Dear Friends,
Appalachia Service
Project
Harlan County,
Kentucky
Round 2
This year we
worked with Snapper (his given name), Autumn (Snapper’s significant other),
Mamaw, and Uncle Andy.
Snapper’s
home, where his grandmother, Mamaw, was born and raised – and where she raised
Snapper – hunkers at the foot of a vertical, west-facing, granite crag. From
the front porch one can watch the skies delivering gentle rains or devastating
storms. Just across the street, Jones’ Creek flows down from the mountains. The
creeks banks are steep, and high, and tinseled shabbily with garbage. In those
tight hollows, a 100-year rain would squeegee away everything in sight.
Three or four years ago a thunder
storm slung a lightning bolt at a large oak tree tottering on the lip of the
50-foot bluff above Snapper’s home. About six weeks ago, the dead tree dropped
from the cliff and landed squarely on the two-room addition that had been built
on the north side of the house. Snapper’s kitchen and bedroom were destroyed.
No one was hurt. Our job was to begin constructing a new addition.
The front porch, where the family
goes to escape the heat, to watch the weather, and to smoke (Mamaw is on oxygen
inside), is the kitchen and laundry room now. Stove/Oven, washer and dryer are
crammed on the porch. All are plugged up and fully operable. To enter Snapper’s
yard is, essentially, to enter his kitchen. And that seems appropriate,
metaphorically anyway.
Life in the hills of eastern
Kentucky can be cruel. Young people often find themselves unwelcome in their
own homes. Mamaw, like the unforgettable “whiskey priest” in Graham Greene’s
novel, The Power and the Glory, learned to live according to the laws of
a rough-edged hospitality appropriate to her place and time. Over the years, many
dispossessed young folks found refuge in that small house crouched up against
the rocks in defiant grace.
“You cain’t jus’ turn’em away,”
says Snapper who is only thirty-six. Mamaw has passed the torch to him. He cares
for her. And for his challengingly disabled Uncle Andy. And for whoever drops
by. These days, the visitors are mostly middle-aged men checking on the now-elderly
lady who welcomed them years ago. They drop by to say hello. To remember. To
help if they can.
Compassion creates its own gravity.
It is called gratitude.
Peace,
Allen
I was glad when they
said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
“Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
Our feet are standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem—built as a
city that is bound firmly together.
To
it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord,as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord. (Ps. 122:1-4)
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