Nancy Parker Brummett

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Back Porch Break

On Holy Ground

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You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.—Psalm 32:7

On a recent trip to New York City with my granddaughter Amanda, we left the very moving 9-11 Memorial and took the short walk across the street to St. Paul’s Chapel. It was my third visit to Ground Zero since September 11, 2001, and each time it was this small chapel, even more than the tragic site of the World Trade Center, that brought me to tears. I said to Amanda, ‘It’s as if God placed his hand over this little church to protect it when all around it was being destroyed. He seemed to be saying to all those who suffered so much, ‘I will be with you in this. This is My house, and it will not be destroyed’.”

Walking through the quaint cemetery in front of St. Paul’s Chapel one feels a sense of peace. All the frantic noise and activity of the city seems distant as you enter the doors of the little church that  immediately served as a sanctuary for survivors and rescue workers on Sept. 11. For nine months it provided a resting place for the weary and comfort for the distraught. Meals, hugs and prayers were the sustenance offered.

St. Paul’s had an impressive history even before Sept. 11, 2001. Completed in 1766, it is where George Washington worshiped on his Inauguration Day in 1789, and where he often attended services during the two years New York was our nation’s capital. Part of the parish of Trinity Episcopal Church in lower Manhattan, it is Manhattan’s oldest public building in continuous use and its remaining colonial church.

Yet each time I stand in that sanctuary that the Lord miraculously protected so it could be a solace to those who grieved, I know it is so much more than a wonderful old building. The postings of photographs of those lost or comforted remind me that the church does not consist of stone and mortar regardless of how beautiful its architecture might be. The church consists of us, the people who believe in the one true God and turn to Him for sanctuary in good times—and in bad. The Living God indwells us. We are the church as we go about ministering to the needs of people and welcoming others into the presence of the Lord. We are the church, and where we stand is holy ground.


 

Graduations Galore

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We’ve had a lot of pomp in our family this graduation season—under all kinds of circumstances! Five of our twelve grandchildren celebrated graduation milestones recently, adding all their hopes and dreams to that cumulative pile formed by 2012 graduates everywhere.

Our granddaughter Amanda had the most significant graduation—she graduated from high school. It was wonderful to hear her give the invocation at her graduation ceremony, and so reassuring to know that in certain small towns in America it’s still acceptable to thank God and give Him the glory! She and I will celebrate by going to New York together, and I’m as excited as she is.

On the opposite end of the educational spectrum, our grandson Will graduated from kindergarten. Imagine, if you can, about 75 little five-and six-year olds proceeding into an auditorium with their faces framed by giant paper flowers! According to Will’s dad he wasn’t too keen on dressing up as a flower, but the effect on stage as they sang some precious songs like “Everything Grows” and “Each of Us is a Flower” was just darn cute.

Our other three graduates celebrated leaving eighth grade and moving on to high school, and that caught us more by surprise than the others. In 1998 I wrote a column titled “Baby, Baby, Baby” in which I mused about the excitement and preparation around welcoming three baby girls into our family within four months. That those three baby girls, Ellie, Riley and Morgan, are now young ladies who dressed up and did their hair for eighth-grade graduation dances and ceremonies absolutely blows our minds! Echoing the sentiment of every parent and grandparent of every graduate of the season, where did the time go?

We only got to attend two of these ceremonies, but we loved every minute. Even if you weren’t there, you’ve been there. Graduates grinning from ear to ear, cameras flashing, parents and grandparents beaming in that foolish way we do so well.  And why shouldn’t we? Graduations are great milestones on this journey of life we celebrate.

Honoring Our Soldiers

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To add to the Memorial Day tributes I am re-posting something I first wrote in October 2009, with a grateful heart for all the men and women who sacrifice so much for all of us.

The faces and stories on the news and in our local paper have appeared in a steady trickle over the last eight years. Another soldier lost, another family grieving. But the news this week that eight young men from the 4th Brigade Combat Team at Fort Carson, CO, had lost their lives in a bloody firefight in Afghanistan—where they were horribly outnumbered by attacking insurgents—has hit me extremely hard.

You see,  I can stand out on my deck and see part of Fort Carson. I drive by the Mountain Post often. At the shopping center just down the hill, I frequently encounter young GIs in their crisp, starched desert fatigues, going about all the ordinary activities of their lives that don’t put them in mortal danger.

As I watched the news accounts of the losses this week, I looked at each face intently. Is that the young man who held the door for me as I went into the cleaners carrying a pile of dirty clothes? Are those the guys who stood in line with me at Black Bear Coffee last summer, turning to say, “Have a good day, mam!” before they left?

One day my friend Pat and I were having lunch in the sushi restaurant down the hill in that same shopping center. We couldn’t help but notice a couple of young soldiers counting out their change to cover their lunch tab. “Never mind!” we called out to the waitperson. “We’ve got their lunch.”

“Oh, no mam,” one of them said, turning to look at me with his piercing blue eyes. “You shouldn’t do that. We’re here to serve you.”

“Well, you are serving us,” we said. “This is the least we can do.”

With a heavy heart one morning this week, I dug one of those rubber bracelets everyone wears to support their causes out of my jewelry box and stretched it over my hand. It’s camouflage green, and I got it when I gave blood in a drive for the soldiers a few years ago. I wanted to wear it as a reminder to pray for the eight families grieving.

As I went about the activities of my day—enjoying my protected, free life—I wanted to remember that we are still at war, that troops are still in danger, and that all of them need our prayers and deserve our deepest gratitude.

These were our boys who died this week—guys from our neighborhood. Remembering them with honor? Well, it’s the least I can do.

Momilies to Remember

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My mom has been gone almost four years but this classic column from years ago reminds me fondly of her. The peonies are from my childhood home–lovingly gathered by my sister Mary to welcome me to Tennessee last month. Happy Mother’s Day, one and all!

I grew up in the South thinking everyone’s mother said, “Katie, bar the door” in times of trouble and “I’ll swan” when something truly amazing happened. On a really busy day, there would be “no flies on us,” and when something was perfectly ready it was “all saucered and blowed” (like you do to hot coffee before you drink it). Someone who talked all the time was described as having been “vaccinated with a phonograph needle” and a braggart was “too big for his britches.”

I call such phrases momilies: like homilies but a lot less preachy. They are the gentle bits of advice passed from moms to children and repeated with a frequency that insures their remembrance.

“Rise above it” my mom would say when she was encouraging me not to stoop to someone else’s level. Whether applied to junior high gossip or office politics, this simple three-word phrase always has helped me keep my focus.

“It’ll never show on a galloping horse” was my mom’s version of “don’t sweat the small stuff.” A pimple on the end of your nose the night before the prom? A greasy stain on one of the linen napkins you need for a dinner party? Not to worry. “It’ll never show on a galloping horse.”

In fact, horses were the subject of a lot of her wisdom. “Don’t put your cart before your horse” was trotted out whenever I impatiently scrambled the logical order of events, and “no sense closing the barn door after the horse gets out” reminded me to think about the consequences of what I was doing before it was too late.

There must have been chickens in the same barn, because I was frequently reminded not to count them before they hatched. (They may have been the same chickens who later ran around with their heads chopped off.)

Young girls coming to terms with their physical appearance need all the support they can get. My sisters and I remember our mom telling us “beauty knows no pain” as we squeezed into patent leather shoes a size too small or, later,  girdles with garters. But since she was a lot more concerned about our behavior than our beauty, we also daily heard “pretty is as pretty does” and “beauty comes from the inside out.” Little did we know it was her subtle way of teaching us the truth of 1 Peter 3:4 which describes beauty as a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

Whenever we said we wanted something we didn’t need or couldn’t have, Mom would remind us that “people in jail want out.” It was years before I saw the connection between those people in jail and me. I just knew that whenever they came up, I wasn’t going to get what I wanted.

When it came to wanting all the food I saw in a cafeteria line, Mom would say, “don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach”—meaning take only what you can really eat.

That particular momily is one I passed on to my own kids. My son said it was years before he knew what it meant, but he sure thought about the possibility of having eyes that big! Since I also warned him not to “cut his nose off to spite his face,” he worried about his facial features a lot.

Although it was always strange to hear the same momilies my mom used coming out of my mouth, I’m glad I passed them on. After all, she wasn’t “just whistlin’ Dixie.”

Defining Dresses

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Imagine my delight at not only getting to go shopping with my granddaughter Amanda and her mom to pick out her prom dress, but also getting to see her in it before her senior prom last weekend! That she carried a gold evening purse that had been my mom’s was an added blessing.

Little does Amanda know how long that dress will stay in her memory…and what a defining dress it is. I subscribe to the theory that anything we don’t wear for a year needs to go to a consignment shop or charity bin–everything except those few defining dresses that we all have in the back of our closets. If, because of a move or a  housecleaning frenzy, such a dress isn’t there anymore, the memory of it occupies a familiar closet of our minds. It’s a defining dress not because of its expense or style, but because of who we were when we wore it.

We remember everything about such a dress: how it felt to pull it on over our heads; the sound of the zipper; the smell of the fabric; the feel of the sash. All are as real today as the day the dress first hung on the outside of the closet door waiting to be tried on just one more time.

A dress that is forever in my mind was not mine, but my older sister’s. I was ten when she was nominated for homecoming queen, and rode around the edge of the football field waving from the back of a white Thunderbird convertible. She was wearing what I thought was the most beautiful dress in the world. It was a long, strapless gown made of tiny rows of red netting forming a huge, hoop skirt and a heart-shaped, fitted bodice. To me, my sister was Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and the fairy godmother all rolled into one, and that red dress was the most gorgeous dress I’d ever seen.

Most of us will mention a prom dress or two when asked about our defining dresses. Mine was long and straight with an empire waistline. The top was yellow, the bottom was yellow and white, and an avocado green, velveteen ribbon separated the two fabrics. I can still remember dancing to the music of The Temptations in that dress, my fake cascade of curls bouncing up and down on my head as the 150 bobby pins I had used to attach the hairpiece poked into my scalp in a desperate attempt to hold on.

A cotton dress I’ve saved for 42 years has multi-colored alphabet letters scattered at random over a bright yellow background. You guessed it. It was a mini maternity dress in 1970, and I wore it to the hospital when my first son was born. Since he turned out OK, I decided to wear the same dress to the hospital three years later when my second son was born, but this time it was a maternity top.

Now the dresses I can’t seem to part with are all connected to one of our grown kids’ weddings. We all have so much more than we need. I’m prepared to simplify my life and my wardrobe as long as I get to keep the memories…and just a few defining dresses to keep them fresh.

Easter Memories

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Occasionally I will post a “classic” column on this new site. Here’s an Easter message from many years ago. The “little granddaughters” mentioned are now 20 and 18! Happy Easter, everyone! May you be blessed by the good news that Christ is risen indeed!     

Spring is springing up right through our new flagstone patio. I asked the workmen who put the patio in last fall to watch for bulbs as they dug, but maybe they didn’t know what a dormant bulb looked like. Through sheer determination, the bulbs have forced their way through the mixture of clay and mortar holding the stones in place. We’re going to have red tulips in the middle of our patio!

Their success is so remarkable that I can’t be too upset about the cracks. St. Augustine wrote, “We are an Easter people and alleluia is our song!” With the resurrection message in our hearts, we want to celebrate all things new, even misplaced tulips, and this is the time of year to do it.

People even look new this time of year. Although I know God doesn’t care what we wear to church on Easter Sunday, it seems to add to the celebration to see everyone all spiffed up in their best clothes. My sisters and I usually had new outfits for Easter when we were growing up. I remember the smell and the feel of the typical Easter dress. It was always stiff and “crackled” when I put it on. I also had new patent leather shoes, and white socks with lace around the top. A hat with a ribbon hanging down the back and a small purse to match completed my Easter ensemble. Just going shopping for this outfit was a treat, because I probably hadn’t shopped for new clothes since before school started in the fall.

The hats the ladies wore to church fascinated me. I’m afraid I spent more time staring at them during the church service than I should have. Why didn’t these ladies need a scratchy elastic under the chin to hold their hats on? My mom usually had a jaunty new bowler with a veil, most likely navy blue and white, and I thought she was the most beautiful person on earth.

Every year I still enjoy seeing little girls dressed up on Easter. One year in particular I remember admiring the angelic-looking little girls at church and at the place where we went for brunch afterwards.

Oh, well, I thought. At least my two young boys looked nice in their 3-piece polyester suits–one light blue, the other light green. Of course that was before they went outside and slid down a railroad-tie banister, getting splinters caught in the bottoms of both pairs of suit pants! I made them wear those suits until they outgrew them, but boy did they complain.

This is the time of year I get out all my bunnies to add to my year-round population of decorative rabbits around the house. It’s also the time for hoping the grass turns green soon, but the aspen trees don’t leaf out before the last big snowstorm. New things are happening, and I want to celebrate them all.

On Easter I’ll get to see two of our little granddaughters all dressed up. I hope the tulips are in full bloom by then. I think they will love seeing them, and I’ll love explaining how we can all be triumphant through difficult circumstances. That is, after all, the message of spring…the message of Easter.