A couple of days ago, I started talking about Mama's friends. She had three wonderful friends named Carolyn/Carol. They will be the start to my musings on the individuals.
Chronologically, the first was the wife of a seminary student, another would-be Mississippi Methodist pastor, and the men were both in school while the wives made their tiny nests in married student housing and worked to put food on the table. These two couples remained dear friends for many years -- at least 20 -- until the other couple divorced and Mama developed dementia. They not only went to school together, but had their first children together, a boy and then a girl, all of us almost the same age, and in that same order. (It's late...did that make sense? Their son and my older brother were both born in 1956, and their daughter and I were both born in 1960.) Both men returned to Mississippi to pastor churches. And both women maintained a great sense of humor through all the challenges they met in the pastorate.
I remember hearing them talk about parsonages, some of which were so "simple" that they could see through the floor boards to the dirt under the foundation. (I avoided saying 'dilapidated' because that wouldn't be respectful of the precious parishioners who did their best to provide housing for their pastors' families. I'm thinking they might have been able to do a bit better, in some instances. I'm just sayin'...) They learned to laugh about meddling members, testy trustees, and crusty choir directors. They loved the people to whom they ministered, and they were in that old breed of ministers' wives who felt they were partners in ministry, whether they received remuneration for their service or not. (Please don't misunderstand -- the workman is worthy of his hire, and we lay persons should do our best to bless those who serve us, official staff or not.) I think Carolyn #1 and Mama were, first and foremost, a safe soundboard and an endless encouragement to one another, in their unique sisterhood as clergy wives.
Carolyn #2 was school librarian and wife of the high school principal in the last community where my dad pastored, before he went into itinerant evangelism. She, again, had a son close to my brother's age, and a daughter my age, and Penny and I were bosom buddies. I can't wait until I'm talking about my friends and can share with you about her. But tonight's subject is Mama's Carolyns, so...
While the roles were not identical, as two of the first ladies in our tiny community of 2000, Mama and Carolyn #2 again found a camaraderie in their shared sisterhood, but they also clung to one another because they helped one another laugh. In fact, as I recall, all three Carolyn's helped my mother laugh, and vice versa. Principal's wife Carolyn lived on a corner on the main drag into town, just 2 blocks from the town square. We were off the main drag one block (the town was only 3 blocks wide, at it's widest, at least on our end of town), and only one block away from one another. To say that these women lived in "Glass Houses" would be a gross understatement. Small town America, especially in the deep south, is by very nature a hotbed of personal interference. Nothing remains a secret for 24 hours, and town leaders are fair game for anyone's curiosity.
The oldest sons in both of these families matured to adolescence while we were still living there, and I know that at least in our household, there was a lot of prayer, biting of the lower lips, and wringing of the hands, as my parents endeavored to let him stretch his wings -- knowing all too well that well-meaning, busy-body neighbors would be standing ready to lob ground-to-air missiles at the young eagles. Mama and Carolyn were once again a safe haven and a source of equanimity for one another, a reminder to each other that you can survive just about anything that the local gossips dish out.
Carolyn #3 became a Navy widow at about the same time my mother became an evangelist's widow. In Carolyn's case, her husband was actually lost at sea when his aircraft failed to make altitude from the air craft carrier. I believe he was stationed in the Pacific, during the Vietnam War. Her widowhood was permanent. She moved to Starkville, MS, in 1971 in order to take a position in the early childhood education department at Mississippi State University.
My dad started traveling 45 weeks of the year in 1971, pursuing his call to itinerant evangelism. My mother was an evangelist's widow, left at home a majority of the time to care for my now three brothers and I. We also moved to Starkville that year, and were connected to Carolyn and family by mutual friends from the Mississippi Delta. Again, there were boys in both households just entering the teen years, girls on the cusp of adolescence, and then Mama had two additional toddlers. We all attended the Methodist church, Mama and Carolyn becoming fast friends and her daughter and I becoming fierce rivals. We have a sweet admiration for one another now, and I love her all the more for her connection to my mother.
This friendship was the first one I really remember trying to eavesdrop on...hanging around at the breakfast table while they solved the world's problems, learning how to open my heart in friendship to another woman, learning how to respect her boundaries, to give her courage in her weakness, comfort in her sorrow, laughter in everything. They were like sisters, sitting close to one another on the couch so look at magazines together, swapping children and recipes whenever there was a need, calling one another in the middle of the night when the darkness was too much to manage. Looking back, I am so grateful that the Lord, once again, gave my mother the perfect sister/friend, who could understand her aloneness and hold her hand.
Phileo -- the Greek word for the kind of love that friends have for one another. I used to think it meant "I like you because you're like me." It does, but it also means that the two share a common bond, whether it is similar life circumstances or favorite pasttimes. In their likeness, those who share phileo love for one another are much like Jesus as our high priest who "was familiar with our every weakness" because he became a man like us.
We need phileo, the love of friends who understand us because they are walking the same road and share the same values. This is the love that helps to make the path of life secure so that when we venture out into unknown territory, we know that there are those who will be "holding the stuff" for us back at home, anxious to bring us back to center, back to safety.
God, thank you for the Carolyns in my mother's life. by the way....did you know that Carolyn means, "One who sings"? Ah, I like that. It also means "free woman." Appropriate, don't you think? And I certainly saw in these woman a freedom that exhibited itself in a life sung well.
Carolyn was the #1 most popular name given in the early 1930's, when all three of these women, and my mother (Norma) were born, but it has fallen 'way down in the rankings now. I think there should be a revival of the name, don't you, especially if there is any truth to the Biblical practice of naming your children with their future in mind.
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