The best way to start a day

I didn't know anything about her till this weekend and after I met her, I was changed. Attending morning services at St. James, she said was the best way to start her day.  She did this everyday as was her custom.  She said, "it helps me adjust to the painful realities of life and to assure myself of the help and support of God."  She spent two days a month at a local convent observing their rules of silence.  She sincerely felt if the gospel was to mean anything at all, then Christains were called to be social activists.  Her husband was so ill he required round the clock care and most people never knew she was even married.  She saw first hand and it never left her how very cruel and harsh the world could be and how very fragile hope really is.  She felt people could not afford to loose hope because of how powerful it is and faith can not exist without it.  She said and her life witnessed it,  "hope can bury despair and there is not a situation that is hopeless when the object of hope is Christ."  She believed the miles between the poor and the wealthy were imaginary because we were all children of God.  And she could not ever turn her back on the marginalized, the poor, the destitute, the hopeless, the walking wounded, the hungry, the naked. 

Her name was Francis Perkins.  My friends who are history buffs certainly will know her and my FDR scholar friends can probably post a character study about her.  But I wonder how many knew that it was her faith that kept her going.  She was the first woman ever appointed to a Presidential cabinet position.  She held her post longer than anyone in the FDR adminstration.  All twelve years.  She tried to resign twice but FDR refused to accept.  She walked into Washington in March 1933 with one agenda, "to take the edge of human misery."  While the New Deal is credited to FDR, she wrote it.  It was her brain child.  Few people have had such a great impact on American history.  Every single item on her agenda list when she took the post of Labor Secretary had been accomplished when she stepped down, many of them in the first 100 days of FDR presidency.  She spearheaded reform regarding child protection, maternal health, labor laws, federal assistance to unemployed, food assistance, medical assistance.  Many of her ideas are now present in our current Medicare system.  Were she still living, I wonder, could she turn the tide?  I think she might. 

And she started every day with morning prayer.  I think that is what amazed me the most after reading the book written about the New Deal.  The most powerful woman during that time in FDR administration, the most innovative thinker of the New Dealers, and she began every morning with prayer as was her custom. 

And it makes me wonder, how much we individually and collectively could accomplish in ending the world's suffering, if we started each day with prayer and it became our custom.  And it makes me wonder, how much suffering is averted because some faithful few begin each day with prayer as is their custom. 

And I met someone today who reminded me of her.  Her name was Juliette Howard.  She stopped me in Aldi's and said, "You look great today and I love your shoes.  You have such a presence about you."  It is hard for women to accept compliments especially about their appearance.  It is even harder to hand them out. We feel so jealous and insecure around other women.  I am not sure why but we do and we will rarely admit it.  We feel we must compete with them.  I am trying to recover from that.   She told me it was her custom to make someone smile each day and it was her custom to pass out love when she felt led to do so.  I hugged her.  I told her I needed the encouragment on today of all days.  She said, "I pray every morning that God will allow me to bless someone because I have been so blessed."  I said, "Wow."  She turned and pulled out of her purse, a worn, tattered Book of Common Prayer.  She said, "Every morning, I begin this way."  I choked back tears.  I told her, "You must be an angel."  She said, "No, just someone who is a beggar of God's grace.  You know, we all really are beggars.  The problem is our pride and we walk around with clenched fists."  She went on to say, "I have learned in my life that open handed and open hearted is the only the way to live...any other way is not a life at all.  And I have learned an open hand and open heart toward God never returns empty."  By this time, I was crying, and had to put my bag down that was filled with my cherries, blueberries, lettuce and dinner for the evening.  I told her, "I can never thank you enough and please know it is women like you who change the world."  Given her age, her race, her sex, I suspect life had not always been kind.  Her hands were worn.  She walked with a limp and her son was assisting her with shopping. I asked her about just that.  She said, "You know you choose who to be.  You don't have to be who the world says you are and the best way to figure out who you are is prayer."

Miracles happen everyday, you  just have to open your hands.  I will not forget Juliette.  I will never see her again.  But isn't amazing that in a few days I was reminded again how to start a day...as was her custom.