The Many Thoughts of Wanda Kidd

I do not think it is just because I am Southern that I have been surrounded by rational seeming people who believe unbelievable things, but it probably doesn’t help. Maybe it is because we talk slower that we have more time for odd ideas to seep into our thought processes and it may be our clannishness that makes us want to, if not support, at least entertain belief systems that challenge rational thought. When someone tells me they believe something, I personally want to know how they got there and what good is it doing for them or others, to believe that?

Also, I have never understood the concept of “believing” as a standalone reality.  Greeting cards, farmhouse artwork and even painted rocks are emblazoned with the word “Believe”,  but I always want to ask, ‘In what?’  When I conjure an image of believing, I often see a small child, with their eyes tightly squeezed closed and their impassioned little mouth drawn into a bow, with the caption BELIEVE. In my imaging’s I see the longing of a young soul with a heartfelt need to cling to something bigger than themselves. But even a child must have an idea of what they are believing in.  Most of the time we confuse wishing with believing and as they blow out their candles on their birthday cakes or throw pennies into a fountain, they have a picture of what it is they want to happen. They want to believe in something.

As an homage to Christmas, I will begin my exploration of believing by retelling the story of my sister Amy and her first very disappointing brush with believing.   (It is important to the story that you know that she was a beautiful child who had a pretty significant speech impediment where she replaced “C” and “S” with “T’s.”)

The Christmas Amy was almost 4,  she desperately wanted a Shirley Temple Doll. It was the “stand in line” Christmas gift for the year.  Unfortunately our mom was not the “stand in line” type of mother.  She was the kind of mom that thought it built character to not fall for fads. She did not feel that way as a ruse to save money particularly, she just believed that you should walk your own path. If everyone was wearing Weejuns (brown loafers with only a seam up the back that were bought a Lacock’s Shoe Store on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill ), she bought me Capezios (leather ballerina shoes from Thalhimers Department Store in downtown Durham ). If everyone had a beige London Fog raincoat with brown monogram on the color, I got a snow white one with black monogramming. I like to believe that it was her subtle, but consistent, way of building individuality and self-esteem in us; to know that we were different, but of equal value.

Anyway, the Christmas campaign for the 10 inch doll that had light brown ringleted hair, a dimple in her cheek with a red and white organdy dress was all we heard about for weeks.  Amy would say “All I want is a Tirly Temple Doll for Christmas”.  My mother would say, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”  It became so obvious that this was no passing whim, that my mom began to search in earnest for an original Shirley Temple doll, but by that time, there were none to be found. It was down to the wire and still there was no “Tirly Temple” doll to place under the tree and then it was Christmas morning.

Each year Santa created a pile of gifts for each one of us under the tree. The clothes on the bottom, the educational toys in the middle and the fun thing on top.  We waited at the top of the stairs for Daddy to make and pour his first cup of coffee, he would then come to the bottom of the steps and tell us we could come down. We raced down the  stairs, found our own pile and dove it. As I passed by Amy’s pile, I noticed a small generic white angel doll on the top, but no Shirley Temple doll and thought, umm, but my pile was calling. Suddenly, there was the thud of something being thrown across the room and hitting a wall and a very angry, hurt and disbelieving voice said, “Didn’t Tanta Taus know a Tirly Temple doll when he Tees one?”  It cast quite the pallor over the mood that Christmas morning.

From that day forward, Amy got everything she asked for at Christmas. She tried to outfox people and keep her request secret.  She went to see Santa at the shopping center with a friend of Mama’s a couple of years later and asked for a Bible for Daddy. (I am not sure why, he had more bibles than the preacher, but that was immaterial.)  The friend told Mama and Christmas morning there was a black leather bible under the tree on Amy’s pile with Daddy’s name embossed in gold, with a note inside saying it was to H.L. Hardee from Amy Hardee, signed Santa.

They worked so hard to overcome that Christmas morning that through the years when Amy would ask about the reality of a Santa Claus, they would say, “When you quit believing, you quit receiving.” I was eventually the one who had to tell her the truth about Santa. I was 12 and she was 10 and she was asking for a personal color TV for Christmas.  I had had enough of their guilt from crushing her Tirly Temple Christmas, but it left a mark on all of us.

She got the real Shirley Temple doll the following Christmas, but the magic had worn off. When we were sorting my parent’s things a few years ago, I found the naked doll with light brown ringlets in the attic buried in a box of odds and ends. Once again I could hear that plastic angel doll hit the wall and that pipey little voice disparaging Santa’s all-knowingness.   That first cut of disbelief is always the deepest.

In 1st Corinthians 13, Paul says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. I watched my sister grow into an understanding of belief that was more interested in helping others realize their God-given worth than what she got for Christmas. Too often we languish in the belief of a four year old at Christmas.

What is it we believe in? Is it worth investing? Is it life-changing or life-giving? Is it even something that has requires thought on our part? Is it something that would make the world a better place for having embraced it? To Believe in something is a powerful thing and it is because of its very power, that It must be carefully explored and embraced with care and wisdom. Shallow or Misplaced belief is dangerous at worse and painful at least. To believe in something, means that the act of believing allows you to envision an outcome that would be better for you and others, (we never know who is watching to see if what we say we believe, measures up to what we do.)

To Believe…

is not a slogan or a platitude

is not done in isolation

is about generosity and not scarcity

is a higher calling than we could accomplish on our own

is a walk toward something that provides hope for you and others

is a commitment to a greater good

is based in love and not fear

Believe in Something…Something Good, it will make all the difference in your life and the lives of others,

Amen