The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling

by Neta Jackson

  So all I offered was a whisper. “Oh Jesus. Help us.” She squeezed my hands.

  THE SNOWMEN MET A VIOLENT DEATH sometime before the first bell. Stomped on. Kicked to smithereens. Anger boiled in my gut as I surveyed the damage from my classroom window. “What kind of deranged person would destroy a kid’s snowman?” I muttered.

  Huh. I sounded like my mother. Mom Jennings just couldn’t understand anyone who would talk back to a teacher or drop a candy wrapper on the ground, much less bump off a snowman. Her world was populated by hardworking men, dutiful women, and polite children—or she thought it ought to be.

  I traced a frowny face in the fog on the window. No wonder I’d had such a hard time owning the fact that I was “just a sinner,” like everyone else. Funny thing, it was such a relief not to be perfect. To know I could mess up and still be forgiven. To begin to understand what grace was all about. Yep. Jodi “Good Girl” Baxter had ugly thoughts, did things she regretted, didn’t do things she should—

  Ack! My hand flew to my mouth; I peered out the foggy window. Not only had the snowmen disappeared, but the hats and scarves they’d been wearing had too! I’d totally forgotten to bring them in before going home last night. Blip, right off my radar screen. And it was starting to snow again . . .

  I pulled on the jacket and boots I’d just taken off and ran out to the playground. Most of the early birds were heading for the warm gym. But Bowie Garcia and Lamar Pearson stood looking at the lumps of snow that used to be snowmen, muttering dark threats. “Man, I find out who kicked our snowmen, I’m gonna pop ’em,” Bowie said. He made his gloved hand into a pistol. “Pow! Pow!”

  My own anger turned to alarm. But now wasn’t the time to talk about “disproportionate response”—though, hm, it might be a good life lesson for my third graders. “Snowmen can be remade; people can’t.” Right now, my own forgetfulness was getting buried deeper in new snow.

  Several of my other third graders appeared on the playground. “Oh no!” “Who did that?” Followed by a few nasty expletives they probably heard at home.

  “Sorry about the snowmen, kids,” I said. “But with this good snow, we’ll be able to make bigger and better ones, whaddya say?” Their scowls slowly turned to grins. “But tell you what, how about a contest? Whoever finds one of those hats or scarves in the snow gets a bag of Skittles. For each one!”

  WE FOUND TWO HATS AND ONE SCARF buried in the snow and I was out three bags of Skittles. The lost scarf belonged to Mercedes LaLuz and she shrieked. “My mama said she gonna kill me if I lose another scarf!” Which hopefully was an overstatement. But to placate the situation, I brought in the handmade knit scarf my mother had made me and gave it to Mercedes the next morning.

  Josh and Amanda thought the whole episode was hilarious. “I’ll donate my scarf to your next snowman,” Josh said, faking a straight face. “My sacrifice to a good cause.” Yeah, right. He had yet to wear the overly long and rather garish scarf his grandmother had crocheted for him.

  Ruth Garfield, on the other hand, was full of advice. She called midweek to ask how the first week back at school was going. With the phone cradled between my shoulder and ear, I moaned about the vandalized snowmen in the schoolyard while trying to fry up some hamburger and peel potatoes for a Baxter version of shepherd’s pie.

  “Vandals? A lesson from us you should take. Havah and Isaac’s snowman—”

  “Havah and Isaac’s snowman?” I snickered so hard the phone lost its precarious perch and crashed to the floor. I snatched it up. “Oops. Sorry. Ruth, what are you talking about? Havah and Isaac are . . . what? Six weeks old? You didn’t take them outside to—”

  “Six-and-a-half. Very bright they are too. Looking around, taking in everything. Ben decides to make a snowman so the twins can see it from the front window—”

  “Ben made a snowman? Ben ‘I’m-Too-Old-to-Have-Kids’ Garfield?” Now I was laughing out loud.

  “What are you, my echo? Don’t be a shmo. I’m trying to help you, Jodi Baxter. Ben knew the little nudniks on our block would knock over anything in the front yard, so he sprayed the snowman with the garden sprayer. Froze solid overnight. Any juvenile delinquent who tries to kick down that snowman is going home with a broken toe.”

  “Love it!” I hooted. I had visions of young thugs hopping around the schoolyard bawling like branded calves. But my ecstasy was short-lived. “On second thought, if we did that, the school would probably get sued for erecting ‘dangerous structures’ on public property.”

  “Humph,” Ruth sniffed. “You could always melt the evidence—wait a minute.”

  In the background, I heard Ben yelling. A minute later, Ruth was back. “Blind as a bat, he is! Turning everything upside down looking for a pacifier. I show him, there it is, pinned right to Isaac’s sleeper. Does he say thanks? No. Tells me, why don’t you put it somewhere I can find it? Such a klutz.”

  “Uh-huh.” I dumped the peeled potatoes into a pot of water and turned on the gas burner. Ruth plunged on, though she lowered her voice.

  “But here’s the good news. ‘Ben,’ I say, ‘I want to go to Beth Yehudah services on Saturday.’ So Ben considers. I see his brain working. If I go by myself, he’s stuck with the twins all morning. If I take the twins, he’ll worry I can’t manage car, car seats, baby carriers, diaper bags all by myself. So he says, ‘All right, all right, I’ll drive you.’ ” I could hear the chuckle in her voice. “Once we get there, he’ll have to help me take the baby carriers inside, and once he’s inside . . .”

  “Ruth! You’re shameless!” But I laughed. The good people at Ruth’s Messianic Jewish congregation would fall all over themselves, oohing and ahhing over the twins. A good number had been at Isaac’s brit mila and baby naming. Proud daddy Ben would eat it up and hang around, not wanting to miss a minute of adoration. “Well, that’s one way to get Ben Garfield to church.”

  She sighed. “He might go to church more often if he could hang out with Denny or Peter Douglass or Carl Hickman or Mark Smith. He respects all those guys . . . wait a minute. All those Yada Yada husbands ended up at Uptown when it merged with Mark and Nony’s church, didn’t they! Maybe we ought to come visit you some Sunday . . .”

  “That’d be great, Ruth! Just don’t call it Uptown anymore. We’re meeting in New Morning’s new space, which makes it kind of awkward. Guess we need a new name in a hurry. We have a business meeting this Sunday to talk about it.”

  “Yachad,” she said. An infant started wailing in the background.

  “What?”

  “Yachad! A good name for your church.”

  “Yachad? What kind of name is that? What does it mean?”

  The wailing was now a duet and rising in intensity.

  “Yachad. It’s Hebrew. Look it up—sorry. Feeding time. Talk to you later!”

  IT WAS SATURDAY before I had time to “look it up,” as Ruth ordered.

  Almost a foot of snow fell that week, and my class and I tried to build some new snowmen during Thursday lunchtime. Kids from other classes joined us, which is probably why the new snowmen lasted two days. Snowmen was a bit of a misnomer, though; the hapless creations looked more like “snow bumps with eyes.” This time I donated the black and red checkers from our old checkerboard at home for eyes, along with a bag of carrots from the Rogers Park Fruit Market for noses. Even bought a disposable camera and shot the whole roll.

  I dipped into the school office Thursday afternoon to update Avis on Bethune Elementary’s snowman project, but her inner office was dark. “Oh, Mrs. Douglass left at one o’clock,” Ms. Ivy offered, fiddling with the temperamental photocopy machine. “Said she had an appointment.”

  Ouch. That’s right. Rochelle’s retest . . .

  Almost decided not to call Avis about the retest. What was the point? They wouldn’t know the results for a week anyway. But on Saturday morning—I still had two weeks until my turn came up to volunteer at Manna House, hallelujah!—as I stuffed laundry into the washing machine in the b
asement of our two-flat, it hit me: waiting is sometimes harder than knowing.

  I called Avis on my next trip through the kitchen. Peter Douglass answered. “No, Avis isn’t here. She drove down to Manna House to take Rochelle shopping.”

  Shopping. Yeah, I bet. More likely Rochelle needed some propping up. There was nothing in Peter’s voice to indicate that Avis had told him about the HIV diagnosis, though. Maybe she was waiting for the second test; probably didn’t want to get him all upset until they knew for sure. Or maybe it was Avis who needed propping up! Mother-daughter shopping could be a good emotional Novocain.

  Peter’s voice plowed into my thoughts. “I was just about to call your house anyway. Is that man of yours there?”

  “Nope. Gone to a basketball game over at West Rogers High. Intramurals. You know Denny; he’s got coaching in the blood.”

  “Yeah, well. Tell him to give me a call when he gets home.”

  I hung up, feeling a strange warmth. What was it—appreciation? Well, yes. But more than that. Feeling blessed . . .

  My mind lingered on Avis’s new husband as I trekked back down to the basement to change laundry loads. When Peter first started courting Avis, we Yada Yadas were like a bunch of schoolgirls. “Ooo, girl, that man is fine!” We started making her a wedding quilt before he even popped the question! Then . . . I started worrying that Peter might take Avis away from Uptown Community Church. He seemed uncomfortable being the only African-American male in the congregation; came only because his ladylove was a member and worship leader there. But when New Morning Christian Church, which was mostly black, started using our building for their worship services, Peter Douglass was one of the first people to articulate that “God had a reason.”

  Now, with the extraordinary decision to merge Uptown and New Morning, Peter had jumped in with both feet. “Thank You, Jesus!” I said, dumping a capful of detergent into the washing machine and pushing the Start button.

  Hiking back up the basement stairs with a basket of hot, fluffy towels, however, I knew the blessing was bigger than just “not losing Avis.” God not only brought Peter Douglass into Avis’s life, courting and winning her after several years of widowhood—the first wedding I’d ever been to where the bride and groom “jumped the broom”!—but He’d brought Peter into our lives too. A seasoned businessman, Peter had not only found a job at Software Symphony for Carl Hickman, Florida’s husband, but took Josh on, too, when our son decided not to go to college this year. But more than that, Peter and Denny seemed to respect each other, even though the two men couldn’t be more different. Peter—serious, thoughtful, businesslike, always practical. Denny—the sports-crazy kid who never grew up. But it was Peter Denny had talked to when struggling with whether to take the job of athletic director at the high school. Peter who had said, “It’s not just about what you like to do. Where can you be the most influence on those kids’ lives?”

  “Wonder what he wants to talk to Denny about?” I murmured, stepping over Willie Wonka’s inert body at the top of the basement stairs. The dog opened one eye at me but didn’t move. The dog rarely moved these days. Slowing down. Waaay down. One of these days, I’m going to trip over that dog and kill myself.

  I set the basket of clean towels on the dining room table and began to fold. Maybe Peter wanted to talk to Denny about the men’s breakfast next Saturday . . . or the church business meeting tomorrow. We were all supposed to come with ideas for a new church name—

  “Yachad.”

  My telephone conversation with Ruth earlier that week popped into my head. Ruth had just thrown that word into the ring and told me to look it up. Not sure why I should bother. What a weird name for a church. Maybe it meant something in Hebrew. Might be a nice name for a Jewish synagogue or a Messianic congregation. But the hodgepodge that was Uptown–New Morning? Nobody would know what “Yachad” meant.

  Still, curiosity got the better of me. I dumped a towel in mid-fold and booted up the computer. Took me a while to Google it, but finally I found it in an online Old Testament Hebrew lexicon. “Yachad . . . ”

  “Whoa!” I said. Then, “Wow.” I moved my cursor to Print Current Page, typed in “20” copies, and hit Print.

  7

  So what did Peter Douglass want yesterday?” I had given Peter’s message to Denny when he got home Saturday afternoon. They’d spent a good thirty minutes on the phone, with Denny saying stuff like, “Yeah, I agree . . . Good point . . . Man, wish I knew . . . I’ll see what I can find out.” I might as well have been Willie Wonka for all I learned from Denny’s side of the conversation. I gave up and took the dog for walk, but even that didn’t last long. Poor Wonka. Every time we found a cleared sidewalk, he’d lifted first one paw, then another, and looked at me with that pitiful rumpled brow. The salted sidewalks stung his cracked pads.

  By the time we got back to the house (finally cutting through the alleys, which were never salted and never plowed, creating a mishmash of stuck cars like a destruction derby pileup), Denny was engrossed in a basketball game on TV. I knew I’d only get “Huh?” and “Can it wait?” if I tried to strike up a conversation while “da Bulls” were scoring. So I’d given up on curiosity and tackled a major molehill: what to take to the Second Sunday Potluck tomorrow.

  Josh, who’d done a twenty-four-hour shift at Manna House, said he’d take the el and meet us at church this morning. Now I pulled the big bowl of hot calico beans out of the back of the minivan and stood aside while Denny locked the car before following Amanda, who’d already disappeared into our “new” shopping center church. “You guys talked long enough,” I added.

  “Oh yeah.” Denny took my arm to steady me as we mushed through the icy parking lot. “He’s concerned about Carl. Seems depressed on the job. Can’t blame the guy. I’d be depressed, too, if my kid was locked up in juvie. Anyway, Peter was trying to pick my brain about what we could do to support the Hickman family right now—or Chris for that matter. But the only visitors allowed at the JDC are parents or guardians—not even siblings.”

  Huh. And I thought they were hashing over new names for the church. “You come up with any ideas?”

  “Peter thinks a bunch of guys need to be there for Carl on a regular basis. Let him vent his feelings, pray with him, get him out with the guys now and then—stuff like that. I mean, Florida has you Yada Yadas for support, but . . .”

  I cringed. Florida has you Yada Yadas for support. It’d been a week since our last meeting at Yo-Yo’s. Had I even called Florida this past week to see how she was doing? Had I called anybody except Avis—and I didn’t get her even then. Ruth had called me, but . . .

  Sheesh, Lord. You’re so faithful! But I always seem to fall down on the job. It’s hard being Your hands and feet in this Body You’ve put us in.

  Denny held the glass door open as I carefully carried the hot beans inside and headed for the half-finished kitchen on the other side of the “sanctuary,” trying not to bump into anyone.

  I dunno, God. Maybe You can be there for a zillion people at once. But I’m only one person—with thirty kids on my job, two almost-grown teenagers at home, a prayer group of twelve sisters whose lives keep getting snarly like a dozen cats in a yarn shop. How am I supposed to—

  “Yo, Jodi.” Becky Wallace stood in front of me and peered into my face. “The kitchen’s back that way. You planning on storin’ that dish in the ladies washroom or something?”

  I sighed and pushed back my paper plate. That morning’s worship—get-down praise and a good word from the Word from dear Pastor Clark, who’d seemed energized by the congregational talk-back of “Amen!” and “That’s right, brother!”—had satisfied my soul. The potluck—a glut of greens, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, hot wings, calico beans, potato salad, and green salad—had satisfied my stomach.

  Now it was time for the church business meeting. Would it satisfy my spirit?

  Tables were pushed back, chairs replaced into rows, and cleanup left until later. I chafed at the ro
ws of chairs. Wouldn’t a circle, even several layers deep, be more welcoming? Maybe I’d work up the courage to suggest it next time.

  Some of the younger teens took the little kids and babies into one of the back rooms, while most of the older teens, like Josh and Amanda, elected to stay in the meeting. Pastor Joe Cobbs opened the meeting with prayer.

  “Father God.” The fifty-something pastor’s booming voice always took me a bit off guard. “You led Your people across the Red Sea. You provided manna and meat in the wilderness. You gave them clothes that didn’t wear out, even though they wandered around in that wilderness for forty years. You told them that if they followed Your commandments, You would make them into a great people. And then You brought them victorious into the Promised Land.”

  “That’s right! That’s right!”

  “So, Father God. We know You are going to lead us through the deep waters we’re facing—”

  “Hallelujah! Jesus!”

  “We know You are going to provide the ways and means to survive our challenges and be nourished along the way—”

  “Jesus! Thank You!”

  “And we know that if we listen to Your Word and obey the voice of Your Holy Spirit, You are going to make us into Your people, right here on Howard Street!”

  By this time, people were on their feet, hands raised, shouting hallelujah, thanking God. Not exactly how most business meetings started, but the hope and confidence in the prayer squeezed the anxiety out of me. “Yes, Lord!” I cried, adding my voice to the hubbub. “We know You have a plan for us, to give us a future and a hope!”

  Praying Scripture was still new for me, but thanks to Yada Yada, I was beginning to memorize more of God’s promises, so that they came pouring out when we needed them. Like now.

  Nonyameko must have had the same prompting, because as the general praises drifted to a hush, I heard her voice lift above the others. “ ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.’ God’s Word from Jeremiah chapter twenty-nine, verse eleven. Amen.”