Five Years and Counting . . .

Happy birthday, RJ Kroc and company. Or should I say, “Happy anniversary?” Can it really be five years since Ashland’s Sunday afternoon naptime was disturbed by a Salvation Army band triumphantly marching from 40 East Third Street to 527 East Liberty Street? It seems like just yesterday that we had the privilege of opening the doors of the Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center to the people of Ashland. Then again, I can barely remember the grassy field that had been tucked away behind Luray Lanes for so many years, as the Kroc Center seems like an old neighborhood friend that’s been around a long time.

The passage of time is tricky to measure. Of course, we measure it in minutes and hours, days and weeks, but we also recognize that our perception of time changes, as time can either fly or drag on. As J.K. Rowling tells us in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, “It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.” Dr. Seuss asks us, “How did it get so late so soon?” Yet when you’re five years old and waiting for Christmas morning, time creeps along at an agonizingly slow pace.

There were days during the Kroc Center development that I wasn’t sure we’d even make it to the ground-breaking, but now we’re marking the five year anniversary with a weekend of celebration. There will be a civic dinner honoring Ashland’s Ev DeVaul, an arts festival offering instructional sessions, an arts display, and a sidewalk chalk art contest, and a worship service with Commissioner Todd Bassett, a former National Commander of the Salvation Army as the guest speaker. But here’s the best part - our own KC Big Band will be on stage on Saturday night (April 5) at the Kroc. Music coordinator Neil Ebert has chosen some of my favorites – He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, Show Me Your Ways, and a glorious rendition of I’ll Fly Away. (Disclaimer: my husband and sons did not pay me to write these words – I really do love the Big Band sound). Get more details on the Kroc website or at the welcome center.

If I’ve done my math correctly, it’s been 1807 days since opening day, April 17, 2009. Those days have been filled with many measurable outcomes, computations expected by funders in today’s world of philanthropy. We as a community can be glad for those outcomes, because they symbolize skills achieved, employment maintained, and families fed.

But as I reflect on the impact the Kroc Center has had upon the Ashland community and on me, it’s the intangible influences that speak most deeply. The strains of live Dixieland music swinging through the corridors of area nursing homes. A beaming young boy displaying his first place prize in an ugly tie contest. A circle of knitters, learning the wisdom of “if in doubt, rip it out.” Water cascading from the tumble buckets at the spraypark on a blistering summer afternoon, hard as that feeling is to imagine with snow still in the air. A holy hush at the labyrinth. A homeless woman accompanied by caring companions as she walked through the valley of the shadow of death.

During my years of high school French, I was introduced to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s story, “The Little Prince.” Back in the day, I was able to read it in French, but those skills are long gone. However, one phrase has remained with me: On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. Translated, the Little Prince taught me, “One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

As we gather for next weekend’s festivities, we’ll embrace friends both new and old, recount the funny stories, and reflect on the impact the Center has made on Ashland. But if I seem a bit distracted from time to time, don’t worry – I’m planning to do some heart-seeing and heart-remembering too. Hope to see you there.

I'm Loving It!

Early on in what Larry and I fondly call our Kroc period, we planned a kitchen shower for the new community center being built in Ashland. Since our benefactor, Joan Kroc, was the heiress of the golden arches, we played a shower game involving McDonalds slogans from over the years. So when asked recently about the one-year anniversary of our retirement from the Kroc Center and Salvation Army work, my thoughts turned to a few of those jingles, starting with "You deserve a break today."

After 34 years, 16 days of active Salvation Army ministry, I don't think we realized how tired we were, how much we needed - if not deserved - a break. We would have kept on going strong had the Salvation Army not come knocking at our door with orders to depart from Ashland, but in hindsight, it's clear that our bodies weren't quite as young as we imagined them to be. One friend recently reflected on her last year of ministry, lamenting that she had become a keeper of the aquarium instead of an active fisher for people. I'm grateful we were spared that possible decline.

As I strapped the world's most beautiful granddaughter into her car seat this week, the lovely Madelyn Simone was intrigued with the automatic sliding doors of the minivan, amazed that Nana could push the buttons and the doors opened like magic. Do you remember that Mickey D slogan? "Do you believe in magic?" I don't quite believe in magic outside of Santa Claus, but what I've discovered over these past twelve months is the continued presence and provision that I can only define as a spiritual blessedness, the gift of grace. It's come in the form of unexpected yet much-needed financial support, the perfectly-timed words of a friend, the kindness of acquaintances and strangers alike, and a sense of the "peace that passeth all understanding." It's not magic, but I believe.

I've also discovered the semi-truth of another of McDonald's jingles: "What you want is what you get."I've lived long enough to know that you don't always get what you want, but here's what I've discovered - when you begin to define what you want in life, it's more likely you'll achieve/receive it. One of the top five phrases uttered in the counseling office, perhaps only second to "I don't know who I am," is this: "I don't know what I want." Common words out of our mouths at a restaurant, but not so beneficial when facing life transitions such as post-college, post-divorce, post job loss or post-retirement.

Here's the true part of the McDonalds' phrase - you can't hope to get what you want until you can articulate what you want. I wrote out a list a number of years ago, and that printed page sits in the front of my "organizing my life" notebook, where I look at it quite often. Here are a few of my desires: I want to walk by the water and pray, to love my husband and sons generously (add to that my daughter-in-law and Madelyn), to welcome brothers and sisters into my home, to write prophetically, to write a novel, to teach at a seminary, and to walk with other women wherever the path may lead. What you want is what you get, and these life objectives are more fulfilling than a happy meal.

One last slogan. I'm loving it! The words of Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner have spoken to me for many years: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” As a young woman, I framed that calling in a sacrificial life of Salvation Army service that strove to save the world, at least in my assigned corner. In these days, this intersection of personal gladness and the needs of the world takes place at a quieter corner, in the less-public roles of writing, teaching, and coming alongside (and a side job or two). Add to that my precious Madelyn time, a flourishing garden, and fireflies in the backyard, and I can chime in with Ronald McDonald in these post-Kroc days - I'm loving it.

Coral and Pearls

Along with a number of our session mates, Larry and I mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of our commissioning and ordination as Salvation Army officers this month. Five years ago, in writing about the thirty year mark, I noted that if this was a wedding anniversary, I’d be looking for a string of pearls nestled in a box from Tiffany & Co. The traditional gift for thirty-five years is coral, but since I don't really want a salt-water fish tank filled with exotic fish and coral décor, I'm sticking with the pearls as I walk the path of recollection amidst the milestones of ministry, stringing them together through story and memory.

Hired to play the piano for the Salvation Army in at age 15, I knew very little about the organization, but soon became enamored by the marriage between ministry and social work.  That initial spark has flamed into a passion for social justice and spiritual redemption that continues to motivate my work even in retirement. 

What a ride this has been. Pearls of laughter are definitely predominant, because I’ve shared the ride with a man who loves to laugh. When we get together with former co-workers, the stories simply spill out. “Do you remember the time . . .” and before we know it, we’re rolling on the floor. We’ve even laughed about funerals, such as when the funeral director picked Larry up for the ride to the cemetery. My husband asked, “Where’s Joe (the deceased)?” “You’ve been holding him for the last five miles,” was the response, pointing to the box resting on Larry’s lap. Then there was Butch, who arrived at his master’s funeral in a bowtie.  If you know my husband, you can imagine his reaction, looking down at that big black dog perched sorrowfully in the front row of mourners. 

We’ve chuckled over some of the donations through the years as well: a station wagon dripping with ice cream bars on the hottest day of the year, eighty head of ostrich (alive, not dead – don’t ask), and cases of fake designer t-shirts and hats seized as contraband by the local sheriff. While Joan Kroc’s exceptional gift of millions of dollars for our Kroc Center is definitely the largest, we’ve probably counted $300,000 in coins tossed in the Christmas kettles – that’s a lot of pocket change.

We’ve also met some incredible people along the way. Brigadier Elizabeth Earl, a rather large retired officer in New Jersey, would hike up her skirt to climb into the van, invariably saying, “fix your eyes on the Lord, son,” words of wisdom we’ve clung to for many years. Anthony and Carrie, college students from Hong Kong studying in Philadelphia, taught our young sons to play rock, paper, scissors in Chinese, and helped us see the world through broader lenses.

Years spent ministering in African American congregations left us with a lingering love for gospel music, and a bevy of aunties for our boys. During a nine year stay in Canton, we were surrounded by men and women with amazing servant hearts, whose arms opened wide to people on the farthest edge of the margins of our community. And what can be said about the privilege of midwifing the birth of the Ashland Kroc Center? - Truly a journey in grace - and surprises!

As I’ve strung together these pearls of memory, I’ve realized the power this metaphor brings to the work I’ve found through the Salvation Army. As the symbolic anniversary gift, it seemed appropriate that this object of beauty and worth is created in the oyster or mollusk shell when an irritant is coated, layer upon layer, by a calcium carbonate substance called nacre. That does seem to be the work of the Salvation Army, where those considered by many as an irritant to society actually find a place to rest and to belong, and, over time, take on at least some of the luster of the nacre, the gleam of the pearl. If the nacre of grace has worked its power on those I’ve served, it also continues to smooth the rough edges in me, layer by layer. 

And now the coral. Harvested from the sea as well, precious coral is the skeleton of red coral branches. Over the centuries, it has been valued for its beauty, but was also a symbol of protection and fertility. The coral speaks of the protective hand of God upon my life for sure, and the continued fertility of mind and spirit that has been mine in these past months of retirement and in the unfolding opportunities that lie before me.

The day my first "pearl" Times-Gazette column appeared in the newspaper five years ago, I had an unexpected gift from a friend - a string of pearls to signify that special anniversary. I was touched by her thoughtfulness, and fingered each pearl with the sweetness (and sometimes saltiness) of memory. But please, no fish tank, friends - I'll gladly cherish my coral memories with our granddaughter, the lovely Madelyn Simone, as Marlin, Dory and Nemo swim through the ocean - I don't clean fish tanks!

Perhaps the truest lesson of the thirty-five years is that my life has been enriched far beyond any care I’ve been able to extend to another.  Or, to change the metaphor to Hata Beja’s words, “the fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.” What a gift the years have given, what a faithfulness the Lord has promised - and delivered.