Fancy That! A Note From Jan.

It’s Sunday. Gorgeous sun filled day. Snow’s slinking off.

After church, brunch at the Gloucester House with family, a quick reading of the Sunday Globe and a ten minute nap, I met my neighbor, Beth. Courtesy of Bill and Rose Hausman, Beth had tickets to a Rockport Music Association fund raiser.   I went as her date, since her husband, Bill, had another commitment.  What an event! Spectacular home perched high above the sea, just before the lighthouse at the entry to the Annisquam river with expansive views of Wingaersheek Beach and Ipswich Bay.  Great food, wonderful music and interesting people.

As I sat listening to a very good string quartet in that beautiful setting, I was reminded of my Norwegian Mama, whose experience couldn’t have been more different.  One of the violinists came from Brooklyn, where my grandparents first lived after arriving from Norway.  Later, my grandparents served in Canada and Chicago. He was a minister and Mama, the eldest of seven children, “did as she was told,” for the most part.

When Mama was a teenager, they lived in Chicago, where one of her duties was to play in a string band—sort of an early forerunner of a “praise band,” though they played hymns. She hated playing in this band on Sunday evenings at church.  It was full of immigrants and she was NOT an immigrant. THEY were, not SHE.  But her Papa, with thick Norwegian accent, said ”play” and she obeyed. 

Mama played an instrument called a harmony tipple.  It was sort of a mandolin.  It wasn’t the strange instrument that bothered her, it was identification with people she wished to disassociate herself from.  Each week she hoped none of her friends from school would see her sitting with THEM.  The ones who talked funny and wore clothes from the “old country.”  Strange how sometimes while doing your duty, God shows up and, while we’re busy tuning our instruments, He tunes our hearts.

On Sundays and for other meals, Mama’s Mama often added plates to the dinner table to include “the strays.”  Her Papa had a knack for befriending  “the bums” and other outcasts he’d meet as he walked from church to home.  One day my Mama asked, “How come we always get the strange people and (fill in the blank) get the fancy people?” Her Mama answered,”The fancy people always have a place to go, not so for the strange, the hurting ones.”

Today I was with the fancy people and feeling grateful to them for supporting the arts.  Knowing Beth, who works for Pathways for Children, any number of them also support the “strange” and the “hurting.”  We need to do both.  Though Jesus seemed especially drawn to the strange, the marginalized, the outcasts, the hurting, the sick.

I like picturing my grandfather collecting strays as he walked from church to home. It’s part of my heritage. A rich one. I also like picturing my Mama, never docile, choosing to obey her Papa and play with the strange and odd ones from “the old country,” whether she felt like it or not. When she graduated from high school, some of those old immigrants in the string band, who worked hard doing menial tasks for low pay, collected money and bought Mama a watch.  She was going to study to be a nurse, and they knew she needed a good watch. Time spent. Time given.

Life’s not so black and white.  Immigrants or born in the U.S.A. Them versus us.  Fancy or strange.  One thing’s for sure, whatever happens in church should make a difference on our walk home and should influence who we’re willing to make room for at the table. Fancy that!