Friday, March 8, 2013

One Fine Day With Don MacRae

One of the finest days I’ve ever experienced on this planet was a day back in June of the year 2000.  I spent those hours, from dawn to magnificent sunset to moon-rise, with my friend, Don MacRae.  We were deep in the West Virginia woods, at a place called The Wilderness, located  on an old-timer’s map with a tiny dot and the name of Hemlock.  Solitary -  alone on hundreds of acres, deep in a forested holler, with high ridges on either side.  Don and I tossed our shoes in the meadows and walked through silky moss that reached our shins and made us giggle.  It was a year of magnificent mountain laurel and honeysuckle which formed royal arbors over the foot path to the waterfalls. We splashed in the river, a tributary, yes, a fork, of the Middle Fork River.  The water was mountain run-off and cold, but the sun was dappling and warm as we stretched out on a huge rock and told tales that may or may not have been true.  At one point, we began to hear voices - those of children - and we wondered if perhaps some magic was in the air, but we came to our senses and jumped from rock to rock until we rounded a bend in the stream and saw a dozen youngsters, holding a hallelujah service in the water.  We approached with broad grins and they responded, saying they were inner city kids from St. Louis, Missouri, and they were having a week in the wilds and somehow had wandered several miles up an old forest road and discovered the 1870s Wilderness cabin.  They invited us to sing and pray along with them, but we took ourselves back to our own sort of meditations, marveling at what can appear out of thin mountain air. We explored the old Methodist cemetery in Hemlock, reverently walking between the tombstones, guessing at the stories of the people buried there.  As we drove along Hemlock Ridge, the setting sun turned such brilliant colors that we simply stopped the car on the dirt road and couldn’t move until the divine show was over.  My friend Don was like that sunset – magnificent colors, soaking up the beauty and majesty that all of life had to offer.  And, like all wise people, he understood playfulness and curiosity.  May we meet again someday, my friend, on a rock in the fork of a mountain stream.  Love, Beth

Friday, January 4, 2013

Free Will Offering


One of my favorite duties in my job at the Reynolds Homestead, an off-site campus for Virginia Tech, is being the person who recruits and trains the Volunteer Interpreters (Docents) who show visitors around our 1843 plantation home, the birthplace of RJ Reynolds and his many siblings.  Each year, we honor all our volunteers and celebrate those folks who choose to give of themselves.  It made me stop and think about my own history of volunteering, something that has become a lifelong habit.

My mother and grandmother were the first to set me on the course of being a volunteer, usually over my protestations.  Many a Saturday morning, one or the other would fill a tin can full of freshly cut flowers from their gardens, add an Upper Room Daily Devotional booklet, and send me on my way to knock on a shut-in’s door and deliver some ‘sunshine’, as they liked to say.  Of course, I would find myself ushered into a sitting room and encouraged to climb up into an overstuffed chair, complete with doilies.  At this point, here I was -  sipping on a cup of tea or a glass of coke, nibbling on shortbread cookies, and hearing stories from long ago.  I’d leave with a glow and a big smile, though it never stopped me from grouching the next time.  Such is the teaching of a young soul to volunteer.

Through my 4-H club, I learned the importance of looking poverty in the face.  We would deliver holiday baskets, filled to the brim with food and presents, to the ‘poor people’ in our county.  Sometimes these families had children my age and I would ache with embarrassment....until I learned to simply smile and look into the eyes of the girl or boy my age – and wait until they met my own eyes.  I often saw contempt, pride, shame – and a yearning to be more.  But most importantly, I saw myself.....’there but the grace of God’.

Every Halloween, the church youth group would arm themselves with the little orange cartons and knock on doors around town.  “Trick or Treat for UNICEF!”, we’d call out and most folks would scramble around for some coins to drop into our boxes.  I could picture in my mind a starving African child having a drink of milk as the carton filled.  Maybe somewhat naive, but from this I learned that the whole world is our neighbor and we’re called to help - one penny at a time.  And maybe, just maybe, I made a difference.