I come to this and every memorial service with the same starting point – that every human life is created by God, unique, and worthy of celebration. We are, after all, created in God’s image, and that in itself is enough cause for celebrating the gift of life as it has been lived out in one particular human story.
In Psalm 139, David’s faith bubbles into the awe as he marvels at God’s design for each of us. He uses words like “weave,” “craft” and “variegated tapestry” to describe life as a unique mix of colorful threads and patterns. Helen was uniquely embroidered by God as a person in God’s own likeness.
Sunday afternoon as Jo Anne, Don, Dona, and Billy reflected on Helen’s life, and then as I read carefully through some reflections Jo Anne had written about her mother, the parallel to a biblical woman named Naomi emerged. Most of what I share with you about Helen comes from what Jo Anne and her family shared with me.
Naomi’s story is a lot like Helen Whitener’s. Both need to be told, preserved, and passed on. Here are some of the ways they parallel.
Tragedy. The story that develops in the book of Ruth is a compelling story in part because it grows in the soil of heartache. Naomi, far from home, loses her husband, her sons, and her income.
Helen also faced more tragedies in life than most. Her first husband died in an accidental fall after only two years of marriage, leaving her with a very young daughter to raise by herself. Her second husband died at only 60 years of age in 1980. Along the way there were also business- and finance-related conflicts and setbacks, including an explosion and fire that destroyed Alfred’s plant in the 1970s.
Friedrich Nietzsche said, “What does not destroy me makes me stronger.” Helen’s tragedies, like Naomi’s, made her stronger.
Motherhood. Naomi in the Bible is known most of all for being a mother, then a mother-in-law, then a grandmother (though not biologically), and finally the great grandmother of the man who fathered Israel’s greatest king, David. Naomi was not known by her professional accomplishments, although she worked when she needed to. She was known and valued most by her family.
So it was with Helen. Jo Anne’s first paragraph about Helen said, “I was privileged to have a wonderful mother who became over the years an equally wonderful mother-in-law, grandmother, and great-grandmother.” Helen may have had other roles and achieved other goals, but she valued her family as her first priority.
Dona said, “I wouldn’t have made it through college without Grammie.” Dona came to Lenoir Rhyne while her parents still lived in Maryland, and Grammie’s was her home away from home. All of her grandchildren knew from the time they were little that she was not the kind of Grandmother who let you get by with anything.
Ahead of her time. That was Jo Anne’s phrase to describe her mother’s social attitudes. Jo Anne said she learned tolerance from Helen, in part because one home they lived in while Jo Anne was growing up adjoined a black neighborhood. Helen was truly ahead of her time in attending a black church on occasion, in shopping at the neighborhood store owned and staffed by blacks on occasion, and simply in treating people as people without regard to their skin color.
I never thought of Naomi a “socially progressive” until I was writing this funeral meditation, but when Naomi’s husband moved the family to Moab, they were demonstrating the same kind of openness. If you don’t believe racial prejudice between Israelites and their non-Israelite neighbors ran deep, just remember those two groups are still warring 3,000 years later. When Naomi’s husband and sons died, she continued to treat her Moabite daughters-in-law with all the respect and love that she would have treated her own race.
To be free of prejudice is remarkable in any culture and time period, and Helen Whitener truly showed she was “ahead of her time.”
Travel. I never thought of Naomi a traveler either until seeing these parallels with Helen Whitener. But for her day, especially as a female, Naomi got around – rounding the Dead Sea from Judah to Moab and then back again. It’s even possible that on the return trip she went around the south side of the Sea.
Jo Anne said her mother “shared so many happy occasions with all our family, including a number of beach trips and cruises. (She) enjoyed travel and was fortunately able to experience some of the world’s delights.”
Independent. Joanne wrote, “Losing her first husband after only two years of marriage, she became a strong and independent woman who worked to support me, without complaints, providing occasional small treats so that I never felt deprived of either goods or love.”
That determination to make the best of a situation, to make firm decisions for a better life even if they were risky, was certainly true of Naomi as she decided to head back home to Israel. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Helen was that way. Part of her survival strategy was to become obsessive about details, organizations, and routines. She learned to pinch every penny – and literally to track every penny in writing as if she were a paid bookkeeper. And God forbid the washing machine should run on any day but Tuesday. Her independence and determination forced her to figure out how to survive with both money and time.
Inspired loyalty. The most famous quote in the book of Ruth is Ruth’s determination to out-stubborn her mother-in-law about remaining in Moab. Naomi was trying her best to release her daughters-in-law from their loyalty to her. “Go, look out for yourself,” Naomi insists.
Ruth answers Naomi, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” Not everyone deserves that kind of loyalty. Naomi did.
So did Helen. It showed up in the last couple of weeks as she neared the end. In Helen’s independence she really wanted Jo Anne, Dona, and Jodi to go home, take care of their own needs and the needs of their families. Helen insisted she would be OK by herself, and she didn’t want to be a burden to them or take away their sleep or time with their families.
Loyalty is inspired by a lifetime of generosity. I don’t just mean financial, although that’s sometimes in the mix. When you give and give of yourself and put the needs of others in front of your own, they will be stubbornly devoted and dependable.
Wisdom. The story of Ruth in the Bible turns on several wise decisions and pieces of advice that Ruth receives from her mother-in-law. The outcome couldn’t have been positive without the wisdom of Naomi.
Jo Anne said about her mother: “She was a woman of limited formal education, but a wise and learned woman in many ways, and a lifelong learner. She read voraciously, from the newspaper to novels, enjoyed crossword puzzles until the last week of her life, and passed on her love of reading to me.” She also “continued to grow and learn and change throughout her life.”
Wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing, but they often go hand in hand, as they did for Helen. As Jo Anne said Sunday, one can only wonder what she might have accomplished if she had had the opportunity to further her formal education, because she was so smart. But she also demonstrated wisdom, the applied knowledge that makes good decisions and anticipates the future.
Faith. As the book of Ruth unfolds, we find a refreshing candor about Naomi’s faith. She struggles with it. Her losses make her bitter before they make her better. But I’ve always maintained that only those who have faith struggle with matters of faith. If I don’t believe God exists, that he’s all-powerful, and that he’s good, there’s no reason to ask why bad things happen. Naomi was an honest person of faith.
I don’t know whether Helen struggled with her faith during tragedy or not. But I do know that faith was central to her identity. She was a part of this church family for every one of her 93 years, as was her sister, Katherine Whitener, who still attends worship weekly with her family. (For those of you who don’t know, Helen and Kat married brothers, which is why they still share a last name.)
Jo Anne wrote of her mother, “She was a Christian of quiet but strong faith, who is in church nearly every Sunday of her life when she was able. She told her pastor on one of his final visits when he asked about her concerns for the coming days, ‘I’m doing my part, and I expect God to do his part.’” She did indeed assure me that she was at peace with the end of life.
Not that she was in a hurry to get to the end! Just days before she died, Jodi and Dona were assuring her that it was OK to let go. “I’m still here,” she answered them. “We’re not talking about that.” She was feisty and determined.
Her faith was displayed not only in her personal peace about eternal life through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and in her faithful church attendance. She also expressed her faith in regular Bible reading and in her service to others. She served not only in the church, but in the community – American Heart Association, American Red Cross, Crippled Children Mothers’ March, American Legion, Girls’ State. The American Business Women’s Association named her “Woman of the Year” in 1968.
As I told my Confirmation class in this sanctuary on Sunday, service is not heroism in the church. It’s just what we expect from every church member as an expression of our faith. Service is normal for Christians. Helen lived like that – not looking for the spotlight but just quietly thinking of others far more than she thought of herself.
Off stage. I tried to think a better word or phrase for what I’m trying to say. I want to contrast the person who needs to be “center stage.” That wasn’t Helen and it wasn’t Naomi.
The book of the Bible that tells Naomi’s story is not called “Naomi.” It’s called Ruth. Ruth is the “leading character,” and it’s Ruth the Moabitess who becomes ancestor to King David and to Jesus. As the story unfolds, Naomi doesn’t “get the guy.” But without Naomi’s character traits Ruth would be a non-story.
Like Naomi, Helen Whitener was a towering figure. But she never thought of herself that way. And maybe she won’t be written up in any history books that way. She knew well that her daughter and son-in-law made more of a recognizable impact on the church, the community, and the world. But they know that it was Helen who gets the credit for those qualities of greatness that sometimes only God sees, or maybe the closest of family members – humility, gentleness, faith, strength, wisdom, and courage.
May her life continue to bless and inspire each of us by God’s grace. Amen.