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“Now, now” my Grandma Cora would say, as a prelude to comfort or warning. Grandma’s “now, now” could serve as a shoehorn for other words: “Y’all be sweet to each other or “You just set here for a spell.” Sometimes here “now, now” would preface a scripture passage read aloud.
Ironically, for most of her lifetime, Grandma heard more “not now” than “now.” Born in the 1890s, she grew up in the southern U.S., where she could not attend the same schools, visit the same hospitals, stay overnight in hotels, sit up front in buses and trains, sit down in most restaurants or drink from the same water fountains as a white person.
I wonder what Grandma thought about the young civil rights activist John Lewis, who said during the 1963 March on Washington: “To those who have said, ‘Be patient and wait,’ we…do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now!”
Although the “not now” still continues in many ways today, she would have been amazed to see how many people of all ethnicities are now aware and advocating for more abundant life for all of God’s creation.
This message is excerpted from “Now, now…” by Elizabeth Hunter in the September 2018 Gather magazine. Today is the 16th Sunday after Pentecost. Today is Grandparents’ Day. Today we commemorate John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, 407.