A Walk on the Spiritual Side

I haven’t written much about the Unitarian church we are attending in our new hometown, that bears the somewhat unwieldy name:   UnitarianUniversalist Church of Greater Lynn in Swampscott.  Certainly, the contrasts between the Arlington urban church of 1,000 members and a small town church of under 200 folks would come readily to your mind.  But, beyond the obvious (a single Sunday service, one minister, not three, twelve choir singers rather than sixty) are more subtle, emotional rather than quantitative differences that I have yet to sort out completely.  I hope to tell you more in a future posting.

However, I wanted to give you, dear readers, a brief description of today’s worship service that focused on labyrinth walking as spiritual practice.  About 15 years ago, the labyrinth took on a significant role in our lives at the Arlington church.  We were members of a team that helped construct  a large, painted canvass labyrinth, under the direction of Rev. Joan Gelbein and her husband Abe.  We tended the labyrinth as caretakers when it was placed periodically in the church social hall for use in spiritual practice.  Trudi was part of a group that funded the translation from German of a major work on labyrinths, and helped organize a regional labyrinth conference.  I even wrote a poem on walking the labyrinth at the spring equinox.   As years passed, we moved on to other things at the church, but found inspiration and comfort in walking the labyrinth on New Year’s Day.

The speakers at today’s service were co-founders of a local business that offers labyrinth walks, sells labyrinths, conducts workshops and leadership training and labyrinth design consultations.  (Cottage industries abound in endless variety up here!)  They brought several portable labyrinths with them, including a canvas one that was laid out in the sanctuary after the service.  We both felt some hesitation about walking it, perhaps fearful that the impact of the walk would not match what we had felt in Arlington over the years.  But for me, the experience was quite the opposite.

I found the labyrinth and the walk itself comfortable and familiar territory, forging a link between the two locales and two phases of our lives together.  I realized in walking the labyrinth today I was drawing from my past a personal experience that I have transported to this new place, like a packet of seeds to be planted in soil.   The continuity of experience was, I suppose, like hearing a familiar liturgy spoken.  And I was encouraged that this congregation of New Englanders would value and support something that had been also a deep part of our communal life in Virginia.  And, as well, this broadened for me a sense of shared trust and appreciation for the anthem music that Trudi and I sang today,  Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, with the pocket choir of this new church.  You can click this link for a YouTube performance of that beautiful piece: Listen and enjoy

Home Plate

Since we returned to Massachusetts six months ago, a goal Trudi has had has been to recover  the low number license plate 777 her father  had on his car when she was growing up in Longmeadow.  Her dad had passed the plate on to her second cousin, Laurie, when he moved from Massachusetts to Maine  twenty years or so ago, as  closer relations either did not want the plate or did not reside in Massachusetts at the time.  

Here you can see the plate adorning the Wallace’s Buick Eight convertible in a snapshot probably taken in 1949.  Those with in depth knowledge of Trudi’s immediate family will notice that the face with the cherubic grin over Trudi’s father’s left shoulder was Photoshopped in, as  younger brother Stephen wasn’t born until 1954.  [Thanks for providing the digitized photo, Stephen!]

 

This goal may strike some of you, dear readers, as -- not to put too fine a point on it -- a bit weird.  But I assure you the low license plate phenomenon is a special thing for many residents of the Bay State.  You may have been unaware as I was that Massachusetts was the  first state to issue license plates thanks to the efforts of Civil War hero, Henry Lee Higginson, who hated “automobilists” whizzing past his front door in Boston and petitioned the legislature relative to licensing automobiles, so speeders could be easily identified and apprehended.  As a result of his efforts, license plate number 1 was issued to a Frederick Tudor in September, 1903 and by the end of the year production had reached plate number 3241.  By the way, plate number 1 is still in use by a member of Mr. Tudor’s family!  Read more

For many years, low number plates were issued, in true Massachusetts fashion,  to those with some political pull.  Wallace family lore doesn’t reveal how or when 777 was obtained, although there is some anecdotal evidence that Trudi’s aunt Margie received her low number as a sixteenth birthday present through her grandmother’s petition to the governor back in the 1930’s.  

In 1987, then governor Michael Dukakis ended this admittedly unfair method of distributing low number plates to those with influence by instituting an annual lottery which continues to this day.  In 2011, 161  plates including  67, T7 and Y11 were distributed to lottery winners from a pool of 6,000 applicants.

To bring  a long - but I hope not too boring - story to a close, cousin Laurie kindly agreed to part with 777 (he also owns plate number 1515 which he inherited from his step mother).  And so, we journeyed to the RMV in Lowell  to meet with him and effect the exchange of plates.  We needed to prepare a stack of papers in advance, including a notarized statement  from a third party  attesting to the fact that Trudi was who she claimed to be.   Apparently,  the state tries to make this transfer process discouragingly complex in order to  retrieve as many  of these low number plates as it can to feed them back into the revenue-producing lottery. 

Here you can see Trudi proudly displaying her new (old) license plate.  It feels right to us to have 777 back.  It looks quite good on her Subaru, and you can rest assured that when we are no longer driving, we’ll pass it on to the next generation.

 Namaste.