The Washboard

And the Psalmist proclaimed, “I will sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me” (Psalm 13:6). We do not sing, though, when life is easy. When opportunities abound, when we are gifted with choices as to employing our talents, when the sun warms our shoulders, we do not genuinely sing. If we do, however, we do so in remembrance of pains past. Spiritual pain is that moment in which we decide for infinite despair or for infinite hope. Pain is, indeed, the touchstone of genuine praise.

These are the thoughts on my mind as I think about the story of Wanda Jean Allen. In particular, I have Wanda’s mother on my heart, and the mother of Wanda’s victim, Gloria. What pain must these two women have experienced in their lives? What were their dreams, how were their hopes destroyed or betrayed year by year, from youth to adulthood, from mother to grandmother?

These are not reflections on justice, on who deserves what, or even of personal responsibility – but a connection to a fundamentally shared aspect of humanity – pain. I watched closely the world-weary faces of these two matriarchs and was profoundly moved by their dignity. Each, in their own way, transcended the circumstances of the moment. Could I, in their skin and situation, survive? What strength of character is needed in that moment? What remains in that moment as a source of hope? I am, by my own humble estimation, convicted.

Across the arbitrary barriers of money and culture, of race and tradition, I felt a primal bond. In the face of unendurable pain there are but only two pillars against which to remain upright: family and faith. The unique thing about families is that they are – unique. We all have the eccentric uncle or aunt, or both, but they are ours and ours alone. As a teenager on my high school varsity soccer team, I used to hope my step-father wouldn’t come to my games. He yelled from the stands at the referees, and once had an actual fist-fight with some father from the opposing team in the parking lot after the game. He died of Alzheimer’s in 1992, I miss him terribly. Good, bad or indifferent, our families are our staunchest fans, and critics and we need them desperately.

Flowing from our family is our system of faith. One question alone suffices to discover the depth of one’s faith, “Do you have hope?” Hopelessness is the continuous act of jettisoning one’s faith. The question is not temporal, not one of “should I have hope,” or “the circumstances do not warrant hope.” The question is pure, and so too the response, “yes” or “no.”

And so these thoughts, albeit not as clear then as they are now, were in my mind when the washboard came out in the family church and the preacher was taken by the spirit. And I was broken in the midst of my intellectualism, broken to see family and faith entwined so profoundly, so indestructibly – in the only way we know how to do it.

I’ve been a seeker my entire life – from Baptist bands on basketball courts to the chalice of Catholicism and all points in between, with a few stops completely off the spectrum thrown in. I went off looking for the truth. I have found that, in the end, truth resides squarely in love. Love fuels family and faith – and does so regardless of time or place, race or gender, in wealth or in poverty. When the truth of hope announces itself, in whatever guise, it is beautiful.

I walked out of class today wondering, does my family have a washboard? Just what will we grab when it is our turn once again to “Sing to the Lord, for He has been good to me?” These were the thoughts I wanted to share in class but refrained. One, it would have taken me forever to sharpen them and, two, these are just my feelings and are not in opposition to any other perspective, and it would have been difficult to frame them as such at the time.