A special interest of mine is the backgrounds of each of us that make us who we are.
Our backgrounds include the many factors that shape us from birth and even before.
Circumstances in the world
or in our family life can have defining influence over us from the moment we draw breath.
The role of backgrounds on personality comes to mind as news of the passing of two old friends from my home area reached me this spring.
The women lived within a few miles of each other. They probably didn't know each
other although my family knew both of them.
The first woman was a member of our church. She was a mother of a family like ours in that it was a big family. Ages of the children were in a range comparable to ours.
It was a country church. Families know each other when the household count in a church, as it was with us, is small.
This was
pre-Facebook and so it was a different social era altogether. Without social media, as used today, there was quite limited knowledge of the other church families.
Much of what we knew about each each other came
from the weekly times in the pews and the activities that laced church life together between the Sundays, such as picnics, women’s circle meetings or baseball games.
Summer field season and long isolating winters could reduce chances for socializing. And by habit rural folks kept their lives as private as much as possible.
There were always happenings in families learned through visits and phone visits. News circulates as it will where families are close-knit through a sharing of religion or common livelihood or way of life.
Snippets
of gossip made the rounds as well. We're a curious lot, most of us, with an avidity for the juicy morsel. A bit of gossip makes
our own life more interesting as the spotlight is shone, for good or for gain,
on someone else.
Mom liked
the church woman remembered here. She
probably didn't say it in so many words but in the way she waited to have a word with this woman after church or something in her voice when she said her name.
This was good enough for me. I adopted as likable those who Mom liked, and she was one
who saw likable traits in most people, finding the decent and the admirable in them.
As my
discernment grew I began making assessments from my own observations. This was about the time I realized I could read weariness in this
woman.
It wasn’t the weary aspect of languor or boredom but of stamina pushed
to the limit. It was as if
the urgency of work, whether of the farm life or her large family, taxed her
strength.
Sunday after Sunday there was about her, in her face and in her clasped hands, a demeanor I could never give words to. It struck me she came to church using it as a reservoir from which to draw for the week ahead.
Much of what we knew about each each other came from the weekly times in the pews and the activities that laced church life together between the Sundays, such as picnics, women’s circle meetings or baseball games.