Three Women I Want to Meet in Heaven

Mother Teresa
At her death no one kicked up more passing commentary and insightful criticism than did Mother Teresa. Several books and even copies of her journal rolled off the press or digitalized themselves into Kindles. Everyone became an "expert" on her "doubts," her moments of darkness. Others found a hidden "political" agenda in her orchestrating of her world famous orphanage. Some accused her of arrogance and temper, as if Beethoven, Bach, and Patton were free of such emotions. But let the critics be praised for sleuthing research and damned for their cursory conclusions which led many to forget so much of what she had done. 

Yes, many forgot her good works. Had everyone forgotten the fruits of her labor? Myopic in their dissecting of her very human heart. I find great compassion for those who love and serve "in spite of" mixed motive or confusion or doubt. The little known film, Catholics, dramatizes an abbot, ruling a small monastery on an isle off Ireland, insisting on the Latin liturgy in spite of Vatican II. A young Martin Sheen, now sporting a turtle neck and assuming Buddhist postures as he prays, tries to bring the priest [Richard Harris] into the 20th century,

The heart of the drama, however, drives deeply into the doubting heart. The abbot suffered a nervous breakdown at Lourdes. No miracles, no Resurrected Christ, Nothing. Yet, like a persistent salmon, he swims upstream, driven paradoxically by doubt, finding not a liberating freedom but purpose in his work. For some that may be all organized religion can bring. The fruits, however, remain, as they do in Miguel Unamuno's short story about an exemplary doubting priest who does his job.

And then there is Graham Green's famous, The Power and the Glory. The whisky priest stumbles through the crowd-imposed demands for confession, for the blessing of children, for the sacrament. All of which he remains unworthy, amidst the tumult of the Mexican Revolution in 1920. He continues; they are comforted and he is finally apprehended and executed. A wasted life? 

I will embrace Mother Teresa for her works--and for her doubts. I'm a Kolob Standard Time believer, so I believe many doubts will transform into Faith and Acceptance. The Goodness will prevail. And for thousands of throw away babies in the streets of New Delhi who became adults, this occasion of embracing and giving thanks will be a festival of love. 

I want to be there. 

Ethel Waters

The opening of the Korean war began the closing of our Bishop years. The year we moved to the Paradise--Escondido, California--our lives changed forever. For my fragile mother, it meant that four restless children could play outside until after dark. We pretty much stayed within the five acre confines of Thompsonville, so  she felt assured we were safe.

Mom's favorite hobby was reading aloud. The waning months of Bishop took on a meaning for me that surfaced only after I moved to Texas. Submerged in my unconscious is the memory of her walking up and down the living room floor, reading Ethel Water's autobiography, With his Eyes on the Sparrow. As she read, bits and pieces of this remarkable black woman filtered into my brain. 

I remember that she married at 12, that she worked a shift of cleaning [of course] and sang at night--anywhere they would allow her to belt the blues with an already burgeoning full warble that made her famous. Mom's empathy got the best of her occasionally. I would hear her say, "Oh, this is terrible." Gosh, or even "Damn, should things be so hard for other people we call Americans?"

In the third grade I had taken up the trumpet with gusto and soon knew who RC Handy was. Mom explained to me that it was Ethel Waters who sang that score and made it famous, not a trumpet player. I did try to make it famous by winning a talent contest in the 8th grade by playing that very "St. Louis Blues." Later, in high school, I would hear her full-throated blues, often followed by people I never SAW but could HEAR. Dinah Washington, for example. Of course Ethel Waters did go on and work in films, sometimes with white people. Now, over a 100 years since her birth and now her rebirth, I would love, in the spirit of my Mom, greet her and thank her for her voice and the way her music seemed to encapsulate moments in my life that were unfolding. Her music triggers the memories--even today, in my later winter years. I would say, hoping for a hug, "Thank you for your life, for the heartache you endured, for the isolation and the pain you sang your way through. I will never forget you."

Malinche

Few of you, unless you are a well read Hispanic, would know Malinche, the companion but not the wife of the reckless, infamous, blood-thirsty Cortez. As a 4th grader, I was chosen to draw Cortex in our California history class. I remember the imposing helmet and the ready sword he held over the bad guys--Montezuma and his people, those heart-wrenching, human sacrificing aliens in the jungles of Spain's Imaginary Kingdom.

Forty years later I developed a course in critical thinking built around some of the ethical implications embedded in Malinche's life. The mother of the first Mexican, she is the Mother of Mexico. Some Hispanic men call her the "Mexican Eve," the base Indian betrayer of her people, birthing a European Spanish child, Martin. She spoke four dialects and mastered Cortez' Spanish within weeks. Malinche "negotiated" the so-called treaty with a beguiled Montezuma. She translated from Cortez' Spanish into the Aztec [a Mayan linguistic cousin]. 

She trekked behind Cortez and his soldiers as they consolidated the enemies of Montezuma and watched the systematic destruction of the island kingdom of the Aztecs. Cortez brought "Catholic Christianity" to a benighted people. The bloody heart rip-outs stopped. The Ten Commandments took over. Well, sort of. What followed was the mission system that would extend along the California highway that lead to San Juan Capistrano, 21 miles away. 

I will speak my gratitude in broken Spanish. She will fill in the gaps. I won't be looking for Cortez. My eyes will be only on her, thanking her for her brilliance, her perseverance, for her greatness, as the Mother of the beautiful Mexican people.