A Thread
By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
Dear Editor,
“I will never pull that thread!”
Alice Bright Light
Alice made that statement during one of our meetings at the River Creek Inn. We regularly get together there to discuss “world politics” or as we call it “gossip.” Alice Bright Light is my best friend. She is a full-blooded American Indian medium from North Dakota having been born and raised there on an Indian Reservation. The Inn’s management was kind enough to seat us in our favorite booth where we drank our special after-dinner drink Green Chartreuse.
I was so excited to tell her about the Winter Olympics that I had been watching. She doesn’t follow sports. I was especially impressed with the 21-year-old American figure skater from Virginia Ilia Malinin.
He is known as the “quad god” because he is the first and only figure skater to consistently land all types of quadruple jumps in competition. A quadruple jump means that he rotates four times before landing. A quadruple Axel means that he rotates four and a half times before landing. In 2022 he was the first skater to ever land a quadruple Axel in competition.
As I watched him skate, and win a gold medal for Team USA, we all listened to him speaking his own words broadcast over the loudspeakers. He is one of the first skaters to ever narrate his own program. I couldn’t make out all of his words, but I downloaded them afterwards. His spoken text is entitled “A Voice” and includes about six sayings.
The saying that impressed me the most is: “The past is not a chain but a thread; pull it and it may lead you home.” What a deep and philosophical statement. It made me think deeply about my own life. But why would a 21-year-old gold medal winner traveling around the world want to hear his own voice speak these words while he skated? Maybe he was homesick. Maybe he missed his Virginia home with his two naturalized Russian parents, his younger sister Liza and his two cats Mysti and Miu Miu.
I have reread his words. Each time I pull the thread, and it takes me to my childhood home. There were two parents loving me. Grandparents loving me. And my unmarried aunt who doted on me. My home was encouragement, values and guidance. I always felt complete.
While I was telling Alice my thoughts about Ilia and the impact his words had upon me, she took my hand which was resting on the table and said:
“I will never pull that thread! I can’t go home because there was none.
As a very young child my mother took me to a Tribal Council Meeting where she got into a screaming argument with another woman. My mother owed her money and she demanded it. My mother told her that her pension check hadn’t arrived and she couldn’t pay. I remember the woman saying ‘We were both street walkers in Bismark and we don’t get pensions.’
My mother never told me who my father was, so I stopped asking.
And then my face. Everyone, even my mother and sister, called me “Wolf.” Kids in my school, teachers, even the elders on the Reservation made fun of me. As long as there were mirrors, I couldn’t hide. There was no home.”
As the Senior Pastor of The First Church of God’s Love in the bucolic-farming hamlet of Halo, Pennsylvania, I am often asked if I want to hold a newborn baby. I do enjoy that and as I hold the child, I say a silent prayer that this new person will have a home and will be loved. Not just for a day, a week, a year but for a lifetime. But if we don’t have a home in the beginning, we can still build strong structures in life through loving relationships including friendships.
Another saying from Ilia Malinin’s “A Voice” which resonates with me is: “Begin where light no longer reaches, where no path has yet been made.”
Amen.
The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
Senior Pastor
Executive Director
President
Chairman
Choir Master (part-time)
The First Church of God’s Love