The Lord Always Before Me: Lavinda's Christmas Letter
Stories
Lectionary Tales For The Pulpit
62 Stories For Cycle B
Christmas, 1979
Dear Ones:
From May 7 until June 11, 1979, it was my pleasure to spend 35 days travelling and visiting in the northwest United States, using a Greyhound Ameripass. So many events with inspirational implications happened that the desire to share some of them with you results in this letter.
The bus moved effortlessly across the rolling hills of Minnesota, onto the seemingly neverending plains of South Dakota, until we reached the southwest corner of the Black Hills. Leaving Rapid City at twilight, we rode for miles through an unroofed tunnel flanked on each side with rows of the dark pines pointing toward the sky with their tops like church spires. I couldn't help but sing the words of Henry Van Dyke's beautiful hymn in my head:
All thy works with joy surround thee,
Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays;
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain
Flowery meadows, flashing sea;
Chanting birds and flowing fountain,
Call us to rejoice in Thee.
As the darkness deepened, snatches of a sky sprinkled with stars, as mentioned in the song, could be caught by looking through the upper part of the bus window.
Two days later, we travelled over a highway arched over by the branches of trees with a ceiling of leaves. These were Van Dyke's forest. As the bus followed the highway skirting the Idaho Rocky Mountains, we glimpsed, between the mountain peaks, the valleys below, with small fields of hay and grain - land which has been reclaimed through irrigation, and which also fit the hymn.
The flowery meadows we found in British Columbia, where the apple orchards were in full bloom. One could picture these same branches laden with ripened fruit in the fall. A visit to Kootenay Park gave us an imaginary "flashing sea." A river flowing swiftly down a low gorge was tunneled through a large tile. The water pulsed and protested as it plunged through the tile to tumble out the other side and fall with a noisy splash into the deeper gorge, which had been worn away by the force of the constantly flowing water.
Van Dyke's flowing fountains came to us in the form of the large, circular watering devices which shot high spouts of irrigation water into the air to water the farm lands. The water had come from the cooled and condensed steam from the hot springs which lie in the area near Twin Falls, Idaho.
Everywhere I went I encountered God's helpers who went beyond the call of duty to help me, proving that "Father love is reigning o'er us, Brother love binds man to man." There was the bus driver who directed me to a hotel in Mankato, Minnesota. And when I had registered at the Downtown Inn, another resident volunteered to take my suitcase and show me to my room. There was the ticket agent in Spokane, Washington, who, after he had asked if I was interested in luxury, or comfort and cleanliness, directed me to a hotel a block from the bus station. Here I had the least expensive night's lodging of the entire trip when using commercial accommodations. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, the ticket agent had not been of the same helpful disposition, so I went hunting alone. However, I met a young man who was from New York City and, when I asked him to help me, he walked with me to a nearby hotel. The next day this kind stranger treated me to a Mother's Day lunch in the hotel dining room. He told me I reminded him of his mother. I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't a mother.
But the "second miler" who surpassed them all was in Kansas City, Missouri. It was about ten o'clock at night of the day that my Ameripass ticket was due to run out. I had to change bus stations from Trailways to Greyhound. I stood at the curb to hail a cab when a man came rushing out of the station, looked at me and asked if I wanted a cab. When one came, he told the cab driver that he wanted to go to a beer parlor on the west side, but that he was to take me to the Greyhound bus station first. He put me in the back seat and then sat with the driver in the front. At the Greyhound station he told the driver to wait and, not giving me time to do anything about paying for my fare, he took my suitcase and headed into the station. I followed all the way to the ticket counter, where he put my suitcase down. I said, "God bless you for your kindness." He put an arm around my shoulder, kissed me on the cheek and whispered, "Take good care of yourself," and was gone.
I hope something in my account of this trip has brought you joy. May this joy, combined with the joys which this season represents, be a time of special blessings which will continue and carry through the year of 1980.
Laurinda
____________
Author's note:
Laurinda Hampton was a retired United Methodist missionary. She was a teacher, and then an administrator, at The Harwood School for Girls in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until her retirement in 1969. Prior to her missionary work, she taught history and served as a librarian in Wauwatosa and Lancaster, Wisconsin, high schools. Miss Hampton was a member of Cargill United Methodist Church and a resident of Cedar Crest Retirement Community in Janesville, Wisconsin, at the time of her death on Memorial Day, 1989, at the age of 86. For many of her friends and students Laurinda Hampton embodied the love of Christ. Her gentle and powerful life-changing witness touched the hearts of many and will long be remembered in all of the communities where she lived and served.
Our thanks to her niece, Virginia McCartney, of Mount Hope, Wisconsin, for permission to share her story.
Dear Ones:
From May 7 until June 11, 1979, it was my pleasure to spend 35 days travelling and visiting in the northwest United States, using a Greyhound Ameripass. So many events with inspirational implications happened that the desire to share some of them with you results in this letter.
The bus moved effortlessly across the rolling hills of Minnesota, onto the seemingly neverending plains of South Dakota, until we reached the southwest corner of the Black Hills. Leaving Rapid City at twilight, we rode for miles through an unroofed tunnel flanked on each side with rows of the dark pines pointing toward the sky with their tops like church spires. I couldn't help but sing the words of Henry Van Dyke's beautiful hymn in my head:
All thy works with joy surround thee,
Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays;
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain
Flowery meadows, flashing sea;
Chanting birds and flowing fountain,
Call us to rejoice in Thee.
As the darkness deepened, snatches of a sky sprinkled with stars, as mentioned in the song, could be caught by looking through the upper part of the bus window.
Two days later, we travelled over a highway arched over by the branches of trees with a ceiling of leaves. These were Van Dyke's forest. As the bus followed the highway skirting the Idaho Rocky Mountains, we glimpsed, between the mountain peaks, the valleys below, with small fields of hay and grain - land which has been reclaimed through irrigation, and which also fit the hymn.
The flowery meadows we found in British Columbia, where the apple orchards were in full bloom. One could picture these same branches laden with ripened fruit in the fall. A visit to Kootenay Park gave us an imaginary "flashing sea." A river flowing swiftly down a low gorge was tunneled through a large tile. The water pulsed and protested as it plunged through the tile to tumble out the other side and fall with a noisy splash into the deeper gorge, which had been worn away by the force of the constantly flowing water.
Van Dyke's flowing fountains came to us in the form of the large, circular watering devices which shot high spouts of irrigation water into the air to water the farm lands. The water had come from the cooled and condensed steam from the hot springs which lie in the area near Twin Falls, Idaho.
Everywhere I went I encountered God's helpers who went beyond the call of duty to help me, proving that "Father love is reigning o'er us, Brother love binds man to man." There was the bus driver who directed me to a hotel in Mankato, Minnesota. And when I had registered at the Downtown Inn, another resident volunteered to take my suitcase and show me to my room. There was the ticket agent in Spokane, Washington, who, after he had asked if I was interested in luxury, or comfort and cleanliness, directed me to a hotel a block from the bus station. Here I had the least expensive night's lodging of the entire trip when using commercial accommodations. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, the ticket agent had not been of the same helpful disposition, so I went hunting alone. However, I met a young man who was from New York City and, when I asked him to help me, he walked with me to a nearby hotel. The next day this kind stranger treated me to a Mother's Day lunch in the hotel dining room. He told me I reminded him of his mother. I didn't have the heart to tell him I wasn't a mother.
But the "second miler" who surpassed them all was in Kansas City, Missouri. It was about ten o'clock at night of the day that my Ameripass ticket was due to run out. I had to change bus stations from Trailways to Greyhound. I stood at the curb to hail a cab when a man came rushing out of the station, looked at me and asked if I wanted a cab. When one came, he told the cab driver that he wanted to go to a beer parlor on the west side, but that he was to take me to the Greyhound bus station first. He put me in the back seat and then sat with the driver in the front. At the Greyhound station he told the driver to wait and, not giving me time to do anything about paying for my fare, he took my suitcase and headed into the station. I followed all the way to the ticket counter, where he put my suitcase down. I said, "God bless you for your kindness." He put an arm around my shoulder, kissed me on the cheek and whispered, "Take good care of yourself," and was gone.
I hope something in my account of this trip has brought you joy. May this joy, combined with the joys which this season represents, be a time of special blessings which will continue and carry through the year of 1980.
Laurinda
____________
Author's note:
Laurinda Hampton was a retired United Methodist missionary. She was a teacher, and then an administrator, at The Harwood School for Girls in Albuquerque, New Mexico, until her retirement in 1969. Prior to her missionary work, she taught history and served as a librarian in Wauwatosa and Lancaster, Wisconsin, high schools. Miss Hampton was a member of Cargill United Methodist Church and a resident of Cedar Crest Retirement Community in Janesville, Wisconsin, at the time of her death on Memorial Day, 1989, at the age of 86. For many of her friends and students Laurinda Hampton embodied the love of Christ. Her gentle and powerful life-changing witness touched the hearts of many and will long be remembered in all of the communities where she lived and served.
Our thanks to her niece, Virginia McCartney, of Mount Hope, Wisconsin, for permission to share her story.
