Gathered in My Name, I Am Here

Chapter 15

Flowers New Salem

In 1980 with Mark Greene home waiting out a legal issue, Ruth draws Carol to church and to Mark Greene. Over the months a friendship begins and makes being in the church not an earthquake or lightning struck experience for Carol.

So I uprooted myself from home ground and left

Took my dreams and I took to the road

When a flower grows wild it can always survive

Wildflowers don't care where they grow. –

Dolly Parton Wildflowers Parton Ronstadt Harris The Complete Trio Collection

Gathered in my name, I am here

“Miss Carol, I would like to ask you to play at church. I really appreciated that you played at our wedding.”

“Thankfully it was a small wedding I don’t like to inflict my playing on too many ears.”

“You do very well, Mark Greene is home now. You likely have heard people talk about him.”

“Max didn’t mention it, I didn’t know Mark was home.”

“Mark used to sing in the church when he grew up. I heard him at Christmas two years ago; he has a nice voice. He needs the support; his mother tells me he’s embarrassed over being back. He was at graduate school and got arrested for pot. His mother tells me he didn’t actually sell anything, but he had driven his friends to a party. He was arrested for delivery. Until he can get the courts to clear him, he can’t get the government job he had been offered. He’s come home to help on the farm while the legal stuff gets resolved. “

“I met Mark Greene once. JB had just got his Roadrunner fixed and wanted to me go to the reunion party. He seemed very smart not the type to be into pot selling. I should call my father; I am sure he could sort out this mess”

“I think you could play more something he wants to sing, than Mildred, bless her soul. Maybe even offer a little advice like you have with JB and me.”

“One troubled youth to another so to speak, I believe my advice to you was to buy a train ticket and never see JB again.”

“Yes, you said that about JB. Then you told me you felt he had changed and was a really good man now.”

“Mark was polite, intelligent, and I must admit rather cute. A local who tended towards being introverted.”

“JB told me how you helped him keep a lid on his drinking and he had a good time. No fights a first step on becoming himself.”

“JB was a little rough around the edges when I first came here.”

“JB and I have done alright together. We’ve worked out his rough edges. So, what do you say Lizzie can do Sunday morning without you being here?”

“Yes, your Tennessee cousin can sell 30% more than I can. She is such a chatterbox people nod and she throws in another melon or dozen ears of corn. Is your family from Tennessee?”

“Dad and Mom were born in Kentucky, but only ten miles from Lizzie's family. Well ten miles as the crow flies which means twenty miles for those of us who aren’t crows. My folks came up here when they were teens, but I’ve been back a couple of times. People in the church said you came when you visited your grandparents as a kid.”

“Yes, Grandma had me in Sunday school and bible school during those summers. I do remember the wonderful cookies and that horrible orange Kool Aid, if not many bible verses. I suppose I can practice with him at the church and see what we can work up.”

“Great, he should be available any time they are not in the field. He may enjoy talking to someone not as down-home. He may need his rough edges fitted a little like JB.”

“Yes, another lost soul from the outside, possibly someone who was once a pot smoking hippie?”

“Now, Miss Carol I really respect you. Mark seems mighty nice. Making those rough edges fit better can be a lot of fun.”

“Ruth I am married. Some edges I can’t make fit better.”

“Yes, it seems someone said that. I’m here every day. I don’t believe I’ve met this husband. There was this city guy around, but I don’t think I ever met a real husband. "

“Stop, he’s off selling books, being a back to nature guru, and yes he’s not here. A church woman like you ought to praise marriage.”

“I grew up in a very fundamentalist church, but now I’m a Methodist. We learn a woman is to be respected and listened to. I don’t see you being listened to and you’re the one doing the work and making the Earth bloom. We do get a dollar on every book we sell; can’t say he’s not contributing.”

“Marriage isn’t always fifty-fifty. Since we are discussing church, what is going on with this Phyllis Schlafly group fighting equal rights for women? Seems simple enough I ought to be able to expect equal treatment as any man or woman.”

“Our UMW has come out in support of ERA. The more conservative fundamentalists are afraid of change. They feel the country has gone too far from traditional families. Many of my family think we are a bunch of liberal communists. They call everyone a communist who is different. You may not be the most traditional woman, but you run a good business certainly you are not a communist. "

"No, we are free market capitalists, here"

"They want to keep a woman in her place, but Jesus accorded women great respect. He rebelled against traditions at the time. I grew up with the holier than thou folks, I believe Jesus would like to have a chat with them.”

“ERA just seems logical to me. If they are so worried about women going to war, maybe stop picking fights we can’t win.”

“Have you ever been in a fundamentalist church?”

“Your church is the only one I’ve ever been to; I was thirteen the last time I was at a church service.”

“Fundamental preachers don’t put a lot of stock in studying theology, they believe in scaring the Jesus right out of Jesus. The old women then get so hurtful. They want to take every slight they ever felt out on the young girls. They just can’t love and forgive, maybe they never forgave themselves. They are nice neighbors and community folk, if they do not get all fired up by those radio preachers.”

“Maybe we’d be a lot better off without any religion, like John Lennon and ‘Imagine’.”

“There is so much need in coming to together, so much comfort and support in life. Some religion can be bogus, but true faith working together now that is powerful. Honestly, it has transformed JB.”

“I think you transformed JB, he goes there for you.”

“When the power of love works, it all works together. He should stop listening to that one radio preacher on Moody; he gets more nutty ideas from him. I have to explain the end of the world has been coming for almost two thousand years, many times folks have gone into a cave to come back out with nothing changed but spoilt milk. “

“OK I won’t let Greene pick any Armageddon songs.”

“Thank you Carol I love working with you and teaching you what wonderful animals, horses are.”

“I’m not sure you’ve converted me into the horse faith either, I do have a guitar, maybe I’ll try yodeling."





Flowers at New Salem IL