I loved Lillie-Mae. She was my second mother and owned a very special place in my psyche. She made the best liver and onions in the world. When we talked, she would look at my face, her eyes going deep, trading her intelligence with mine. She must have understood how eyes speak to each other.
She nursed me through measles, back before there was a vaccine, piling the covers deep and waiting for the sweat. Months later, spying the forbidden gloss on my mouth, she handed me a Kleenex and warned me to “take off that color before your Aunt Judy gets home.” I could tell her anything and could trust her to keep my secret.
It was Lillie-Mae who advised Aunt Judy it was time to buy me a training bra, when new and tender nipples responded to all that starch in my blouses. I’m remembering a time when she loved me well enough to iron pretty ruffled blouses for me to wear, so I could head for school, all that starch and cotton announcing to the world, ‘Somebody loves this girl. Pay attention to her. No matter what you think, she is worth something.’
It’s no wonder that world wobbled when one day Aunt Judy announced, “Lillie–Mae says you think you are better than she is.”
“But I’m not,” I squawked. “I’ve never said anything like that. It’s not true.”
Judy explained that it was because of my attitude toward her. “She can tell from the way you talk to her, as if you know more that she does.”
Lillie-Mae doesn’t love me anymore, was all I could think. I must be a monster. I never asked Lillie-Mae what made her decide I wasn’t her sweet girl any more. It was too much to face. I just kind of hid inside myself and waited—for what I don’t know. When would it be safe to come out and ask what I had done that was wrong?
In 2012 Cincinnati I attended a meeting designed to heal racial differences. It seemed simple, merely a scholarly update, especially for me, a person who loved black people just on principle, having so adored the Lillie-Mae of my youth.
The meeting leader announced that all white people are racist. When I corrected her, she insisted that just because I loved my childhood nanny and liked “The Help,” I wasn’t pure of heart. She said that I appreciated that movie because it reminded me of my days of privilege as a daughter of the south. I walked out of the meeting—seething. So much pain! How could—how can—we live with it all?
In 2019 my Episcopal church worldwide began a year-long journey of addressing our country’s original sin—slavery. They named the journey ‘Beloved Community.’ I find myself asking some new and difficult questions: If our congregation becomes truly diverse, how much will we have to change? Can I enjoy worship in a style different from what I have always treasured? Why does it seem that I like black people as long as they behave as if they were white? Does that make me a racist? Our country has elected a black president—twice. My votes helped. The Anglican Communion has chosen a black leader, the Most Reverend Michael B. Curry, and I—I must face my Lillie-Mae quandary.
Somewhere in that place where loved ones wait silently upon the wind, Lillie-Mae wonders when I’ll say, ‘I’m sorry.’ She has a big hug waiting—one shaped just for me. We are sure to share a good talk, and an even better listen. Maybe I’ll finally be a big enough girl to hear her own dear story, and give her the hug she has earned, and waited through both our lifetimes to wrap her arms around.
In October I told my Lillie Mae story to the ‘Sacred Grounds’ group at our first Beloved Community meeting. The man who led our group, a Xavier professor, cautioned me to not make it personal. He said it was systemic—institutional. I didn’t know what to think or feel, or even if I could take another meeting on those terms. If it’s about love, how can it not be personal?
When I later asked Redeemer’s Minister of Communications to help me unpack this conundrum she responded, “I don’t think any of us can go down this path towards reconciliation and redemption alone, and yet, of course, it is personal. Both/and. We can’t avoid how our lives have influenced our very beings. And yet, perhaps what Adam meant was a kindness. Maybe he wanted to reassure you that the problem ultimately lies in the system and that together we can begin to address that system. But there is no way to avoid the pain and the guilt and the bewilderment we will feel along the way. Stick with us, Dorothy, it is going to be really hard, but we will all need each other to find our way to the other side.”
Yes it is hard, but worth turning our insides out and asking some soul questions. The answers may put each and every one of us on Sacred Ground—together.
morethanenoughtruth 