Uncategorized

Jesu

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I met Jesu 15 years ago. He arrived to worship on a Sunday, and after church – like so many refugees who came to church – he asked me for a Bible to take with him to the small apartment he shared with several other men, also refugees, separated from their families. I gave him a Bible – a King James Version – and then I fretted about it all week, the fact that I’d given him a Bible in archaic language. I understood he’d want to learn to read and to speak English well. He showed up again the next Sunday with the Bible I’d given him in his hands. Jesu had realized quickly my mistake. We traded Bibles that day. This time, I handed him a Revised Standard Version, the better to learn a new language.

I learned that Jesu had had to flee his country overnight after being threatened with death by the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group who was active in Sri Lanka at the time.

My memory of Jesu in the early days of knowing him is that he looked like a deer in the headlights. I am often reminded of what I call the “greater wisdom” of the United Nations to have sent him to such an expensive part of the country. But he adapted well, and quickly, and to becoming a citizen of the United States.

Jesu was a fast learner. And he also worked quickly to bring his wife, Letchumi, and first born daughter to the United States. They arrived some time later. When Simiya stepped off the plane at San Francisco International Airport and walked with her mother to her father, she was surprised. From pictures she’d seen, she had thought that everyone in the United States was white, and there stood her waiting father – as dark-skinned as could be!

Jesu, Letchumi, and Simiya moved into a one bedroom apartment in a neighborhood not far from Lake Merritt United Methodist Church. And from that one bedroom apartment, they have built a new life in their new land. A year later, a second daughter arrived. Letchumi had been surprised when the women of the church gave her a baby shower after worship one day. In her country, the family that was having the child gave the gifts! And so, Saumiya joined the family.

In Sri Lanka, Jesu had been a pastor. He had met Letchumi in the village in which he had his church. In the United States, he is pursuing another path. He has nearly completed his education to receive his license to be a Certified Public Accountant. His elder daughter, Simiya, also attends University to become a CPA. Having been raised so poor, she has her sights on another life for herself. I could see it unfolding in her even before she finished high school. And Jesu and Letchumi see their life now as the stepping stones for the life their daughters will live.

When the new baby girl was still in a car seat, I picked Letchumi up at the apartment one day and drove to the Jamba Juice in my neighborhood in North Oakland. I had spoken to the manager, who I’d come to know, as a regular customer. He agreed to meet Letchumi, to give her a job. While she went to meet with the manager, I walked up and down the sidewalks lining the Safeway parking lot with little Saumiya toddling at my side. And so, Letchumi – who has several degrees from her own country – started at Jamba Juice. That was almost 14 years ago. Since then, Letchumi has become a manager at Jamba Juice. And her beautiful, smart daughter, Simiya, has joined her as a worker at the same store.

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Jesu and I share a birthday – August 2. In the years since he and Letchumi and their daughters have been here, we have celebrated our birthdays together each August. We also gather during the Christmas holidays, when Jesu and his family bring us a complete, generous, home-cooked Sri Lankan meal. As we sit around the table, we catch up on the activities of Jesu and Letchumi and family, we hear about their hard work and studies to make a new life in a new land. Soon, Jesu will have completed the test to receive a CPA license, and he’ll be looking for a firm in which to work. Letchumi sees her daughters’ futures ahead of them, and she and Jesu watch with pride as their daughters make their way successfully in this place.

Jeff and I think of Jesu and Letchumi and their family as part of our extended family. As we talk around the dinner table at holiday time, we talk about the day in the future when we might travel to Sri Lanka to meet the family there. This year, Jeff teased about our getting too old to make such a trip!

Who knows where our paths will lead us? – Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025

reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

At year’s end

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Together, Jeff and I share several traditions. Many years ago – before we were married, I worked as a Camp Counselor at a camp led by the Rev. Lincoln Hartford, who had been my pastor at Kenwood United Methodist Church in Milwaukee. At the end of the week at camp together, Lincoln invited the young people at share a memory – good or bad – of their week together. He asked that each one of the campers share the memory by saying, “I remember,” and then sharing a memory of the time we’d all been together. Whatever the memory – good or bad, happy, sad, confused, upsetting – the response to the memory by all who were gathered was: “and God was with you.” Since then, Jeff and I begin our meal times with the “I remember” prayer, as we invite any guests to participate. I always go first, to demonstrate (!).

This past year, Jeff and started a new tradition. Each night, before we go to sleep, we share with one another something we appreciated about the other one that day. Over the months, Jeff has reminded me – sometimes – that my appreciation was about a meal he’d prepared. (I’m trying to do better when I offer my appreciation each day!)

As long as we’ve been married, another tradition has been part of our ritual as a couple. At year’s end, we name the experiences that stand out to each one of us in the past year. I think Jeff prepares more carefully than I do for the time we sit together in front of the Christmas tree, after Christmas has passed, and share with one another our list of the past year’s events. It’s a good practice, as we recall moments – some good, some not so good – that the last year has held, and as we recall moments that have stayed in memory to be mentioned.

Sometimes the memories are times of travel, and sometimes of particular places we’ve seen. Sometimes the memories are memories of tiny moments that might be unnoticed by the other.

And this year, I want to be more prepared than I sometimes have been, to come to the sharing time in front of the tree, still lit with the lights of Christmas, as the year comes to a close. I’ll have to start early. I’ll use my trusty hand-written calendar, set aside a special page, and make my list. There’s a touch of sadness in me as I think about the closing of this year, as I remember that so many years have passed, so many loved ones have been gone from us for a long time, and as I remember that some things are changing and some things never change – not even as the calendar moves along into another year.

Happy New Year!

Even the neighborhood trees seem to know it’s the end of the year… photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025

memories, nostalgia, remembering

Magic

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I suppose that what I miss most during the holiday season – besides all of those before me who have passed – is the magic. And I suppose the magic has been gone now, for a long, long – long – time.

There was a certain magic to bringing Christmas to the people of a congregation when I was an active Pastor. I loved the liturgical seasons, and I loved to hold onto Advent for as long as I could – a feat that was impossible to the folks who came to church: they wanted Christmas season to begin – they wanted to sing all the old carols we all know by heart – as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes had been cleared away.

“But there’s Advent” – I’d try to win them over – “a liturgical season of its own, and a season that is longer than the Christmas season itself” – to no avail. But I did love the music, the old, old music we love so well. I tried to hold off on the congregation singing the Christmas carols until the four Sundays of Advent had been honored. But no. It didn’t work – not even once.

To me, even the season of waiting – of the Coming of the Child – is as rich as Christmas – call it the Arrival of the Child – itself. The Coming is filled with something: hope, expectation, longing – all tangible, all filled in themselves with a reality that we have all lived at some time in our lives.

The magic captivated – captivates me.

I have a memory of my childhood that is still a mystery to me. It was Christmas Eve, and I was in bed, in the narrow room I shared with my little sister, Suzie. Maybe she was already asleep. My bed was pushed up against the wall with the window. I could hear Mom and Dad in the living room, only a few feet away, shuffling around, making things happen. Like tradition in the Old Country, they were decorating the Christmas tree which Suzie and I would only see in all its glory for the first time on Christmas morning. There was always a layer of ice on the second story window, the cold of Milwaukee’s winter coming through the storm window Daddy had carefully hung in autumn. And on that Christmas Eve, I heard the bells – outside my window. I heard the bells of Christmas! I raised my head from the pillow, looked out into the cold, dark winter night. The only sound I heard then was the rustling of my parents in the next room.

The magic was gone. As quickly as it had arrived – gone.

And I fell asleep then in anticipation of Christmas morning, when, in the old European way, we would open our gifts around the decorated tree, the gifts that had arrived – mysteriously – sometime in the night.

Magic! photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2025, View Place

Uncategorized

Sweet, sad music

Mary Elyn Bahlert

The tree is always beautiful,
the lights – magical, too.
Night comes on soon and stays for the magic.

Sitting close, we look into the branches, deep, 
remembering as we do
            those who are gone –
            now for many years.

Quiet, we hear them whisper 
as the ornaments swish along the needles:
sweet, sad music.


– Mary Elyn Bahlert, December, 2025

O Christmas tree, 12/2025, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert

memories, remembering, Uncategorized

Something’s always missing

Mary Elyn Bahlert

One of the most poignant emotions, to me, is the feeling that something is missing. I expect the feeling is one of loss, or maybe nostalgia. It’s hard to put a finger – a word! – on it, but it’s there, a feeling that sticks to my insides, that doesn’t go away. Something is not quite right.

I think it’s the temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s that betray this time of year, the precious days between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. In Milwaukee, dark blue skies hanging over colorful trees of autumn give way to a bleak gray that marks the coming of the end of the year, of the beginning of months of cold, cloud-covered skies, of cozy homes, of night coming on early.

And I’ve lived in this temperate climate for most of my life, but the longing in me still comes on strong in late fall. After Thanksgiving Day, Jeff and I go out together to a Christmas tree lot to pick out a newly picked tree, take it home and begin the decorating as soon as the tree arrives. We love the lights that light up the early darkness each evening, and I move myself from my study into the living room, as often as possible. The pleasure of this season lasts for such a short time: the intense longing that accompanies the season will give way to the closing of the year. As a pastor, I loved bringing the Christmas story and the Christmas songs to the gathered community, often to a community of folks I did not know well, on Christmas Eve; now, I enjoy the lights and the early dark of the season alone, with Jeff. We seem to bring nostalgia into the house with the Christmas tree we’ve carefully picked out from a local business, always remembering the cold evening of a long ago December when my Dad would take a long time to pick out the best tree in the lot to take home to our cozy flat, carrying the tree up the narrow staircase to the second floor where Mom’s holiday baking filled the air with sweet smells.

All of these memories come to mind, as I sit near the tree. I like to play Christmas music on my iPad – quietly – as background to the moments we cherish now.

Before the end of the year, we’ll sit together in the room with the tree and remember moments of the past year that are highlighted in our memories. Jeff will write a list of what he intends to accomplish in the year ahead. I’ll remember those who are gone now, most for many, many years. It’s that time of year.

Our tree, waiting to be dressed for the holiday!

photo, Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/1/2025