What Bank Statements, Garbage Day and Bookshelves Have in Common

I have often said that there are at least three ways you can know someone without really knowing them. I came upon the first one when I worked at The Bank of Perry back in the summer of 1978. I found out a lot about people by how they spent their money; more specifically, to whom and for how much they wrote their checks each week. I don’t know how the banking system works now, but back then, that job was an eye opener — but then again, I was only 19 years old. But I am somewhat surprised we bank employees didn’t have to sign some kind of gag order to protect the integrity of some of the customers.

Another revelation came when I began walking the neighborhood. Especially on trash pick up and recycle day. I could surmise who lived in that home based on the garbage left on the street: if there were babies, toddlers, teenagers, adults, or an elderly couple inside. I knew what they ate, when they ordered pizza, what they drank (and how much), what scent they used to wash their laundry, and often what gadget or electronic they had recently purchased. I could even tell where they shopped for most of this. All from a little healthy exercise around the block on trash day. (And mind you, I did NOT have to go digging.)

The third thing that exposes a person is their bookshelf, realizing you have to be privy to the inside of the house in order to entertain this one. My friends will tell you that when I am invited to their home for the first time, I am intrigued by their bookshelves. Not just the books but the relics on the shelves as well. Of course, the first thing I notice is if they are a reader or not. Are there more artifacts and decor than books? And if there are, I’m often going to point to or stroke an item or two and ask them for the story behind it. Should there even be one, and most of the time there is, it always provides a most engaging time with the host or hostess … and I leave knowing more about them.

But the books can also be a huge telltale sign of a person’s inner workings; what they enjoy, their points of interest and often their own personal journeys. First of all, I am a self-diagnosed book addict so I can say nothing unfavorable about anybody’s personal library. I would be embarrassed to count and share the number of pages on my shelves. No doubt, you could tell a lot about me by standing in front of them. First and foremost that I hoard books.

I am not a fan of estate sales; they make me uncomfortable and sad for a number of reasons. But if I have known the person through my lifetime, I will make an attempt to go for one reason only: to find a small “something” that will live in my home as a remembrance of them. And a couple of weeks ago, I had just that opportunity. The husband had died a number of years ago and the wife has now gone to an assisted facility. Knowing these two individuals, I knew exactly where I wanted to go: the kitchen/dining room and the library. 

Grace exemplifies her name. One of the most genteel, soft spoken and gracious women you could ever meet. To remember her, I selected a small but beautifully etched crystal bowl with a dome lid. I will use it when I have ladies around my own dining room table … and I will tell them of her graciousness. 

But the library is where I spent most of my time. The organizers of the sale told me that the family had kept a large portion of their parents’ books, so I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like because there were still so many treasures left to be found. If I had had the time, I would have taken each one in my hand and thumbed through it; and many I did. After all, there are often trinkets to be found stuck within pages and I have been known to purchase that book for just that novelty.

In 1975, Steve Pace was appointed District Attorney for Houston County and served for many years before a freak accident occurred while he and Grace were out walking the neighborhood one evening. A dog clipped him, he fell and sustained a debilitating brain injury. In his library, I held each book carefully, sacredly, and with respect. How could I not? These volumes spoke of a brilliant man, a learned man, a military man, a prayerful man, a holy man. A kind of man that even a physical injury could not erase. 

Of course, I brought home several for my own shelf, but two were particularly favorites: one being a 1946 Enlarged Edition (with illustrations) entitled “Life’s Extras” by Archibald Rutledge. Favorite passages were marked with a pencil. Indeed, a man after my own heart. I followed the landscape Steve had marked out for me:

“There are very few sounds in the natural world that are harsh. Even the massive rolling thunder has about it something of solemn beauty. In anthems, the sea rolls on the beach; and in the sunny shallows there are water-harps forever making melodies. The wind is a chorister. Many a wild bird can warble like an aerial rivulet. The world is really a melodious place, full of soft sounds and harmony. … I went one day into the forest to try to escape from a grief that had come to me — the loss of one dearly beloved. A little way within the borders of that fragrant, dewy forest … I heard a warble singing. He was in the crest of a bald cypress, high over the dreamy waters of a little woodland lake. The bird’s song sounded like a delicate astral flute, sounded softly and sweetly, to lure me out of my trouble. … Like a voice of a spirit was this music; it came to me calmly yet thrillingly. Like a quieting hand was that beautiful song, to cool the fever of care, to still the pulse’s leap. … And what did the music and the beauty, those extras, bring me? Passing from a state of keenest grief I came to one of quiet reconcilement — to the profound conviction that, living or dying, God will take care of us.”

Another shorter passage underlined on a dog-eared page: “Stars fill me with a sense of God; and the heart cannot help being grateful when it remembers that the beauty and the wonder of them may be accounted things not to enable us to excite, but gifts of love to make us joyous.”

Another treasure was an 1895 copy of “The Story of the Other Wise Man” by Henry Van Dyke. The story tells of another wise man that had seen the star, but in his journey, he gave his gifts to those in need and never made it to the Child. No doubt, a most appropriate one by which to remember Steve Pace, for on the final page we read, “‘Verily I say unto thee, inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, thou hast done it unto Me.’ A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the pale face of Artaban like the first ray of dawn on a snowy mountain-peak. One long, last breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips. His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The Other Wise Man had found the King.” 

Bookshelves can reveal who we are. Good or bad.

So I have to wonder: what will these things reveal about me? What will my bank statements and the books and artifacts on my shelves say about my life and what I took interest in? Will they speak to the evidence of a life lived for Christ and His Kingdom? Or will it all just need to be thrown to the street on garbage day to be looked upon by those passing by?

I think those are valid questions to ask. 

Just an ordinary moment.

Grandma Gatewood I Am Not

Emma Rowena Caldwell Gatewood. Maybe you have heard of her. Maybe you haven’t. I was introduced to her a number of years ago through a book written of her life: “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk.” And what a walk it was. After a very difficult life as a farm wife, a mother to eleven children and a survivor of domestic abuse, in 1955 at the age of 67, she hung up her apron and told her children she was going for a walk — and that she did, setting her feet on the Appalachian Trail, becoming the first solo woman to hike the entire 2,168 miles. And she didn’t do it just once, but three times. Her story is a fascinating one and worth the read. 

But Grandma Gatewood I am not. In fact, there’s nothing about our lives that intertwine. For starters, I have never even set my foot on the Appalachian Trail — though I would like to one day.

However, I did take a couple of hikes last week as my husband and I spent a few days in the north Georgia mountains. The first was a 2.65 mile trek around a lake. It was listed as “easy” as far as trails go. And it was. Just the normal roots and slippery terrain that might be conducive to a path after a rain. But both beautiful and peaceful.

The next day we upped our game and took the “moderate” 2.93 mile hike on Bottom Loop Trail. My first clue should have been the deep descent toward the beginning of our adventure. Though I had already figured it out, my husband turned around and said, “This is what makes it ‘moderate,’ because the only way out is back up.” But down we went; and the further in, the further down. 

As a good wife should, I let my husband take the lead. Not because I’m naturally submissive or anything, but because as a man of the woods himself, he knows how to look for snakes and where to place his feet and that was important to me. He also knocked the cobwebs out of the way which was a plus. My job, however, was self imposed. While watching where I placed my feet, I also looked for bears. After all, prior to checking into our lodge, I had to sign a bear waiver. Yes, you read that correctly. A BEAR WAIVER. Why else would I have to sign a bear waiver if there weren’t any bears to waiver? So I kept my eyes open and quietly rehearsed bear protocol in my mind, from everything to remaining calm and moving away quietly in the opposite direction to just running faster than my husband. I also wished I had read up on the “natural” bug spray I had doused myself with before heading out. Did it repel, attract, or aggravate the bears I had waivered? Hmm.

As a forester’s wife, I have been deep in the woods many times, but always in a truck or at least a near proximity to it. Never in a place such as this … on foot with no “service” should I need it. In all seriousness though, it was a beautiful hike, taking us deep into the forest floor where the most brilliant orange mushrooms grew out of trees, where the birds called to one another in lyrical song, and the sound and sight of flowing water tumbling over rocks was a constant. To be in the bowels of God’s creation was just as breathtaking and exhilarating as being in the heights. 

But there was one thing of which I was constantly aware (other than the bears, of course), and that was the wind. Both its presence and the lack of. At times my husband and I both would stretch out our arms and feel it whipping all around us. How could it even find us down there? At other times, we couldn’t feel it, but we could hear its effects high in the trees above us with both the leaves rustling or branches breaking. And then there were moments of intense stillness. Knowing it was there, because we were still breathing, but hearing or feeling nothing.

How could I not think of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus when He told him, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The Spirit as wind. The “Ruach”. The Breath of God. I was also reminded of the ways I have experienced that “Wind” in my own life. There are times that I stretch out my arms and can feel His presence, dancing and twirling, both spiritually and physically, to His refreshment. There are other times when I can listen and know that He is moving about me by what I hear or see. Music. Art. Creation. Faces. Voices. But there are also times when I am bereft of any feeling or awareness except to know that I am still breathing. But even in those moments, I can be assured of His presence because I have the story of Elijah in I Kings 19:11-13 that speaks of the Lord in the stillness. In the silence. In the “bereftness.”

Whether Grandma Gatewood put her faith in the Creator of creation, we are not told. But what I do know is that He walked every step of the way with her whether she acknowledged Him or not … because that is what He does and who He is. Surely she felt the wind, she heard its sounds, and she breathed its air. She walked in its mystery just as we all do. Oh, that we would not miss Him, but that we would have ears, eyes and hearts to know Him, to experience Him, as He reveals Himself to us in such profoundly mysterious ways.

As for the bears, except for the two large, dark logs that I momentarily misinterpreted, the only ones I saw were ones that had been preserved at the hands of a taxidermist and now stand rampant in an exhibit at the top of the world, or at least Georgia’s highest summit: Brasstown Bald. Turns out I didn’t have to try to outrun my husband after all. For as the saying goes, when chased by a wild animal, you don’t have to be the fastest; you just don’t want to be the slowest.

Just an ordinary moment…