On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King,Jr was assassinated in Memphis, TN He had come to Memphis to support the striking sanitation workers.
I was 10 years old.
I remember how the sanitation workers carried big aluminum tubs balanced on their heads while they walked down our long driveway to the back side yard to collect our garbage from our aluminum garbage cans.
I remember when daddy came to my bedroom door and told me Dr King had been killed.
Schools were closed. Weddings were cancelled. Curfews were enforced. Daddy offered to drive Ellen, our longtime housekeeper (we called her our maid) who was African American, home. She refused thinking it might be unsafe for my father.
That was about the extent of it for a little white girl in a white neighborhood.
When we went back to school, my handful of black friends would be absent on Mondays. Black Mondays we called them. Protest, but I was unclear about what.
Five years later all of a sudden (or so it seemed) I found myself in 10 th grade at St Mary’s episcopal school for girls.
My mother continued to teach in public schools. Both of my brothers had graduated from public schools.
And here I was at st Mary’s. I wasn’t thrilled.
Here’s why:
•All girls??? You’ve got to be kidding me.
•Bobby socks and saddle oxfords? I had prescription saddle oxfords (for flat feet) until I was 12. I wasn’t going back.
•I’d been at White Station since 1st grade. I had every intention of being in the 12 year club.
•Friends. I was 15. Needs no further explanation.
The decision was made. My little sister and I packed up the mile high stack of books and started our first year at sms.
Today would have been my mama’s 93rd birthday. I would have loved to ask her more about why. Why did she choose to send us to st Mary’s? Yes, it was in the neighborhood. And, yes, the public schools were reeling. But there were schools popping up left and right as frightened white people tried to justify the need for their establishment. My parents had some very noble qualities… well maybe sort of noble- but absence of racism was not one of those qualities. They were products of their time, their birth and the long long history of systemic racism I’m still uncovering and understanding layer by layer even today.
Why did they choose st Mary’s instead of one of the others?
St Mary’s was started by the Sisters of St Mary’s, A long time ago. And while it was VERY( but not entirely) white, it was built on a strong foundation of light and life that continues to serve it to this day.
Let’s talk about all girls. I got past that stigma in no time. When Mrs Daniel came into our 10th grade English class, told us to take our out books, asked for volunteers to read Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace” out loud, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Dozens of voices volunteering. What??? Back in coed life, we girls had reached the unfortunate age where it wasn’t cool to be enthusiastic about anything school. The Cute Boy might see you and roll his eyes. At St Mary’s I could freely and happily and enthusiastically participate in class?? I LOVED participating in class. I was sold.
Bobby socks and saddle oxfords came two weeks later.
Leaving White Station took some grieving, but I had a lot of homework and not a lot of time to be too sad.
Friends- some of us kept up. And I made new friends quickly.
Perhaps the most extraordinary bit about st Mary’s happened every morning at 9:10.
Every morning at 9:10, every girl from every class, every age made their way to chapel. At the doors we all got a little rectangle of white fabric, gathered at one end. We put these chapel caps on our heads and went in to sit with our class in the wooden pews of Holy Communion. I wasn’t an Episcopalian, but I quickly learned the cadence of the prayers from the Morning Prayer service in the Book of Common Prayer. Within days I could say the school prayer:
Almighty God, Fountain of wisdom, be with us, we pray thee, in our work today. Endue all the teachers with a sense of their responsibility, and with grace and strength for its fulfillment. Keep the students in health of mind and soul and body; make them diligent in study, guard their inexperience, and save them through all temptations. Bless the patrons and alumnae of this school, and enable us all, more and more each day, to advance in that knowledge which is eternal life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
And sing Day by Day.
It didn’t matter what else might be happening.
Chapel happened.
I didn’t hear the word “mindfulness” until sometime in the 21st century I’m pretty sure.
St Mary’s trained me in mindfulness in 1974.
We sang hymns from the 1949 hymnal. I didn’t know a lot of them, but I soon had my favorites. The youngest children alway picked “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” or “All Things Bright and Beautiful”.
I still know every verse by heart, and I sang them to my children.
The first time we sang “God is working His Purpose Out” I felt it in my bones. The tune is ominous, heavy, it bears the weight of the words.
And we sang it in rounds.
No one told us to. Generations of St Mary’s girls had been singing it in rounds, passing the practice on to the younger girls year after year. So we sang it in rounds..
600 young female voices singing at 9:10 on a Wednesday before a trig exam… or on the Friday before prom… or on a Tuesday after you checked your mom into the hospital on Monday.
Singing about God moving through history.
About God working God’s purpose out.
Dr Martin Luther king talked about the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice.
That’s God..
God is working God’s purpose out.
As the waters cover the sea.
God is working God’s purpose out
As year succeeds to year.
God is working God’s purpose out
And the time is drawing near..
Nearer and nearer draws the time
The time that shall surely be
When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God
As the waters cover the sea.
And that, my friends, is what Joseph saw today on his way to Bethlehem.
♥️ Intentions & mindfulness. That’s my mama. 😍
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