all the other young men whom she knew and was
hearing about on the radio week by week and some were killed.
Very difficult times were going on all around mother and her
little family, but in most ways with her work, prayers
and spiritual reading she still lived in the enchanted world
that she had read about in Just David and that Father Dougherty
helped her think about with his distinction between holy and sacred.
When he baptized Bette Jo he referred to her as Elizabeth Josephine
and daddy said to mother: “Now see what you have done!”
But to mother it was only funny and with her two children
she was learning to be child-like and she read those words:
“Unless you are like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom.”
And she had named Bette Jo after a youth named Joe in
Just David and his sister Bette for they were friends of David.
Her children’s very names reminded her of the realm of the Holy
and she kept pondering the sacred priest and his sacred sacraments.
I.3.7 Paul and John Becoming Mark
Mother and all around her were going through much upheaval
by living through the war years and those trials were bringing
her to a new religious outlook and fundamental attitude as
she began to raise her family with her husband and in his world.
His mother and five sisters and especially Father Dougherty
all helped her to understand him as a new profile of Jesus.
She had learned the missionary way of St. Paul from her mother
and of a universal love for the goodness of all who are redeemed
by Christ who suffered and died to pay the penalty for sin.
She had learned the way of John’s beloved community from
the Mormon community of Carey in which she grew up.
The cross of suffering which builds up the Beloved Kingdom
here on earth as in Carey had to do with prophetic suffering
which would come to those who live contrary to the world.
But as mother and everyone coped with the anxieties and
inconveniences of war and as she lived in a child-like
attitude for, with and from her children the speech that Peter
gave at Pentecost and that became the skeleton of Mark’s
Gospel and of the Synoptic Tradition began to form her heart.
Jesus (1) whom the prophets foretold (2) went about doing good
(3) but he was made to suffer and put to death. (4) However, he
arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. (5) Now his
Holy Spirit has descended upon us to protect us and guide us.
Mother began to imitate Jesus in caring for others as did
the Good Samaritan and in offering up her own and all
suffering with the Suffering Servant who bore the Cross to teach
us all how to suffer and she saw that reacting negatively
creates more poison within us than do bad eating habits.
She welcomed her husband, children and neighbors with joy and
she prayed especially for any who annoyed or persecuted her.
She pondered how the sacred sacraments might cultivate the Holy.
I.3.8 Communicating in Sacred Silence
Those years of ‘45, ‘46 and ‘47 were a turmoil of activity and
yet for mother, Bette Jo, and myself they were a time of harmony.
Mother loved a life centered on home and family and of good, clean
productive farm work that made each person happy, healthy, and holy.
Daddy was driving a milk truck for the dairy and mother was
pleased with his honest work for she always felt that gambling
was a wrongful taking of someone else’s money and not honest.
We all lived at Gramma and Grandpa’s farmhouse and everything
seemed to go along in an exciting and smooth way without friction.
Mother would wash the dishes and I got to help Aunt Mid dry them.
And I marveled at how much silverware she could hold in
her left hand and I would try to imitate her as we laughed together.
Uncle El taught me how to play monopoly and told me stories
at night before we went to sleep in our bedroom upstairs.
Gramma listened often to the radio and talked a lot about
the war but still had lots of fun in the extended family.
Mother had many voices within her and she lived partly
in her mother’s world, partly in her father’s world, partly
in her husband’s world, and, of course, always in her own world.
And she knew that the writing was on the wall and that her
husband would never be content being a farmer in Carey
even though that idea seemed so ideal for her and the children.
And she was an acting person who made constant
decisions that built up the loving attitude within herself
and within others and she performed good actions knowing
that they contributed to good habits of heart, mind and soul.
But, she was also an acting person in another sense of the word
