It's an early morning in July, 2011 and my thoughts have turned to: What has God done in my life lately? Some of you may read into that, that I am being... selfish (perhaps) contemplative (definitely) appreciative (most assuredly), self-pitying (not allowed) but mostly, number one on my "top ten" list: Why?
Jeremiah "The Weeping Prophet" and reputed to be the author of "The Book of Lamentations" spoke loud and clear to me upon my retirement as a church and preschool secretary fifteen years ago this month. Before then, not too many of the church sermons I rough-typed or heard from the hearts of four Quaker pastors were based on "Lamentations" except in a quick off-the-cuff reference.
I will never understand (except that it is 'mysterious') the reason Jeremiah's word were given to me to repeat in my "So Long, It's Been An Adventure!" remarks at the end of the Retirement/Recognition Day the members of the Arcadia Friends Community Church and Preschool so beautifully planned for my family and me.
"I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:10-11. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather!
Now, generally speaking, we Golden Seniors are supposed to "lament" in our twilight years, from what I have always been led to believe. Words left unsaid, trips not taken, that random act of kindness left for someone else to fulfill, or "tomorrow," not bidding one more dollar on a Norman Rockwell collector's plate at the Thursday night auction...good stuff like that. Myself, I "lament" not carrying a notebook and a No. 2 pencil around when I was on my way to where I find myself now, at my desk blogging away! (Little did I know there would be an arcadia.patch website one day and that any (hopeful) future rested in My Editor's hands!)
I should be out in my patio area weeding around the newly-planted succulents and tangerine tree (a birthday gift) but here I sit...with a heart leaning towards telling you about a "lowly" citizen of my hometown, one from whom I have learned a lesson or two in my search for what God would have for my life. If I had had a closer relationship with Jeremiah in my "salad days" I might not be lamenting today that I do not know more about a man who has become another life-changing force in my life as I grow a tad wiser with the advancing years. Here is what I do know....
During the days of my early youth in Atlantic, there lived a person (and there is hardly a man or woman now alive in Atlantic who will recall this man of whom I write) just up the street on Birch from my family. George Whitcomb was born into a well-respected family as much as I can remember from hearing Mom and Dad speak of this "lowly" citizen, but George was not quite "right in the head."
George's misshapened body could be seen at any time of the night or day roaming the neighborhood, and to any kid seeing him for the first time, his appearance had to be frightful, as it was to me. His long straggly hair and clothes that appeared slept in and never changed only added to the strong desire to cross the street when he approached. His "gibberish" mutterings never ceased as he went from place to place in his loping gait. He became a sometimes target of less-than-understanding kids and adults as the years went by and grew older at the same pace we did; but, alas, as George grew older, his manner and actions only intensified and the good-natured teasing continued long after I left 210 Birch. About this my lovely friend, Colleen, told me that "I like to think that he thought people were being truly wonderful to him and that it brought him joy!"
I hasten to add that there was sympathy and never malice towards this man who bore the countenance of a truly most unhandsome man...jutting chin, no teeth nor dentures, eyebrows that needed a good plucking and the perpetual scowl that happens when the face has been "scrunched" like a dried apple. (Here starts one of those lessons I learned from and about God in a most unlikely way...there is beauty in all God's creatures!)
His fellow citizens threw copper pennies at his feet waiting to see his absolute delight in picking them up and socking them away in his torn overall pants' pockets. "Penny George" was his name long before I was born, and that is how we all referred to him in conversations in the most natural of ways. Some will not know his last name until they read it here. (And I learned about how God knows how many hairs there are on our head and He knows our name!)
Noah Webster would have us call "Penny George" an "imbecile" to whom nothing much can be taught and from whom nothing much can be learned.
Probably my way of thinking, too, then when I was young and foolish, of course, but now that I have reached the great age of 86, I am of the persuasion that perhaps I have learned God's greatest lessons in living in this small town of Atlantic, Iowa, where "Penny George" was sometimes the object of misguided scorn and pity, to be avoided and certainly not to touched in a loving embrace other than by his Mom and Dad.
I have come to know that God loves His creatures, one and all, that "Penny George's I.Q. testing" is as honored as Einstein's, certainly mine; and I know this most frightful-appearing of human beings is as "handsome as any movie star I have ever "mooned" over!" today where his once-restless soul sits quietly in the very presence of God.
On a note of whimsy and if I could speak for "Penny George" to his sometimes "playful taunters" and to the people who truly sympathized with his private torture (and I am only now guessing as to what they said), I would have him say in his own gibberish way..."and the same to you, too!"
(With Agape Love, of course!)