Miss Helen Wright, Firewalker

I received an e-mail from a former student of mine. She told of her present-day life with two autistic children. I marveled at the growth of character and spiritual maturity that was evident in her life, even in the midst of the forty-plus hours a week she juggles in order to get all the services both children require.

This woman thanked me for introducing her to the wisdom of a woman I met in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1983, Miss Helen Wright. Miss Helen, as everyone called her, was in her early seventies at that time, but age did not slow her down. In fact, she declared that God was renewing her strength every day as she waited on Him.

Most folks raised in the South would recognize Miss Helen's spiritual vocabulary even if they were not religious. If you lived in a small community, either your family showed up at Christmas and Easter church services, or you attended the Vacation Bible Schools that the local church, if nothing more than for free babysitting.

So even the crowd at the local juke joint would take off their ball caps or cowboy hats when the band, after singing "Sweet Home, Alabama" and their other four tunes ten times, would desperately turn to songs mothers and grandmothers had sung to them in the swirling dusk of firefly twilight: "Amazing Grace/How sweet the sound," or "Jesus Lover of my soul/Let me to Thy bosom fly."

Nowadays many churches omit the old, familiar hymns in favor of catchy choruses. Now there is the influx of people from sea to shining sea who come to this gentle land, strangers who buy family homes and farms, tearing down the modest structures whose wood was seasoned with the love and loyalty of those who prepared Thanksgiving turkeys and birthday cakes and Fourth of July barbeque and funeral food--all manner of covered dishes of green beans, corn, Jell-O salads, and buttermilk pies.

In the place of those clapboard houses rise mansions with seven bathrooms and four-car garages with nary a tractor or pickup truck in sight. The people in those new developments know little or nothing of what grew in the dirt that now lies barren and deep under concrete and steel, never to produce food for their children who think vegetables come from Whole Foods and the goats in the field are dogs.

I don't begrudge those who were born elsewhere; some of my best friend hale from beyond the borders of the Confederacy, and someone has to tell them the stories of the unknown people who made this place hallowed ground, who faced unbelievable hardships with strength and courage that came from the Almighty--God, that is, not money.

One such woman was Miss Helen Wright who gave up a concert pianist career with the Alabama Symphony to teach piano to students at a small college that trained people who had committed their lives to God to help others in foreign lands. Miss Helen chose poverty over prosperity--but was the richest person I have ever met.

I have decided to tell Miss Helen's stories here because I have realized that more of you can come here than can visit me at Rose Hill to sit around my table. Here you will experience a beloved ritual observed by Southerners for generations after a meal of fresh vegetables from the garden, accompanied by cornbread made in an iron skillet. We will linger around this table of communion while drinking coffee with our dessert of chess pie or peach cobbler and tell stories we have come to love.

There are plenty of chairs around this Table, and all ya'll can invite someone to visit here, too. You don't have to bring anything--just a hunger that needs to be filled.

Welcome, old and new Friends. I invite you to listen to stories like the legends of old, stories of an ordinary woman who could walk in the midst of the fire!