading Books at Eighteen Months
293. Reading Books at Eighteen Months
This grandchild is now five months away from being twelve years old. I don’t read to her much, for she reads very well by herself, writes a family newsletter, and wins awards in spelling bees. But when she was little, she used few words herself. To say “more,” she used the American Sign Language sign of fingers on each hand bunched together and moving to meet each other over and over. I look back on this day of reading with her and relish the memory.
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Reading Books at Eighteen Months – A Pantoum
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she picks out her very favorite book
I read the words with energy and drama
she smiles and helps me turn the pages
and signals “more” on the final picture
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I read the words once more on every page
she settles down content to hear again
she signals “more” on the final picture
I turn to the beginning with less energy
—
she settles down content to hear again
I skip the words and notice other things
I turn to the beginning with less energy
and find the drama in my voice disintegrating
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I skip the words and notice other things
the birds, the flowers—she points for me to name—
the drama in my voice disintegrates
she loves the repetition and nods her “yes”
—
as I point to name the birds, the flowers
this small one smiles and helps me turn the pages
she loves the repetition and nods her “yes”
and reaches for her next most favorite book
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© Copyright Ann Freeman Price March 2003
Hello—Are You There?
292. Hello—Are You There?
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There are people where it seems like I repeat, explain, help and then go right back to the beginning and repeat, explain, help. Hello—are you there?
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Do You Hear Me Talking
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Do you hear me talking,
Do you see my lips moving,
Do you hear my words floating through the air?
Do you understand me,
Do you comprehend me,
Could you give me a signal that you are there?
—
Do you hear me shouting,
Do you hear me raging,
Do you feel me wanting you to be
Where you make the struggle,
Where you ask the questions,
Where you start the move from “A” to “B”.
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Are you really present,
Have you left your body,
Could you blink your eyes twice to signal me?
Are you finished teasing,
Are you finished laughing,
When will you begin to take me seriously?
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Must I keep repeating,
Must I keep repeating,
Will we have this conversation ten more years?
Will you break your wall down,
Will you tear your mask off,
Will you open up your eyes and ears?
—
Should I start all over,
Right at the beginning,
Should I be so patient and help you along?
Must I start all over,
Right at the beginning,
I am getting tired of this whole damn song.
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Do you hear me talking,
Do you see my lips moving,
Do you hear me talking,
Do you see my lips moving?
—
© Copyright 1983 by Ann Freeman Price
Easter Is Past
291. Easter Is Past
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Easter is past.
The resurrection has happened.
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Did you ever experience a significant death
and then wonder about the world
going on the next day as if nothing had happened.
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Doesn’t it seem like that should be true
of Easter Sunday too?
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He was crucified—this Jesus of Nazareth.
He was buried—this Galilean.
And now you say that he has risen!
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Shouldn’t everything
stop each year
about this time?
—
Shouldn’t we gather together
as disciples and discuss how we’re doing—
or better still shouldn’t we just
be doing better as disciples?
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The resurrection has happened
so for goodness sakes
and for the sake of goodness
let’s live a little differently.
—
Amen.
Amazing Quote
290. Amazing Quote
Forty-five years ago on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In those years I have heard the speeches he made, one of them just a few hours before his death. I have listened over and over to his “I have a dream” speech, and I have remembered my own trip to Washington, DC for the Poor Peoples’ March just a few months after his death.
In 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Birmingham, he delivered what came to be known as “A Christmas Sermon on Peace.” In that sermon is the quote that still moves me, no matter how many times I read it over. He’s saying that we have to be able to face our most bitter opponents and say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you…But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”
Yesterday I started a list of people for whom I would stand up in respect. I would add Martin Luther King, Jr. to that list.
Stand Up
289. Stand Up
Remember toward the end of the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, when the jury has found Tom Robinson guilty. And Atticus, Tom’s lawyer and Scout’s father, is leaving the courtroom. All the blacks (the book says Negroes) were getting to their feet. And Reverend Sykes says to Scout, “Miss Jean Louse, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”
I was thinking about that scene the other day, and wondering who today I would rise to my feet for. I considered who I hold in admiration and respect for the way they live, and for the things they were doing.
In the United Methodist Church I would rise to my feet for two bishops—Bishop Minerva Carcano and Bishop Melvin Talbert, for their clear stands in justice and inclusion of gays and lesbians.
I would stand up if Richard Deats were passing, because of his life-long commitment to peace-making and his willingness to both protest and to talk. I’ve never met the following two people in person but from what I’ve read I would stand for Thich Naht Hanh and Sister Chan Khong in their willingness to help suffering on both sides of the Vietnam war and their continued commitment to peace in small and large ways.
I’ll think about this list and gradually add more to it. I’ll work on my living, hoping that some day someone might be inspired by my life.
Check the Teasing
288. Check the Teasing
It seems appropriate on the day after April Fool’s Day to check out whether teasing is funny or not. I would say that the teasing stories yesterday were funny and did no harm.
But when I was little, my father thought he was teasing me but it was something else. When I was five, my father took me with him when we went to pick up my mother at the end of her shift. She worked at the phone company and sometimes got off at midnight. We would pick her up and then go to a diner that looked like a real train car and that was fun. I only got to go when the next day was not a school day.
All I had to do was to get through the poem. My father thought it was funny, reciting the same poem night after night. But it wasn’t funny. It was dark in the alley where my mother came out at midnight. We usually got there early and waited in the dark. He said the poem so dramatically. It scared me and I was glad when it was over. The name of the poem was “A Deed of Horror” by J. W. Lloyd. I knew that it came out o.k. at the end, but the majority of the poem made me think it was not going to come out o.k., and I was only five.
I’ve come to believe that if the person you are teasing ends up being scared or angry and your response is “Well, it was just a joke,” or “I was just teasing,” then chances are it wasn’t really funny at all. Healthy teasing is when everyone ends up laughing together.
First Day of April
287. First Day of April
My first thought on getting up, even on a spring morning in 1973, was to get a cup of coffee. In those years I was not a morning person. My eight-year-old daughter Dara, youngest of four, was a thousand times more bright-eyed than I and she sat eagerly at the kitchen table, watching as I got the water going for that first cup of instant coffee.
I poured it, sat down with her at the table, poured the milk into the cup and stirred in the sugar. My experience was that that first sip of coffee would produce the “Ahhh…” that announced to me that the day had begun, that the sleepiness would recede, and I would slowly start to awaken.
I could not focus quite clearly on this energetic little girl who wiggled on her seat in some kind of anticipation. I took the sip—rushed to the sink and spit it out! Salt in the sugar bowl! Dara squealed as she shouted “April Fool’s Day!”
—
A year passed and memory faded but the ritual of morning stayed the same. The spring when Dara was nine was a warmer day and I took my cup of coffee and my sleepiness out on the deck to feel the warmth. The bubbly-one came with me, her eyes crinkled with fun. I took the sip and this year leaned to the side of the wooden deck step to spit. She laughed out loud, gleeful that it had worked two years in a row. “April Fool’s Day” and salt in the sugar bowl again.
From that day on I drank my coffee black.
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There may have been other tricks, not so memorable. I continued to drink black coffee and Dara grew and one day had a child of her own—a little boy, Zachariah. When he was nine, she called me on the phone and we chatted about this and that and toward the end of the call she said in a offhand way, “Oh Mom—I almost forgot to tell you, Zach was in a fight today.” “A fight?” Inside my voice, you could hear the disbelief I felt. “A fight? You mean a fistfight?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “At school, the principal called. I had to go get him.” My disbelief was not easily dissuaded. “A fight? Like between him and someone else, another kid?” Dara continued, “Yes, another boy and Zach got into an argument and Zach has a bruise around his eye…” I could hear Zach’s voice in the background, shouting, “But Grandma, you should see the other guy!” I stumbled in my voice, “I don’t know what….I can’t believe…What should I say?”
Dara and Zach dissolved into laughs as they shouted “April Fool’s!”
—
It comes every year, that’s the thing—this foolish, foolish day which invites the tricks, the clowning, the disruption. I was secretly waiting for the year Dara could experience being the brunt of the laughs. The year Zach was ten, Dara knew something was up, some plan afoot, she just didn’t know what.
In the middle of the night, she heard noises, but didn’t get up. Finally things quieted again. The next morning she got up to fix breakfast, get him off to school, fix her own coffee. She opened the cabinets—empty. Everything gone. Vanished. She opened other cabinets—more empty. She turned to see him grinning and bursting with “April Fool’s.” Over time everything was recovered, from under his bed, in his closet, dishes and cups and glasses hidden everywhere.
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What a funny, weird day! April Fool’s!
Jesus Christ Is Risen!
286. Jesus Christ Is Risen
In 1997 I was a lay pastor in an American Baptist Church in Nyack, NY. It was the day before Easter and I met Mr. Ted Dobek at 9am at the church so he could look at the two notes on the piano that weren’t playing. He was our usual piano technician and a delightful man. When I called him the day before he was totally booked up for Saturday but found a way to squeeze us in to his busy schedule. I showed him where to turn the lights on and off.
Then we stood at the front of the sanctuary talking. He said, “In our church all during Holy Week, each family takes a turn at fasting and praying. We pray for each other…” In his broken English he searched for the word… “How do you say it, we pray not on top but deep for each other. We know each other and what is going on. We pray deep. Easter we will eat together after the service.”
These many years later I still remember the smile on his face as he said, “Easter is a wonderful time.” I agreed that it was. He headed toward the piano, looking at me. I started walking toward the door, still looking at him. He said “Jesus Christ is risen.” I said, “He is risen indeed!”
There was a joy—a naming—a sharing between us.
Five-Year-Old Wisdom
285. Five-Year-Old Wisdom
Lily is five and one night she had chosen one of her favorite books for bedtime reading, a set of books entitled “Theology for Tiny Tots.” These books, written for very young children, focus on such themes as “names for God” and “the friends of God.”
Having completed the reading, Lily took the books and set them gently on the nightstand. Kathryn complimented her on how carefully she had handled the books. Lily said, “Why does it matter?” Kathryn answered “They are very special books. They are books about God.”
Kathryn turned out the light and laid down next to her in the dark. After a short pause Lily piped up, “You know Mom, it’s not all good.”
Kathryn said, “What’s not all good Lily?”
“Well, there’s the part where they nail Jesus to the cross,” Lily said.
Now in the books there is not mention of the crucifixion, but Lily had made the connection that if you’re talking about God, then that includes Jesus, and the way Jesus died is an important part of the story.
Kathryn said, “You are right Lily, it was very sad when they nailed Jesus to the cross. That was a terrible thing to do.”
There was another long pause.
Finally Lily sighed, “Those disciples,” she said.
Kathryn spoke up, “Actually, Lily, it wasn’t the disciples who nailed Jesus to the cross.”
There was another pause.
Lily said, “They were there weren’t they?”
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(From Kathryn Johnson’s Christmas Letter—Used by permission.)
Good Friday Question
284. Good Friday Question
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Were You There?
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Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
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Soldiers were there—they called him King and said
“Hail King of the Jews”
Soldiers were there.
They played games at the foot of the cross.
I was not there—I was not like those soldiers.
I do not treat him as a king in name only.
I do not play games as he dies—I was not there.
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Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
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Priests were there—they were the church and they
Helped to hang this Jesus
Priests were there.
They tried to twist things so they were right.
I was not there—I was not like those priests.
I am the church but I have never hung a Jesus.
I do not twist so I am right—I was not there.
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Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
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Peter was there—He said “If others fall away, I will not!”
Peter was there.
He said “Oh woman—I do not know this man”
I was not there—I was not like Peter.
I do not ever fail to keep my commitments.
I would go with you to the death—I was not there.
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Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
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Judas was there—he was weak and for silver he sold Jesus.
Judas was there.
He was weak and he betrayed his Lord.
I was not there—I was not like Judas.
I have never betrayed my Jesus.
I never give in to weakness—I was not there.
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Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
I was there.
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© Copyright 1973 by Ann Freeman Price
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