The Pearl Ceremony
As my fiftieth birthday approached, I wanted to break out of this invalid cycle, if only for the day, and do something unique. When I’d turned forty, I’d felt like I hit a milestone—free to be me! At fifty I felt like a survivor, weather-beaten, but centered in faith, hopeful and determined. The word that inspired me now, that lifted me up above my daily grind was “perspective.” I’d seen the best of times and the worst of times and become a seasoned soul.
As I thought about what could make my birthday meaningful, I decided to invite my best friends to join me. Six women had come to be superb buddies as we met for prayer weekly in my home. I knew they would be willing to help make the day special. It had been fifteen years of chronic illness, and I didn’t feel up to going to restaurants or movies with lots of people, so I felt challenged to come up with something new.
For a moment I fell into a daydream remembering the highlights of our group. Ours wasn’t the average prayer group that prays for the sick and suffering in the local church. Our group was organized with a vision and purpose to change our city through love. We called ourselves Servants of Vision and committed to pray for the visions of pastors in our area, believing that God had or would reveal these visions to each of them.
I don’t remember how I came to know each of these women, but we had developed a strong bond as we prayed together for these pastors. Karen was a nurse and member of a local, independent charismatic fellowship. Marie was a hospital chaplain nearing retirement age. Pam was a recent casino executive who had recently found Christ and was choosing a new path. Carol was heavily involved in Aglow, a women’s charismatic fellowship. Chris was a busy volunteer at her non-denominational evangelical fellowship. Sarah was an executive assistant for a local church.
The plan around which our group centered grew out of my time in the Philippines. When I had attended the Lausanne II meetings in the Philippines in 1989, I studied under a world demographer from Norway who inspired me to put together something I called Battlestations, groups of prayer warriors who were intent on seeing their cities come to know the love of God in Jesus Christ. This Norwegian demographer said that Reno, Nevada, was a predictor of trends. What was happening in Reno was a forecaster of what would later happen in the rest of the United States. Being from Reno, this released my imagination. If the Christian church in Reno could cause a noticeable change as a result of bringing people into the love of God in Christ, it could become a model to change the world. Even Billy Graham at one of his Reno crusades had said as much, “If Reno becomes known for salvation, the whole world will be changed.” It was around this hope that our prayer group was organized.
Our basic plan was to identify people involved in the “mind molders” in our city—education, the justice system, business, churches, the family, media and politics. We would pray for these people. Our desire was that God’s grace and power would enable each Christian in each mind molder to share their faith and invite their colleagues and friends to church. Although I was ready to move the vision into reality, Karen stood firm that we must spend time waiting on God in prayer rather than charging ahead to make something happen on our own. She seemed to think that maybe the vision was of God and maybe not. It was hard for me to accept, but I respected Karen’s depth of wisdom drawn from hours in the presence of God in prayer.
One memorable day as we sat in my living room praying out loud for the needs of our city, a profound hush came over us and we barely breathed. We all experienced Jesus standing in our midst, present in all his fullness of love, encouraging us in what we were doing. This was the first time I had been part of a group when such a personal visitation took place and all present were aware of it happening. It was as if we were the musical instruments in God’s orchestra, and the Spirit was animating us. Happenings like this drew us close.
When we finally felt ready to take action in the city, and since I was still associated with Church Resource Ministries, a missionary organization based in southern California, I visited all the local pastors willing to talk to me. That is on my good days. I asked them to a free lunch explaining we would have a special speaker to help churches reach the city for Christ. I invited our Director of Missions in the United States to address them. Then our prayer group got busy making the best lunch we could, renting the club house in my condominium association, and making the setting beautiful. We were heartened to have over twenty pastors attend from a wide variety of Christian backgrounds.
Several pastors were willing to continue meeting on a regular basis. Out of this came a city-wide gathering of thousands meeting at the Lawlor Events Center, the sports stadium at the University of Nevada. When numerous men, women and children came forward to accept Christ or to rededicate themselves, I felt amazed that our small group could catalyze something this significant. I firmly believed in the power of prayer, and this cemented my conviction. Our prayer group felt optimistic that we had made a good start to change our city. We were enthusiastic about continuing, and began planning to involve more prayer groups city wide. It delighted us that we might just be able to change our world as we changed the Reno and Sparks areas.
At the same time, I felt perplexed. What I had envisioned was each church identifying the ten percent within the congregation who had the spiritual gift of evangelism. From my church growth training I knew that ten percent was a good average per church. These ten percent would be trained to reach the mind molders most appropriate to them. As these were successful in bringing new people into the churches, they would share with others and train others who would do the same. Each new individual or family would be invited to list people they knew who might be interested in an invitation to church, and this would repeat in a continual loop as the seventy-five percent of the unchurched in our area found a suitable church family. In other words, I envisioned a slow, steady, continuous growth over many years rather than a high visibility, high cost one-time event. What I envisioned were more and more Christians in the mind molders knowing each other and organizing in their arena so that the slow tide of Christian love would increase integrity, honesty, kindness, consideration and the common good would rise.
I pulled myself back from my reverie to consider my birthday. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to celebrate the lessons learned through the many years of set backs and illness. My long term illness was my irritation, and I longed to transform the dis-ease and unhappiness into something more life giving. As I pondered this challenge, the image of a pearl came to mind. The pearl is formed from a piece of silt that has gotten into the oyster. It causes irritation and the oyster secretes a fluid to cover it up-- voila, a pearl is formed. Could my friends and I make a pearl out of my distress?
I was reading books on women’s rituals, and began to reflect on what might help me with my celebration. My creative juices began to flow. Where sluggishness and stagnation from the illness hung over me, now I began to breathe in a new air, a sense of coming alive again.
First I talked to my husband about buying a pearl necklace. I didn't tell him about giving away my other one. I had placed my good pearl necklace on the altar of our church one New Year’s Eve when I offered my life to God in a kind of Ignatian[1] pledge: “I desire only what is conducive to my soul, not preferring health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, long to short life, ....” That night I felt open-hearted, loving God and desiring only what God wanted for me. The deepest love and most unconditional and continual acceptance of me as a woman and a human being was given to me by Jesus Christ, and my heart overflowed with wanting to return that abundant love.
That New Year’s eve, I was still recovering from my hysterectomy surgery, and even with the ovaries left, I was having hot flashes and mood swings, mainly toward depression. Feeling anxious and concerned some weeks earlier, I followed my heart and spent more time in prayer and reading the scriptures. I was particularly drawn to Philippians 3:10-11, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings…. So when Pastor Melson invited the congregation to come forward and place a token of their commitment of themselves to God on the altar, I was moved to do so. I had a problem though. I had nothing I could place on the altar of my own because I hadn’t brought a purse. The only thing I could give was a strand of beautiful cultured pearls that had been with me since I was 12, a gift from my uncle Jack, my mother’s brother. I hesitated. Nevertheless, my heart was so intensely devoted to God at that time, having known his love for me in a very personal manner, I walked slowly down the isle and laid them on the altar. When I did inquire about the strand some days later, no one knew what had become of it. I missed those pearls.
Don, always wanting to make ends meet and avoid unnecessary expenses, was cautious in his support of the suggested pearl shopping trip, but following his helpful pattern, he opted to give me his support. We went to two or three jewelry shops; I didn’t have energy for more than that, and the necklaces they showed me were all very inferior. The graduated pearl necklaces fell far short. There were no knots between the pearls and the strands wouldn’t hang straight. They looked like they were made without care which made me doubt their quality. They were irregular in nature and didn’t have much of a polish.
Finally I found a string that was gorgeous—eighteen inches long and each pearl a delight to the eye. The pearls were all of one size rather than graduated, but they were beautiful. The price tag opened my eyes wide! I don’t remember exactly how much they cost, but $1,500 seems to stick in my mind. Nevertheless, Don said he’d pay two thirds if I would pick up the rest, and I agreed. Not having many dollars in my personal account--I hadn't worked for years--I hated to take it all for the necklace. At the same time, I was choosing to see each of my trials infused with new light, and the necklace became a numinous symbol of transformation to me. Each pearl represented a particular ordeal from which I learned a wonderful lesson. It was my attempt to integrate what had happened to me and to sweeten the hard times of my life. I was reminded of the time God told Moses to throw wood in the water at Marah to take away its bitterness, a foreshadowing of Christ bringing light into our world.[2]
I thought my friends and I needed to make something together when we met, so, being a bread baker from way back, I decided we would make bread, knead our sorrows into it, the sorrows of our mothers and their sorrows. Each of us had a portion of the recipe—flour, sugar, oil, yeast, salt. We combined the ingredients, tore the dough into seven pieces, one for each of us, and began to knead them. We silently meditated on our intent—to acknowledge and honor the sufferings of the women we were, all the way back in our heritage, and the wisdom and strength that each woman gained through facing and dealing with her trials. Rather than speak our families’ secrets out loud, we quietly meditated on current and ancient sorrows being softened in the dough as we worked it, symbolizing the fermenting of difficulties into something wonderful like a good wine.
After combining our individual pieces into one dough, we divided it in three parts, rolled them into long fingers and braided them into a loaf, all pairs of hands taking turns. We left our creation to rise while we shared. After baking, it would be a wonderful-smelling loaf to have with fresh butter and home made preserves. I smiled to myself as I reflected on what was to come. My whole body felt comforted, and my heart swelled with pleasure as a feeling of belonging and community wrapped me like a soft shawl.
We moved into the living room overlooking Reno and its eastern mountains. I’d placed a wooden rolling pin and seven ribbons on the coffee table for our next experience. We would tie our ribbon on the rolling pin, and tell a story of a great sorrow together with the profound wisdom that arose from it. The rolling pin would act like a "talking stick" in Native American circles. Whoever had the rolling pin would be able to say what she thought as the others listened. The bread would rise and bake as we talked.
None of us had heard each others' stories of hardship and lessons learned. The room was intensely quiet as each woman tied her ribbon on the rolling pin and initiated her narrative. Our love and respect for each other rose like the yeast dough in the dining room, the energy in the room becoming tender and full of mutual affection. Each one entered into the sharing with openness and trust. My heart repeatedly broke and mended as I felt my friends' grief followed by inspiration from the lessons they had learned. A sudden sense of coming of age, of being finally all grown up, of being fully adult settled gently over me as autumn leaves descending on a quiet fall day.
Occasionally we would tend the rising bread and then return to our sharing. When it came time to put it in the oven, and as our intimate time continued, the aroma of fresh baking bread added to the nurturing, healing atmosphere. Only our youngest member in her early thirties hadn’t met with a great trial to share, and this surprised me. Somehow I thought everyone age thirty and up would have a story of grief surmounted. Her contribution was just as wonderful as she shared how our stories touched her.
The story I told was about my long, chronic illness with no basis to believe my health would ever change. With my head down and voice low, heavy with memories, I told of my long, lonely days, many of them in unrelieved pain--the endless days of more of the same. As I turned to the lesson learned, my body shifted and straitened in the chair. I got my breath back, and went on. One winter day my daughter, Kristina, recently released from the Army, breezed into our condo. "Mom, put on a coat. I'm taking you out of here." It was one of my better days. I was up, dressed in hot-pink sweats, and thinking, "Yeah. I'd like to get out of here!" She took me to our Paperback Book Exchange on Vesta off Wells Avenue. As she browsed in science fiction, I rambled to the back of the store and the Christian used paperbacks. One in particular caught my eye, The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton. Intrigued by the title, I bought it. As I read about this twentieth century Trappist monk and his spiritual journey, and later other books of his, I was led to a monastic quote, "Stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."
As if God were speaking directly to me, I understood that if I would see my illness as my monastic cell, choose to live in it with openness to the Spirit, God would teach me everything. This illness could not hold me back in anyway from becoming the person I was meant to be. I loved the scripture from Philippians 1:6, "...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Suddenly my prison doors of illness flung open and my mind and spirit were released to live fully in the midst of uncertainty. Meaning and purpose flooded my soul, and I was gloriously free even though nothing had changed. My face glowed with joy and determination as I finished. My friends smiled encouragingly, eyes shining with unshed tears.
The story I told was about my long, chronic illness with no basis to believe my health would ever change. With my head down and voice low, heavy with memories, I told of my long, lonely days, many of them in unrelieved pain--the endless days of more of the same. As I turned to the lesson learned, my body shifted and straitened in the chair. I got my breath back, and went on. One winter day my daughter, Kristina, recently released from the Army, breezed into our condo. "Mom, put on a coat. I'm taking you out of here." It was one of my better days. I was up, dressed in hot-pink sweats, and thinking, "Yeah. I'd like to get out of here!" She took me to our Paperback Book Exchange on Vesta off Wells Avenue. As she browsed in science fiction, I rambled to the back of the store and the Christian used paperbacks. One in particular caught my eye, The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton. Intrigued by the title, I bought it. As I read about this twentieth century Trappist monk and his spiritual journey, and later other books of his, I was led to a monastic quote, "Stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."
As if God were speaking directly to me, I understood that if I would see my illness as my monastic cell, choose to live in it with openness to the Spirit, God would teach me everything. This illness could not hold me back in anyway from becoming the person I was meant to be. I loved the scripture from Philippians 1:6, "...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Suddenly my prison doors of illness flung open and my mind and spirit were released to live fully in the midst of uncertainty. Meaning and purpose flooded my soul, and I was gloriously free even though nothing had changed. My face glowed with joy and determination as I finished. My friends smiled encouragingly, eyes shining with unshed tears.
When all the ribbons had been tied on the rolling pin, all the stories shared, and the room was brimming with healing and support, the timer dinged. The bread was finished. We took it out of the oven, chatted sociably, so different from our serious exchanges, and let it cool enough to slice. Fresh creamery butter and homemade strawberry preserves were ready to spread. We each helped ourselves and returned to the living room to wrap up. Each of us was beaming and pink cheeked from the wonderful love and life given to each of us by each other. Truly our sorrows and been turned into dancing in this simple celebration. Then, grinning, the other women presented me with a small gift box nicely wrapped. In it was a pair of pearl earrings, simple studs, to match the necklace. Such a feeling of sweet gratitude engulfed me, I was so honored to receive their present.
As I stood facing them, wearing the lovely necklace and beautiful earrings, I felt the richness of the day, the wonder and depth of sharing life’s hard lessons and declaring that great good was harvested in spite of temporary devastation. My sense of invalidism was replaced with an inner feeling of strength. In that moment I felt able to stand in the face of any difficulty. It was their love, support and understanding, together with all our sorrows and gleanings shared, that in some mysterious way had transformed my loneliness as a chronic invalid into one of the most stunning days of my life.
