Memories of my maternal grandmother (Grammy) occasionally flood my mind. The consummate storyteller, she seemed most animated when she was center stage. Although she didn’t go any further than the 3rd grade, Grammy memorized a wide variety of poems: from Longfellow’s “The Landlord’s Tale; Paul Revere’s Ride” and Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” to poems by the American poet, James Whitcomb Riley.
“The Raggedy Man” was one of my favorite poems by Riley probably because Grammy loved it…and I loved her. I even memorized parts of it for a high school speech competition. Grammy seemed to connect with Riley’s active imagination about the supernatural. In this particular poem, the raggedy man (a poor man who hires out to a farmer) befriends the farmer’s son who is telling the story. Here’s a small part of it:
An’ the Raggedy Man, he knows most rhymes,
An’ tells ‘em, ef I be good, sometimes:
Knows ‘bout Giunts an’ Griffins, an’ Elves,
An’ the Squidgicum-Squees ‘at swallers ther’selves,
An’, rite by the pump in our pasture-lot,
He showed me the hole ‘at the Wunks is got,
‘At lives ‘way deep in the ground, an’ can
Turn into me, er ‘Lizabeth Ann!
Er Ma, er Pa, er The Raggedy Man!
She was fascinated with European-style gypsies. Sometimes she would dress like them, billowy blouse, abundant skirt, barefoot, anklets and bracelets and rings and necklaces, topped off with a boldly printed headscarf. She’d become very dramatic, swirling around, hovering over her crystal ball, and cornering the closest person so she could read their palms. She served hot tea but, in retrospect, she may have only served it because it gave her a chance to read her guests’ fortunes in the tea leaves. (That was long before tea bags of course.)
She was definitely what you would call a person of interest, especially during Halloween. To the oldest child of her only surviving daughter, namely me, she was enormously entertaining. So I readily accepted her attentions when she decided to teach me the art of fortune telling. Although I never got the hang of reading tea leaves, I did palm reading a lot, and took seriously all of the chants and good luck charms that she passed long. Neither of my parents were Christians at the time, so my dabbling into the occult did not concern them much. It would later, but not then.
Grammy’s lessons took me into the darkest days of my life. It was a life ruled by fear and by rules, and I never wanted to break the rules. Simple superstitious sayings tormented me. So, “Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back” dictated where I walked. A black cat crossing my path, a broken mirror, opening an umbrella inside the house, taking a short cut by walking under a ladder – violating the rules, even unintentionally, set off emotional alarms inside me. “Knock on wood.” “Throw salt over your shoulder.” If I didn’t knock on wood or remember which shoulder, guilt and shame haunted me. I would quickly find some wood or salt and do it the right way. Parental illnesses left me feeling that their sicknesses were somehow my fault. Family financial misfortunes? It must be because I had miss-stepped or had forgotten to carry my lucky rabbit’s foot? I just had to perform better!
I remember sitting in the grass for hours trying to find a four-leaf clover because, as Grammy had promised, we were guaranteed good luck if I found one. As far as an awareness of God, I knew He was there, but He fit into the same category as the spirit world – do the right thing, make NO mistakes, or suffer the consequences from angry beings. When I was about 8 years old, knowing that I was very imperfect and feeling that God would have no choice but to take my life as punishment, I bargained with Him. If He would just let me live 5 more years, I vowed I would obey all the rules and do everything exactly right.
There is one lasting memory that I still see clearly. My grandparents’ bedroom door was closed but I pushed it open one evening. Curtains drawn. No lights. A table with a candle in the middle with Grammy and several others seated around it, leaning forward towards the flame, holding hands, mumbling or humming or something like that. “What are you doing,” I asked. She replied, “I’m trying to contact my dead brother.” My mother walked in behind me at that moment and whisked me out of the room.
When I was around 11 years old, my mother told me to accompany her to our back yard. She wanted me to be present when she made a bonfire to burn some things. There, to my horror, I watched as she burned her Ouiji Board and tarot cards. (Yes, she had been involved too.) I was terrified! Destroying such items was sure to bring bad luck to our family. How would I ever be able to follow the rules perfectly enough to overcome that?!
However, Mom carefully and thoroughly explained that she had recently accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Savior, and those things could not be part of her life as a Christian. That using them was a sin, that it was an offense against God’s love, that any messages given in that way were not the truth – they were lies. So we would not longer be consulting Ouiji Boards, or the cards, or carrying 4 leaf clovers or anything else. Really?! I had no grid to sift that truth through because I was not a Christian yet. It would be a couple more years before all of that absorbed into my spirit. For now, I was frightened.
Watching the bonfire consume the only way I knew to live life, and after many more times of talking with my now Christian parents, a small crack in my fears began to open up. It became obvious that I had to grasp what it meant to be a child of God. And when I did…WOW! What a huge paradigm shift in my thinking and acting when I realized that I didn’t need to follow superstitious rules, that there was nothing I could do to earn a place in God’s family. It was His gift to me. My repentance and acceptance of that truth was liberating beyond words. I could depend on Christ alone and He would be my strength and guide, that He was, is and will be…all…I…needed. How amazing was that!
What my grandmother passed to my mother – who allowed it (and helped it) to be passed on to me – stopped with me. It’s with deepest praise that I thank the Lord who, in His great mercy, rescued me. I am very comforted in knowing that, because of the transformational work that He orchestrated in my heart, I was not the conduit for those occultic practices to continue on to the generations that have followed me.
As you would conclude, I don’t practice any of those fearful things that pressured me to live a performance-driven life. Yes, I am still aware of the black cat coming my way and the cracks in the sidewalk as I walk along, etc., but I am free from the bondage and spiritual darkness that such practices held over me. Praise the Lord, the fear is gone!
What I could never have imagined was that God was going to use those dark days as a way to minister to women in the Third World. In the beginning years of doing women’s conferences overseas, I did not include that part in my testimony. But once I did, it resonated so much that I have never left it out. In their world, dominated by witchcraft, demon possession, the occult and evil spirits, they were amazed that a “white woman in a Christian country like America” would struggle with some of the same things.
To that I say, “Who knew?!” Indeed, who knew that God could transform such bad things into something for His honor and glory? As J.L. teaches, “No matter what’s in your past, God can always wrap His arms around it and use it to minister grace to others.”
And so I echo King David’s words in Psalm 18:17-19 – “He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.” For that undeserved gift of grace, I will always be…
Most profoundly grateful!
Patt
Patt and J.L. live in Burlington, NC, have 4 married children and 12 grandchildren. She is almost semi-retired and so has a much lighter travel schedule with J.L. She still enjoys corresponding with national partners, speaking to women's groups, being with their extended family and perfect grandchildren, reading and eating dark chocolate.
