Attending A Black Church

Attending A Black Church
For The First Time
State College, PA
Spring, 1987


When I lived in State College, there was not much diversity in race or ethnic backgrounds.  Our diversity centered around the large spectrum of people from all over the state. We had lots of rich students and poor students. It was here, for the first time I ever met farmers or people who lived in trailer parks, joined 4H clubs, like the Steelers, had mountain views outside their back yard or drove a tractor.  But that was the extent of our differences. In State College, we were mostly white.

There was one woman in my office who was black and one Sunday, she invited me to her church.  I really didn't want to go to church but I didn't want to reject her so I went.  It turns out, she invited everyone from the office and we all sat together.  It was easy to find them in the church as we were the only white people.  We really stuck out.  But as shocking as it was to see it, I marveled at all the black people.  Where did they come from? I never saw black people in town.  Now there were about a 100 of them in this church that I didn't even know existed.

I took my seat and immediately noticed that I was under dressed.  I didn't have a big, beautiful hat,  I wasn't wearing a dress and I was self-conscious of my sloppiness.  Fortunately, my colleagues, with the exception of Pat, were equally under dressed for the moment.

A preacher came charging out from the back of the church and everyone jumped up with excitement. He was in a silk, tailored suit and he was loud, forthright in his important message and demanding of our attention.  He shouted about Jesus and his love for us and our responsibilities to be good Christians and asking, "Can I get an Amen on that?"  And the crowd cheered and clapped and shouted AMEN with a conviction that was genuine and joyful. It was a Jesus lovefest.

Everyone sat down and the preacher paced the alter like a caged animal.  He spoke in a loud voice and alerted everyone, "There is a nonbeliever amongst us today.  One of us does not believe in the power and love of our Savior, of Jesus Christ.  One of us is lost and needs to be found.  Brothers and sisters, we have to reach out to our lost friend before its too late. Grab that friend right now."  And then he pointed to the crowd and everyone shouted AMEN again. I began to panic.  Was he talking about me?  Had Pat asked me to come today because she knew I don't go to church?  Were they going to try to convert me?  I wanted out of there right now. I was so uncomfortable.

But then, he abruptly turned to the choir and they began singing a joyful song about Jesus being their friend.  Everyone stood up and sang along and danced and clapped and just about reached a euphoria that nearly caused them to pass out.  I stood up and swayed to the music.  Pat leaned over to me and said, "It's OK, you can loosen up.  You're in church, you're safe."  I wanted to tell her that this is about as loose as I get and that I couldn't loosen up anymore in church.  After all, I was raised a catholic and we just didn't do these types of things in my church.  I was stepping out enough for one day.

Some people then spoke in tongues.  Others stood up and professed their love of Jesus.  Someone was baptized in a pool of water. With the exception of the five white people, everyone danced and had a great time.  And after two hours, the preacher told everyone to go home and have lunch.  But he reminded everyone to hurry back for the afternoon service.

As we filed out of the church and greeted one another, Pat asked me if I was coming back in an hour.  I made up some lame excuse and I could tell that she saw it as just that.  So I left and hide for a few hours, just to contemplate this moment, this event that so clearly showed me just how much of the world I was not seeing.  It was as if I was blind but now, I could see just a little bit more today.

Wu Qing

Wu Qing
Honoring Women
World Academy for the Future of Women
Sias University
Henan, China
Spring 2012

I was teaching leadership skills to female students in China. I asked a group of students to write a short story about some women we honored at our annual Women’s Symposium last year (2011).  We honored six women who have rubbed the government a little bit so we were told that we could no longer honor anyone like that again.  However, we tentatively plan to publish these stories (about last year’s recipients) in this year’s program book.  Here is what one student's submitted story.

Wu Qing

 Wu Qing, the daughter of famous writer Bin Xin, was born in 1937 and a professor of Beijing Foreign Language University after graduated from English department.

   In her short life, she had make so much accomplishment.  She compered the Sunday English of CCTV from1977 to 1979. She studied society history and community building course in MIT of America.  And she was in charge of undergraduate and postgraduate who studied the society and culture.  For outstanding work, she was upraised the Excellent Teacher.

    At the same time, she wrote so many books that we can't write all their names.  Among these works, there are very famous ones, such as <>,<>and so on. Besides she also published articles in overseas.<> and some others all proved that lady have the rights to gain higher education and all the rights the men  have.

    As tge satubg gies* (sic) "Men and Women are all human beings.  So they should be treat equally.  And from her experience we can learn that women can also get what they want if they try their best and work hard.

     So, come on my sisters! Take action to reach the stars that your dream of.

(*I can’t figure out what was intended here.)

How Do They Sit Like That.

How Do They Sit Like That?

Mongolia

July 2006

When I am in Asia, I spend half of my time marveling over the fact that all Asians can sit like this.  I can't. I am not sure I ever could but I do know that those days are long gone.  My arthritis would never allow it.  If I attempt to sit like that, I fall over.  I know this for a fact because every time I go to Asia, on the first day, I go back to the privacy of my room and try to sit like this.  And surprise, surprise, surprise, I FALL OVER.

The Bazaar

The Bazaar

Baltimore, MD

July 2015

This store is listed in an article about unusual must-see places in Baltimore. So I made a road trip to check it out.  While it was interesting, I wouldn't call it  a must-see place.  There were a lot of oddities but nothing too creepy.  And nothing that I would buy for a friend or myself.

There is a box of photos of men in the early 1920's who have exceedingly large scrotums.  Some of them are larger than basketballs.  While these photos were interesting to look at for the moment, I wouldn't want to pay these photos and have them around my house. looking at the photos for a few seconds was enough for me.

I went here in the late afternoon.  No one else was in the store and the two men who ran the store seemed to be engaged in other activities since there were no customers. I am not sure who would buy most of the things in this store and I wonder how it survives.

Water Station- Haiti

Water Station

Jacmel, Haiti

July 2013

I was in Jacmel for the summer. Through an American NGO, we offered a summer program for kids and a medical clinic for families.  We are very busy. Lots of Haitian come to our programs.

It was an effort every day to make sure we had clean water.  We needed water to drink but we also needed water for the doctors to clean their hands. This became a challenge because our water buckets were consistently disappearing. Or someone would put their dirty hands in our clean water and contaminated it. Or someone would kick the bucket over and spill everything.  Or bugs would get into the bucket and die.  Their minute corpses would float around on the top.

We had a fifty-gallon drum that we filled with water.  We had a lid for that container so we did everything to keep it as clean as possible.  This was our drinking water. This quantity of water was good for several weeks.  But as we got closer to the bottom, we emptied out the container and just refilled it with fresher water.

We used the smaller buckets for our hygiene needs. I purchased several buckets of water every day.  It costed about 15 cents to fill a five-gallon bucket.  I would send someone to go get it and by the time he carried it through the streets, about a gallon had spilled and the rest had a thin layer of road dust. I surrender with this issue because this is the cleanest water I am going to get.

And every day, I would think about how I take water for granted when I am home.

The Alamo

The Alamo
Austin, Texas
December 2010

I am on a crossroad trip with my 12-year-old nephew. I have set the agenda and he has been a good sport about going to places that I think would interest both of us. We are in New Mexico. We just left Roswell.  I’m beginning to map out our route to California when he interjects, “I would like to go to the Alamo”. I remind him that the Alamo is in Austin in Texas, south of here. We wanted to go across the country.

“I know”, he says in a sweet little voice, “but we are so close to the Alamo. We should go there. I love the Alamo”.

And so, we do. We head south and travel miles and miles and miles and miles through cotton fields. The whole time Jamison speaks nonstop about the significance of the Alamo. Truthfully, I never knew the story of the Alamo. It just didn’t hold my interest. But for this kid, this was a big moment.

 As we pull into Austin, he tells me he has butterflies in his stomach.

 “Why “’I ask him, “is something wrong”?

 “I’m just so excited”, he tells me. “All my life I’ve wanted to the Alamo and today I’m going to the Alamo”. He claps to himself.

I hadn’t realized how important this moment was for him and I am so grateful that I wasn’t my usual stubborn self. I’m glad we went with his idea to go the Alamo rather than California. I’m excited to have this moment with him as he fulfills his dream. I didn’t even take offense when he said to me, “and remember when we were in Nashville and you drove all around looking for the free parking?  Well we aren’t doing that today. We’re paying for parking today. We aren’t wasting any of our time when we could be in the Alamo.”

 He spoke with such authority and such conviction that I just had to laugh and pay for parking so that we could spend as much time as possible at the Alamo.

My Honda Element

My Honda Element
2008-2017

• 2003
• There was one owner before me. 
• I bought it in March 2008.
• It had 47,000 miles when I bought it.  I thought the miles were too high. The dealer laughed at me, "This car will run until it hits 250,000 miles.
•  I paid $15,000 for the car.
• March 2015- the last time I put any money in to maintain this car with the exception of oil changes and two new tires.
• March 2017- I was driving one night and it started to make a strange, pumping noise. This was the final straw.  I had not had any work done to the car in two years and I was on borrowed time. I went looking for a new car the next day.
• There were 244,811 miles logged at trade-in.
• The mechanic who assessed the car was stunned at how well this old car ran.
• It had a $1200 trade in value which shocked me.
• The Kelly Blue Book valued this car with this amount of miles at $2500.
• I took a big road trip in December 2010: VA, TN, AR, NM, TX, MS, OK
• I hauled a ton of junk in this car.
• I bought the car so I could use it as a mini-camper.  It was my intention to take the back seats out, put in a cot and drive around the country.  I never did that and i have regrets.
• I had one car accident- someone rear-ended me as she was texting and driving.
•    

Johnbeth

Johnbeth
An Acquaintance


I've met her  several times at various women's meetings.  She was always gracious and interested in what I had to say.  She let me tell my stories and she asked questions about everything I said.  She was engaging and worldly. But after five years of knowing her, I realized knew nothing about her. I knew she worked in Washington, DC but that's all I knew about her.

Her name came up in a conversations with my sister.

"You know her story, don't you", Sharon asked me.

"Nope. I don't know anything about her.  I assume she isn't married.  She never talks about a husband."

Thirty years ago, she was out to dinner with her husband.  When they came home, they found the house was on fire.  The babysitter had gotten out, unharmed.  But her three children died. Understandably, the marriage didn't survive the tragedy.  Johnbeth never remarried and she never talked about herself. She kept an invisible shied around her and she deserved to keep her distance from all of us.

Howling At The Moon

Howling At The Moon
Carpenter's Point, MD
January 2015

Tonight is a perfect night to howl with the moon. So I did.  My neighbors told me to stop howling. I hate them.