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by Carol MuellerI have two things in my home I’ll never change. One is a plain wooden cross about six inches high that hangs on the wall over my bed. It reminds me daily that I’m a child of God. I don’t remember where I got that cross, but I’ve had it since I was small. It was probably from my childhood congregation, Our Saviour’s English Lutheran Church in Chicago.
The other is worldlier, but exudes its own whimsical grace. It’s a wood-framed, cross-stitch rendering of Peter Pan, James M. Barrie’s endearing, enduring symbol of perpetual youth. It hangs on my office wall next to my computer. The likeness is so good that the elegantly stitched script above Peter’s head is almost redundant:
Peter Pan Lives.
Of course he does. He was the one who sang “I Won’t Grow Up” as I was growing up. It was a song my oldest friend Midgie and I adopted as our theme song, always bursting into giggles as we sang the second line: “I will never be a man.”
No way. We were girls. But we liked the notion of being kids forever and having fun and adventures like Peter Pan. In my cross-stitch portrait, however, there’s more to the message. A smaller, vertical legend marches down from Peter’s knees to his elfin shoes: Carol & Midge 50 yrs.
Midge created that portrait for my 50th birthday and it still packs a nostalgic wallop. It reminds me of youth and laughter and the child within, even though I have grown up and grown older.
It also reminds me of Midge, a dear friend and a faithful Christian that I have known my entire life. When I was born, Midge--given name “Marguerite”--was 19 months old, and my earliest memories of play involve her. She lived four doors from me in the Portage Park neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side, the heart of the bungalow belt.
We grew up together in sturdy brick bungalows, living sturdy, mid-century, Midwestern lives, pretty much like the other kids in the neighborhood. But our values, behavior, and understanding of right and wrong were leavened by the lessons about Jesus we learned every week in Sunday school.
Midge and I were both Lutherans, but we didn’t go to Sunday school together because we belonged to different churches. She went to Nebo, a Swedish American Lutheran Church congregation, and I went to a Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran church. But we learned the same things. Early on we knew the Ten Commandments and could recite them easily.
Later, when we were confirmed, both of us had Luther’s Small Catechism--and all the meanings--securely deposited in our memory banks. This is most certainly true.
Though I can’t recall discussing the Bible the way we discussed, say,
Black Beauty, I think we understood that our common beliefs were always there for us, like a safety net that would catch us if we stepped over the edge.
Despite our shared religion, we had different personalities. Midge was shy and quiet, hesitant to voice an opinion. I was the opposite: talkative, excitable and apt to speak before I thought.
We were also different in stature and appearance. Midge was short and slight, with blue eyes and what was then called “dishwater blond” hair. I was bigger and taller, with brown eyes and brown hair. Paradoxically, I was the one who got sunburned and peeled.
At the village
Some things don’t change. “Look at you, brown as a nut and wiry as a kid,” I told Midge, as she laced up her hiking boots in the room we shared last summer at Holden Village, the ELCA retreat center in Washington’s Cascade Mountains.
It’s not that my old friend hasn’t changed. Her dishwater blond hair is now snow white and her tan face has been engraved by 1,000 splendid suns. The years have taken their toll on me, too: a few extra pounds, a bad hip and mystery hair, the kind that’s been colored so long I have no idea what’s coming out of my head.
But so what? After almost six decades we were together again like 10-year-olds, to play and pray, hike and relax, and study God’s word in a wonderful wilderness setting.
There can be no place more scenic than Holden Village. An old mining town that has been a retreat destination for Lutherans and other people of faith since the early 1960s, it is remote—accessible only by boat and bus—and breathtakingly beautiful. Snow-capped peaks of the northern Cascades tower over the village, and huge pine trees wrap it in vibrant green. What a magnificent place to reconnect with an old friend—not that we ever disconnected. It’s just that our lives took different paths. As Midge remarked in an e-mail before our trip: “This will be the largest block of time we’ve spent together since we were kids. I wonder how we’ll do.”
Good question. It was easy when we were kids. We both enjoyed books, horseback riding, hopscotch, and swimming at Portage Park pool. And we played endless games of Parcheesi, Monopoly, Chinese Checkers, and Old Maid. We seldom argued, but when we did, we made up the next day.
What eventually came between us was high school. Midge got there before I did and entered a different world: new friends, new interests, a new schedule. We couldn’t walk to school together anymore.
Now we had less in common, but we remained friends. I think it was our faith that held us together over the long haul.
After high school Midge went to an Evangelical Covenant college and met David, who was studying for the ministry. When both graduated they were married, and Midge joined the Evangelical Covenant Church.
When I graduated from high school I went to community college and married Bob, a young man from my congregation. Midge stood up for my wedding and I stood up for hers. Then David was called to a parish Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and we said good-bye.
Keeping in touch
There were visits, of course. When we both had small kids, Bob and I visited Midge and David in Michigan where they lived in a farmhouse and David served two rural congregations. Then he was called to a church in Spokane, Wash., where they have lived for the last 35 years.
Since then, Midge has done the visiting because she still has family here. So I have seen her every year or two just for lunch or dinner. We kept in touch at first with cards, letters, and an occasional phone call. Then e-mail came along and made our communications easier and more frequent.
Every so often Midge invited us to come out to Washington, but life always got in the way. Work was busy, kids got married, grandchildren were born.
“We’ll come after we retire,” I said. But life—and death—intervened again when my husband of 42 years was diagnosed with end-stage cancer. I e-mailed Midge the news and still remember her reply. “Oooohh. I wish I could be there to make you tea and hold your hand.”
I wished she could, too.
By this time Midge had rejoined the Lutheran church. Her husband had taken a job as chaplain at a nearby Lutheran Retirement Home and they joined Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Spokane Valley, near their home. It was a blessing for the ELCA, because Midge has been very active in the life of the church. She and her quilting group have sewn hundreds of quilts for Lutheran World Relief, and a few years ago she went to Tanzania with a LWR women’s study group to learn of the church’s work there and bring the message back home.
Midge also has cared for creation her whole life. She gardens, cans, composts and hangs out laundry half the year. She has no air conditioning and she didn’t have a dishwasher—until I arrived.
Last summer I finally made it to Spokane. The invitation was irresistible. The gist of Midge’s e-mail: My pastor is leading a weekend retreat to Holden Village in late June. Why don’t you come out here for a visit and we can go together? Think it over.
I did, for about a minute. Then I hit reply and wrote YES! YES! YES!
Creation close up
The Bible study for the retreat was ideal for our surroundings: the creation story. We read the first three chapters of Genesis, which include both accounts of creation and the sin and punishment of Adam and Eve. Pastor Matt Larson of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church led a lively, informative three-session study. Here’s just a little of what I learned:
The second creation account is older than the first and was written by Yahwists, those who refer to God as Yahweh, or the Lord God, rather than simply God, as in the first account.
Both accounts were written by priests who sought to preserve their beliefs by recording them.
When asked to describe the creation story, members of our group offered similar words:
allegory, symbolic, myth, parable.
Pastor Larson’s lesson about Adam and Eve: “There is judgment, there are consequences, but there is no abandonment by God.”
His take-away message: “Just because it’s not real doesn’t mean it’s not true.’’
One other thing I learned: Midge no longer hesitates to speak up—to anyone. While discussing the Eve-created-from-Adam’s-rib story, Larson remarked that men actually have one less rib than women. Midge sought out her pastor afterward. “I have a degree in biology,” she told him. “Men and women have the same number of ribs.”
At Sunday night Eucharist we heard a powerful sermon by guest Bible study teacher Alan Storey, a Methodist minister and social justice advocate from South Africa. Drawing from the lesson in 2 Kings 1, about Elijah bringing down fire on troops sent by King Ahaziah, he excoriated America for “raining down fire” on the Middle East and called for forgiveness and reconciliation in our foreign relations.
Not everyone agreed, but that’s the Holden way. Guest teachers present a diversity of views and discussion is encouraged in the spirit of Christian love. That night Midge and I stayed up late talking.
We found that despite different lifestyles, we have come to the same conclusions on major political, ethical, and moral issues. We oppose the war in Afghanistan, consider ourselves feminists, and support the ELCA vote to ordain pastors in same-sex relationships. I don’t think we’ve ever felt closer. A few weeks later, Midge e-mailed me that the U.S. Forest Service might be shutting down Holden Village for two years in the future to clean up the copper tailings from the mine. “I’m glad we went when we did,” she said.
Me too.
Midge and Carol, 70 years and counting. Thanks be to God.
Carol Mueller, a freelance writer, belongs to Lutheran Church of the Ascension, North-field, Ill.
To learn more about Holden Village, go to
www.holdenvillage.org.