When and Where Women Retreat

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When and Where Women Retreat

Where is the next women’s retreat? I’d like to know. The one I went to last weekend was wonderful. About 100 of us met Saturday morning at the University Park Church of Christ in Hyattsville for their Annual “Ladies Day.” By late afternoon I felt nourished – mind, body, and soul.

After a light breakfast of fruit and pastries, Carolyn Muscar, the minister’s very modest wife, offered the first sermon. She spoke on the need to shift perspective and priorities in the midst of a storm. She used a personal story of getting caught in a snowstorm while driving a van full of church youth to a youth conference. When they began their journey, her priorities were playing the right music and making sure the young people had a good time. When the snow got so heavy she could barely see, her priorities quickly shifted. She clutched the steering wheel and focused on the road. Delivering the young people safely to their destination became her only priority.

“Isn’t that just like us? When we go through storms we have to slow down and re-evaluate our priorities,” Muscar said. She referenced Luke 7:32 (in the Bible) and we read along. “What if I spent my time looking at how God is working in my troubles rather than spending all my time trying to run away from these troubles?”

We nodded and mumbled “amens” around the room. The women had arrived from several churches throughout the D.C. area. I focused on the banner bearing the event theme: “The Invisible Woman: Revealed,” then thumbed through the folder I had received at the welcome desk. Inside the folder was the agenda for the day, paper and an ink pen for taking notes, a short story, a couple of poems, and a clever ABC list of Biblical passages for dilemma.

“Anxious? Take Vitamin A,” I read quietly with a smile. “All things work together for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28. Blue? Take Vitamin B. Bless the Lord…Psalms 103:1.” There

The next speaker, Cynthia M. Turner, a recent graduate of the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, engaged us further, guiding us through listing our invisible and visible characteristics. “We spend countless hours on our clothes and our hair. We spend countless hours working out to stay in shape. But do we spend equal time on our inner self?” she said. “Outwardly, we’re wasting away, decaying, stripped of our vigor. Inwardly, we’re being renewed.”

I glanced over at my grandmother who was falling to sleep and laughed. Nothing being said was new to her, I realized. When it was time to sing songs from the church hymnals, Grandma knew the words she could no longer see on the page.

After the initial sermons, we all split into assigned groups for workshops in classrooms. I was delighted with other stories and insights from the women in my group. Our group leader facilitated our discussion by posing questions. “What are some of the temporary things we focus too much of our attention on?” she asked. “What are some of the things we worry about?” Without thinking, I blurted out “Unemployment! Finding a job!” Immediately, I wished I’d kept my personal business to myself. But after some of the older women chimed in, I felt encouraged.

 

A woman whose nametag said “Rosa Lee” told of how she no longer worries about little things. At 77, she said, she trusts that she will always have what she needs. She’s retired, but continues to work at odd occupations she has taken up in recent years. Two years ago she secured a cosmetology license and she is currently in barbering school. She does hair in her home, she said, and plans to use her new skills as part of her church’s ministry. She will take her services to individuals who are homebound. She reached for my grandmother’s hand and asked her to speak. “You know the Scriptures say the older women in the church are to teach the younger ones,” she said. Grandma smiled but didn’t open her mouth. “You know, we keep growing into our 90s,” Rosa Lee added. “What you hear or experience will either put a stamp on what you already know or give you a new perspective on things. I bet you have a lot of wisdom to share.”

I was reminded of what I have long loved about women’s retreats. It’s where we can discuss matters that are unmentionable in mixed company. It’s where a woman minister might address menopause symptoms or a mate’s midlife crisis. It’s where older women tell younger ones to just hold on.

By the time we streamed into the fellowship hall for a hearty lunch, I was full in other ways. The grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls and thick servings of assorted desserts were just icing on the cake. If your church has a women’s retreat coming up, please post the information in the comments below.

 

Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery is a Washington Post blogger. She is also author of Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam (Harper) and Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam (Simon and Schuster). Follow her on Twitter @Sonsyrea. 

Creative Writing – Week 2

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Free associations and our five senses. Try this: wherever you are, something will have a distinctive smell. If not, stick your head out the window, close your eyes and take a whiff, open your refrigerator, or take a trip to a nearby coffee shop. What memories, thoughts, beliefs do the smells conjure for you? If you smell a foul body odor, for instance, you may remember your minister or Grandma saying, “Cleanliness is next to godliness!” Someone’s perfume may remind you of a favorite person or a memorable experience. The smell of incense, for instance, always harkens me back to my Muslim upbringing.

1)   What do you smell?

2)   What does it remind you of or make you think about?

3)   Is it a good or bad smell? Why

4)   Ramble on about this smell and see what stories – philosophies or insights – emerge.

5)   Before you finish this exercise complete this sentence: “The most surprising association of all was…”

Of course, you may do this exercise using any one of your five senses. What did it sound like? What memory did the sound (song?) generate? Have fun with this.

 

(From the book “Creative Journal Writing” by Stephanie Dowrick)

Here’s To You Granddad: For the Battles You Won Back Home

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Previously published in The Washington Post. 

Dear Granddad,

I thought about you when I watched the new hit movie Red Tails that gives a long-overdue Hollywood tribute to the glorious Tuskegee Airmen you used to tell me about. Whenever Veteran’s Day or Memorial Day prompted me to ask about your military service, it always came down to your witnessing those unheralded Tuskegee Airmen.

“Those boys could some mo’ fly,” you used to tell me.  “Those boys would get up there in them planes and really show out. They had all kinds of tricks and dips…The Germans were scared of ‘em.”

As an Army man in the infantry, you were content to serve on the ground. I remembered your stories of drinking and playing cards, patrolling the bars keeping other American servicemen out of trouble. Nothing spectacular.  You were not a glory-seeker, in no way driven to excel in battle.  Your highest hope, your daily goal, was getting home to your family.

“I had Baby to get back to,” you would say, referring to your bride, who would be your wife for 72 years. You are definitely a hero in my life, and in our family.

As the movie began, and I wondered which of the war heroes would get killed before the movie ended. I felt suddenly more grateful that you had made it home. I remembered you bringing my first bike, a little red two-wheeler you taught me to ride without training wheels.  I remembered the life skills you taught in Dominoes marathons at your dining room table.  Play the hand you get. Adjust. Strategize. You can win even after a losing start. Stay in the game. Enjoy! I remembered the Christmas feasts, and the $20 bills you slid under the plate of each of your ten grandchildren. (That was a lot of money back then – especially to a kid sharing parents’ limited resources with nine siblings!)

I am so glad you made it home.

Looking at the youngest pilot in the movie, I was reminded that you were very young when drafted to serve in WWII.  You and your bride having migrated to the District of Columbia from Georgia just a couple of years prior to your draft, meant Grandma was left, pretty much alone. For two years she did not know whether her husband was coming home.  She laughs about it now. Says you told her, “if you can’t be good, be careful.” But the loneliness must have been challenging for her at the time.

When the movie depicted one of the pilots falling in love overseas, I considered how the war tested, but obviously strengthened, your marriage in ways neither you nor Grandma could know at the time.  Your 72-year marriage is your medal of honor in my mind.

You and Grandma conquered the years of loneliness and doubt, the disagreements, mistakes and misunderstandings. You built your lives together. Maintaining your individual careers by day, playing in bowling leagues, rising through the ranks of the Masons and Eastern Stars together, making ordinary marks of modest achievement on your way to an extraordinary milestone.  I bet there are fewer 72-year marriages than there are war heroes. So, here is my salute to you – you and Grandma.

Using modest means, you built homes together, raised your children together. You danced till wee past midnight, then got up and went to church – together. You sang in church choirs, served as deacon and deaconess for decades together. You worked your backyard gardens into your 90s together.  You enjoyed and nurtured your grandchildren together. So here’s to you Granddad.

The movie did not depict your experience in the war.  It missed the nuances of the ordinary men determined simply to make it home, but one movie cannot herald all the heroes.  You are my hero. I am glad you made it home. I am sharing this letter with the public because I am sure there are a million more granddaughters – and grandsons – who feel absolutely blessed just because you made it home.

Creative Writing – Week 1

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Wingtip Wednesdays – Tips for My Writing Friends

For the next ten weeks, I will share writing tips and inspiration I have thoroughly enjoyed the past two years. I worked on researching the publishing business and learning about the writing life. Here are things you can do to 1) establish a fun, daily writing routine (for pleasure, profit or both; 2) hone your craft; 3) develop literary products if that is your goal.

Choose one of the five writing prompts. Write for 20 minutes, none-stop. It’s ok if you get off-subject. Delight in where this writing takes you. Rejoice that you did it. Twenty-minutes non-stop. Go!

 

1)   My life as a five-year-old…

2)   I have everything I need…

3)   People expect me to…

4)   I give the impression that…

5)   I am sorry about…

 

Enjoy more writing tips at www.stephaniedowrick.com.

Chuck Brown and Marion Barry

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Chuck Brown fans welcomed D.C. “Mayor for Life” Marion Barry as a folk hero. “You the last one standing1” a woman shouted.

Chuck Brown fans waiting in line for the public viewing of his body at the Howard Theater Tuesday morning welcomed D.C. Councilman Marion Barry like a folk hero. They clamored to shake Barry’s hands.

“You the last one standing!” someone shouted. “Back up Bruce! Let the man get some air!” someone else yelled, chiding WUSA news reporter Bruce Johnson as he closed in on Barry for an interview.  “We love you Marion Barry!” Chuck Brown fans sang. “Weeee looooove you!”

Chuck Brown – like Barry – validated them.  Fans standing in line included hard-scrapple D.C. residents with missing teeth and well-fed residents in business attire, a glamor girl in a swanky long dress and sisters in blue work shirts and suits.

Some fans waited in line for hours to get inside the recently restored Howard Theater to pay respects. Linda Boyd had arrived at 6 a.m. She was the second person in a line that would swing around the corner. Fans laughed, chatted, joked, and sang Chuck Brown tunes occasionally. When Boyd spotted swirling police lights escorting a dignitary, she stirred the crowd into an old Chuck Brown song.

“The police man is on the premises. What is he doing in here? I said the police man is on the premises what is he doing in here!” They shared a hearty laugh and sang the famous refrain. “Run Joe, run Joe, run Joe, run Joe the police man’s at the door….”

Chuck Brown acknowledged a community’s conflict with the establishment. His song, “Run Joe,” gave lyrics to a popular experience of outcast young people hustling to survive, using an underground economy – and an underground mental health care system – drugs.

I gazed at the various expressions of love, got a whiff of funnel cake wafting from a vending truck across the street, noticed a woman munching on French Fries drenched in ketchup, and marveled at a parade of vendors selling everything from Chuck Brown buttons, tee-shirts, and hats, to cold water and what some were calling “Chuck Punch,” plastic quarts of red juice in ice.

“Chuck Brown would appreciate a good hustle,” I thought, as I looked around, tuning in and out of other people’s conversations, chatting with a guy standing next to me.

“This is like when Michael Jackson died. It’s not somber like when an official dies. Chuck brought so much joy to people. It’s a celebration at the same time you’re mourning,” said Darrell Johnson, a Ward 1 resident who co-produced a few Chuck Brown tunes. A nine-hour public viewing, to be followed by a funeral two days later, seemed sufficient. “This is appropriate. He was Washington’s Elvis.”

Other D.C. elected officials, including Mayor Vince Gray, Councilmembers Jack Evans and Michael Brown, and celebrities, arrived before noon to pay their respects.

“Chuck had the unique ability to make a thousand people at a time feel good, but also to make the individual feel good,” Rock Newman, boxing promoter and long-time Chuck Brown friend said. “Although he was onstage Chuck wrapped his arms around this city and just said ‘everything’s going to be alright’.”

Councilman Jack Evans said, “Chuck Brown was one of the most famous musicians to come out of D.C., right up there with Duke Ellington…He inspired a generation, all of us from when we were kids…He was a legend in this town, and he will be missed. Buy Chuck. We love you.”

Others spoke of the music man’s humanity. “Chuck was such a good person,” said, Sandra Butler Truesdale, long-time D.C. cultural activist and vice chair of the Howard Theatre Restoration Community Committee. Chuck Brown visited her dying husband and attended his funeral. “He means a lot to me, like he means a lot to so many,” she added. “Chuck Brown was D.C.”

Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery is a Washington Post blogger. She is also author of Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam (Harper) and Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam (Simon and Schuster). Follow her on Twitter @Sonsyrea.

Remembering Chuck Brown

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Previously published in The Washington Post

Chuck Brown: “I Became Deeply Inspired with Empty Pockets”

By Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery

“Wind Me Up” Chuck needed to wind down by the time he arrived for an afternoon interview with me at The Washington Informer in 2007. “Chuck Baby” had spent the previous two hours pumping up a capacity crowd at a free lunchtime concert outside the D.C. Lottery headquarters on Martin Luther King Avenue in Southeast. Chuck Brown “the Godfather of Go-Go” chatted with me for almost two hours about his life, his legacy – and his relationship with my dad.

Chuck was part of The Soul Searchers, when my father, the late Joe Tate, produced their album, “Salt of the Earth,” featuring the breakout tune, “Blow Your Whistle.” (Click here to hear a very young Chuck singing “Blow Your Whistle”: http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7339143). My dad had also co-produced Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers on their first song that hit the Billboard R&B charts.  The song was, “We the People,” a hit in 1972. Chuck’s love for the people grew over the next four decades and the people reciprocated – filling clubs to capacity when he performed. Crowds swelled and cheered him wildly at summer concerts and summertime festivals.

I found his story inspiring. His love for music began when he was a tot. As a toddler, he sang and entertained his mother’s neighbors at picnics, cookouts and parties. “That’s how we ate,” he said laughing, during our 2007 interview. He leaned back in the fold up chair across the table from me and laughed heartily recalling his life and music career. “My mamma used to carry me around to different houses. Sometimes they passed a little hat around, take up a little collection for us…my mother took real good care of her little boy.” At seven-years-old, he learned to play piano in church. But, he began running away from home at 13, and left home for the last time at age14, he said. He landed in jail, and that changed his life for good. He learned to play guitar in jail. His friends encouraged him to join a band when he got out.

He recalled playing with Jerry Butler, the Earls of Rhythm and the Latino band Los Latinos in the 1960s, which prompted him to create a new sound fusing R&B, Latin beats and jazz. He tested his new sound at nightclubs and cabarets around D.C.  He noticed his crowd relax as he drove hard rhythms and engaged them in African-styled call-and-response. “People would come in there in minks and neck ties, but when I started that Go-Go thing, the mink coats disappeared, they started coming in more relaxed,” he told me. “The neckties and all that disappeared, and the tables and chairs disappeared off the floor and the floor was cool. I knew it was going somewhere.” They danced non-stop as long as the music kept going. The craze became known as Go-Go.

Chuck performed live and recorded – live and in studio.  He told me the heartbreak that followed the success of his third album, “Butsin Loose,” (which my father did not produce.). Bustin Loose hit the national charts, but Chuck felt cheated out of $13 million. “I just felt bad. I couldn’t do nothin’ for five years,” he said. He continued performing seven days a week around D.C., but he couldn’t write. Then in a snap one day, he wrote a song in 15 minutes.

“I was deeply inspired with empty pockets,” he said, laughing. “Guess what song I wrote in 15 minutes?”

The song he wrote in 15 minutes, “I Need Some Money” became a national hit. Meanwhile, he continued his fight with his previous record label, and prevailed after 27 years.

My favorite Chuck Brown CD was the one he recorded with Eva Cassidy. I loved his fusion of jazz standards and Go-Go beats. He introduced a couple of young generations to some old ballroom standards without them even knowing it. My favorite Chuck Brown tune: “Let the Good Times Role.”

At 71 years old, so much in his life had come full-circle. As a teen, he had sold Washington newspapers – The Washington Herald, and The Washington Afro – earning pennies. But in his 70s he had a lucrative Washington Post contract, starring in their commercials. He had played “the numbers” before there was an official lottery, playing two cents for a chance to win $3. But in the end he was paid big bucks to endorse D.C. Lottery. His career had begun for pennies as a little boy. In the end, Chuck included his children and grandchildren on one of albums that would do quite well in the market place.

I found Chuck Brown as entertaining up close and personal as he was onstage. On stage he was mesmerizing. I had not been to see him in clubs, but I enjoyed his magic on outdoor stages – the Stone Cold summer festival, at Fort DuPont Park.

Facebook and twitter began buzzing with well wishes for Chuck last week. Community activist Elwood Yango Sawyer (a.k.a. “Yango”) has been posting stories and insights from their 40-year friendship on his Facebook page, and last week launched a prayer vigil for his dear friend.

Thursday morning he posted recollections of a conversation he had with Chuck when the Go-Go Master returned from Japan, where people had paid $1,500 a pop to see him. Yango hopes Chuck’s tenacity and determination to succeed will inspire others. “Chuck shows us what can happen, if you give yourself a chance to enjoy the beauty of life,” Sawyer posted. “A guy made a guitar for him in Lorton, and he took that skill and became world known.”

Butterfly Inspirations

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One Sunday evening earlier this month, I received what felt like direct inspiration from God. I was on the job at Barnes and Noble, learning my way around the children’s section, straightening books on the shelves when one book caught my attention.

It was “The Hungry Caterpillar”. I began reading the book, fascinated by its colorful illustrations, and found myself transported back to when I was seven-years-old. I remembered my delight at the neighborhood library, walking home with an arm full of books. But as I began reading the story, something else occurred to me. “Hey! This is the story of my career!”

The story told of an egg hatched one dark night. The sun shined on it and it hatched and grew legs. It began to crawl and eat. It ate fruit the first several days, then binged on a feasts of everything edible and got a stomach ache. It created a cocoon and hid a while then hatched again, this time a beautiful butterfly. This story hit me like a divine message put in my path to explain something I had been struggling to understand myself – much less explain to others in upcoming job interviews. In the moment, it made perfect sense:

* The egg – my idea, inspiration to pursue a career in journalism.

* The sunshine – encouragement from family, friends and mentors. *Growing legs and crawling – education, learning the skills and theory of the trade and moving through entry-level jobs.

*Eating fruit – the jobs where my innate talent and passion for communication was nurtured. Feasting on everything edible – after the journalism industry crumbled, I took any job available – some good for me, some frustrating and some down right traumatic.

*Stomach ache – I could not digest it all. Could not understand it all. I ached, felt like a failure.

*Cocoon – I withdrew, shunning party invitations and visits with my grandparents who I believed must be privately judging my failures.

*Cocoon breaks – I could see the light through my dark, self-condemning thoughts in this moment that Sunday. I can break out of the condemnation, old judgments, sense of failure.

*Wings – my beautiful appreciation of all the job experiences I’ve had and my bright optimism about new job experiences, including this seasonal job at a book store allows me to see me career as the big, beautiful butterfly that it is.

Ironically, by Tuesday I had decided against reading so much into the book about the caterpillar which had caught my attention. But, on my way to the post office (a message distribution center, right?), I noticed a caterpillar in my path. I could not ignore the irony.This wasn’t even caterpillar season. We mostly see caterpillars in the spring time, right?

The caterpillar on Oct. 11, crawling across my path could only have been a wink from heaven, right?

Waving the Flag on Six Flags

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It was more than a mid-life crisis that drove me there last year.  I took a trip to the Six Flags amusement park near me for several reasons. For starters, I wanted to celebrate the end of the summer season and the end of a particularly challenging season in my life. Also, I dreamt that I was enjoying myself in a large swimming pool with tall, twist-filled water slides that generated much fun and laughter. It was the second dream I had in a week that showed me in a large pool with people laughing and cheering.  My quickest and easiest interpretation of this dream was this, “Go to Six Flags!” So I went.

Thunderstorms were predicted for the afternoon. So, I did not take the time to coordinate with friends or family. I would go alone. Instead, I decided to pack the Sunday newspaper, my journal, a towel, a hairbrush and some snacks. I planned to arrive early, when the park first opened, so I could beat the after-church crowd to the rides. I planned to get on all the water slides and roller-coasters I could stand, then rest at the big wave pool for a couple hours readings and writing, and I would leave fully satisfied.

There were no lines for the Calypso Cannonballs, slow water slides with just enough twists and drops to get you going. I grabbed a big yellow tube, marched up the wooden stairs, grabbed the sides of the slide and gave myself a good push. Weeeeeeeeee! I plunged into the cool waters at the bottom and felt refreshed. Next!

I found a prime seat under an umbrella at Hurricane Bay, billed as “one of the largest wave pools in the country.” I stretched out on a lounge chair, flipped open the park map and marked the rides I would try. The sounds of amusement park music – old Broadway standards and jingles, patriotic marching band music – and the music of laughter and delighted chatter washed over me as the scents of hotdogs, popcorn, and sugar, and the bright colors all around lifted me to renewed heights of delight.

But before long, I would realize why grown folks don’t take trips to these amusement parks except to oblige the young folks in our care. These parks are for them! The season for us to enjoy these delights is gone.  While, on the one hand I had grown smart enough to know that by getting ahead of the crowds, I could avoid the long waits in lines for the rides. On the other hand, climbing long flights of stairs in a single bound left me gasping for air before I could even get on the rides. I waved kids ahead of me, as I leaned on the rail catching my breath.

I loved standing above the tree-tops, a thrill I don’t remember fully appreciating as a kid, but after what seemed like a ten second thrill down the water slide, I considered the climb hardly worth it.  One water slide pumped my heart so fast, I decided against braving the roller coasters I had loved as a girl. On the Whistlestop Whirlybirds ride I did as the conductor asked, “Lift your arms and flap like a bird!” Yaaaaaaaaaay! We laughed and obliged. The conductor reminded us that we could upgrade our daily ticket for a season pass and I realized I was being pitched at every turn and opportunity at this park. I was wholly unaware of these tricks when I was a kid. My awareness of this now put a damper on the fun.

Meanwhile, I could not help but analyze the opportunities of the young people working at the park. Did they know what they were learning in these jobs and how they might leverage that learning in their future pursuits? I wanted to chat with them about this.

I left the park just as thunder began to clap, signaling the onset of showers and lightning. I left realizing there’s a reason adults get our thrills on cruises, at island resorts, and closer to home at restaurants and live theater. There’s a reason we delight in fine art and enriching education offered at museums instead of amusement parks. My season for rollercoaster rides is over – and I’m cool with that.

When Honesty Prevails

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Without thinking about it I picked up a credit card I saw on the floor and called out the name on it.

“Donald,” I said standing near the check-out line at the library. A short, thin fellow turned to see who was calling his  name.

I offered the card. He reached for it with a smile. I was reminded of someone turning in my wallet the day before. First I left my wallet on a bin next to yogurt-covered pretzels I enjoyed at Fresh Market. I was in another part of the store sampling fresh-squeezed orange juice and lemonade when I realized something was missing. I rushed back to the snacks station and was happy to find my wallet exactly where I had left it. Inside, the cash and credit cards were still there. I thanked God privately.

I realized I probably needed a nap to clear my clouded-crowded mind, but instead, proceeded with other errands on my to-do list. I stopped at Safeway and as I stashed my groceries in the car I made a mental note, “don’t forget your wallet.” Five minutes later, when I stopped at the gas station to vacuum my car, I realized I had left my wallet again!

I prayed, “God do it for me one more time.”

When I returned to the parking lot at Safeway, I was dismayed to find the cart with my wallet gone. I rushed into the store anyway to ask if it had been turned in. Maybe one of the store workers who tends the carts had seen it and turned it in for brownie points.

“Excuse me mam. Did anyone turn in a walle…” I asked, panicked.

“What’s your last name?” the young woman wearing a store apron asked.

She smiled and explained that they had just announced it over the intercom.  Within seconds she was handing it to me.

“Did the carts clerk find it?” I asked. No.

A customer had turned it in. Didn’t leave a name. The cash and credit cards were still there, and I doubted that the person honest enough to turn the wallet in would have taken time to steal the numbers off my license to steal my identity. I was glad the old axiom, “finders keepers, losers weepers,” had not ruled the day.  Goodness, godliness, prevailed in the individuals who saw my wallet unattended and left it alone or turned it in.

I was happy to get three successive reminders that honesty can prevail. But, if my wallet had been stolen, leaving me desperate and angry when I spotted the credit card the man dropped, would I have passed on that desperation and anger, as well? I hope not.

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours,” says Wayne Dyer, an international motivation speaker and author.

A Creative Outlook

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When I was growing up a kid up one of my aunts said repeatedly, “Allah does not change the condition of a person until they change the condition of their heart.”  We were Muslims, “poor,” as in financially struggling. My aunt was raising 12 children with her husband, living in public housing in Washington, D.C. at the time.

The outside of her home looked barren.  Most front and back yards in her neighborhood were patches of dry, dusty dirt. Only two people in the entire complex had planted flowers. We played in the parking lot and climbed on the clothes line poles for fun since we had no playground nearby.

Inside my aunt’s home, however, was very peaceful and calming. She burned incense, and maintained discipline and order.  We did not always know what we would eat, but we knew that we would eat even if she had to make pancakes from scratch and water down the last two tablespoons of Kyro syrup to go around for lunch. We always knew that at certain times throughout the day everyone would stop whatever they were doing and we would come together to prayer because of our Muslim obligation.

One of her daughters described their home in the projects as if it was a mansion because that was the way she saw it.

“We have six bedrooms and two bathrooms!” she liked to brag. Before I saw the house, I expected to visit a mini-mansion.  I knew they were moving to Southeast Washington, and I could not imagine a rich palace in that area. Besides, neither of her parents had good government jobs. So, how could they afford six bedrooms and two bathrooms? My cousins, nor my aunt seemed ashamed of their circumstances. In fact, they seemed delighted that God had provided them a house, much bigger than the apartment they had been cramped in.

Rather than complain about needing public housing back then, they fully appreciated it and seized opportunities that have led to the lives they are enjoying today.

Today, twenty-five years later, that aunt is living in a mini-mansion in Atlanta, remarried to a more loving, supportive husband.  She enjoys her days providing day care to some of her grand children while their parents work and create lives more abundantly than any of us could have imagined all those years ago.

They are all living better now and I can’t help but think it had something to do with their attitudes and outlook way back then, when times were tough.

This week I called her to ask her to elaborate on this lesson I had learned from her so many years ago. She asked whether I remembered the peach tree she discovered in the community. It had become so barren no one even knew it was a peach tree. She fed it scraps from her own kitchen table, stirring leftover peelings and fruit cores at the base of the tree like compost. The tree blossomed the next year.

She asked whether I remembered the stock of clothes she kept clean and folded in an upstairs closet to give away to neighbors she discovered more in need than she.  She gave away clothes by the bags-full. I mostly remembered the fun I had with my teen-age cousins at the time, and remembered the attitude imparted on us. She had grown up in a Seventh Day Adventist Church reciting the “Beatitudes,” popularly known these days as the “Be-Attitudes.” (Blessed are the poor…the meek shall inherit the earth…)

“Living well is a state of mind,” she reminded me this week. This lesson she had learned as a child, memorizing the text from Matthew 5:3-12, had been fortified when she studied Islam as a young woman. She was reminded of the Christian and Muslim teachings recently when reading “The Courage to Create,” by Rollo May.

“Wherever I lived, I chose to create,” she said. “I took old bed sheets and made curtains and matching bed skirts,” she added. “However much money you have – or don’t have – you have to know in your heart that you are blessed. You have to have the courage to create.”