I\u2019m seated towards the front of the church, among the elderly of the congregation, seated behind a lady with winter in her hair.<\/p>\n
When you reach her age you\u2019ve obeyed the rules long enough to not obey them anymore; when the worship leader motions for us to stand I do, she doesn\u2019t, and all is just-right.<\/p>\n
Her hair is parted to the side and a simple black bobby pin holds the short side in place. She\u2019s thin, but agile for 95. She\u2019s wearing a white Mr. Rogers cardigan, even though it was a Louisiana-in-August service.<\/p>\n
Sitting on her lap is my sermon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a Bible. It once was black, maybe shiny, maybe a gift, and if so, from whom\u2026 The spine is falling apart and she has patched it with silver duct tape.<\/p>\n
That duct tape is loud to me. I can\u2019t hear the singing anymore. Her hands are joined together and there they rest atop the Bible. Her fingers are old-lady fingers, with knotty joints and big veins. Her nails have never known painted polish. I don\u2019t know her history, but I don\u2019t see Easy Life in her hands.<\/p>\n
I see making do. I see stretching little money to feed big stomachs. I see a person who cleans her plate and does something with leftovers. I see hems being let out and buttons resewn and coupons being clipped.<\/p>\n
Were you ever secure, I wonder\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a rural, southern, child of the 60\u2019s. Beauty was different back then. My first grade teacher, the principal\u2019s wife, she had a perm, wore lipstick and added a little powder to offset her too-white skin, but that was about the limit for respectable women.<\/p>\n
My grandmother went cradle to grave without anything more \u201cartificial\u201d than hair spray and Jergen\u2019s lotion.<\/p>\n
She was old from my Day One, and with her it was never about looks. I consider it grace, that I got to define my grandmother\u2019s beauty by her behavior and character.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Like all young men I was attracted to my generation\u2019s standard of beauty. I was drawn to Big City beauty, sophisticated women, and there were times when I returned home to the sticks where I found my little plain grandmother, older, plainer, same-er. I\u2019d hug her dearly, but truth was, I still wasn\u2019t seeing the power of her, not yet\u2026<\/p>\n
It took time to see behind the fashion, makeup and hair tricks. There\u2019s nothing like shallow and chameleon and lost-but-hiding-it-well, and if that don\u2019t do it, get acquainted with betrayal; that\u2019ll get you looking for a rock to stand upon.<\/p>\n
Oh yeah. I\u2019d come back and my grandmother started looking pretty solid. She wasn\u2019t swinging in the fad breezes; she had deep roots, and they were long proven. You could make a good life with her, like my grandfather had; you could turn out straight and true, like her two sons had.<\/p>\n
Beauty got redefined when I finally got wise enough to look past gray and wrinkles.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sorry, preacher man, but I don\u2019t have the faintest idea what your sermon was about. Once I saw that duct tape on that Bible, it wouldn\u2019t have mattered if you were Billy Graham in his prime or Charles Spurgeon doing a Lazarus encore.<\/p>\n
Held Together: that\u2019s the sermon from the duct tape Bible. Something valuable, goes from brand new to falling apart, just like us, and we reach up and in, to get patched, to make it another day, to get on with the breaths and beats of being alive.<\/p>\n
Our solutions don\u2019t have to be pretty. Fact is, even we don\u2019t have to be pretty.\u00a0 We\u2019re being watched by High Eyes, Someone who looks only at heart and soul.<\/p>\n
The beauty is in the simplicity. Life from Him, a life lived leaned upon Him, honest with Him, honest with all, all ambition reduced to Thanks For The Life; Please Show Me Whatcha Want Me To Do With It\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
_____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____\u00a0 \u00a0 _____<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This edition of Uncle P\u2019s Bedtime Stories is brought to you by Eighty-one, where old is honored and where making-do is doing right.<\/p>\n
Uncle P\u2019s Bedtime Stories are posted on Eighty-one\u2019s Facebook page, Sunday, Wednesday and Friday evenings, about pillow time.\u00a0 Uncle P can be reached at 81creativity@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m seated towards the front of the church, among the elderly of the congregation, seated behind a lady with winter in her hair. When you reach her age you\u2019ve obeyed the rules long enough to not obey them anymore; when the worship leader motions for us to stand I do, she doesn\u2019t, and all is [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[59,894],"yoast_head":"\n