I am surrounded by holy places: shelves that hold cards, small enough to carry in my wallet, a picture of a saint on one side, the prayer of the saint on the other. On the window sill next to my bed is a rosary, gifted to me by a friend, a found rosary she discovered in a second hand store. On the walls of my little study are holy pictures: Mother Mary, holding a child, a copy of a painting created by a dear friend. A favorite: Mary, the Untier of Knots. I keep several of her in my kitchen drawer these days, to send them as gifts: to a friend who is undergoing treatment for cancer, to my cousin Rudy and his wife, Mary, who say the rosary together every day. On a ledge close to the ceiling of my living room, Guadalupe looks down on me and Jeff as we sit together in the morning, sipping our first cups of coffee. Sometimes as I empty out my desk, I find other saints; I find a stone given to me by a friend, I find a few words on a worn, ragged piece of paper – words of a poem: “I love Jesus, who said…” On my shelf above the bathroom sink lies a small cross, decorated with red glass, a gift from a friend who I see so seldom now. Like my rows of books of poetry, each of these items, some I have carried with me for many, many years, is a prayer said for me, spoken silently or not at all, a prayer on my behalf.
In the fall of 1990, Jeff and I traveled to Guatemala to meet for the first time a baby girl, Anali, whose mother had given her up for adoption, unable to care for her baby girl herself. Many women living in poverty in Guatemala had taken the same path with and for their children.
We returned home and waited until the proper paperwork was complete. Every day in our home in Tracy, I worked along with Jeff in the church we pastored together, and I told the story again and again of our meeting little Anali to curious folks in the congregation. They were waiting, it seemed, along with us.
And so we met the attorney who would facilitate the adoption of Anali – and many, many other children. We spent Thanksgiving that year around the dining table with other prospective parents – mothers-to-be from the United States, also in the country to meet their adoptive children
And every morning, as soon as I arose, I carried with me in my mind the baby girl we had met. We prepared a room for her in the big parsonage, and we told our friends the story of our meeting.
One day, we received a phone call from Guatemala with the news that little Anali’s birth mother – her mother – had decided to not give her baby up for adoption, that she had reclaimed her child. At the time, Jeff and I didn’t seem to have time to process the grief we felt. We set about completing forms again to receive a child. This time, we didn’t travel to meet the baby again. We waited at home for the news that our baby was ready to come with us to the United States.
A second time, the baby’s birth mother reclaimed her child, and so we took new adoption papers to the courthouse in Stockton. The day I drove to Stockton to deliver the papers, I felt as if I held a heavy weight in my arms. A woman from the congregation – whose adult son had disappeared many years before – kindly rode with me as I traveled to complete the transfer of papers – again.
After we received news that the third baby girl was not coming, I did not carry another heavy load of papers to the Courthouse in Stockton, and when Jeff and I announced to the congregation that we would be leaving that spring, the woman who had ridden with me to Stockton – came up to me, grief in her eyes, and said: “I can understand wanting to leave a place where something bad has happened to you.”
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I remember distinctly the morning after we had received the news that little Analie’s mother had reclaimed her child. As soon as I rose from bed, and as I prepared for the day, a thought came to my mind, a thought I’d held for the months since we’d met the beautiful baby girl we’d awaited. “Little, little, little, little, little Analie,” I repeated to myself. And on that morning, when I began to recite the lovely refrain, I stopped, noticing my thoughts. Usually, I followed the refrain with images of the two of us as we grew together. I reminded myself that little Analie would not be coming to live with us. That was that.
Little Anali and me, 1990, Guatemala City, Guatemala
At the Center Street Library Larry Bartis and I Strained our necks To read the titles on the row of books At the top.
“A Man’s Journey,” Larry said. “Rising to the Moment,” I read. “At the End,” he whispered.
As each book introduced itself to us We giggled, louder and louder: Gleeful, happy, Shoulder to shoulder – I felt joy in my whole body And shyly looked at the laughing boy:
I love the diversity of the Bay Area, where I’ve lived for over half my life. As I walk on the busy shopping street in my neighborhood, I’m happy when I hear languages spoken by the people who pass me on the street. As I walk past the store fronts that line the street, most of the languages I hear I can’t identify. All the better!
For many years, I said, from time to time, that in the Midwest, the weather was more interesting – and more rugged, of course! – than the Bay Area of California. But the people were more interesting in the Bay Area. They still are, to me.
As a pastor in downtown Oakland, I was enlivened by the diversity of folks who arrived to worship with us – folks who brought their diverse backgrounds, languages, music, dress, and all the gifts of another culture – to the mostly white congregation that had chosen to stay in Oakland when there were other choices they could have made. I loved the heart of that place, where in years past the people had decided to cast their lot in the city, a city with its share of problems, of poverty, of violence. I loved them for choosing to stay in Oakland.
Today was Pentecost Sunday, and I had the honor of preaching for an anniversary celebration at Oakland Chinese Community United Methodist Church in Chinatown, Oakland. I read my sermon in English, paragraph by paragraph, and the Pastor of the congregation followed each paragraph with a Cantonese translation. The two of us, each speaking our own language, brought to mind the myriad of languages that were spoken when the disciples left the Upper Room and became apostles who went out to tell others about what they knew of God, and of Jesus. “Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?” (Acts 2:1-8).
Jeff accompanied me to the celebration, and we were the only white people in worship. Many times here in the Bay Area, we are minorities – seldom in other places, or in Wisconsin, our birthplace. As we said the Lord’s Prayer in English, I listened for the voices of most of the others, praying in Cantonese, at the same time. A young man who had been raised in China read his statement of faith to the congregation, recounting how he had found his way to the Church, followed by the Pastor translating into English; then, he was baptized. A holy moment.
Diversity has its problems, to be sure. But it’s good to be in a place where people who are different are not afraid, where folks can speak in their own language as they shop or as they walk down the street, and be safe. That’s not true in many places in the United States now, or in so many other places.
As we walked to our car after worship and after receiving the generous meal we all shared together in the fellowship hall, Jeff and I stopped to wait at a corner for the light to change, across from a Buddhist Temple that brings the Holy to those others who do not worship as we do. I’m grateful that they are here.
We crossed the street and drove home to our little house on a quiet street in another part of the city.
In St. Mary’s Cemetery, Oakland. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 4/2024
Our mothers have passed, many years ago, now, but we remember that for many others, this day of honoring mothers is being celebrated. For Jeff and for me, though, it’s another Sunday when neither of us has the work of the Church on our minds, a Sunday all to ourselves, a Sunday to fill with moments that belong to us alone.
And so we get up early – as we do every day – and our early morning is filled with getting ready for the day, like any other morning. And then, we drive to Martinez, to walk along the Carquinez Strait, a series of walking paths along the Strait, with its view of the hills and the water. Other faithful folks walk on Sunday mornings, also, and most are friendly, passing with a smile and a few kind words.
The paths are level, the hills are in the distance, green, turning now to brown again after a winter with a lot of rain. As we walk, we see a ship, returning from the Pacific, coming through the strait. When I see a ship, I’m reminded that I’m not in Wisconsin anymore, haven’t been, for over half my life.
We pass the ruins of a shipwreck from the last century, and read again the plaque with its story, its history of how it ended up deserted, sometimes hidden by the tide when we walk past. Today was lovely, a wind gliding past us, making the air a bit cool until the sunlight got the best of the temperature and we were warm.
The remains of a shipwreck, stranded here for the last century, Martinez, California
Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 5/2024
We’ve walked at the Slough many times over the past four years. In the early months of Covid-Time (a season of its own in our lives), we felt strongly the freedom of Sunday mornings – mornings without churches to go to, mornings without sermons to deliver – and we set out to walk in some place outside our own very walkable neighborhood in Oakland. We walked through almost twenty neighborhoods in San Francisco over the course of many months. We walked along the Bay in Oakland, where we discovered a new development right on the water – Brooklyn Basin. We walked at the sea shore in Half Moon Bay, looking down on the Pacific from a high path. Usually, when the walk had ended, we’d find a cafe to sit outside, to continue our luxurious Sunday morning, to have a cup of coffee, before getting back into the car to return home.
When our friend Joanne arrived from Wisconsin to stay with us for a few days last winter, I took her to the Martinez Strait to enjoy the paths there.
We loved the paths and the breeze we discovered at Martinez, and we have returned there again and again, now that life is back to a “new normal” after the ravages of Covid-Time. Often after our walk, we drive closer to downtown where the main street is bustling with a Sunday morning Farmers’ Market. We leave with a couple of bags of fresh vegetables to enjoy the rest of the week.
Along the path, along the slough…
Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, Martinez Slough, 5/12/2024
