Downtown Magic

I grew up in a New York community about the size of Ashland. As a carpenter, my dad sometimes got hired onto jobs that were out of town, leaving very early on Monday morning and returning late on Friday evening. His absence, along with my mother’s lack of a drivers’ license, meant that our family did a lot of walking, and we’d often head downtown to Grants, Twin-Ton, and Parsons Drug Store. As a teen-ager, I gained the independence of a bicycle, and have fond memories of the hot fudge sundaes at Zeffrey’s, the old-fashioned ice cream parlor on Niagara Street, a taste that’s never been replicated.

My early love affair with Main Street America stayed alive through Urban Renewal and the advent of the big box stores that imposed their identical landscapes across America. Give me a choice, and I’d much rather wander through a community’s downtown than head to the mall. The fact that the home we purchased is within walking distance of downtown wasn’t the deciding factor but it sure is a welcome extra.

Life in small town, downtown America provides an opportunity for small business owners to open a shop with personality, creating a space for gathering, for individualized service, and for living out their dream. It is definitely a risk, as some days the local foot traffic is slow, and money for marketing is in short supply. But a number of new business owners have taken the plunge, and it’s fun to wander through our downtown and get to know our new neighbors.

In Ashland, Virginia, one of our sister communities, the Ashland Main Street Association gives out a “you’ve been noticed” award when small businesses make a difference in the downtown. I love that idea. Kind of like getting a gold star on top of a spelling test. So here’s what I’ve noticed recently.

My “Say Yes to the Dress” obsession has been relegated to the memory of my early grandmothering days, but I’m excited that Jessica Neff of Juliana Bridal has brought the romance of saying “I do” back to our downtown. I dropped in as a bride was seeking The Dress, and what a fun time that was. There doesn’t appear to be a wedding on the horizon for our family at this point, but I’ll be sure to stop back if the need arises, as she carries “mother of the groom” dresses too.

Around the corner on Union Street is a short block that’s had a number of reincarnations in the years I’ve been in Ashland. One of its newest tenants is Kimberly’s Closet, a charming space with wonderful consignment finds, as clothing, purses, and shoes fill its shelves and racks. It’s one of those shops where the merchandise changes often, so I may need to put a standing date on my calendar each month so I don’t miss out.

While I haven’t made the plunge yet, Aubrey Bates has opened a yoga and pilates studio in that same block called Studio Rise. Here’s how she describes what’s happening: “A community is forming, a space where, together, we can root into who we are, grow into the potential of who we are meant to be, and shine the light of our discovery into the world we live in.” Love it!

I haven’t been convinced to join that particular community yet, but her words extend beyond the walls of her studio. They embrace a downtown that is breathing, that is connecting people, and that is alive. This weekend is a great time to head downtown to shop, to run into friends, and to sample the unique flavor of downtown Ashland, Ohio. Treat yourself to a cupcake at Enjoy! Stand at attention as the American flag passes by in the Memorial Day parade on Monday morning. And if you didn’t get a chance to belt out “Let it Go” with Elsa from “Frozen” on Friday night as Ashland Main Street hosted its first Walk-in Movie of the summer, mark your calendar for “Ladder Forty-Nine” on June 27^th. Downtown Ashland may not be “the first time in forever,” Elsa’s sister Anna envisioned,” but “there’ll be magic, there’ll be fun” – just look around! 

Holy Hunger: A Table Conversation on Holiness

Here's the introduction to Holy Hunger: A Table Conversation on Holiness.  Available through Amazon, Kindle and Nook. 

I see something else going on in the world where I live.

While some of the old terms have lost their luster, I perceive there is a growing, deep-heart hunger to be holy!

I believe that with all my soul!

Maybe this is the hunger to which all other hungers are related.

Maybe this fundamental hunger to be holy is that God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person.

And oddly enough, though that hunger persists, it is seldom expressed.

I don’t know if we can find new terms, new language,

new lingo that would help us,

but I know that there is within us a hunger to be holy.

Reuben Welch

Sharing a Sunday meal with people after church has long been a part of our family’s weekly rhythm. As we lean back in our chairs, satisfied by the food we’ve eaten, we sometimes spend time further digesting the words of the morning sermon, moving that monologue into a spirited conversation around the table, perhaps reminiscent of conversations shared around the table in the earliest days of Christianity.

The image of a spiritual conversation around the table is the guiding metaphor of these pages, as a group of Salvationists (those who identify with the Salvation Army as their church) gather with their corps officers (pastors) in a desire to further explore the subject of holiness. It’s a topic on the hearts and minds of Salvation Army leaders these days, as well as those who worship in our chapels. It is of particular interest to the young adults in our midst, who desire to translate the holiness teachings of their parents and grandparents into accessible language and image for their generation of believers, not an easy task. 

In her paper on the life of holiness within the Salvation Army, then Commissioner Linda Bond quoted an unnamed officer colleague: “It’s not just that our teaching failed but that for too many people their experience did not line up with our theology even when they desperately wanted it to.” For some time now, the Salvation Army has been concerned about its holiness teaching and experience, as have other denominations traditionally known to be a part of the Holiness Movement. Bond expressed the concern of many with these passionate words:

We should desire to be known as holy people, not stuck or dead or dreaming but a holy people of God, relevant in the best sense of the word, alive at the center, not clinging to the past while ignoring the present or because we are fearful of our future, but a progressive, radical growing movement with a burning passion to be the people He called us to be and to do what He called us to do. Can we incarnate holiness, moving into the cesspools of life with a redemptive, restorative message for the whole of humanity, for the whole person? There has never been a better time for The Salvation Army to witness to this hurting world that holiness practiced is not isolation or escapism but involvement and engagement.

It is with this corporate, missional challenge in mind, as well as the hunger in the hearts of those I’ve ministered among over thirty-five years of Salvation Army service, that I offer this imagined search for the presence of holiness “in the flesh.”  

Unlike the common disclaimer at the start of a typical work of fiction, I cannot truthfully say that all characters appearing in this work are fictitious, or that any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Those portrayed are certainly composite characters, but they have been created from people whose lives have shown me Jesus, as well as those who have been seeking after Jesus. I make no apologies for their influence on my life, for I am eternally grateful for their holy presence.

This is not a Salvation Army doctrine book. Instead, it is the heartfelt effort of one Salvationist to explore the teachings of the Bible and our faith tradition, and to recognize living examples of God’s sanctifying grace in the midst of us. I pray that these pages provide food for thought for God’s people, as we join Abby and Joe, Derek, Rob, Melissa, Caroline, Patrick and Kelly in their table conversation in search of holiness.

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When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home

I tend to get songs stuck in my head quite often. In recent weeks, it’s been “Do you want to build a snowman?” from Frozen, interspersed with “Ah, Holy Jesus,” a Lenten hymn, and the lovely Madelyn Simone’s number one requested ditty, “The Ants Go Marching One By One, Howaah, Howaah.” Unfortunately, the Ants song is reflective of my kitchen counter as the tiny ants have dropped in for their annual spring visit.

The melody of the Ants song is one that dates back to the Civil War, when Patrick Gilmore borrowed the tune of “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl” to create the song that struck home on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line: “When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah! Hurrah!” Gilmore captured the desire for the safe return of loved ones and the grateful welcome home of the community when he sang about cheering men, shouting boys, pealing church bells, and the waiting laurel wreaths of greeting. 

For all the promised gaiety of Gilmore’s song, the adjustment into civilian life isn’t always filled with shouts of victory and welcoming arms when Johnny and Jane come marching home. For the World War II veteran, often the return home became one of silent memories, held closely to protect loved ones from the atrocities of Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Buchenwald, and the Bataan Death March. Whatever my dad saw in the jungles of the Philippines may have haunted his dreams, but he never spoke of the horrors of war to his children.

For the veterans of my youth, their return was often met with jeers instead of cheers, as the country was roiling with unrest in regards to the Viet Nam conflict. A number of years ago, the Salvation Army sponsored a “Reunion” weekend that brought the replica of the Viet Nam Wall to Akron. Grief and gratitude mingled at that wall just as it does in Washington, as a nation continues to come to grips with the disservice it did to its young men and women.

Veterans of Desert Storm fared a bit better. I’ve got a picture of our youngest son, probably about eighteen months old, tapping on a snare drum as he waiting to follow alongside the band in the welcome home parade in downtown Cleveland. In contrast, the frequent deployments of Iraq and Afghanistan have changed the landscape of good-byes and hellos, and have been challenging for our military and their families, especially those slipping in and out of civilian life with the National Guard.

We read about the suicide rate among veterans, the breakdown in military families, and the increasing number of homeless veterans, and we wonder what we might do to help. “Being shaken to the core by war is a deeply human reaction,” retired U.S. Army Colonel David Sutherland and psychologist Paula Caplan tell us, and they offer practical ways an individual or a community can provide a better welcome home to our veterans.

Here in Ashland and Richland counties, a veteran-focused listening initiative is being coordinated by The Ohio State University at Mansfield, North Central State University, Ashland University and the Richland County Veterans Administration. This “Welcome Johnny and Jane Home Project” connects local residents with veterans, providing a safe environment for veterans to tell their stories. You can learn more about it at http://www.ncstatecollege.edu/cms/listen2vets.

Local veteran Adam Boyce suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq, and now assists fellow veterans through the Veterans Service Commission in Mansfield. As he tells his story, he helps the listener recognize the costs associated with military service. “Some wounds,” he says, “you can’t see.”

Songwriter Patrick Gilmore may have gotten carried away in 1863 with his descriptive phrases in “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” but one line serves as a poignant reminder to us: “And let each one perform some part, to fill with joy the warrior's heart.” Kaplan and Sutherland call us to action in similar words today: “As our military men and women continue to return, scarred and battered, American communities must not isolate veterans. Listen. Help veterans heal on their own terms and at their own speed.”

Welcome home, Johnny and Jane. Thank you and hurrah!

#BringBackOurGirls

From the Ashland Times-Gazette:

On April 14, on the other side of the globe, Godiya, age 18, breathed a sigh of relief that her physics exam had gone well. I don’t know if she and her classmates were wound up from the achievements of the day, chatting past curfew at their boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria, or if they fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, grateful that the end of the school year was in sight.

Godiza woke up to horror, as she and her friends were roused from their beds and rounded up at gunpoint after militants overpowered a military guard assigned to their boarding school. The school was the only one still open in the area following threats and attacks by Boko Haram, a group whose name means, “Western education is a sin.” As the girls trembled with fear, the world slept on.

Godiya was one of the fortunate ones, as early on in her captivity, she was brave enough to run off into the forest. Another girl described her escape: “We ran and ran, so fast. That is how I saved myself. I had no time to be scared, I was just running.” It’s reported that 276 of their classmates are still missing, young women with dreams of becoming physicians, teachers, and perhaps even political leaders who could broaden educational opportunities for other young women. And now they have disappeared, swallowed up into unfathomable horror.

The world searched for Malaysian Flight 360. The world searched for survivors of the Hong Kong ferry disaster. But for many days after the abduction, as desperate parents searched the Sambisa Forest with machetes and bows and arrows, the world stood silent about the missing girls of Nigeria.

The Nigerian government’s reaction has been disappointing at best. Suggestions have been made that the account was fabricated, that somehow it was the girls’ fault or that of their parents, and, early on, that the girls had been rescued. But in reality, there has been no Amber Alert, no coordinated search, and no public plea for their return. Danuma Mpur, the chairman of the local parent-teacher association, whose two nieces are among the missing, said: “We pinned our hopes on the government, but all that hope is turning to frustration. The town is under a veil of sorrow.”

I’ve tried to picture what it would be like. What if armed men stormed our high school and kidnapped three hundred of our young women as they took their final exams? Or invaded an AU dorm in the middle of the night and forced its young women residents into a caravan of trucks? It really is unimaginable. Yet this isn’t creative writing 101 or an action film. These are real girls, real families, real grief.

Hauwa. Mary. Yana. Ruth. Yawa. Tabitha. Filo. Gloria. At last count, two hundred and sixty eight others. Each one named with care by her parents. Each one sent to boarding school with the belief that education can change the community and the world. Each one kidnapped, missing, held as a prisoner. Twenty-seven days later, these young women are possibly being trafficked, sold into slavery, sold as ‘wives’ for as little as twelve dollars. And now, finally, as the social media world has been inundated with the hashtag,  #BringBackOurGirls, the world is paying attention.

Around the world, the cry is rising. Bring back our girls. On Twitter and Facebook, on the airwaves of NPR and on the pages of the New York Times, the world is finally waking up. Soccer moms, high school students, career diplomats and the First Lady of the United States are speaking the words, whispering the prayers, and sounding forth the cry. Bring Back Our Girls.

Long before Twitter, Facebook and hashtags were created, the anguish was expressed by the prophet Jeremiah (31:15, NLT): “A cry is heard in Ramah – deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for her children are gone.” In 2014, a cry is heard in Chibok, and in Warabe, where more girls have been kidnapped. These are the world’s daughters, our daughters. #BringBackTheGirls.

Doc's Dream Fulfilled

Since we moved into our Walnut Street home, I’ve been fascinated by the question mark of its history. Built in the 1930s, how did its owners experience the Great Depression, World War II, and the ensuing years? What were their family stories? How could I tell their story? I hoped to find a stash of diaries hidden in the rafters of the attic or under the floorboards in the barn (a former tannery), but alas, no diary, no photo albums, no stack of letters encircled by a faded ribbon. After an unfruitful visit to the historical society, my idea to write a book about our house has been transferred to the back burner, as I don’t have enough energy, time, or passion to attempt any additional research at this point.

Time, energy and passion are what William “Doc” Emery brought to his quest for a comprehensive compilation of the history of the practice of medicine in Ashland County. After a long, fulfilling practice as a surgeon, Doc carved out time to follow his dream of chronicling that history.

His research was painstaking. He became a fixture at the historical society, newspaper office, health department, and probate court. He scoured the records of the Ashland County Medical Society and gathered snippets of information from a variety of other sources. He collected photos, scanned historical records, and even discovered a fee table from 1864, where a house call cost one dollar, with fifty cents added after 10 p.m. Imagine that!

It’s the little known facts in his account that interest me most, and I’m tucking them away just in case I ever do write my historical novel about our house. I was excited to learn that Miss Thelma Rumph, who served Samaritan hospital for thirty-five years, first as bookkeeper and ultimately as administrator, lived across the street from my house.

I’ve been a downtown booster since moving to Ashland, and so I could picture the scene in the 1930s, when downtown was bustling on Saturday evening. Doc tells us that “Beginning about 5:00 p.m., families who had automobiles would line both sides of Main Street. The infirm who needed to visit their doctor would be delivered to their respective offices to await their physician’s arrival. The families who waited on Main Street would shop, visit or sit in their cars to see and be seen and await their patient’s return from the physician’s office” [also on Main Street]. Pardon me for saying it, but how times have changed.

Since I’ve shared a vocation with my husband for many years, I was interested to read about Doctors Mary (McClain) and Norman Neptune, both Loudonville natives who trained in Philadelphia. They practiced for many years on South Water Street in Loudonville, and their son Edgar followed in their physician footsteps (although he apparently moved to Syracuse, NY).  As I look at her picture, I wonder what life was like for her, and how she balanced the practice of medicine with motherhood in the years where a woman in medicine was not the norm. Maybe I can put her in my book too!

Perhaps it was the family connection that especially stoked the passion in “Doc” Emery to capture our local story on paper. His grandfather, William Franklin Emery, practiced on Sandusky Street for fifty-plus years. George Myers Emery, Doc’s father, practiced medicine, served as commanding officer of a medical unit in the National Guard, and was the Ashland County coroner. And young Bill Emery graduated from Western Reserve University School of Medicine and returned to Ashland to serve his home community as a surgeon and coroner.

In January 2013, the healing touch of medicine Doc extended to others was unable to sustain his life any longer, and he died on January 21 without ever holding his historical volume in his hands. I’ve had a small part in bringing it to print, and it is with great respect for Bill Emery’s passion and determination that his wife Karen has published his final bequest to Ashland: “The History of the Practice of Medicine in Ashland County, Ohio.“ Thanks, Bill and Karen, for preserving the rich history of medical care in our community.