POST THANKSGIVING – BLESSINGS, NAMASTE, AND INTERACTIVE PREACHING…

St. Mary's chapel, Sewanee, TN

Following Thanksgiving, several friends of ours who attend the chapel at St. Mary’s Convent, Sewanee, where we worship when we’re in Tennessee, wrote to us about their part in an interactive Thanksgiving service at the convent. Although the liturgy at the convent usually follows the conventional Anglican way, every once in awhile, the Sisters jolt us out of our “sacred cowness” with an alternative method of involvement; i.e., the interactive sermon.

Friends at Sewanee reported that the Sisters led off with expressions of thanksgiving for various blessings in their lives, then asked others in the congregation to stand and declare their thanksgivings. I understand that this was a cleansing, as well as a praise time for congregants. Although we “frozen chosen” aren’t a testimonial type group, sometimes we’re melted down by the Sisters’ departure from “ritual as usual.” Actually, the interactive sermon is not a new thing and harks back to passages in the first book of Corinthians when people stood up and shared a part of the worship service, as well as expressed transformative spiritual revelations they had experienced.

I remember attending an interactive sermon church in Washington, D.C. a few years ago. The experience sorta’ scared me because people came up to an open mike and critiqued the sermon, which I don’t think is the real purpose of interactive sermons – the purpose is to lead congregants to this sacred place where they meet God. When I preach at Grace Fellowship Church at Sewanee, a very small interdenominational church in the woods near St. Mary’s Convent, discussion always follows my homily, which is a form of interactive preaching and is nearer to educative preaching than inspirational preaching. However, the expressions of this small group are always heartfelt and affirming of whatever message I deliver.

I was touched by the report of the thanksgivings that were said at the St. Mary Thanksgiving service, and the reports sent me scurrying to my shelf of books about blessings which are said not only on Thanksgiving but, in the Celtic tradition, are expressed all year long. The blessing is “a direct address, driven by immediacy and care,” John O’Donohue writes in To Bless the Space Between Us, a book that contains blessings which help us look at “blessing” as a way of life and as a means of transforming a broken world. O’Donohue refers to blessing as a “huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.”

St. Mary's Convent chapel icons

The Namaste, a gesture of blessing when we pass “The Peace” at St. Mary’s, is such a strong influence we found ourselves responding with it to others at The Church of Epiphany here in New Iberia, Louisiana during the Peace this past Sunday. The Namaste, is performed by slightly bowing and pressing hands together, palms touching and fingers pointed upwards in front of the chest. The Sisters of St. Mary usually perform it without speaking.

Namaste, commonly performed in India, is a respectful greeting and means “The spirit in me respects the spirit in you,” or “the divinity in me bows to the divinity in you.” The gesture first appeared 4000 years ago on clay seals of the Indus Valley Civilization. It’s another non-traditional expression carried out by the Sisters which we’ve adopted and that may have startled those around us when we used it at the Peace during the New Iberia service. However, it’s one that has become involuntary after four years of our attending the convent church at Sewanee. The Namaste is a reverential salutation that could stand a bit of use in and out of church in our own country.

We hope that you expressed thanksgivings for all your providences this Thanksgiving and, as O’Donohue says, “May we all receive blessing upon blessing. And may we realize our power to bless, heal, and renew one another.”

RETURN OF THE KAJUN KWEEN

Now in Kindle format

Petite Marie Melancon of The Kajun Kween fame has been waiting in the wings for several years, and today she went into press again as a Young Adult book of fiction on Kindle. Thanksgiving seems to be a good holiday to recognize Petite for her heroic antics in deepest south Louisiana as the heroine of Kurrent Komics, a fictitious New York comic book publication.

Petite Marie Melancon appeared in print in 2003 as a publication of Border Press and decided this year to join the world of electronic publishing, having seen some of her sister YA books enjoying popularity on Kindle – Flood on the Rio Teche, Martin Finds His Totem, and other titles published by BP.

A thirteen-year old who is extremely tall for any age (6’2”), Petite is self-conscious about her height but decides to interview for a New York City publisher anyway. She beats out other jolie catins (baby dolls) in a race to provide true adventures about French Louisiana for the comic strip, “Kajun Kween.”

This adventuresome enfant terrible hasn’t bargained for encounters with a mother alligator protecting her egg nest, a giant snapping turtle, or for a visit from a loup garou during a late-night adventure poling alone in her pirogue in a swamp. During her adventures, a potbelly pig drops from a tornado into her pasture and becomes her companion. Romance enters her life when she competes in a hot pepper eating contest and a gumbo cook-off in New Iberia, Louisiana, and Henri becomes her prince consort as she enjoys the simple life on a Louisiana chenier. Petite fnally realizes that her height is not such a disadvantage and that acts of courage do not always mean heroics.

For those readers who prefer their books via Kindle, Petite wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving as you follow her unusual adventures in bayou country.

The winsome cover illustration is by Paul Schexnayder, New Iberia, Louisiana artist, whose drawings and paintings have been internationally recognized. We regret that the interior illustrations cannot be used in ebook format. Soft-cover editions of this YA book can be ordered from www.borderpressbooks.com.

HONORING A BOTANIST

Most people who know Dr.Victoria Sullivan (otherwise known as Vickie) recognize that she is a gifted person in many fields, and it’s not surprising to those of us who know her that yesterday she received an e-mail informing her the most recent edition of Systematic Botany names a new species of Eupatorium (the genus of plants that Vickie studied and wrote about for many years), Eupatorium sullivaniae, in honor of her research work. In the article entitled “Systematics of the Eupatorium album Complex (Asteraceae) from Eastern North America” by Edward E. Schilling, who is with the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Schilling writes that “the name E. sullivaniae honors Dr. Victoria Sullivan, whose extensive work has led to significant advances in our understanding of Eupatorium.”

I’ve always teased Vickie about studying “a dirty white weed that can be collected only when the sun is beaming white hot on collectors’ backs and the soil is parched dry to make digging impossible,” because I’ve accompanied her on many field trips throughout the South during the summer when temps were at their hottest peak, but she has always diverted my attention to joe pye weed, a close relative of Eupatorium with lovely lavender hues, to try to incite more sentiment in me for her chosen plant of study. I remember accompanying Vickie and a Japanese botanist, Dr. T. Yahara, on a collecting trip during a rainstorm preceding Hurricane Elena, which followed us all the way to St. Augustine, Florida and then turned and followed us back to Lafayette, Louisiana. These two botanists’ idea of a good time included climbing fences posted “No trespassing,” backing up the van on the interstate highway at 60 mph to study a plant they spied as we sped past, and running through fields in sheets of rain that fell steadily for the three days they collected. Such are the activities of those who study the plant world, and I did my part by documenting the trip in an article that appeared in Skylight, a literary magazine published in Florida!

Vickie, who received her Ph.D. in Biology from Florida State University, has a formidable background in the teaching profession, having taught biology and botany at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for twenty years and biology, environmental studies, and physical science to students at both Teurlings Catholic High School and Episcopal School of Acadiana in Louisiana for a four year stint. She was also a naturalist with the U.S. National Park Service in the Everglades National Park, worked in Fairchild Tropical Garden, Miami, Florida and has authored at least 25 papers about Eupatorium, thistles, and other plants. At one point during her career, she, along with several colleagues, obtained a grant from EPSCOR for over one and one-half million dollars to do work on molecular evolution. Vickie has worked with the Louisiana Nature Conservancy, the Ecology Branch of the U.S. Army, and as a botanist with the Trustees for Internal Improvement Trust Fund, State of Florida.

She has published flash fiction on the Internet, authored non-fiction articles in non-scientific periodicals and has written an outstanding article identifying the plant life in the murals of the famous Gulf Coast painter, Walter Anderson, which appeared in Interdisciplinary Humanities. In 2009, she translated her grandmother’s letters for a book she entitled Granny’s Letters: A Georgia Wiregrass Pioneer Woman’s Tragedy that has been enjoying a “run” on Kindle. This past year, Pinyon Publishing published Vickie’s speculative fiction book, Adoption, in which her heroine is featured as a superhuman, a character who was created by Vickie using her research on the genetics of polyploidy plants that have multiple sets of chromosomes. As owner, publisher, and editor of Border Press, an independent press she established several years ago, she also publishes quality fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Boards of profit and non-profit organizations seek Vickie out for her financial expertise, and she has served as Treasurer of Solomon House, an outreach mission, as CFO for her family company, Central Ridge in Frostproof, Florida, as treasurer of the Episcopal Church of Epiphany, New Iberia where she also did stints as Senior Warden and served on the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana. She served as president of the Epiphany Day School in New Iberia, Louisiana, as treasurer of Bayou Girl Scout Council and was a member of its five-year strategic planning committee, chairing the Fund Development committee of this same organization. Recently, members of the board of St. Mary’s Convent in Sewanee, Tennessee recognized Vickie’s wise oversight of financial matters and appointed her to the board of St. Mary’s Convent in Sewanee, Tennessee where she lives eight months of the year (and resides in New Iberia, Louisiana the other part). She’s an active Associate of the Order of St. Mary and several days of the week can be found at early morning Eucharist at St. Mary’s chapel on the bluff where she worships regularly.

In her leisure time, Vickie travels in all the states adjoining Tennessee where she sees a lot of Eupatorium but refrains from collecting as I am usually along for the ride. She has traveled in the Dominican, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, the Caribbean, and Jamaica. She enjoys a daily game of Scrabble, does extensive reading of philosophy, religion, and psychology, exercises daily, studies the latest tomes on Nutrition, and keeps up with research through readings in science magazines, of course. Back in the 80’s when the Rice Festival marathon was scheduled in Crowley, Louisiana, Vickie put on her running shoes and ran eighteen miles before running out of steam. She has medals from many 5K and 10K races in the Acadiana area. Vickie's a great proponent of natural food and has a heavy hand with exotic seasonings, having authored two microwave cookbooks featuring international recipes.

A true Renaissance woman, Vickie is deserving of honors in many fields as her interests are eclectic, and we look forward to reading her next book, soon to be published by Pinyon Publishing. Why Water Plants Don’t Drown, a nature enthusiast’s guide to aquatic plants, will feature the delightful paintings of Susan Elliott, a fellow botanist and artist on Pinyon’s staff.

Brava, Vickie! I know that the hybrid apomictic species named Eupatorium sullivaniae is glad to finally be named after a gifted woman of diverse talents who has entered her seventh decade with such energy and vision.