chapter 3
chapter ornament

I was four years old when People magazine made its debut.

I didn’t read it, of course. I’m not entirely sure that I was reading anything back in those days, even if Mama vows and declares that I could identify every single word in The United Methodist Hymnal by the time I was three.

Apparently the combination of hymns and responsive readings made quite the impression.

Not to mention the overly optimistic lens of revisionist maternal history.

But when I was around seven, I fell headfirst into People magazine’s grip. I will never forget riding to Atlanta in my aunt’s station wagon, sitting on the wayback seat with my cousin Paige and flipping through the pages of an issue of People that my aunt Chox picked up at the Winn-Dixie earlier that day. The women from Charlie’s Angels were on the cover (Kelly, Sabrina, and Kris, in case you’re keeping score at home), and I was absolutely fascinated that I could read articles about the people who played the characters I loved to watch on TV.

(This is probably about the time when you’re thinking, Um, you were SEVEN—what in the world were you doing watching Charlie’s Angels?)

(So it’s probably a good time to remind you that I was the youngest child by ten years. My parents were in their mid-forties and putting their other two kids through college; my guess is that high-level supervision of my TV viewing wasn’t at the tip-top of their priorities.)

(I feel like that’s a safe assumption considering that just a few years later, we spent many meaningful Friday nights gathered ’round the TV for Dallas.)

That People magazine turned out to be the beginning of what would prove to be an, um, significant preoccupation with pop culture news. Even as a second grader (sweet mercy), I got a huge kick out of being able to peek behind the proverbial celebrity curtain. It was just all so glamorous and fascinating and a world away from my life in Mississippi.

So, from the time I was seven until I was about ten, I’d read Chox’s and Sister’s old issues of People and mentally file away whatever tidbits I read about Olivia Newton-John or Robert Redford or Diane Keaton. When I hit the preteen years, I moved on to Tiger Beat and Teen Beat because, um, RICK SPRINGFIELD, and after I started driving, I’d head straight for Brown’s News Stand on Wednesday afternoons and stock up on my weekly magazine reading: People, Us Weekly, TV Guide, and maybe even a Rolling Stone for good measure. Between my magazine reading, my movie watching, and my habitual Saturday Night Live / Late Night with David Letterman viewing, I was pretty much any Trivial Pursuit player’s worst nightmare. I earned my varsity letter in pop culture nerdery, and I could sing all the words to the Moonlighting theme song if I needed to prove it.

(“We’ll walk by night / we’ll fly by day / Moonlighting strangers / who just met on the way.”)

(You’re welcome.)

Pop culture didn’t loosen its grip during my college years. I certainly don’t mean to brag, but I was a charter subscriber to Entertainment Weekly and would sometimes read up on the backstory of the latest Kevin Costner movie when I was pretending to pay attention in philosophy class. Reading EW was my second-favorite alternate activity when I found myself in a boring lecture situation, but my preference was always to hide my friend Daphne’s GameBoy behind a textbook and play Tetris to my heart’s content.

I like to think that my discreet Tetris tactics were a forerunner to today’s surreptitious classroom texting / Instagramming / FaceSnapTimeBooking, so you’re welcome for that, Millennials. Maybe one day we can exchange fist bumps as a show of alternate activity solidarity.

By the time I got my first real job, I was as well-versed in the nuances of Dave Matthews Band / Hootie & the Blowfish / The Complete Film Catalog of Julia Roberts / Quotable Quotes from SNL as any twenty-three-year-old would hope to be. Throw in a fairly solid appreciation for country music, R&B, Academy Award trivia, and obscure TV shows of the ’80s, and you can probably understand why I harbored a secret dream of competing on Jeopardy—provided that nothing related to math and/or science entered the question pool.

Listen. Everybody has gifts. Solving equations has never been one of mine.

There was, however, one completely unexpected reward for my years of overanalyzing Beverly Hills 90210 and committing far too many song lyrics to memory: I could bond with teenagers within minutes, and this was no small feat as a first-year teacher. I might not have had a very, um, solid grasp of my subject area, but by diggity I could talk about Nirvana and Boyz II Men and Pulp Fiction and Designing Women. And somewhere in the mix of all those seemingly unrelated things, those kids and I found that there was more than enough room for all of us to stand on our relatively small patch of common ground.

For the next seven or eight years I continued to hold my own in the pop culture department; I somehow incorporated tidbits about Puff Daddy and Britney Spears and Friends and “Jenny from the Block” into my lessons at school, and I may have even admitted that I could rap the entirety of Will Smith’s incomparable classic “Boom! Shake the Room.”

(True story: I still know every word.)

(“The rhyme is a football, y’all, and I went and threw it.”)

When I was in my early thirties, though, something started to shift. I don’t think I could have pinpointed exactly what it was, but I found that I related more to the middle-aged folks on Survivor than I did to the early-twenties crowd on MTV. I stopped watching the Grammys because I recognized fewer and fewer artists, and I unintentionally cut my movie-watching in half after I realized that I really enjoyed working in the yard. Then I got pregnant, and I had a baby, and I replaced People magazine with parenting blogs and Baby Einstein and VeggieTales.

And suddenly, one day when I was teaching tenth grade English, I knew that I’d reached the end of an era. I was helping kids with essay rough drafts, and one of my students had written a paper about his favorite bands. I skimmed over the first two body paragraphs, both about bands I knew, and as I started to read the third body paragraph, which was all about a band I had never heard of, I asked a question I’ll never forget:

“So, do you think you need a better transition in this paragraph about Oar?”

Crickets.

I looked around to see if I’d missed some big classroom development, and eventually it dawned on me that my students were experiencing some degree of pity for me.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

“No big deal, Mrs. Hudson,” the paper writer replied. “It’s just that the band is O.A.R. You say the letters. OH. AY. ARE.”

Listen. I know that it’s silly. But I was so sad, y’all. I was embarrassed. Even though the music / TV / movie stuff was a strange connection to share with the kids I taught, it was still a connection, and not knowing the name of a pretty popular band signaled that I was way more at home with Nick Jr. than I was with MTV.

My failure to know O.A.R. meant that my pop culture dominance had reached its E.N.D.

And I’ll tell you something else: I felt O.L.D.

ornament

Now I certainly can’t speak to Nazareth’s pop culture scene back in Mary’s day, but who knows? Maybe there was a guy in Mary’s village who played a smokin’ hot lyre and made all the girls’ hearts beat a little faster when he’d let his hair fall in his eyes. Or maybe one of Joseph’s buddies played in a harp ensemble called The Nazartastics. (I’m sorry. That’s such a lame name. It’s the best I can do considering that I am currently unfamiliar with any possible Nazareth High School mascots.) Or maybe Mary and her girlfriends liked to make up worship songs, and they’d sing them to each other as they walked behind their parents on the way to the temple.

Obviously I just made up all of those examples off the top of my head. But my point is this: teenagers typically find ways to separate themselves from their elders, and those of us who aren’t teenagers are typically trying to find a way to play catch-up. Even in this last year I’ve felt some degree of pride that I was able to commit a solid 75 percent of Taylor Swift’s 1989 album to memory, but as soon as I reached that milestone I realized that I’m still completely incapable of distinguishing all the different actors named Chris (Chris Pratt, Chris Pine, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris McGillicuddy, etc., and so on).

(As far as I know, Chris McGillicuddy is a completely pretend actor, but how could anyone possibly know that because MY WORD, THERE SURE ARE A LOT OF CHRISES.)

So I think it’s safe to say that trying to keep up with the younger generation will wear you slap out. And fortunately, while their music and movies and TV shows are great connection points, they’re not essentials. That’s why, when I look at the story of Mary and Elizabeth, I find the sweetest relief in how they loved and responded to each other, because mercifully—thankfully—they didn’t seem to get too hung up on all the different items and issues that might, under normal circumstances, constitute a generation gap.

In fact, we don’t see a single indication that they were caught up in their generational differences. Elizabeth didn’t roll her eyes because Mary was sporting a side bun. Mary didn’t tell Elizabeth that her house was on fleek while Elizabeth wondered what in the world “on fleek” even meant. Elizabeth wasn’t preoccupied with watching reruns of Murder, She Wrote, and Mary wasn’t exasperated because her older cousin couldn’t quote large chunks of dialogue from Gossip Girl.

From the onset of Mary’s arrival, Elizabeth was all in with her much younger cousin. And from my perspective, at least, it seems like she was well aware that when the Holy Spirit gives you compassion for someone, it really doesn’t matter how many years stand between your respective dates of birth. All that matters is responding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and recognizing that any opportunity to speak into someone’s life, bless them, pray for them, or minister to them—well, it is a privilege.

A PRIVILEGE.

Sometimes, though, we miss out on the privilege because we’re so busy majoring on the minors. It’s easy to feel like we won’t “connect” because a few decades separate us, but we can absolutely trust the Lord to bridge the gap. It seems like Elizabeth knew that all too well; just look at her words in Luke 1:43–44:

And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

She didn’t roll her eyes. She didn’t comment on Mary’s skirt length. She didn’t launch into a lengthy monologue about how Mary’s generation didn’t understand the value of hard work and how, when she was a girl, she would have been able to make that walk from Nazareth to Judea in, like, HALF A DAY.

She welcomed Mary with open arms. She blessed Mary’s pregnancy. And she rejoiced with her.

She rejoiced with her.

ornament

Sixteen years ago my husband and I moved to Birmingham. We knew a grand total of zero people here, but we knew that this is where the Lord wanted us. So we packed our stuff into a moving van and wondered all the while what it would be like to live in a city where we didn’t know a soul.

You can appreciate that we arrived in Birmingham with just a tiny bit of trepidation. Because CITY FULL OF STRANGERS.

It was just a few weeks after we arrived when the wife of the man who hired me for my new teaching job called and asked if I’d like to be part of a Bunco group she was hosting. Back in the early 2000s we were all crazy for some Bunco, and I thought it sounded like a fun way to meet some folks. By that point I’d managed to make three new friends—Anna, Alison, and Norma Kay—and since they were also going to be part of the group, I felt like I might be on my way to finding my Birmingham people.

Thankfully, I was right about that.

And there was one other significant Bunco bonus.

Her name was Mary Jo.

Mary Jo was the person who invited me to be part of the group, and I liked her instantly. A mama of three grown children, she was somehow gracious and no-nonsense all at the same time. And since she was also a Mississippi native, we figured out pretty quickly that we shared a fondness for fried chicken, pine trees, and magnolias. The fact that she owned a fine assortment of brown transferware (that’s a specific kind of china for those of you who do not consider dishes a worthwhile hobby) and had a knack for finding funky, comfortable shoes only elevated her in my personal estimation. She was most definitely someone I’d like to be if or when I finally grew up.

Our Bunco group lasted for three or four years before it transitioned into a Bible study (AS YOU DO). By that point I was in choir and Bible study at our church, so I’d catch up with Mary Jo over the occasional lunch or get-together. However, several years later—about the time that our son, Alex, started four-year-old kindergarten—I recognized that I was registering somewhere between desperate and cuckoo crazypants in terms of needing wisdom and counsel from older women. My mother and mother-in-law were both living in my hometown and quick to help whenever I asked, but I craved regular, face-to-face contact with women who had a few more years of wife-ing and mother-ing under their belts. None of the Bible studies at church worked with my schedule, so when it dawned on me that Mary Jo was still hosting a Bible study in her home on Wednesday nights, I knew that was my answer.

Also, I’m pretty sure I was about twenty minutes early the first week I attended, because does the phrase “AT WIT’S END” mean anything to you at all?

As it turned out, my friend Alison and I were the youngest people in our Bible study, and it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. The other women were in their forties, fifties, and sixties—in different stages of parenting and marriage and work than we were—and while I would often walk into Mary Jo’s house filled with all manner of worries and questions and frustrations, I quickly learned to listen way more than I talked. I noticed over and over again that the ladies’ conversations were consistently encouraging and edifying, full of affection and honor for their families and friends. They didn’t pretend like life was perfect, so I didn’t feel like I had to pretend, either, but there was an overarching tone of gratitude and joy that permeated our time together. If you’ve ever been part of what might be classified as a dysfunctional small group, you know what a relief it is to realize that the phrase “Bible study” doesn’t have to be synonymous with “gossip and gripe session.”

And those times when I did speak up? When I had a question about parenting a four-year-old or handling a relational conflict or stepping into something new with my writing? When I was feeling run down by the mama-guilt that frequently plagued me or facing a challenge I didn’t think I could meet? Mary Jo and the other ladies always seemed to know exactly what to say. I doubt that they’ll ever fully know how deeply they blessed me with their wisdom, their compassion, and their prayers.

We never made any official declaration of mentorship, but that’s exactly what those women did in my life. That’s exactly what Mary Jo still does. And imagine this: even though we don’t necessarily share the same pop culture vocabulary, the Holy Spirit has managed to knit our hearts together just fine.

The fact that Mary Jo makes really good homemade cakes has only strengthened our bond.

Sometimes the Lord just goes above and beyond, doesn’t He?

ornament

Now I don’t want to overstep my boundaries, so bear with me—but it has occurred to me that there’s something we don’t see when Mary arrived at Elizabeth’s house, and that something is anything resembling the following conversation:

“Elizabeth, I’m walking through some uncertainty right now. I’m unsure of how to move forward, and I would really value your insight into my current situation. Elizabeth, I come to you in all humility, and I have a question that I would be honored for you to consider. Would you mentor me?”

People of faith, we LOVE that question.

People of faith, I’m afraid that we can FREAK EACH OTHER OUT when we ask it.

I’m dead serious.

Over the last few years of writing and speaking, I’ve heard a significant number of stories from women who long to be mentored and can’t find a single person in their community/church/workplace willing to step into that role. My heart absolutely goes out to folks who crave the guidance and care of an older woman; not being able to find it has to be discouraging and disconcerting and a whole bunch of other dis- words.

And make no mistake: mentoring is essential for healthy community. But part of the problem, I think, is that we may be asking the wrong question when we approach someone about mentoring us. It’s a language that—for better or worse—many churches don’t speak any more, and as a result of that, many women don’t speak it, either. We hear the word “mentor” and we think of someone who has to be able to lead another woman through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and show her how to maximize her budget and maybe even teach her to crochet while communicating the top ten most important aspects of holiness. There’s some degree of misconception that a mentor is responsible for teaching us all there is to know about being a woman of God, and in my experience that puts a whole lot of pressure on both the mentor and the mentee.

Provided, of course, that “mentee” is actually a word.

But here’s the good news: we can look to Mary and Elizabeth for some relief from the places where our expectations are unrealistic or maybe even unfounded.

First of all, this:

There are some mighty fine potential mentors who are already in our lives —either as relatives or good friends.

And if you’re thinking, No, that’s not true—I don’t even know any older people, then I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to invite a few from your church to lunch. Or coffee. Or bowling.

Well, maybe not bowling. We certainly don’t want people throwing out their backs.

Regardless, here’s what occurs to me: Mary doesn’t seem to harbor any reservations about making the trek to Elizabeth’s house, and that may well be because she already had a relationship with her. If that was the case, then there was already an established level of comfort, which may be why Elizabeth had a voice with Mary from the get-go. I personally think it’s easier for a relationship with a mentor to take off long-term if there’s already a friendship in place—or at least that’s been my personal experience.

Secondly:

What we have in common far exceeds any perceived generational differences.

It’s so easy to look at the generation behind us or the generation ahead of us and think that we just flat-out look at life differently. We can be tempted to get up on our generational high horses and think, Well, I am unsure why these young Millennials seem to have leggings confused with pants. Leggings are not even a little bit able to serve in a pants-like capacity. What do these girls have against buttons and zippers?

Or, those of us who might be a little too dependent on technology might think, I am not really interested in having a mentor if she refuses to text, tweet, and Instagram. I can’t live in a world where I might have to dial someone’s phone number and talk on an actual phone, for crying out loud.

However, Mary and Elizabeth remind us that when the Holy Spirit summons us to care for each other, generational differences fly out the window. The security of being loved and understood far outweighs any perceived advantage of having a mentor who can give you lots of hearts during a Periscope broadcast.

Just for the record, though: texting is pretty handy.

I promise I’m smiling.

Third thing:

At every age and stage of life, women need other women who will listen, confirm, teach, bless, and pray.

If nothing else, Mary and Elizabeth should remind us that women need each other—and when culture or circumstances or maybe cynicism threatens to keep us distant even though we are made for discipleship, we have to work that much harder to find our way into each other’s lives. Maybe that means we seek out an older cousin. Maybe that means we turn around to the college girl who sits behind us every Sunday and invite her to lunch. Maybe that means a few of you thirty-somethings decide to spend a semester in one of your church’s book clubs for the sixty-plus set.

(This may actually be one of my favorite ideas ever.)

(If you decide to do this, you have to e-mail me and tell me ALL ABOUT IT.)

Bottom line: we need each other, so we have to reach across the generations and find each other. And while nobody asked me, I think maybe the very best way to find a mentor is to first find a friend. When we’re genuinely drawn to each other—when we share a genuine affinity for one another—friendship develops naturally and organically no matter the age difference.

And in lots of cases, those older friends will become mentors without anyone having to make a speech or a plea or an awkward ask. That being said, sometimes we know that the Lord wants us to go out of our way and make a speech or a plea or an awkward ask for mentorship from someone we don’t know very well. If that’s the case, then don’t hesitate to be obedient to that prompting.

But however we form relationships with older and younger women, we can trust that intentionally stepping across generational lines is oh-so worth it. Because once we find our Mary or our Elizabeth (or both!), every aspect of our lives—our faith, our families, our careers, our friendships—will be all the better for it.

ornament

So the other day I was in my office at work, and two of my senior girls stopped by to say hey and visit for a few minutes. We talked about what they’d packed for lunch, what tests they had that week, and eventually they mentioned that they were super-excited about a concert that was coming up in a couple of days.

“OH!” I exclaimed. “Which concert?” As a general rule I still adore music, even if I don’t listen to much of what the kids like.

(Well, except for T. Swift, of course.)

(Only I can’t call her “T. Swift” in front of the girls at school because it creates cringe-inducing, please-Mrs. Hudson-we-beg-you-not-to-speak-our-lingo moments.)

The two seniors explained that they were going to see an R&B singer whose music I’ve never heard, but I’ve seen his name in the headlines way too many times. The look on my face must have conveyed my total lack of enthusiasm, and they said, “What? What is it, Mrs. Hudson?”

I stepped right up on my aforementioned old person high horse before I answered way too forcefully.

“I DO NOT THINK HE HOLDS A VERY HIGH VIEW OF WOMEN,” I said—in a tone that might have been more appropriate reading the Declaration of Independence or some other Official Government Document.

I watched their faces fall thanks to my successful concert buzz kill, and I immediately felt super-convicted that I was pushing them away instead of drawing them in. I mean, if I want to have a voice in their lives, if I want to be able to bless and pray and teach and all those things I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, then I have to be aware that sometimes it’s beneficial to muzzle a few of my opinions.

Heaven knows that even if I muzzle even half of them, I’ll still have a lifetime’s worth in my back pocket.

So I looked at the girls, smiled, and changed my tune.

“Look,” I said. “His music is not for me. Clearly. After all, I’m 109 years old. But I hope y’all have fun. And when you come back to school next Monday, I want to hear all about it.”

The girls’ eyes lit up, and as they turned to leave, one of them looked back and said, “Sounds great, Mrs. H! We’ll give you a full report!”

They were about two steps from the door when I jumped out of my chair to share one last encouraging word.

“HE REALLY DOESN’T SEEM TO RESPECT WOMEN, THOUGH!” I shouted way too cheerfully.

The girls laughed.

And obviously I still have a whole lot to learn about this mentor business.

But fortunately, thanks to Elizabeth and Mary Jo and the other older women in my life, I can count on learning lessons—especially about the stuff that really matters—from some really exceptional teachers.

However, I don’t think they can teach me much at all about O.A.R.

That’s why People magazine is still a mighty good resource in a pinch.