Tickseed and the Old Rugged Cross

Sunday church bells while weeding.

I have a big flower garden. I watch garden programs and I have dozens of full-color books on growing flowers. I keep Better Homes and Gardens in business and my local nursery knows me by name. I love flowers.

I also love Monty Don. If you know, you know.

This morning, while weeding and deadheading my beds, I could hear the local church down the highway start its Sunday music…the bells can be heard all over town and even out of town.

I got my knee pad out of the shed and kneeled down to get to work. The Old Rugged Cross started as I grabbed a tangled mess of weeds from behind the tickseed (Coreopsis) I have planted on the west side of my old farmhouse. I have to be careful weeding here…I still have knob and tube fixtures in parts of my old house and the wiring is exposed outside.

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross
The emblem of suffering and shame
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain

I know the words…every last one. I am not a singer. I am fairly tone-deaf in fact. When I stood and sang hymns in church for years, I sang under my breath or pretended to sing so as not to offend my neighbors. But, the old hymns were always my favorite and I often just let it go and sang with my whole being. I sang for all to hear.

These old songs made tears fall from my eyes. I have never been one for public emotion, especially not crying, so I would look down and let the tears fall without drawing attention to my inability to hold in my emotion. Church was always a roller coaster ride for me, and as I moved on to working around my Columbine this morning, the tears welled. I was right back in the pew.

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged cross
And exchange it some day for a crown

I have deconstructed from my Southern Baptist faith. I live each day trying to move on from the misogyny and patriarchy I learned over the years. I have moved on from much of my indoctrination, but I will forever find solace and beauty in the old hymns. They were a comfort to generations of folks living difficult lives and enduring grief and pain. And so I am drawn in with each refrain.

I am taken back to my youth…

My grandpa took me to his Baptist church when I visited each summer. My grandma refused to attend with him, but he could always make me go. I didn’t enjoy it much — the church was strict and made women wear dresses and grow their hair out. They didn’t approve of makeup, but let it slide if lightly applied. But, they also rolled out the old hymns every week.

I couldn’t get enough.

Grandpa wore his brown suit and put oil in his hair and smiled as he sang…he didn’t smile much, so this was always a joy to behold. He would hold my hand and look at peace. His life had been tough. He lost a son to Muscular Dystrophy, and where he had been a difficult man before, he became even more demanding and sometimes downright cruel. But, every Sunday, he transformed. He sang the old songs and found relief.

To the old rugged cross I will ever be true
It's shame and reproach gladly bear
Then he'll call me some day to my home far away
Where his glory forever I'll share

My grandpa and grandma were tortured on this earth, but both found peace in the hymns.

I take after my grandma. She could appreciate the community in the church. She loved the other women. She did not appreciate the patriarchy. She spoke little on religion, except to occasionally speak on the con artists who claimed to be able to spare her son if she just believed enough and tithed enough and spent her time looking for her own faults that resulted in her son’s disease. It was cruel and she recognized it. She never forgave those men, but she never stopped believing in something bigger than herself. She was spiritual — she was not religious.

And she loved flowers.

Even when grandma left her home and moved in with my aunt, you could find her outside each day. She sat in the shade, but more often in the sun. She grew tomatoes and flowers. She let the sun fall on her face and tan her skin and she hummed under her breath. I don’t know exactly what she was humming, but I think it was often those old hymns…the ones that brought her comfort in her later years. The hymns to remind her of better times and the peace that comes with age and acceptance.

And I'll cherish the old rugged cross
Till my trophies at last I lay down
And I will cling to the old rugged cross
And exchange it some day for a crown

I moved from tickseed to columbine to roses to dahlias. I deadheaded for an hour or better. The bells from the church downtown stopped ringing, but I was left with the racing thoughts in my brain calmed. I had the words to The Old Rugged Cross stuck on replay and I couldn’t think of Trump or a Missouri GOP supermajority or my local defunded school.

The exchange of bad for good. The exchange of pain for happiness. The righting of the world because of a good person willing to stand up for you.

You can see how these words resonate with true believers, but I know they can resonate with those of us who have chosen another path. Freedom.

I find freedom and my purpose through activism, but the work is hard and it never stops. Flowers and vegetables are forgiving. You clear your mind by focusing on weeds and dirt and fertilizers and hard work. Gardening clears the mind and focuses the gardener.

The music I hear every Sunday morning is part of that work. While I no longer need a theology to help me through trials and tribulations, I do enjoy the simple songs of praise — they are part of me at this point.

Almost as much as my gardening and activism.

~Jess