Methodism and Mom ... and Me

Yesterday, I received a letter from the Methodist Board of Pensions.

It was a very nice letter, offering condolences and gratitude for Mom's dedication to the Methodist Church as an employee back in the 1950s.

Mom was born and raised Methodist, in a family in which Methodism ran deep and wide. Her great-grandfather (my great-great-grandfather) Samuel Arthur was a Methodist preacher and circuit rider. I still have his pulpit Bible. As teenagers, Mom and her sister went to Methodist youth camps in Missouri in the 1930s. She was married in the Methodist Church in Jefferson City in World War II. She worked as a financial secretary for Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the 1950s ... hence her pension. She sang in the choir at Boston Avenue and later at Memorial Drive Methodist Church ... and later yet, at Church Street Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. She was involved in so many things in the Methodist Church in Tulsa though. I found a newspaper photo of Mom and some other women from Memorial Drive Methodist Church in the 1960s, when she was President of the Women's Society. I found too a cookbook the Women's Society put together ... with recipe contributions of Mom.

As she aged, Mom participated in many things less and less, including church. However, I feel more grateful than I can express that she and I were able in March of last year to resume attendance at none other than Memorial Drive Methodist Church. She could not rise from her wheelchair at that point, but she sang the hymns with strength and gusto and transparent depth of appreciation. The pastor and congregation were wonderfully welcoming, and Mom's final months of life were in many ways sustained by a re-connection with the Methodist faith of her long life that leave tears in my eyes to this day. I am grateful that when preparing Momma's garments for her burial, I found one of her Methodist Women's Society pins, and pinned it to her blouse. She was buried with roses in her hands and the Methodist Women's Society pin on her lapel.

I myself was baptized at Boston Avenue Methodist Church, and received Confirmation at Memorial Drive Methodist Church. I still have the Bible I received at Confirmation. It's still my favorite Bible, although the boards have long broken away. I can remember still the workbooks at Memorial Drive ... all about the central figures of Christiantiy, Jesus and Paul and John, to be sure, but also about the wonderful men and women of nascent Methodism: John Wesley and Charles Wesley and Francis Asbury and Mrs Wesley ... the mother, in many ways, of Methodism, who Mom admired and who she looked to, I think, as a model. I remember a wonderful old gentleman at Memorial Drive, too, who always had his pockets full of Dentyne chewing gum - in red & green wraps. He handed the gum out to all of us kids with a kindness and smile that warms my heart to this day.

I myself took a spiritual journey that led me to conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1982. I don't think Momma ever really understood this ... but she never, ever criticized or opposed my decision and subsequent walk as a Catholic. I will never forget her gift to me of a very nice hardback edition of C.S. Lewis, the wonderful Anglican writer. She never understood my love of Lewis, but she knew how I loved and honored him, and went to great trouble to get for me a gift edition of his Mere Christianity.

Oh Momma ... somehow that letter from the Board of Pensions felt yesterday and feels today like something drawing to an end a special, special, special relationship ... between you and a Methodist Church and a Methodist Christian Faith that was so deep in your heart and bones and faith that I truly see the Methodist Church as my co-natural mother, even as the Catholic Church is my Mother in Faith today. This will never, ever change the motherhood of Methodism for me. And will never, ever change the motherhood that is first and deepest in my very being. You Momma are for me Ikon of all Motherhood.

Oh Lord Jesus I pray for the Methodist Church, and for all Methodists anywhere; and I ask for the prayers in turn of all Methodists who have gone before sealed in the sign of their faith, those who found their hope in You realized after they passed from this vale of tears.

I pray especially for John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Mrs Wesley, Francis Asbury, Pastor Sharon of Memorial Drive Methodist Church, Pastor Samuel Arthur, Pastor and Bishop Galloway of Boston Avenue Methodist Church. I ask for their prayers in turn.

Oh Momma ... I love you and miss you so so so so so much ...

Please please please O Jesus take good care of my Momma ...

I love you Jesus

I love you Momma

Charles Delacroix
Feast of Epiphany of Our Lord