My Baptism Story for the Anthology of Southwest Central Church, Houston, TX 17 August 2025

 

My Great Grandparents, H.S. Calahan & Lala Shelby Calahan, 5th&6th from the right, at their baptism, probably in Louisiana, circa 1900.

I grew up in the Texas Panhandle the small farming community of South Plains that centered around a school with eight grades and a Baptist Church where my great-grandmother was a charter member and half the deacons were my great uncles. 

The church had two revival meetings every year: one in early spring before crops were planted and another in the Fall after the crops were “laid by” and before the harvest.  

Baptisms were routinely planned for the Sunday evening following “the meeting.” Our church building had no baptistry although it had a lovely painting of three crosses on a hillside and a flowing river which would one day hang above the baptistry of the new building that everyone dreamed of. My great grandparents, my grandparents and their siblings, and my father and his siblings had all been baptized in earthen stock tanks or sometimes spring-fed creeks.

During the Spring revival, a few months after my fifth birthday, while I was in the children’s “Booster Band” and seated away from my parents for the very first time, I ran up to our pastor during the invitation hymn and told him I wanted “to be saved.” I remember how Brother Spearman hugged me and reassured me that I didn’t need to be afraid. “Jesus loves little children. You’re safe,” and he sent me down the aisle to my parents whom I told, “He got talkin’ ‘bout the debil and that fire and I got scared.”

As a second grader, I tried again. This time I really did understand, but Brother Spearman and the congregation assumed  that I had just followed several of my older cousins.  This time Brother Spearman said a short prayer of blessing that I would continue to “grow in faith” and sent me back down the aisle to my parents.

After service dismissed, I was sitting on the steps that went down into the sanctuary, feeling forlorn and embarrassed, frustrated, and wondering how I was ever going to follow Jesus if they wouldn’t let me be baptized.
Grandaddy came back into the building to get his hat from the shelf where the men left Sunday-go-to-meeting Stetsons. He saw me sitting there and walked down the steps to join me. He wrapped an arm around me and said, “Hard time tonight. Tell me about it.”
He listened. We talked.

For the next year I got to spend some one-on-one time with him, often riding in his pick-up around the farm or walking the pasture with him to pull out undesirable weeds that could compromise the Jerseys’ milk. One day toward the end of summer, Grandaddy said that he was convinced that I did know what sin was, that I was sorry for all I’d done, that I understood what it meant to repent and surrender my life to the Lord. He said he was going to "speak" to Daddy and Mother and to Brother Spearman for me. He assured me that the next time I “was called” to walk down that aisle I would not be turned away. 
And so it was.

Following the Spring revival, a few months after my 9^th birthday, I walked down the aisle and professed faith in Jesus. Brother Spearman accepted my confession, and I was welcomed by the church membership.
The following Sunday evening, the South Plains Baptist Church and most of the community traveled to the larger town of Silverton where we had arranged to “borrow” their baptistry. All those who had “come forward” during the meeting—several adults, a couple of older teens, almost every 12-year-old in our church, and I—stood and affirmed our faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who had died on the cross for our salvation. We declared our intention to follow Him as a disciple and to “obey all things whatsoever He commanded.”
Then we all marched out to the hallway behind the baptistry, took off our shoes and socks, and waited in line to be baptized, one by one. Several of our Sunday School teachers and a few mothers went with us. We each carried a bath towel. Mother had given me one of our fluffy “company” towels.
Back in the sanctuary, my grandmother was seated beside her parents; she held a homemade quilt to wrap me because everyone went home still wet from the water. There were no robes, no head coverings. We all wore regular clothes. Brother Spearman had waders over his regular suit trousers. 
I remember the tears in Gran's eyes, the sweetness of her smile, and the extra warmth of her hug enwrapping me.

[In this photo, I’m on the left. Kathy Mulder was a 4^th grader and just a few months shy of her 12th birthday. She had been very ill with rheumatic fever (I think) and had missed a year of school. While she was recovering she and her mother, Letha, had read the New Testament together. They had been eagerly awaiting her baptism.
Kathy was baptized immediately before me, and I watched from the top of the steps. She was wearing a new bright yellow chiffon dress which floated up and ballooned around her when she was in the baptistry. She coughed a bit coming up from the water and then the most lovely, serene smile. I was so happy for her!]

 

My mother was standing beside me and handed me one of Daddy’s freshly ironed white cotton handkerchiefs to put over my nose and mouth. She had to give me her hand for the first couple of steps down into the water.
Then Brother Spearman took my hand and said, “I’m going to baptize you now in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
He led me a few steps deeper into the water, not too deep because if we got very far from the edge my feet wouldn’t be able to touch the bottom. I was on tiptoe.  Then he whispered, “Take a deep breath.”
Placing his hand over my hand that held Daddy’s handkerchief, he said, “Buried with Christ in baptism…” He tilted me back under the water. Then he lifted me out of the water, supporting me with his arm because I had no solid footing, saying, “Arise now to walk in newness of life, dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” [All phrases from the 6^th chapter of Romans, KJV. 

I remember it like it was yesterday!

The great joy!
The feeling of freedom.
The deep sense of belonging.

And that could be the end of the story, but it wasn’t.

When I was 14 years old and a freshman in high school, having been a faithful Christian for 7 years, I had a crisis of faith, "a dark night of the soul." I declared myself to be an atheist and, refusing to be a hypocrite, I stopped going to church.
A few months later, I repented all that non-sense and considered if I had perhaps been too young and if I needed to be baptized again. I talked with my parents, my favorite Sunday School teacher who remained my life-long mentor, and Grandaddy who said,
“Oh, Sweetheart, if ever'one had to be baptized ever' time we did anythin’ wrong or foolish, we’d all be jumpin’ in the crick ever' week.”

Since the memory of my baptism was still so vivid for me, I chose to walk down the aisle, publicly confess my sin, and rededicate my life to Christ.

And that could be the end of the story, but it wasn’t. 

The subject of baptism came up again 4 years later when I was a freshman at Rice. It was David’s and my first date... [this next part may sound familiar to those who heard Dee Pipes tell her baptismal story. If you're going to date one of Betty Pipes's son, the subject will come up.] ...David and I debated the meaning of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: 
"except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit…. Ye must be born again.”

It was an oft repeated discussion until David acknowledged that in his view my childhood baptism was indeed valid and was affirmed by the faith and discipleship that I lived, and then he added “but I doubt my church and maybe my family will agree.”
For the record, my Baptist family was no happier than his Church of Christ one to see their pride and joy "unequally yoked, to marry outside the church.”  But, in fact, I had already left the Baptist Church over issues surrounding Communion which I believed should be weekly and open to all.

As the wedding date approached, there were whispering; several people asked, “Do you think she’d agree to be baptized again.” 
She would not.

My baptism remained fresh in my memory and was far too sacred to me. I felt that undergoing “an empty rite” would be a denial of Jesus and of the Spirit’s working in my life for well over a decade.

Since David and I agreed that unity in the home was a key value, we explored other options: I favored Lutheran or Disciples of Christ, or maybe even Episcopalian. David visited my favorite churches which I had been attending on Sunday mornings. I had been attending Sunday evening and Wednesday nights at Central with him for several years. In the end, our choice was that we would worship with Central Church of Christ and see how it went.
And so it was.

We had been married about 3 years, when Central's minister, Dan Anders, paid an unexpected visit to our apartment rather late at night. He’d come directly from a meeting of Central’s Eldership who wished to extend an invitation to me to be recognized as a “member of the body of Christ.” They affirmed my baptism and welcomed me into the congregation. A tiny + cross or plus sign was added beside my name in to the church directory, and I was soon asked to join the elementary teaching staff [Camille Dailey and Marjorie Bourland as well as David, Andrea, and at least two of Central's Elders--R. L. Sanders and Don Calendar, Sr.--and several others had been advocating on my behalf.

Once again, Great joy! 
A feeling of freedom.
A deep sense of belonging.

And so it was and is and has been for 51 years.

Baptism is individual; we are all baptized one by one.
Faith may be generational. We have a duty to teach those who follow us.
Both Baptism and Faith are always communal, happening in the context of a community, a communion.
I am most grateful to have lived my live in this beloved community that knows that love, not fear, is the motivation for baptism. A people who welcomes little children and listens to them and teaches them gently. A leadership that knows that we are all God’s children and that we gather at the Lord’s Table which is free and full of abundant grace for all who come.

Spirit calls to spirit. Churches that are Spirit- led recognize the work of the Spirit when we see it in others.
^“The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are children of God… For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other… thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:16a, 39]

Let us commune with God and with one another.

 

 

 

Teaching Luke: "Do not be afraid, little flock..."

Last Sunday I filled in as leader for the Discussion Class (Luke Part 2) at Southwest Central Church, Houston, since Michael and Brent were both out of town. Yes, me! At church and teaching on Mother's Day and only a little bit weepy. How I rejoice in this evidence of healing and spiritual growth!  I don't think I was ever privileged to teach a class that was a better fit with the morning's worship service. Our passage from Luke melded perfectly with the reading from Acts 2 from our "Peter Speaks to You" series which informed our worship last Sunday.

In its detailed discussion of Luke, the class had reached Chapter 12 but I began with a reminder of the last verses of Chapter 11:
⁵³ When he went out from there, the experts in the law and the Pharisees began to oppose him bitterly, and to ask him hostile questions about many things, ⁵⁴ plotting against him, to catch him in something he might say.
Everything in the next section (Luke 12:1 - Luke 13:21) happens in this context of opposition, hostile questions, and plotting "to catch" Jesus which gives an urgency to his words. When Jesus heals on the Sabbath, the experts in the law say, "Gotcha!" but the section concludes:
 ^13:7 When he said this all his adversaries were humiliated, but the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things he was doing.

The setting is one that Luke has used before, most notably in Luke 6, Jesus' Sermon on the Plain--Jesus teaching his disciples in the midst of a crowd. And, oh! what a crowd, "so many that they trampled on each other." This emphasis on the size of the crowd introduces one of the major Lukan themes: "the world turned upside down." What seems big or valuable is really of no value; what seems small and of little value is really a great treasure.
Jesus and his disciples are surrounded by hostility, a hostility that is moving toward Jerusalem and a cross, just as the original readers of Luke's gospel, the early Christian church, are faced with persecution and the very real possibility of martyrdom. As Craddock writes,  "...these words are more fitted to the church after Jesus' resurrection than to his immediate disciples, because these sayings both imply and openly state the gift of the Holy Spirit." In the face of this hostility, Jesus repeatedly assures his disciples that God cares, that God provides, that the unfruitful fig tree will be cut down, that the faithful servant will be rewarded, and that the Kingdom of God will grow from the small mustard seed which he is sowing into a "tree" where birds may nest in safety and provision.

(Note: in both Jewish and Buddhist traditions and early writings, the mustard seed is an image of creation, an expanding universe, eternity. Its appearance here--particularly with the mention of "garden"--may be evocative of similar ideas.)

The section, Luke 11:53 - Luke 13: 22, is marked by

1. movement ⁵³ "Then he went out from there" and ²² "Then Jesus traveled"
2. and the use of "leaven" and birds

Although none of the commentaries I looked at mentioned it, in my reading I noted a chiastic structure:

A     LEAVEN of the Pharisees,  that is hypocrisy
B           Birds e.g. sparrows for whom God cares.
             NO FEAR you are worth more than sparrows     
C             A Question from the crowd re. inheritance
                 Jesus answers with a question:
                 "Who made me the judge?" DIVISION of property
D                   A parable: rich man building barns ("eat, drink, be merry")
                     Not ready for his death and headed to "Gehenna"
E                     DO NOT WORRY
                        Birds e.g. Ravens do not build barns, God provides
                        Lilies, grass withers and is burnt, God provides
                        ³² “DO NOT BE AFRAID, little flock,
                              for your Father is well pleased to give you
                              the kingdom.
                                ³³ Sell your possessions and give to the poor.
                            Provide yourselves purses that do not wear out—
                            a treasure in heaven that never decreases,
                           where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
                      ³⁴ For where your treasure is,
                         there your heart will be also."
  D'                  A Parable: servants waiting for their masters' return
                       Ready with loins already girded and lamps continually burning
 C'              A Question from the Disciples (Peter)
                  Jesus answers with a question:
                 "Who is the trustworthy steward?" DIVISION of households
                 "You hypocrites!"
                 "Judge for yourself what is right!"
B'        Wild birds that nest in the mustard tree
A'    LEAVEN of the Kingdom of God

In this text Jesus seeks to reassure his small group of followers in the midst of a much more numerous crowd that the Kingdom of God will grow, that God will provide everything his "little flock" needs just as he provides for birds.
Major teaching themes include:

• hypocrisy
• "my" possessions vs. God's provision
• "riches" vs. "treasure"
• being prepared for persecution, for death, for judgment

Of the repeated themes which this class has been noticing we see:

• angels,
• Holy Spirit
• the world turned upside down
• the poor
• the Kingdom
• clean/unclean (I'm not sure this item is on the list on the blackboard)
• and numerous pairs

We have a pair of fears: the one who can destroy the body vs. the one who can destroy the soul.
We have a pair of brothers--as we had a pair of sisters in Chapter 10:38-42--where one asks for judgment against the other.
We have not a pair but a triplet of birds: sparrows, ravens (an "unclean" bird), and wild birds. The appearance of the third reinforces the chiastic emphasis on E Luke 12:22-34 as the key section of this text.
We have a pair of questions; one from the crowd and one from the disciples represented by Peter.
We have a pair of parables both speaking to being prepared for judgment.
We have a pair of trees: an unfruitful fig tree and the tree that grows from the mustard seed.
We have a pair of "divisions" of an inheritance and of households.

Does Chapter 12 ^51 "Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵² For from now on there will be five in one household divided, three against two and two against three. ⁵³ They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
relate to Chapter 11 ¹⁶ Others, to test him, began asking for a sign from heaven. ¹⁷ But Jesus, realizing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and a divided household falls. ¹⁸ So if Satan too is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?"

And, perhaps, there is a pairing of baptism and fire in 13:49-50 which looks forward to the second chapter of Acts, also written by Luke.
Part of that passage was the key text to our worship service on Sunday:

^{Acts 2:42} They were devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Reverential awe came over everyone, and many wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All who believed were together and held everything in common, ⁴⁵ and they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone, as anyone had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to gather together by common consent in the temple courts, breaking bread from house to house, sharing their food with glad and humble hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having the good will of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved.

In Luke/Acts, as Talbert suggests, the purpose of wealth is to share with the poor, with one another. Much of our class discussion centered around the difficulty of putting this teaching into practice.

I read and made use of the discussion of this section in these books:

Craddok, Fred B.: Luke: Interpretation for Teaching and Preaching. 1990

Talbert, Charles H.: Reading Luke: A Literary and Theological Commentary. 1982

Brent and Michael gave me a third book with these which I read but from which I made no notes so I doubt that it contributed to my understanding of the passage.
Scripture quotations from the NET Bible via Biblegateway.

Four Women, Four Hymns.

Perhaps my favorite presentation at the ChLA 2013--which I attended in Biloxi many months ago--was that of Alisa Clapp-Itnyre, "For the Children Who Played... and for Those Who Didn't: Nineteenth-Century Hymnbooks for Home, Sunday-Schools, and Orphanages." This was the second time I have heard Alisa present, and, since I share her interest in Victorian hymnody,  I eagerly await her book Nineteenth-Century British Children’s Hymnody: Re-Tuning the History of Childhood with Chords and Verses. Studies in Childhood Series: 1700-Present series.  Claudia Nelson, series editor.  Anticipated publication 2015.

I have much enjoyed her article ,“Writing for, Yet Apart: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Contentious Status as Hymn Writers and Editors of Hymnbooks for Children.”  Victorian Literature and Culture. Vol. 40.  Issue 1.  (March 2012): Pp. 47-81. Clapp-Itnyre advocates "for the woman hymn writer for children – she who, as hymn writer or editor, surely enacted the role of religious “priest” for countless generations of children during and after her lifetime, but who is all but forgotten today."
In much the same way, I have asserted that women writers of hymns and Christian didactic literature function as theologians, shaping the doctrine and practice of the church. (See my introduction for SEASONS's reading of Evelyn Whitaker's Laddie.)

Later this week, I will teach a short class on the Hebrew word

  בֵּית

ba yith 

which means"House, Household, Home, Family, Temple, Shelter, Stronghold, Door..." and the meaning of the phrase "The House of the Lord" in the biblical Psalms. Since this is a devotional rather than a literary presentation, I selected several hymns written by women for the group to sing. These songs were chosen for their commentary upon the selected Psalms and because they were written by 19th Century Women.
Four Women Writers of Hymns:

Dorothy Ann Thrupp (1779 – 1847) was born in Paddington, England. She was deeply involved in the Sunday School movement. The first Sunday Schools were founded to provide some education to the children of the poor. These children often worked during the week to help support their families. Having Sundays free, they often ran wild and engaged in dangerous and immoral activities. Dorothy Ann Thrupp was a life-long Sunday School teacher. She wrote many materials and songs to be used in the curriculum. Many were published under the name "Iota" and some are noted as by D.A.T.  Alisa Clapp-Itnyre in her presentation discussed the Sunday School movement and  cited the "democratizing influence" of hymns and their importance in a "move from selfish pursuit to core Christian values." Attributed to Thrupp, "Savior like a Shepherd Lead Us" appears in at least 831 hymnals.

Anna Laetitia Waring (1823 – 1910) was born into a Quaker family in Wales  but like her uncle, Samuel Waring, was baptized into the Anglican church in 1842. Both her uncle and her father, Elijah Waring, were also writers. She was a life-long daily reader of the Psalter and learned Hebrew in order to read the Psalms (Yes! a kindred spirit, indeed!) and other Old Testament scripture in the original language. Her first small collection of eighteen hymns was published in 1850 and titled Hymns and Meditations by A.L.W. There was an 1855 publication of Additional Hymns. In 1863 the 10^th edition of Hymns and Meditations was published. Here is a link to the American edition which contains 32 poems.  In 1886 she published Days of Remembrance: A Memorial Calendar. For many years she was active in a prison ministry visiting Bridewell in London  and later Horfield, Bristol, and worked with the Discharged Prisoners Aid Society. When a friend asked how she could bear this ministry, Waring replied: “It is like watching by a filthy gutter to pick out a jewel here and there, as the foul stream flows by.” Many of her hymns are reflective of pain and suffering. In our hymnal she is represented by "In Heavenly Love Abiding" which appears in at least 453 hymnals.

Anne Ross Cundell Cousins (1824 – 1906) was born in Yorkshire, England. She married William Cousins, pastor of the Free Church of Scotland. They ministered for twenty years in various locations with the Free Church of Scotland and with Presbyterian congregations. She was the mother of six children. She began writing hymns to be used in her husband’s worship services and some of these became very popular in Britain. Her hymns and poems for various publications were most often published as by A.R. C.  She was an accomplished pianist having studied with John Muir Wood. Here is a link to the 1876 edition of her collected works. She said her hymn, 'The Sands of Time," was inspired by the last words of the great 18^th Century Calvinist and leader of “the second Reformation,” Samuel Rutherford, whose tombstone is engraved “Acquainted with Immanuel’s Song.”  

 Caroline Louisa Sprague Smith (1827 –1886) was the wife of Rev. Charles Smith of the South Congregational Church, Andover, MA.  She is listed in Hatfield’s Poets of the Church, New York, 1884, p. 564. Her hymn “Tarry with Me. An Old Man’s Prayer” appeared in The Sabbath Hymn Book 1858. She described writing this hymn:  “About 1853 [in the summer of 1852] I heard the Rev. Dr. H. M. Dexter preach a sermon on ‘The Adaptedness of Religion to the Wants of the Aged.’ I went home and embodied the thought in the hymn “Tarry with me, O My Savior.’ I sent it to Mr. Hallock, for The Messenger. He returned it as ‘not adapted to the readers of the paper.’ Years after, I sent it, without any signature, to the little Andover paper…. I send it to you in its original form, in a little paper of which my sister, Mrs. Terry [Rochester, NY] is editoress.” Here is a link to a 1909 edition of her collected writings.

There are at least three other tunes more commonly used with Smith’s words.  The tune in our hymnal #783 is not listed in the references. It is by Knowles Shaw (1834 –1878) who was the “singing evangelist” of the Stone-Campbell Movement. The story of his conversion--he was in the middle of playing the fiddle at a dance--is rather amusing. He was both an accomplished violinist and pianist. Having no objection to instrumental music in the Disciples of Christ fellowship, he frequently played in churches and revival meetings. Smith’s “Tarry with Me” with Shaw’s music was published in Zion’s Harp #165.

 

Distant Voices

SEASONS, my women-reading-theology group will discuss the now twenty-year old book, Distant Voices. Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church by C. Leonard Allen. Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 1993,  which focuses on the "minority voices among the churches of Christ." p. 4 
I read this book when it was newly published but have certainly benefited by a second reading. As a church librarian I have had the opportunity to browse some of the 19th and early 20th century publications that make up the written history of the Stone/Campbell movement and have long known that I am more often in sympathy with the voices that were silenced than those who defined the traditional doctrine and practice of the Restoration Movement, particularly as expressed in the churches of the South. One might call me a "Stoneite" but never a "Campbellite."
Quoting Allen: "...in Stone's view, heresy involved not so much believing wrong doctrines but a lack of love and a rending of the body of Christ. He did not believe that a set of correct doctrines would ever unite believers." p 18 Nor do I.
He would not deny fellowship or Eucharist based on whether a person claiming the name of Christ had been baptized by immersion. Nor would I.
"He opposed the "mania for uniformity" that allowed people to exclude from fellowship those who differed in interpretation or opinion." p. 44 As do I. In my 40+ years in the churches of Christ, I have been more than once named a heretic (always by a male) which I usually take as a compliment. After all, they called Jesus a blasphemer.

In his book, Allen makes use of a couple of my favorite Barton Stone quotations:

"I hear much said about obedience, and too many confine or almost restrict the term to baptism and the weekly supper: prayer is sadly neglected, [along with] love to God and man."

"If our faith be ever so imperfect, and blended with error, yet if it leads us to do the will of God, and bear fruits of the Spirit; if it works by love; if it purifies the heart; if it overcomes the world--it is the faith of a Christian." p. 44

SEASONS decided to focus our discussion on the chapters dealing with women:

• Chapter 4 Your Daughters Will Prophesy,
• Chapter 17 The New Woman,  and
• Chapter 18 Phoebe's Place.

Thomas Rolandson (1815)
from the digital collection of the New York Public Library.
 

Chapter 4:
I am struck with how very much the "Restoration Movement"
reflects the general societal views of women in the late 18th, through the 19th, and in the early 20th Centuries in America and in Victorian England with which I am more familiar.  I notice some interesting parallels between the criticisms of "female preachers" lacking "that delicacy of mind, which is the ornament of her sex" p. 25 to similar invectives directed at the Bluestockings.  I've recently been sampling some of the writings of Hannah More (1745 - 1833) and other proponents of education for women.
Allen notes that in the churches of Christ in America "the predominant cultural model of "true womanhood," which limited woman's role strictly to the domestic sphere, became the predominant model of the restoration movement. It remained so throughout the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth." And I fear follows us still into the twenty-first.

Chapter 17:
Likewise the exchanges between David Lipscomb and Silena Moore Holman (1850 - 1915) give a theological setting to the "New Woman" questions that were being debated in the society at large. Allen quotes Holman:
"The days of the 'clinging vine woman' are gone forever... a husband will find walking by his side the, bright, wide-awake companion, ...a helpmeet in the best possible sense of the term." She is well educated, and her education has not "impaired her feminine grace or lovable qualities in the slightest degree."  p. 132
"Men may change with the changing conditions of modern life, but when women find themselves trying to keep step with their fathers, brothers, and husbands in the new order of things, the brethren stand in front of them with a drawn sword and demand a halt, because, they say, the Bible forbids, when it does nothing of the kind." p. 133

I find it telling that Lipscomb in his opposition to suffrage warned against women who "break the bond of subjection" divinely laid upon them. p. 131 The fact the he used the word "subjection" rather than the biblical word "submission" seems to me a clear demonstration that his opposition arose out of a entitled position of power and domination rather than the spirit of Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Mitigating my heretofore negative view of Lipscomb is Allen's Chapter 13 God's Chosen Vessels about the 1873 cholera epidemic in Nashville and Lispcomb service to "the poor and destitute, especially among the black population." p.92 I may disagree with Lipscomb's doctrine or dogma but, in the face of a life sacrificially and courageously lived, I am awed and humbled by the man.


 Chapter 18
The Phoebe's of the Stone/Campbell movement are part and parcel with the deaconess movements that were rampant in all religious circles. They are very much the same as the "gray ladies" of the Anglican sisterhood.  {A really delightful novel touching on this topic is The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant, part of her Chronicles of Carlingford, a free Kindle book which I greatly enjoyed. It's a sweet romance that will delight the gentle reader.} This sisterhood and Margaret Oliphant are of particular interest to me because of their association with the Christ Church Albany Street St. Pancras which was the church attended by Evelyn Whitaker and her sisters. SEASONS read Evelyn Whitaker's novel Laddie as a study in the woman novelist as theologian.
The increasingly public role of women in the 19th and early 20th Centuries found religious expression in
many social movements: abolition, temperance, education, work place conditions, child labor, public health, orphans and children, health care, missions...
We in SEASONS are blessed to attend a church that has been at the forefront of the women's issue in churches of Christ for a couple of decades. In fact, our own Steve Sandifer wrote one of the best references on this subject.

In Allen's book I noted that women's service gave them credibility. Nancy Cram (1776 - 1815) had begun a teaching ministry among the Oneida Indians. Her prayer at a funeral touched the audience before she became a "female preacher." Abigail Roberts (1791 -1841) preached in "out of the way places." Nancy Towle was a school teacher who spent 4 years in Bible study and prayer before in 1821 beginning her fourteen years as a full time itinerate preacher "wherever a platform was open to her." p. 28 "I was astonished that professed Christians can be so much more willing souls shall perish, than that 'the rules of their society' shall be broken." I share Towle's astonishment. 

We Christians would do well to remember and not to repeat or continue the errors of the past. Allen quotes Henry May's 1949 book: "In 1876, Protestantism presented a massive, almost unbroken front in its defense of social status quo." p. 111 The path of truth, wisdom, unity not uniformity, and peace demands that we 21st Century members and leaders of the churches of Christ hear those Distant Voices.

The Jesus I know is a revolutionary who rejects the status quo and repeatedly engages the marginalized people he encounters. The Christ embodies the teaching of Torah, Psalms, and Prophets: a Holy God is less concerned with liturgical practices than with the compassionate care of those in need. When we do not do likewise we are failing in our witness to the world.

Communings in the Sanctuary

SEASONS has been reading C. Leonard Allen's book, Distant Voices. Several of the women who read theology have mentioned that they would like to read more about the "Holy Mysteries" spoken  of Robert Richardson (1806 - 1876) in his five or ten minute meditations at the communion table. I found Richard's book available to read on-line or as a .pdf download at archive.org which  is an excellent source for pre-1923 publications in the public domain which have not generated enough interest to be made available as kindle books. The link:
 Richardson, Robert: Communings in the Sanctuary.

Pumpkin Soup...

I love the holiday season and for me it really does start with Halloween. I'm not fond of the overdone and expensive decorations--a pumpkin or two is sufficient--and I'm not much for the store-bought or rented costume. I like the old-fashioned Halloween of my childhood--a carnival at the country school we attended with simple games, a not-so-scary spook house, good food, and more candy than was good for us.

Our costumes were often made almost spur of the moment with whatever we had on hand. A farm family never has much money to waste on trifles. My mother always dressed as a gypsy and was a wonderful fortune teller. A burlap sack, braids made from laddered stockings, a headband with a feather, a corn cob doll for a prop--an Indian princess. Daddy's oversized padded cover-alls pulled up over the head with the neck stuffed with something, a pair of gloves and boots--a headless monster who needs a companion guide because the only view is through the button or zipper placket. A witch was usually easy. So was a pirate. A classic ghost was hard because even our old sheets were useful and we couldn't cut holes for eyes. But an old shower curtain or piece of fabric with a shower cap and a rubber mask... Grandma had found the mask in her yard the day after Halloween one year  and gave it to us... it appeared year after year. As far as I can remember that was the only "store bought" mask we had. We made masks out of cardboard and fabric scraps and bric-a-brac. We were limited only by our imaginations and what our crafty mother could help us make out of what we had. A big box could turn into almost anything--a TV set, a robot, a lamp table. A bunch of purple balloons to make a bunch of grapes. Raiding Mother's closet and dressing up in big hats and platform heels. Cross dressing was popular. The best Halloween trick was just the simple joke of a costume good enough to fool everyone into thinking that my brother was my sister.

One of the things I love about my church is that it offers one of those old-fashioned experiences to the children of our neighborhood. We started this year's festivities with a Pumpkin Festival last week. The kids got to decorate the pumpkins that will grace our fellowship hall and courtyard for the big party on Wednesday.
I made pumpkin soup and by popular demand the recipe follows:

K's Pumpkin Soup

In a large pot, whisk together and heat:

• 1 quart of homemade chicken stock (recipe below)
• 1 can Libby's pumpkin
• Add 1 teaspoon each garlic powder, onion powder, cinnamon, black pepper, sweet paprika.
• 1/2 teaspoon each chili powder and black pepper.

Bring just to a boil, reduce heat to low, simmer for 15 minutes.
Add

• 1 can (12 oz.) Carnation evaporated milk, simmer for a couple more minutes, stirring.

{At this point I ate a cup of soup for lunch--it was wonderful!--and put the rest in the fridge.}

A couple of hours before serving time, I put the soup in my slow cooker and added

• 2 quarts Imagine organic butternut soup  

Heat on high until hot, then turn down to warm and serve.

Served in cups with a bowl of roasted  and salted Austinut's pumpkin kernels to add if the diner desires.

 

Note: I often use the butternut squash soup as a base or an extender for my autumn soups. When I was making this soup for Southwest Central Church's Pumpkin Festival, I intended to serve it in cups as a warm beverage. Had I been serving it at home in bowls to be eaten with spoons. I would have started by sauteing a medium onion, finely chopped,  and a couple of cloves of garlic, minced,  in canola oil rather than using the dried spices. I might have prepared some spaghetti squash to mix with it.  I would have diced some wonderful apples (golden ginger or honey crisp) to put a little crunch in the bowls and garnished with a dollop of sour cream or yogurt with a bit of parsley and maybe some bacon bits. 

This pumpkin soup gathered compliments because of the homemade stock which I had in my freezer. It was the liquid left after I had poached chicken for chicken salad. Here is how I did it:

  

Poached Chicken for chicken salad and chicken stock 

• 10 sprigs parsley
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 small onion, halved
• 1 small carrot, halved
• 1 stalk celery, halved
• 3 pounds chicken breasts halves, on the bone and fat trimmed
• 2 cans reduced sodium chicken broth
• 2 cups (half a bottle) of white wine

Put the parsley, thyme, onion, carrot, celery, and chicken breasts in a pot. Cover with the broth, and bring just to a boil. Lower the heat to very low and cover. Poach the chicken for 20 minutes or until firm to the touch. Remove the pan from the heat, uncover, cool the chicken in the liquid for 30 minutes.

Transfer the chicken to a cutting board and reserve the liquid. Bone and skin the chicken and cut the meat into 1 inch cubes. Discard the bones and skin.  Yield: cubed chicken or 4 to 6 servings
Use the chicken to make chicken salad.

Strain the broth and store, covered, in the refrigerator for 3 days or freeze for later use. Remove any fat from the surface of the broth before using or freezing. 

And, just because it's in the same file, here is my chicken salad recipe:

Chicken Salad

• 4 cups diced poached chicken, recipe follows
• 1 stalk celery, cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 4 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced or 1/4 cup sweet onion cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh tarragon or fresh dill
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
• 1 cup Hellman's mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons strained freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

In a mixing bowl, toss together the chicken, celery, scallions and herbs. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, lemon juice, mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Add to the chicken and mix gently until combined. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cook's Note: Serve on a bed of lettuce with sliced tomatoes, in half an avocado or in a chicken club sandwich made with artisan's bread, crispy smoked bacon, vine-ripened tomatoes and lettuce.

For me, chicken salad with vine-ripened tomatoes is summer. I made many batches this year. Now I've got that wonderful frozen stock to use in my autumn soups. Happy holidays!

Lifetime Acheivement Award

Who hasn't had the dream?  A walk down the red carpet... an expectant crowd...  the presentation of the award... the acceptance speech.  "The Academy Award for Best..."  "and the Emmy goes to..."  "Here she is:  Miss America..."  "The Pulitzer Prize..."  "The Nobel Prize for Literature..."

"I learned the truth a seventeen..." and, while I do not feel that my life has been without accomplishment, I never thought of it as award-winning.  I was overwhelmed to the point of stammering when just before Christmas I was asked if I would permit Earth's Angels to honor me as one of four  "Distinguished Hope Honorees--Titus Women.  These are women whose lives have touched women by teaching and modeling the Word of God, and they are God's precious gems.  The community in which we live is a better place because of their tireless efforts to build up, beautify, support, and encourage others.  Their work is unto the Lord, but it has not gone unrecognized on earth." 

So there will be a "Dinner of Champions" in March to open "Earth Angel's Conference 2012 Celebrating 10 years of Encouragement, Mentoring, and Leadership for Today's Teen Girl and Young Adult Women."  And I will be given a lifetime achievement award of sorts.  It's humbling and more than a bit awkward.  There is an official bio:

K Cummings Pipes was born in Floyd County Texas in January 1949. She, her brother, and her sister grew up working on the family farm. The large extended family attended South Plains Baptist Church where K came to faith in Jesus and was baptized in 1958 shortly after her ninth birthday. The after school meetings of the Girls Auxiliary of the Women’s Missionary Union were one of many places where the church’s older women taught the young women, setting a wonderful example of Christian service. Following a series of community tragedies, K, at the age of 14 years, had sole responsibility for a Vacation Bible School class. Her service as a Bible teacher continued, almost without interruption, for more than forty years.  K moved to Houston in 1967 to attend Rice University, majoring in English Literature. As a country girl in the big city, she enjoyed the opportunity and diversity of Houston and attended many churches of different denominations, seeking to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of all the people of God. Sunday evenings usually found her at Central Church of Christ sitting beside David Pipes. They taught and worked side-by-side in Central’s mission to the underprivileged children of Houston’s Third Ward for four years and came to know each other well. After their graduations in 1971, David and K married. Their marriage was not blessed with children but all children became theirs as they taught and ministered to a generation, following them from kindergarten through college. David was ordained an elder of the congregation in 2000 and shepherds the flock with K at his side.  K enjoyed a professional career as a medical reference librarian, retiring in 1985. Until health concerns and the demands of caring for her aged parents limited her availability, she spent 20-30 hours a week using her gifts of Bible teaching, tutoring, librarianship, writing and editing at Southwest Central Church of Christ. She continues to pursue her interests in the wisdom literature of Hebrew scripture and the Psalms as a tool to constant prayer. She also collects and studies the work and life of a late Victorian Christian writer at www.evelynwhitakerlibrary.org.

While every word is true, that bio seems almost too shiny and slick.  It leaves out so much.  Most of it not at all the sort of thing one expects of a "Titus woman."  Doubt... Depression... Cynicism...  Fears...  Selfishness... Temper...  Stubborness... an all-too-often out-of-control tongue  ad.inf.  {Sigh!}

And my 5 minute acceptance speech is supposed to be a "teaching" for the attendees.  It's really all about them.  It has made me aware of the debt I owe to all the women who taught and mentored me.  It would take more than 5 minutes or the words that may be put into a blog post to name them and thank them.

One of the duties of an honoree is to help spread the good news about the conference so that young women (aged 11 to to 30 years) can be taught and mentored.  My dearly beloved is sponsoring those women of our church who wish to attend and our minister Steve Sargent is recruiting.  Earth Angel's Conference 2012 information and registration.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear.  The Lord is the strength of my life, of what shall I be afraid...  I hope to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait on the Lord.  Be of good courage and God will strengthen your soul.  Wait, I say, on the Lord."

"The significance of little things..." Dorothy Day

SEASONS met this morning to finish our discussion of Dorothy Day: Selected Writings. By Little and By Little.  Edited and with an introduction by Robert Ellsberg.  Maryknoll, NY:  Orbis Books, 1992.

My copy of this book is heavily highlighted and I've read it multiple times.  When we selected this book for SEASONS we were looking for a lodestone to help us endure this election year. I skimmed my highlights this week  and found 18 sections that I tabbed for discussion.  It is a book that has been important to my spiritual formation. Among many other things Dorothy Day taught me to care deeply for the poor.

Dorothy Day “wrote to give reason for a marriage of convictions that was a scandal and a stumbling block to many: radical politics and traditional, conservative theology. Yet it was not what Dorothy Day wrote that was extraordinary, nor even what she believed, but the fact that there was absolutely no distinction between what she believed, what she wrote, and the manner in which she lived.” p. xv Ellsberg’s introduction.

We drew our discussion from "Small Things" (p. 74) from Day after Day, excerpts from her personal reflections and her editorials for The Catholic Worker. 
"Today we are not content with little achievements, with small beginnings.... 

Do what comes to hand.  Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might.  After all, God is with us.  It shows too much conceit to trust to ourselves, to be discouraged at what we ourselves can accomplish.  It is lacking in faith in God to be discouraged.  After all, we are going to proceed with His help.  We offer Him what we are going to do.  If He wishes it to prosper, it will.  We must depend solely on Him.  Work as though everything depended on ourselves, and pray as though everything depended on God, as St. Ignatius says...

I suppose it is a grace not to be able to have time to take or derive satisfaction in the work we are doing.  In what time I have my impulse is to self-criticism and examination of conscience, and I am constantly humbled at my own imperfections and my halting progress.... I do know how small and I am and how little I can do and I beg You, Lord, to help me, for I cannot help myself."
(p. 274)  "The significance of our smallest acts!  The significance of the little things we leave undone! The protests we do not make, the stands we do not take, we who are living in the world!"
(p. 96-97) "In Christ's human life, there were always a few who made up for the neglect of the crowd.... We can do it too, exactly as they did.  We are not born too late.  We do it by seeing Christ and serving Christ in friends and strangers, in every one we come in contact with....  For a total Christian, the goad of duty is not needed--always prodding one to perform this or that good deed.  It is not a duty to help Christ, it is a privilege."

The Duty of Delight: the Diaries of Dorothy Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg is available in a Kindle edition.
I also recommend a movie Entertaining Angels (1996) which I recently watched on Netflix.
There are several wonderful interviews posted on YouTube:
Christopher Closeup part 1 of 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNMHud0fFUg

Hubert Jessup part 1 of 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRSjY_4fFfc&feature=related

Her 1964 lecture "Witness" at UCSB

SEASONS [Sisters Enjoying A Season Of Nurturing Sisters] is  a group of women who meet monthly to read and discuss theology and to support one another.  We usually meet at Southwest Central Church of Christ. 

Our next book is An Altar in the World.  A Geography of the Faith. by Barbara Brown Taylor.

A barbed wire Christmas...

I'm somewhat like a chameleon. My free thinking and somewhat liberal views are well camouflaged by my conventional lifestyle.  I do like tradition but I like it best when it stands in opposition to the current culture.  My Christmas decorating style reflects this aspect of my personality.

I decorate my home for Christmas very much like I live and a peek inside today looks very much like a mid-20th Century suburban ranch house would have looked on its first Christmas.  Except for the facts that it's a "store bought" Noble fir instead of a "cedar" cut from the Caprock Canyons and that LED  lights have replaced the incandescent bulbs of my childhood and that I use curly willow in lieu of the silver foil icicles--our house bunnies who were our pre-Mandy pets tended to eat things off the tree and foil is not a holiday goodie--my tree looks very much like the ones my mother decorated in my childhood.

When one of my younger cousins was invited to view our freshly decorated tree, Kim said, "Oh, I don't need to look at it.  Your tree looks just the same this year as it did last year."  His mother offered up a new theme and color every year.  While I admire the elegance of the decorator tree, I want a tree that once had roots and still needs water.  While the soft shimmer of white lights are oh-so-tasteful, I prefer red, green, gold, and blue twinkling within green boughs.  I don't want to see a lot of "cutesy" ornaments; I scatter a few realistic owls and a couple of bunnies among the green and gold balls and hang the treasured antiques at the top of the tree. 

 I love the little wooden church, a coin bank box used by Grandma Wieland for her Assembly of God Church in Lockney, TX.  I remember the culmination of childhood decorating was placing this tiny church (flanked by two wax candle angels which were never lit and one hot summer melted like the witch in The Wizard of Oz) under the tree.  Many years ago, Mother gave the little church to me.  It always occupies a place of honor on my piano.  I like to imagine it's the one Miss Toosey used for her African Mission in Evelyn Whitaker's book. 

All the sentimentality surrounding a baby in a manger can turn me cynical and I appreciate a reminder that the church is now the body of Christ on earth.  One Christmas brought a card from the decorating aunt mentioned above  with a photo of the altar of South Plains Baptist Church where I grew up.  I framed it and put it behind the little church.  I made one change to my decorating tradition this year; I added a barbed wire bracelet.

David and I have always supported missions, particularly Wycliffe Bible Translators and this year the persecuted church (in Islamic countries, in Korea, and in China) weighs heavily on our hearts.  As we celebrate, we choose to remember our unity with all Christians and proclaim that we are "one with them."

"Come quickly, Lord Jesus."