We are never too old to reach back into our past and examine events, both good and bad, that have made us who we are today. In fact, this activity seems to take on greater importance the older we get. One of my friends, a woman active into her nineties, once commented that the stiffening and bowing of old age was due to the weight of life's unsolved problems.
This rang true on a visit from friends who had recently become involved in a church for whom saying grace before any meal was very important. Their prayers were very heartfelt and sincere, and at first I joined in to be polite, but I was not completely comfortable. To be frank grace, especially in a public eating establishments, has always bothered me. I thought it showy, and felt the ideas being expressed would be better done in silence. However, in the face of this couple's obvious honesty, I began to search myself to find out what was really vexing me.
I had to dig back through the years to a thirteen-year-old person in a boarding school in Kobe, Japan in the fifties. The school was mostly comprised of day students, but there were a few of us boarders in a large house down the hill from the school, around six girls and some random teachers. We boarders were collected from around Japan from families that lived in cities where, in my case at least, there were no other English speakers, and certainly no high school that we could attend. We came by train to this school set on a hill outside the city of Kobe, and were looked after by an older lady, who in my memory was always dressed in black with a broach pinned firmly between bosoms that preceded her grandly into any room. She always seemed to move as if under full sail. I think she did not care for children in general, and we high school boarders in particular.
Our meals were held family style around a table in a dark dining room that looked out on a Japanese garden. We would gather promptly for the evening meal, standing behind our chairs while the matron would take her place at the head of the table, clearing her throat to gain our attention before beginning grace. But it was a recitation in which there was no charity at all. This was the time she had us all in her grasp, and what followed was a recitation of our sins overcast with Biblical overtones: 'Oh Lord, please help stop so-and-so from always running in the hall,' or 'Heavenly Savior, show so-and-so how to be more thankful and grateful to those who wish only her betterment in your sight.'
The first few meals my freshman year I was stunned by the critical messages subtly housed within the framework of prayer. Then I became angry, and revolted by not bowing my head. This small rebellion was soon called out in a pre-meal prayer. But by my second year at that dinner table, I just tuned it all out and thought my own thoughts. I would be brought back to reality by the scraping of chairs indicating that the lecture disguised as a holy petition was over. The only result of this was that I made a firm promise to my young self to NEVER engage in grace.
I soon forgot about the background for my discomfort, and was left with only a vague feeling of unease when in the presence of those engaged in saying grace. It took a sincerely grateful couple for me to be willing to dig deep, and find out what the problem really was. At my age I could at last be free of those 13 year-old prejudices, but more than that, I was made aware that there is a great deal more freedom to fight for --- if only I am willing.