The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough

by Neta Jackson

  If the sun says I won’t rise

  If dark clouds fill my skies

  Lord, just know that I

  Will always give You praise . . .

  Oh my. Could I sing this song if I were in Nony’s shoes? I peeked at Nonyameko. She wasn’t singing either. Her eyes were closed, and tears slid down her face. My own throat tightened. The words sank in deep.

  No matter come what may

  I’ll always give You praise . . .

  The room was quiet when the final phrase died away, except for a few sniffles and blowing of noses. Then Hoshi spoke up quietly. “That seems—how do you say it?—a lot to ask. To praise God when evil things happen. It was hard when—” She stopped, suddenly flustered. She seemed about to say, “When Bandana Woman cut my mother’s hand”—and then realized Becky Wallace was sitting right there in the room. Hoshi blinked fast, swallowed, and recovered her composure. “It is very hard to feel like praising God when Dr. Smith is in a coma, day after day with no change, no response.”

  Yo-Yo, at home on one of Stu’s floor cushions, nodded vigorously. “Yeah. Me too. I don’t feel much like praising. Feel more like throwing things.”

  Murmurs of assent traveled around the room. Nony, curled up in another one of Stu’s wicker chairs, just shook her head, as though she couldn’t find a way to put her feelings into words.

  “Nony?” Avis’s voice was gentle. “It’s all right. Say what you need to say.”

  Nony rolled her eyes and gave a bitter laugh. “It’s not pretty, what I am feeling today. Today I am angry. So angry I—yes, Yo-Yo. I want to throw things.” She looked around the circle. “You are not surprised. You are angry too. Ah, but you are angry at the people who hurt Mark. Or maybe you are angry at God for letting this happen. Yes, I have been angry that way too. But today . . .” She laughed again, a strange, hollow sound. “Today I am angry at Mark. I am so angry with him! Angry that he had to wade right into the middle of that hate group, when he knew—he knew!—they were out for trouble. He—he risked our family, he risked our future to protest one stupid rally.” Her hands clenched; her voice trembled. “I am angry that he has left me alone, left my bed empty, abandoned our boys, who need their father . . .” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh Jesus. I don’t know how to praise You. I can’t. I don’t even know how to pray anymore.”

  I stared at Nony. Was this the same woman, who just a few days ago had struggled with feeling guilty, saying what happened to Mark was all her fault? But now it was Mark’s fault? I thought I knew her, this woman whose heart and mouth were always full of Scripture, who fed on God’s promises like bread and butter, whose compassion for hurting people so far outweighed my own . . . but this Nony seemed like a stranger to me.

  God’s Voice in my spirit put brakes on my tumbling thoughts. Pray for her, Jodi. Grief has to cycle through its seasons—heartache, fear, anger, helplessness . . . Just be there for her until the season of strength and courage.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I want to, God. Help me. I don’t know how.

  No one said anything for a few moments. Then Adele started to sing in her rich contralto voice. “Say the Name . . . of Je-sus . . .” Recognizing the song from one of Clint Brown’s CDs, I joined in with the rest:

  When you don’t know what else to pray

  When you can’t find the words to say

  Say the Name . . .

  As the tender song trailed off, Delores cleared her throat. “Nony, my sister, es bueno you can say you are angry. No use pretending; God knows anyway. And He understands. But as the first song said, we must keep praising! It doesn’t have anything to do with feeling like praising.” Her eyes lowered to her lap, and her voice softened. “Believe me, I know. My Ricardo—something is not right. He is gone many nights. He will not say. He takes the dog. I tremble with fear. Darkness threatens to shadow our home. But I praise anyway. I fill my heart with praise. When I praise, there is no room for fear. It is the only way.”

  I reached for Delores’s hand beside me and squeezed. Oh Jesus. What’s going on with Ricardo? No wonder Delores has seemed troubled lately. It sounded like even Delores didn’t know.

  “Thank ya, Jesus!” Florida blurted. “You’re a good God, and don’t let us forget it. Ol’ devil wants to make us blind to Your love and goodness, wants to make us think all the misery he sendin’ our way—not to mention all the mess we cook up for our own selves—somehow is Your fault. But we know You are the Light of the world, King of kings, and Lord of lords! An’ he ain’t nothin’ but the prince of darkness. Light stronger than darkness anytime. Don’t even have to wrestle. Light just gotta show up and darkness gotta go. Thank ya! Thank ya!”

  Florida’s prayer opened up a regular flood of praise and prayers, several speaking at once. Even Nony’s head nodded now, her lips whispering, “Yes, yes. Help me, Jesus.” We ended up gathering around Nony and laying our hands on her, as Avis got out her little bottle of oil and anointed her forehead. Someone pushed Delores into the center of the circle, and Avis anointed her, too, as we prayed for God’s light to shine through the darkness.

  After the prayers, Nony blew her nose and mopped her wet face. “Thank you, my sisters. Thank you so much for helping me touch the hem of His garment, when I couldn’t get through the crowd of pain and anger on my own. My heart feels”—she smiled sheepishly—“maybe not healed, but more at peace.”

  A puzzled look crossed Yo-Yo’s face. Becky’s too. I wanted to giggle. I could almost hear their minds trying to plug “hem of His garment” into their own frame of reference. Well, maybe that was a story Becky and I could read together from the Bible at our back porch rendezvous next week.

  We moved on to other prayer requests. But I was only half-listening. Snippets from our conversations that evening kept running into each other. Love is a spiritual weapon. Praise chases away fear. Light is stronger than darkness. Pray for our enemies. An idea began percolating in my head. It became so strong I had a hard time waiting till Yo-Yo finished what she was saying.

  “—or maybe it’s Ben we should be prayin’ for. He got Ruth lined up with the doc next week.” Yo-Yo grinned. “Whether he can wrestle her into the car and make her go, that’s a diff’rent story.”

  We had to laugh. Dear, opinionated Ruth was one stubborn lady.

  I jumped in. “Um, this isn’t exactly a prayer request, but it’s about praying. What about doing a prayer walk?”

  Half the group looked interested. The other half had Prayer what? plastered on their faces. “Go on,” Avis said.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about what we said tonight, about light and darkness. Jesus is the Light of the world, right? By lifting up the name of Jesus where there’s darkness, the things that need darkness to survive get chased out, right? And the Bible says that we aren’t supposed to hide that light in a corner; we’re supposed to let it shine where darkness is hiding evil—or something like that.”

  Delores, Adele, and Avis began flipping pages in their Bibles. “Mm-hm.” Adele thumbed her well-worn King James Version. “Matthew five and fifteen says, ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.’ ”

  Delores had her finger in the Gospel of John. “ ‘Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness because their deeds were evil.’ ”

  Avis read from Ephesians. “ ‘Live as children of the light . . . Have nothing to do with fruitless deeds of darkness but rather expose them.’ ”

  Wow. All that support for what I wanted to say, straight from the Bible. “That’s it. But I was thinking, just praying here at Yada Yada is a little like hiding the light. We need to take the light to where the darkness is. Like the campus of Northwestern. All those incidents that have been happening up there? The hate literature, the swastika somebody painted, White Pride holding that rally? What if we did a prayer walk around the campus, praying for God’s protection from those deeds of darkness?”

 
; I WAS SURPRISED how excited Yada Yada got about my idea for a prayer walk. In fact, before we went home, people were suggesting we split up and some of us do our prayer walking on campus, and some of us pray God’s protection over the Sisulu-Smiths’ home and neighborhood. On one hand, doing it next weekend made sense, but Saturday seemed too far away. We finally decided on this Thursday at six o’clock, whoever could make it after work.

  Even Nony said she’d come if she could.

  Denny was home from the hospital by the time I got downstairs, digging into some nacho chips and salsa at the dining room table. He looked wrung out. “It’s hard keeping up a one-sided conversation with a guy in a coma,” he admitted. Ben Garfield had showed up after dropping off Yo-Yo at Yada Yada, so that helped.

  He listened while I told him about our discussion at Yada Yada, about love being a weapon of spiritual warfare, about taking light into the darkness, about our idea for a prayer walk. I even got out my Bible and read some of the verses.

  I didn’t notice Josh leaning against the archway between the hallway and dining room until he said, “Mom? Read that one again about exposing deeds of darkness.”

  How long had he been there? “Um, sure. It’s Ephesians five, starting at verse eight. ‘Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.’ ”

  He nodded thoughtfully, propped against the archway, hands in the pockets of his jeans. “That’s what Dr. Smith was doing at the rally, wasn’t it? Exposing deeds of darkness.”

  Denny and I glanced at each other. Denny cleared his throat. “That’s right. He was.”

  Josh walked over and held out his hand. “Can I see that?” He took my open Bible and walked away toward his bedroom.

  “What are you going to do?” I called after him, thinking there was something different about Josh. Couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “I dunno. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.” His bedroom door clicked shut.

  I suddenly realized what was different about Josh. A shadow of sandy hair covered his head—longer than his hair had been since he first shaved it off last fall.

  Was Josh growing out his hair?

  35

  Decided to keep my mouth shut about Josh’s hair, sure that the moment I expressed anything remotely complimentary about this new growth, off it would come. Not that I saw much of him the next few days. It was finals week, and on Monday he stayed at the high school library till suppertime, then holed up in his room studying. As I let Willie Wonka out for one last pee at ten o’clock, Josh emerged from his room holding a couple of pieces of paper covered in scrawl. “Computer free? Gotta type something up.”

  “Thought all your final papers were due last week! Is it late?”

  “Chill, Mom. I wrote something for the student newspaper. The Warrior’s last issue. An opinion piece.”

  “Oh.” My curiosity was piqued. “Can I read it?”

  He snorted, waving the marked-up and crossed-out paper out of reach as he booted up the computer in the dining room. “Even I can’t read it in this state. Maybe later.”

  Uh-huh. I knew when I’d been given the brush-off.

  It might have been the last full week of school for Josh, but Amanda still had two weeks to go, and so did Denny and I. I managed to squeak in a half-hour of Bible reading with Becky Wallace on Tuesday, but a staff meeting after school got me home late on Thursday. What’s with Avis, anyway? I grumbled to myself, trying to look alert and interested in the most recent statistics of the “No Child Left Behind” legislation. Doesn’t she remember Yada Yada agreed to do the prayer walk tonight? But even Avis Johnson Douglass couldn’t change district school schedules around just for our ragtag prayer group.

  Once home at four thirty, I racked my brain for something I could eat on the run, while leaving some decent pickings for Denny and the kids. I finally pulled out the leftover chicken from last night, tore the meat off the bones, chopped it, and tossed it together with a head of romaine lettuce, a can of mandarin orange slices, green onions, sliced almonds that had been hiding in the freezer since Christmas, and a can of dry Chinese noodles for a passable oriental chicken salad. I stepped back to admire my handiwork. Hey, girl. Someone might think you actually planned this thing!

  Denny wasn’t back with the minivan, so I called Stu at five thirty and begged a ride with her up to Northwestern. Josh loomed over my shoulder as I hung up the phone. “Think Stu would mind if I rode along? Something I gotta do at Northwestern.”

  “Do? Like what?”

  He shrugged me off. “Someone I gotta see, OK?”

  WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MEET the other Yada Yadas at the Rock at six. Stu parked her Celica on a side street, and Josh trotted off, promising to meet us back at the car in one hour.

  “What’s he doing?” Stu jerked a thumb in the direction Josh had disappeared.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m just his mother. I’ll be the last to know.”

  We were the first to arrive at the Rock. It felt strange standing in the same spot where the White Pride rally had taken place less than two weeks earlier. So serene and quiet now, the Rock painted yet another color, the bridalwreath bushes bursting with dainty flowers and shades of green. A few students sat on the low stone wall surrounding the Rock, noses in their books, drinking coffee or soft drinks from disposable cups. No one paid any attention to us, even when Florida, Avis, and Adele showed up, followed in short order by Edesa, Delores—and Ruth Garfield.

  “Ruth!” we screeched. She seemed embarrassed by all the hugs.

  “Down, girls. Save the excitement till the Cubs win the pennant.” She shrugged. “So I missed one little meeting.”

  “Two!” Stu waved two fingers under Ruth’s nose. “Out of the last three. Did you see your doctor yet?”

  “Oh that.” Ruth waved a hand dismissively.

  Nony and Hoshi joined us just then. Yo-Yo, Ruth said, had to work at the Bagel Bakery that evening, and no one had heard from Chanda, so we decided to go ahead. We divided into two groups: Florida, Adele, Delores, and Stu agreed to walk over to the Sisulu-Smith neighborhood and walk around the surrounding blocks, praying. “Four is enough,” Nony agreed with a slight smile. “The neighbors might get nervous.” The rest of us would pray at different points on the campus, and we’d meet back at the Rock in an hour.

  We held hands in a circle and prayed before the neighborhood group set off, generating a few odd looks from passersby. Which you wouldn’t even know about if you’d keep your eyes shut, Jodi Baxter, I scolded myself. I concentrated on Florida’s prayer.

  “—standing on the same bricks where that rally took place a couple of weeks ago. Jesus! We ask Your blood of forgiveness to pour over all the hateful things said an’ done that day. We prayin’ for all the students, all the young people here that day, whatever stripe or color. Sift what was spoken, so that every evil thing will be blocked from their hearts an’ minds, an’ every good and God-fearin’ thing settle right into their spirits.”

  I pictured that Friday afternoon in my mind, the restless crowd, the White Pride group—some in suits and ties, others just tough guys who needed to build themselves up by putting others down. And the girl in the sundress, clinging to some false identity offered by this group of white supremacists. Yet I remembered her eyes. Uncertain. Insecure.

  I added a P.S. to Florida’s prayer. “Lord God, I especially want to pray for the young woman I saw that day with the White Pride group. I don’t know her name, but You do. Call her out, Jesus! Call her to Yourself. Find her, Lord! Show her a better way.”

  We split up then. As the other group disappeared across Sheridan Road to the Smith’s neighborhood, Hoshi spoke up. “Why don’t we start praying right there? It is Dr. Smith’s office.” She pointed to a plain building looming along the south side of the plaza. Sure enough, the sign said Harris Hall, History Department.

/>   To my surprise, Edesa spoke the first prayer as we gathered at the entrance. “Jesucristo, we thank You for Your great love, even as we stand here with hurting hearts. There is an empty office in this building, a professor who is not here for his students, a husband who is not here for his wife, a father who is not here for his children . . .”

  It was too much for Nony; she began to weep. Edesa and Hoshi each put an arm around her waist and let her lean on them, but Edesa continued to pray. “But one thing we know, loving Savior! You will never leave us nor forsake us. And that includes our hermano, our brother, Mark Smith. You have not forsaken him or his family. No matter what the circumstances look like, we claim what is true.”

  Ruth cleared her throat. “God, it’s me, Ruth. What a prayer walk is, I don’t know. But I figure, it can’t hurt. Evil raised its ugly head on this campus in recent weeks—the same pride and hatred that has caused havoc around the world for centuries. Gentiles hating Jews, whites against blacks. Ugly stuff. The stuff that causes wars and riots, leaving misery in its wake. But we’re asking You to turn it around, God. Right here, at the history department of this great university.”

  Ruth jumped when her prayer was met with several “amens” and “That’s it, Jesus!”

  Hoshi prayed simply, “Father in heaven, may Your kingdom come and Your will be done on this campus, even as it is in heaven. And, please, inspire others to continue the work Dr. Smith began on this campus, bringing students of all nationalities together to learn from one another, and even—as he did for me—to learn about You.”

  The prayers were so powerful that we just strolled in silence for a while along the paths curving between weeping willows and beautifully landscaped lawns. It was tempting to just gawk at the enchanting mix of old and new architecture, but we stopped beside several of the university buildings to pray briefly, naming the department housed there and praying for the administrators, professors, and students.