A Touch

I met a new friend today, one probably close to my age and stage of life.  Even before I learned of her debilitating physical condition, her searching eyes - cautious but also eager, direct, and definitely not-lost-at-sea - invited me to join her in navigating rolling swells of heroism mixed with inevitable sadness.

Upon our introduction, she showed interest in a church activity and asked questions about participation, obviously desperate to LIVE - not necessarily in the sense of longevity, but depth.  Within a few minutes I sensed she was more ALIVE than some who have never been faced with such chronic illness.

At one point in the conversation, this weary but pro-active woman in pain gently placed her hand on my arm for emphasis while making a point – and then left it there.  Gentle but strong. It was more than a touch: a bird’s airy feather, dropped from flight, evidence of soaring come to rest.

Visitors

Beastly shadows stretch across the yard: stilted black bodies engorged by distortion.  Sleek animals, one large and one small, search for acorns in the thick snow beneath our giant oaks, casting the black umbras.

Winter hunger has driven them into our domestic neighborhood from the wild.  I step slowly toward the picture window for a better view of these gentle wilderness creatures come to visit in the deep night. 

Wary by nature, the larger one’s head darts up with a look of alarm focused in my direction.  Within seconds, the younger one mirrors its elder’s pose. Softly haloed, these stately statues stand in the glow of our neighbor’s security light.

Two on one side of the glass and one on the other, we jointly stand frozen in a timeless moment.

Suddenly they bolt as if from a race’s starting gate, and leap with tails flashing white to find retreat in the woodlands across the road.  I imagine them there, safe but still hungry, and regret the terror evoked by my passive presence.  

“What happened, Mother?” the young Bambi asks.

“Mankind…MANKIND…” Bambi’s mother answers.

Commas, Dots, and Dashes

Today a writer-friend shared an example of the power held by the little black marks we collectively call punctuation.  With a few changes, the meaning of a sentence was totally changed:

A woman, without her man, is nothing.

A woman: without her, man is nothing!

I had fun looking for similar examples, and am posting a few favorites below:

Let’s eat grandma.

Let’s eat, grandma!

________

A clever dog knows its master.

A clever dog knows it’s master.

________

Call me fool if you will.

Call me, fool, if you will.

________

I saw a man eating lobster.

I saw a man-eating lobster.

________

I’m sorry.  I still love you.

I’m sorry I still love you!

________

The butler stood at the door and called the guests names.

The butler stood at the door and called the guest’s names.

________

That that is is that that is not is not is not that it it is. (nonsense)

That that is, is.  That that is not, is not.  Is not that it?  It is. (actually makes sense!)

________

I also liked the following definition.  Grammar: the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you’re shit.

Pluckin' and More

We’ve been hillbillyin’ it up here tonight, with Pa strummin’ and twangin’ his new Christmas banjo (no songs yet) and Ma knittin’ socks: a Jed Clampett* evening, log-cabin-like, right out of the Missouri Ozarks.  In-between his thrum-thrumming, Pa’s been watchin’ Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday on TV (technology and the Wild West always find their way).

I’m well settled into this mode – snap-snapping my needles, throwing yarn with my pointer finger - when Pa all-of-a-sudden hangs up the backwoods, tips the banjo against the wall, walks over to the piano and opens his new Christmas music entitled “Whispering Piano.”

Refinement.  Culture shock.

“Irish Rain” throbs like Sandra’s skilled fingers (she’s my therapeutic masseuse).

“A Silent Tear” bubbles like emotional champagne.

“Awaken the Dawn” sing-songs with lullabye strains.

I click my needles, but less vigorously without the jumpy wang-a-wanga banjo accompaniment. At the end of the last row before starting the heel (which requires mega-concentration), I put them down and call it a night.

________________

*Of the Beverly Hillbillies.  My favorite quote: “He’s a nice young feller, but if brains was lard, he wouldn’t grease too big a pan.”

Afterglow

White flies harder; flakes chase each other, racing to the ground.  Breathy gusts spray frozen - swoop and sway almost instinctively, like miniature flocks of synchronized white birds.

Ducks paddle and dive in the lake, oblivious to the cold and the bald eagle circling just an hour ago, looking for lunch.

Challenges. Drama.

I imagine myself out there in the twirling white, and consider the difference between Christmas aftermath (the ribbon and wrapping paper, food platters, new gifts) and afterglow (the larger reality).

Tonight I witnessed hope and courage, trust and expectancy, glow steady: glittery Christmas afterglow! Gifts in new measure, pressed down.

Christmas is not over.

Emmanuel

"The Truth which heaven cannot contain has sprung out of the earth, to be laid in a manger. For whose benefit did so lofty a God become so lowly? Certainly not for his own, but for our great benefit, if we believe." - Augustine

Christmas Eve with the Grandkids

At church tonight, the pastor opened up the microphone for individuals to share a memorable Christmas memory.  Our 4-year-old granddaughter, one who usually attends another church and so is not familiar with our pastor or the surroundings, marched right up front and took the microphone.  “Jesus died for our sins,” she said clearly.  And then, looking at the pastor, she added, “That was awfully loud!”  Too cute.

At one point I took our special needs grandson, age six, out of the sanctuary into the narthex.  He was in a squirmy, squealing mood tonight – happy, but noisy and interruptive.  People were so sweet after the service, and stopped to greet him or make comment about how he didn’t bother them at all, but rather how he exemplified the needy - those Jesus targeted as objects of his, and our, love.

We returned to our kids’ house after church for an elaborate hors d’oeuvres meal by the fireplace.  About every hour, our eight-year-old grandson and his two little sisters (four and two) checked the computer.  As I looked over their shoulders, we jointly watched Santa move on a map of the world, following the time zones, until….gasp….he was due HERE! 

The kids hurried off to their bedrooms knowing BED was the prerequisite to Santa’s visit.  But the eight-year-old also kept the adults accountable on his way up the stairs. “You guys need to go to bed NOW!”  Either he was putting on a good show for the younger siblings, or else on some level he still believes.  Either way, it was fun.

Glowing Report

Yesterday I received encouraging news from my blind friend who teaches English in a public high school. She’d just written a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, which she shared with me in an email.  I asked her permission to reprint it here, which she granted.  Enjoy it and be blessed.

_______________

As a teacher, I can attest to the pain felt by educators like myself who contemplate the horror of the school shootings in Connecticut. We can't help but imagine the innocent victims and the troubled shooter in the faces of those who fill our schooldays. However, the students in my creative writing class offered an inspiring contrast to the pain this holiday season.

One student shared that her mom was planning forty-five acts of kindness in 2013 to celebrate turning forty-five, which prompted my students to initiate a charitable outreach that amazed me. These thirty-one teenagers prepared gift baskets for our school’s sixteen custodians, twelve cafeteria workers, fifteen moderately to profoundly disabled special needs students, and two teachers who had experienced family tragedies in the fall – completely organizing and executing the effort without supervision. They also secretly collected money to donate toward gifts purchased for children in the hospital over the holidays. Lastly, on the day of their final exam time with me, they stuffed 100 baggies with candy and cookies, and then deployed to every wing in the building five minutes before the period ended to offer the goodie bags, and holiday wishes, to random students finishing their exams. Ironically, this last gesture occurred on the day when we were in an informal lockdown due to unsubstantiated rumors of a potential school shooting, rumors that ended up being false but that almost caused my students to abort this last act of kindness because of restricted movement in the hallways.

My students did all of this hoping to stay below the radar. They do not know I am writing this letter to the newspaper, not yet anyway. Their selfless actions invite me to consider the power in orchestrated kindness, even more than in orchestrated evil. My thirty-one students are as mixed as everyone else in this world: some athletic, some not; some wealthy, some poor; some intellectual, some nonacademic; some happy, some troubled. However, they looked beyond their differences to corporately reach others, and they did that multiple times in multiple ways.

I salute them, and I salute all of those who make an effort to seek ways to lift up others. If we all lived with that as a goal, the spirit of the season would be bigger and brighter than any shadows, and we would all be better for its glow.

The Bakery Torch

This evening I sat on the couch, mesmerized by six candles flickering on the coffee table, and thought about the most recent owner of my old bakery – how she’s managing her first Christmas season.

I wondered if she also bends down behind the massive glass case – 6’ wide with 4 interior shelves - to lock eyes with children on the other side as they point out one special cookie: that one with the multi-colored sprinkles, or that biggest one in the back. 

If she works 16-hour days.  And sometimes all night.

If she has a favorite regular customer who bursts through the door with a jovial smile: “I’m the best taste tester in town!  And I work for FREE!”

It’s all behind me now, and she’s in the driver’s seat.  I gaze at soft candlelight with music in the background, as she carries the blazing bakery torch.

Beautiful Day

I woke in early-morning darkness to the drone of our neighbor’s automatic generator brum-humming outside our bedroom window, announcing another power outage.  The internet had aptly prepared us for a windy snowstorm during the night, so this did not come as a surprise. 

An old kerosene heater (a long-term emergency responder originally purchased in the 70’s) kept the house reasonably warm. Our own portable generator (small but helpful) powered the water pump, refrigerator, and, after a few hours of delay, the computer – the essentials. So roughing it really wasn’t so rough. 

When I went outside to the mailbox mid-morning, the trees in the forest on the other side of the road greeted me with a surprise: elegant choreography.  Their white limbs swayed in unison, gracefully, with just the right touch of individual uniqueness, like the dancers in the Nutcracker’s Waltz of the Flowers.  They sighed loudly (evidently very loudly, for I usually don’t hear the sounds of nature), with an angelic voice: mythological Sirens.

I returned to the house to find ducks and swans on the lake curiously relishing the hard-core winter weather. Instead of seeking refuge in a protected cove, they faced the wind and rode the spitting waves – bobbing and pulsing up and down – like courageous wind-up toys intent on proving their valor.

Beauty is subjective, appearing “in the eye of the beholder.” I thought, today, how its charisma can overshadow a potentially melancholy circumstance, and transform inconvenience into delight.

I'm Done

Everywhere I go, store clerks ask the same question: “Are you done with your shopping, yet?” 

Interesting how there’s no other single question that could be appropriately asked of anyone and everyone.

Well, just when I thought I WAS done with my shopping, lo and behold, I wasn’t.  This proves a point: Christmas elves have a short season and must make hay while the sun shines.  Given the reality of seasonal brevity, none of us should not be surprised when an elf offers fresh, unexpected inspiration.

A helpful elf went elving with me in The Local City this morning (elving, in case you don’t know, involves secretive, stealthy tip-toeing to the stores - and/or Google - to brainstorm and gather information for gifting).  We returned home quickly because of a tight schedule, and THEN I returned to The City by myself in the afternoon to purchase the item. 

Mileage.  Don’t think about it at Christmas-time when you live in the boonies.

THEN I packed up gifts for family members who live in The Faraway City and sent them with said elf, who was leaving today to spend Christmas with that segment of the family.

THEN this evening, the remaining unwrapped gifts called my name from the dresser in the spare bedroom, the multiple ones for by the 7 other family members who WILL be here for Christmas.  So I wrapped and taped and curled ribbon until I (almost) dropped, wrapped and hid the Very Large purchase I made this afternoon (hiding is tricky when you live in a small house with little closet space), and THEN proclaimed the truth: I’M DONE.

Recap

Yesterday. 

Morning. 

Wake-up.

(Blink-blink.)

Oh.

OH!

Lots to do!

Get moving.

Yawn.

7:30.

Clock stops.

Power outage. 

WHAT?

Generator.  

Extension cords.

Yikes.

Plans.

PLANS!

We’re scheduled to celebrate an early Christmas in the evening with six family members and mountains of gifts (already wrapped, whew) as well as a festive meal a la Chef Gramma featuring a million (at least) hors d’oeuvres, homemade French bread, two soups, and…must not forget THESE…gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free raisin bread, lemon squares, and walnut brownies. 

No oven.

No stove.

Cancel?

NO.

Not yet.

Nerves.

Minutes.  Hours.

Do.  Nothing.

Quiet kitchen.

Reschedule?

NO.

11:00. 

Power!

Lights, action!

Overdrive.

Multi-task.

Zoooooooom! 

Speed-cook.

Crazy.

6:00. 

Panting.

Barely done.

Guests arrive.

Little girls.

Red velvet dresses.

White tights.

Adorable!

Candlelight.

Beautiful. 

Wine.

 Smiles.

Laughs.

Eager kids, waiting for presents.

SPECIAL!

Food.

More food.

Cookies.

More cookies.

Santa!

Red hat.

Grampa.

Big belly.

Shredded wrapping paper.

“Mine puzzles, work them!”

Toys.

More toys!

Grownup toys!

All done.

Hugs.

Thank-yous.

Good-bye.

Clean-up.

Dishes done.

Floor swept.

Midnight.

Sleep…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Baking Cookies

In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye had it figured out: "Because of our traditions, we've kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything: how to sleep, how to eat... how to work... how to wear clothes.”

Keeping balance, he says, is important.  Traditions keep us from falling over.

Despite well-practiced Christmas baking traditions, I decided to rebel this year, and self-talked myself right out of making Christmas cookies.  Straight-laced, that’s what I’d be. We don’t need cookies, I insisted – it’s antithetical to our health goals.  And goodness knows, at our age you have to be intentional about health. Sugar is highly overrated, I added (feeling a bit self-righteous and hypocritical), not to mention refined and white and addictive.  Besides, I have a lot of other things to do.  

Another voice, also mine, insisted I must be demented.  What kind of grandmother am I, anyway, if I don’t even make Christmas cookies? 

This afternoon, in a moment of automatic pilot, I grabbed my recipe files (I have several), pulled some dog-eared cards, and mixed up four different batches of cookie dough – all in a flash.  The baking process fell together with assembly-line precision, just like in the good old days, and our house filled with thick, heady olfactory indulgences: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, chocolate, mint, orange,  lemon, cranberry, butter – lots of decadent Amish butter.

I felt much better once the baking was finished – the cookies packed up for their respective destinations, and the kitchen recovered.  Perhaps Tevye was right.  Maybe I needed to bake cookies to hold things steady, to keep from tipping too far into the excuses of seniorville.

Christmas Cards

My right hand is surely stricken with lockjaw of the fingers. Writer’s cramp – that disease of Christmas card preparation – is upon me.

It’s almost midnight, and I’ve been writing for hours. The house is still and quiet; the glowing Christmas tree lights and star of Bethlehem cut into the darkness, encouraging a pensive, reflective mood.  I flip through the names in my file box one at a time and record them on individual envelopes.  Flickering candlelight and a CD of canters chanting an Orthodox Akathist of Thanksgiving provide perfect accompaniment.

Our customized Christmas cards (some of you may remember my traumatic card-printing evening at Wal-Mart mentioned in the blog of Dec. 4^th) feature a sunshine-splashed picture of the family taken July 4^th.  We’re hanging out at the lake in bare feet and swimsuits; some of the grandkids are still smeared with face paint.  This is not a formal studio shot, but the real deal.  This is who we are.

I stuff and seal each envelope, noting its destination: an ex-employee from my bakery…a childhood companion…a friend from church…a neighbor down the road…a friend who was almost like family for 30 years…a colleague from Purdue…a woman I hope to get to know better.  As these people pass in review beneath my pen, I am grateful for each one.

Tomorrow the cards will be mailed – little pieces of our corner of the world, traveling abroad to touch those on our list with the good news: Jesus is the gift.

A Very Big Man

A father’s heroic public address touched me deeply last night, leaving huge footprints in some remote soul-cavern I’d not frequented before.  This afternoon as I hurriedly clicked knitting needles to finish a Christmas project, I kept replaying the speech in my mind. 

Emilie Parker’s dad was beyond brave to publicly pay tribute to his deceased 6-year-old daughter only hours after the shootings on Friday.  But even more, while we might expect bitterness and revenge to pour from a distressed parent’s mouth, or at least sadness beyond consolation, two themes were woven through his entire discourse: gratitude and compassion.

Robbie Parker honored the innate gifts bestowed by Emilie’s Heavenly Father (“these were not a result of our parenting”), and clearly stated her legacy: Emilie’s presence lit up the room, her tenderness touched everyone she met, her little sisters looked to her as a mentor and comforter, she loved crafting greeting cards to cheer up the discouraged, and the world was generally a better place because of her.  He was proud to be her dad.

He thanked those who had expressed compassion to his family and the other families suffering loss, and invited such outpourings to continue.  Then, in an unprecedented comment, he also OFFERED compassion.  “This must be very hard for you,” he said, addressing the family of the murderer.  His voice was thick with emotion, but did not waver.

To hear a mourning father speak a message of compassion to the family of his child’s murderer, especially so soon following the event, shook my rational sensibilities right own to my toes.  I was in awe.

He was not out to excuse what happened or to diminished the abhorrence of the crime.  His grief loomed tall over the entire speech.  But rather, he recognized the incredible pain on both sides of this incident and chose to respond compassionately.

This took a very big man, one deeply grounded beyond his own loss and mourning.  I’m convinced we can only give away what first own ourselves (this is just physics, isn’t it?), and Robbie Parker gave away compassion.  Not just a light feather or soft touch, but a rock-hard chunk of gutsy mercy.  Although he spoke gently about his faith through the address, I sensed Robbie had experienced God’s great mercy and love, and thus was able to extend it to others.

He spoke of every person’s free will - how the man with the gun made decisions. just as he was making decisions in the wake of the shootings - and how he did not blame God.  This was said with a shattered look that spoke of emotional earthquakes threatening to destroy his heart – earthquakes that could not prevail against a greater reality.

I’m grateful for his courageous testimony, and the pictures I’ve seen online of beautiful little Emilie.  These will linger in my memory, and overshadow thoughts of the tormented gunman and the unanswerable questions he left behind.

Tranquility

While plodding my usual two-mile lakeside circuit this afternoon, I passed a statue of St. Francis of Assisi holding a shallow birdbath.  A young deer nudged Francis’ modest habit as part of the statuary, and tenderly looked up at his face.  This is how most of us think of St. Francis: an animal lover.

I stopped, having walked by this figure many times without paying attention to detail, and studied it.  I’d read a book about St. Francis several years ago, and knew there was a lot more to his story than birds and squirrels.

Born into wealth in 1181, the young Italian (actually Giovanni Francesco Bernardone) was overcome with compassion for the unfortunate.  He turned from opulence to poverty and a simple life, bare feet, and rough garments, believing nature to be the mirror of God.  Wherever he went he preached to ordinary people, urging them to repent and cherish the eucharist: Christ’s own body and blood.  This was unusual for the time since he was not ordained to the priesthood.  Followers grew, and he founded the Franciscan Order for men, the Order of St. Clare for women, and the Order of St. Francis for men and women not living monastic lives.

But there’s one other little detail I find interesting.  St. Francis was the first to create a crèche or nativity scene – a living nativity in a town where the Franciscan hermitage was too small to hold the congregation for the Midnight Mass.  So Francis set up a manger in a rough cave near the center of town and filled it with hay.  An ox and donkey stood nearby as he passionately chanted the Gospel story.

A certain soldier had a vision that night of St. Francis picking up a sleeping, very alive baby from the manger, and embracing him in his arms.  In the weeks that followed, the hay from that manger miraculously healed gravely ill livestock.

Two years after his death, Francis was pronounced a saint - one destined to become a venerated historical figure. Some say no other single person in history has imitated the life and work of Jesus as authentically as St. Francis.

I remembered all of this as I inched closer to the statue, tiptoeing gingerly over muddy puddles and past a lawn statue of the Blessed Mother Mary.  With an umbrella shielding me from the drizzle, I watched raindrops dimple the water in Francis’ birdbath, and studied his reverent facial expression.   

He seemed hardly adult, but rather quiet, composed, and serene – characteristics reminiscent of sleeping children.  I recognized the sculptor’s rendition of inner tranquility, a quality of life reflected in Francis’ famous prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury,pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

No Words for This

Mallards paddle peacefully in the clear winter morning, slicing the lake outside my window.  Pencil-thin wakes ripple behind them, destined to merge with the still water and disappear in watery anonymity.  A male duck with a hunter green head bathes in the sun’s glitter, splashing drops of silver wealth abroad like sparkly confetti or coins: freely distributed alms for the poor in spirit. Beauty, peace, and provision invade my soul.  All is well.

America the Beautiful simultaneously recoils in horror as a gunman ruthlessly shoots down 28 victims - young children and adults - at a Connecticut public elementary school.

Of course the ducks can’t know this.  They see only through the eye of their senses in moment-by-moment immediacy.  And yet they also hear an inner voice – we call it instinct, which seems much too clinical for something so mysteriously right.  They’re limited, and yet in some mystical sense, exemplary.  

I hear the news through the postings of Facebook friends, and run to Google for details, panting and breathless and reeling.  The ducks congregate in the sunlight while I pore over the computer screen, stunned and numbed by brutal facts. Human philosophy, logic, and science melt away.  Academic contemplation and reason mean nothing. The raw news is beyond all that.  My head spins. I blink hard.  There are no words for this.

The choreography outside intensifies; a pair of mating ducks flap wildly and almost walk on water against a majestic backdrop: blue lake mirroring endless sky.  

In my mind’s eyes, grieving mothers replay last night’s bedtime stories and this morning’s Cheerios. I envision peanut and butter sandwiches sitting in untouched lunchboxes. 

I focus outside again, but beyond obvious, earthly boundaries this time - beyond the lake, beyond Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, and even beyond my own thoughts and imagination - to embrace the truth: His love…endures forever.  (Psalm 136)

Selah.

More from the Archives

I’m still perusing old writings this evening, and discovered a poem (a parody on The Night Before Christmas) I wrote in early December six years ago in memory of my bakery.  The fictional heroine, Mary, was inspired by a real-life volunteer helper named Diane who showed up at my shop in the 90's to help during holiday craziness.

Mary the Bakery Fairy

‘Twas right before Christmas and all through the shop, employees were busy and worked round the clock.

The ovens were stuffed full of cookies and loaves, in hopes that soon patrons would show up in droves.

Sweet goodies were lined up in ranks on their trays, while visions of sugar-plums swirled in a haze.

Heads donned with a hairnet and others a hat, kept dreaming of customers getting quite fat.

When knocks on the doorframe brought such a loud clatter, I jumped in surprise to see what was the matter.

Away to the entry I flew very fast, threw open the door and then stood there aghast.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, spread the luster of noon from her head to her toe.

For what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a volunteer helper: “Come in please, my dear!”

With a smile and a laugh I nodded to Mary, then reached out and hugged her – “You must be a fairy!”

In rapid succession my helpers they came, and I gestured and shouted and called them by name:

“Now Ruthie, now Kathy, now Carol and Anna! And Carolyn and Emily and Katie and Shannon!

And Rhonda, and Francie and Wanda and Carrie! To your stations now hurry, there’s no time to tarry!”

Swept up by the workload they waved on Miss Mary; handed an apron and baked goods to carry.

So off to their tables the women they flew, with trays full of cookies and bowls of glaze too.

With practiced precision swept Mary’s deft hand, as cookies she topped with sweet sugary sand.

As I held my breath and was turning around, it seemed every worker had lost her long frown.

For dressed in God’s grace from her head to her toe, the face that was Mary’s shone bright with love’s glow.

Abundance of joy overflowed from her heart, and touched all the others with strength to impart.

Those eyes – how they twinkled! Her dimples – how merry! Her cheeks were like roses, her lips like a cherry!

Her sweet little mouth was drawn up like a bow, while the light from her eyes seemed to sparkle like snow.

The cookies piled high shaped a towering maze, but Mary stood firm and just stroked on the glaze.

And yes, her round cheeks and her little round belly, they shook when she laughed like bowls quite full of jelly!

She worked with delight, a right jolly, sweet elf, and I laughed as I watched her, in spite of myself.

A wink of her eye and a twist of her head, they gave me to know that my soul had been fed.

The night – it passed swiftly, with Mary along; each project a blessing, each heart full of song.

She laughed at the hours spent working for free: “Please, please don’t you pay me,” she giggled with glee.

Then swooping her coat to create a stiff breeze, she donned hat and boots so that nothing would freeze.

And finding her way to the door she turned ‘round, addressed all the girls and then said what she’d found.

“This shop is a God-place of service and love, it’s showered with blessing and grace from above!”

Then turning she opened the door and walked out, leaving us confidently without doubt.

She climbed in her car, turned the key to ignite, then waved with a grin as she sped out of sight.

We shouted outside with one grateful accord: “Merry Christmas, kind Mary!” and, “Thank You dear Lord!”