|
|
|
|
A Woman's View
by flybynite
The Beatitudes
I found myself one evening reading these verses from my childhood. Although familiar, I had never thought about what they meant in terms of daily living. I wondered if I could tell a story that might relate one point of view. I am not a bible scholar and I want to state now that I am sure there are better and more accurate definitions than the following stories. I simply put this task in prayer and asked God to help my heart find a story to make these words come alive. I stopped when I got to the Pure in Heart verse as I have not felt a conviction in my heart to write about this. I finally had to realize God still had some work to do with me before I could understand the last two verses of the Beatitudes. .
I would like to thank the people who have read these with me and have encouraged me to post these finished stories. It is my hope they will prompt you in your own search to discover the beauty in God's words.
|
|
Let's Talk About It!
Issues newsgroup
Join us to talk about this article!
|
|
|
Blessed are They Which Do Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness:
for They Shall Be Filled -- Matthew 5:6
Julie shifted her weight on the hospital chair and waited for the doctor to bring her news of her mom. She and her daughter had hopped on the first flight available when they had gotten the call about the accident. The doctor came in and motioned to her.
"She's still unconscious but it is only temporary. She took quite a blow to the head. The air bag went off but the impact still gave her a nasty concussion. You can go and sit with her. Keep talking to her as she may be able to hear and it might draw her out."
Julie and her daughter sat by her mom's bed and Julie held her mom's limp hand.
"Mom, grandma's going to be all right, isn't she?"
"I think so. Your grandma is about the most stubborn person I've ever met--besides you of course!"
"What was she doing driving all the way to Scottsville anyway?"
"She told me last week on the phone that they were organizing a building project for that black church that got burnt down. "
"I thought when you got old you didn't have to do all that 'righteous' stuff!
"Now that would be a compliment if I thought you really knew what righteous meant!"
"I'm 14 mom, I think I know what it means," admonished Seanna. "It means to be noble, virtuous, ethical or moral."
"I'm impressed! That vocabulary course paid off! You know of all those words, 'moral' is the word I connect to your grandmother. Did I ever tell you about the year she made me go to public schools when integration had hit our southern town?"
"Wow, you ARE old! I think you might have mentioned it when I was younger but I don't remember the details. What happened?"
Julie paused, letting her mind go back to 1966, the year integration hit her small southern town full force. Like most southern towns, they had managed to skip around the Brown vs.Board of Education ruling for years. For Julie, it was a year etched in her memory.
"But mom, why can't I go to the new Christian school like my friends? Tammy's mommy said if it was because we didn't have enough money, the school will help us!"
"Julie Adams! It is not because of money! I don't have any problem with asking for money help if that is what it takes to get you something you need. Remember when you needed that Girl Scout uniform and we didn't have enough money and your leader told us about a uniform bargain closet? This is not about money, this is about what is morally right!"
"Mom, what does 'moral' mean?", Julie looked at her mom confusion written over her 12-year-old face.
Sherie sighed and wondered how she could find the words to make a twelve-year-old understand. This was no time for high-handed adult words and it was important that Julie understand why she had to go to the public school.
Drawing Julie to the table, "I need to explain something to you and I know it is going to be hard for you to understand. I am going to fix us some hot chocolate and maybe some of those cookies you like."
"I thought you said those were for only special occasions!"
"Well, this is a special occasion," Sherie explained as she brought the two steaming mugs to the table with the saucer of Julie's favorite cookies. "I am going to ask you to understand something very hard even for grown ups to understand. I think that deserves some special 'thinking' cookies!"
Julie bit into the cookie, savoring the delicate flavor, happy to listen to whatever her mom had to say if it meant having these cookies. She stubbornly held onto the idea she should go where her friends where going to school. Maybe mom didn't understand what was happening in the public schools.
"The thing is mom, when this busing thing starts, my school is going to have---," Julie caught herself before she said the name her classmates used, "Negroes in them and I will be on the bus for an hour and Tammy's mother said that 'was a crime, making us kids get penalized'."
If only I could screen the mothers of her friends, thought Sherie. She had caught the slight hesitation on the ethnic word too. She didn't relish the idea of her daughter traveling an hour each way to school either. She knew the emotional turmoil in the school would take a while to die down. Would her daughter be able to even meet this challenge? With pride in her heart, she knew Julie could do this if only she could help her to understand the "why".
"Julie, it is going to be hard sitting on that bus for an hour. Though you could get some reading done, start homework--it doesn't have to be a wasted hour. And I know your school will have children that look different and maybe even talk a little different when this law goes into effect. That is exactly why I want you to go!"
Sherie caught the puzzled look on Julie's face and rushed on to explain. "Let me put this in a story. I was just about your age when the black woman who cleaned my mother's house brought her little girl, Shelia, about my age, to work with her as she had no one to leave her with. I loved it because it gave me a playmate. Shelia and I became great friends that summer. She was so smart, Julie! I always had trouble with math and Shelia drilled me on my math facts all summer."
"She always had a book with her too and she got me interested in reading. I had always thought books were too much trouble. I wouldn't see her much during the school year even though she only lived a short ways from me because she wasn't allowed to go to my school. She had to ride a bus all the way to the other end of town where they had a school for just black children. I asked her about her school once and there was this sad look that came over her face. She said the building was nice, was even kinda new, but their books were old. Their libraries never got new ones. Her mother made up for it by buying books at yard sales and sitting down each night helping her to learn more than what she was taught in school."
"It made me feel really sad, as I knew Shelia was smarter than I was and if she went to my school, she would be the star student! I asked my mother if Shelia couldn't come to school with me and she got this pained look on her face. I will never forget how I felt when my mother told me black kids didn't go to white schools. We saw each other during the summer months and once in a while during the school year. The summer before my last year in high school, we spent hours talking about the future. Shelia was having a hard time getting help with college; they kept talking to her about going to a secretary school instead. To them, that was aiming high! I was so angry with her school! She looked at me with this look, and told me I had no idea what her world was like! I could do anything I wanted and she could do only what she was willing to beg for."
Sherie paused, her mind going back to that moment in time when words had failed her.
"So what happened to Shelia, Mom?" Julie asked.
"Well, it took her six years to talk her way into law school, but eventually she became a lawyer."
"Are you still friends?"
"Well, we lost touch after she moved away. She couldn't go to school around here and made her way up north. I haven't thought about her for a long time, until," and here Sherie looked into Julie's eyes, "until this busing thing came up. Julie, black children have been riding buses for long hours all their lives. The churches didn't form schools to help them! No one cared if their education was good or even fair to them. Now we have organizations putting out all these new schools and it's not because they don't think you can get a good education in public schools, it to keep you from being with black children and that is just wrong. It would be different if they made sure there were enough scholarships to include the same amount of black children, but they don't. Julie, if you go to that school, you are telling them they are right to do this. You will never have the chance to know a Shelia, know that skin color doesn't matter when it comes to friends or equals. I know it will be tough in public schools, some black children might not want to be around you either!"
"Why would they not want to be friends with me?" The idea puzzled Julie who was used to making friends easily.
"Because they will be afraid you don't really want to be friends. Afraid you might turn on them, make fun of them, or even get others against them."
"I wouldn't do that!", shouted Julie indignantly.
"No sweetie, you wouldn't but others might. If you stand by and watch it happen and never tell anyone it is wrong, never try and reach out to the child being hurt with cruel words, well, it's almost the same as saying it yourself. Does that make any sense to you?"
Julie thought about the argument she had with the girl she had thought was her friend last year. The girl had gotten all the other girls to turn against her and she remembered how much it had hurt her. There was only the one girl, one she hadn't even talked too much before, that had come to sit beside her at lunch. She was now her best friend and she often felt bad she had never noticed her before the argument. The other kids and she had made up eventually and they even suggested she could dump the new friend now. But something in Julie had made her stand up tall and tell them "you don't turn on friends". She knew suddenly what her mom was getting at in her story.
"Mom, I'm scared. If I am nice to the black kids, I may not have any white friends. You don't know what these kids are like sometimes."
"I do know Julie. It could work out just the way you said too. But I think, once children go to school with one another, day after day, there will come a time when it doesn't matter anymore. The test of courage is going to be to stand tall for the right thing while it does matter. I am a little scared for you, too, and part of me does want to put you where everything will be 'easy'. "
Julie thought about the courage her friend had when she came to sit by Julie. What would she have done if no one had come to sit beside her day after day? She thought about the bus of negro kids that passed them every day on the way to school. They had moms and dads too, and how sad it must have been for them to love their kids, the way her Mom loved her, and know they couldn't give them a good education. At that moment Julie Adams grew up in the heart and knew that her mom was right: you didn't walk away because if everyone walked away, nothing would ever change.
"Mom, I want to go to school with all my friends, but we do other stuff together so it's not like I am losing them. I don't know how to make friends with someone who may not want to be friends, but maybe it just takes time. They will have to see me for myself sooner or later."
Sherie reached out and hugged her daughter tight. She hoped she was doing the right thing.
It was a month into school before Sherie heard Julie burst into the door like old times.
"Mom! Where are you?"
"Slow down tiger, what's up?"
"Remember me telling you about this funny girl, Tasha? Well, she always makes me laugh with her funny remarks and today she came and sat by my friend and me at lunch. Just plops her tray down and starts talking. She had us laughing like crazy! Then in recess, she comes up with two other friends and teaches us to do double dutch jump rope! Kids are starting to talk, mom." Julie paused and Sherie could see something was bothering her.
"That's good news Julie. Something is wrong though, what?"
"Well, during the day, most of us really do try to make friends. But when school is out, most of the white parents are there to pick up their kids so they don't have to ride the buses. I think some of the parents do it just because it's a long ride. But I see the looks on the other kids as they get on the buses and I know something of what we gained during the day is lost at the end of the day. I used to be so mad you made me ride the bus, not come and get me like everyone else, but I'm glad you didn't now. I can see the look of trust and approval in my friend's eyes. Lately, they have been talking about their problems at school with some white kids and I realize they are forgetting they are talking in front of a white girl! Isn't that amazing? I get a chance sometimes to explain the other side, the fears of rejection that all kids feel."
Sherie listened to her 12-year-old in amazement that she could have such insight. She wasn't afraid she made the wrong choice anymore.
"Hey, I had something exciting happen to me today too! Remember my old friend Shelia? Well, she called me today! Seems she is doing some legal work on the busing situation. She is coming in town on Tuesday and she has an 11-year-old girl! I told her you were in public schools and doing fine. She was so quiet I thought she had hung up! Then she said, 'I'm proud of you girl!' And I am proud of my girl too!" Sherie took Julie's hands and they spun in a circle like they did when Julie was small. They finally sat down, dizzy, and pleased with each other.
"I'm sorry I didn't listen better when I was little, Mom. I guess I take the way things are now for granted. Kids go to private schools now to just get a better education. I never thought about the reason they were founded. I used to want to go to one, and I remember you telling me education was more than just books. Now that I am in high school, I'm glad. I feel like I am better able to deal with the whole world and not just a privileged part. Grandma is definitely righteous!"
It was then they saw her grandma's old friend Shelia come rushing in with her daughter who was now Sherie's best friend.
"I keep telling your mother she is getting too old to go helping in every cause that comes around!"
"You're a fine want to talk Aunt Shelia." Sherie had never dropped the childhood nickname for Shelia. "Last time I noticed you had your name on more committees than there are hours in the day!"
"That's different. Most of those committees don't even meet once a month. It's important for them..." Before Shelia couldn't even finish the women joined in:
"To learn to deal with people of all races!"
"Laugh if you will, but your mother knows what I am talking about! Look at her lying there. I know she is hearing us. " Shelia found her eyes getting wet as she sat down beside her childhood friend.
"She's going to be okay mom," her daughter whispered.
"There's a verse in the Bible I always connected to your mother. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. If this room had any more flowers in it we could open up a florist shop! Your mother is filled to the brim with respect and love by all who meet her."
Julie continued, "Sometimes when I drive through Montgomery and I see that big sign, 'Dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr.' for Interstate 85, I can't help but see the irony in our world. What was once cursed by millions is now revered. The thing about righteousness is you have to take it into your soul long before you know if it will be the death of you or the glory of you."
Sherie moaned and slowly open her eyes.
"Julie, what are you doing here? You're suppose to be at that benefit!"
It took a moment before Sherie could understand their laughter.
flybynite writes for Skateboard and manages several areas in the WomenCentral and UnderWire Communities on MSN.
Let's Talk About It!
Issues newsgroup
Join us to talk about this article!
© 2000 flybynite
|
|
