Shelli Emerson Foth

I woke up to the sound of thunder and the dramatic flash of lightening. Marching over the hills of Rwanda were thunderheads just waiting to unleash their anger on the city of Kigali. Being from Oregon, i'd never really experienced a thunderstorm of this magnitude, we dont really get thunderstorms here. I was actually legitimately afraid.

Some people make sense in their family.

I had a friend named becca. We worked together at a bible camp. She was strange. A cutter, needed attention, control freak… i didnt get her. Then i went to her house, and i met her family.

after that, she made sense.

If there's one thing that sticks out in my mind about growing up in the Emerson household, its tea parties with daddy. Believe it or not, thats the thing i remember most my relationship with my dad prior to my teenage years.

It was pretty simple for him. He'd say something like "Lets have a tea party!" and we would go scurrying off to get it all ready. My sister Jami and i would get dressed up in our best Daisy Kingdom dresses, and then run to my sister Traci's room and ask/beg to borrow her miniature tea set for such an auspicious occasion as this. I remember the tea set well, it was mostly white, with lavender accents and lavender and white checked mini napkins... I always was jealous of it, i think Traci still has it. Anyway... We'd then run and ask mom if she had something to eat for our tea party, and we usually came away with some stale graham crackers or something like that. To be honest, im not sure i know what a not stale graham cracker tastes like...

All that dad really had to do was show up and smile and talk to us and tell us we were precious. Bingo, AWESOME dad in one easy step!

My dad and i laugh about this now, but truthfully, it did a lot for my relationship with my father. He cultivated in me a trust for him and an absolute security in fact that he loved(s) me. Having a tea party suuuch a girly thing to do, but my dad loved us, and so he came to our silly tea party with undersized tea cups and stale graham crackers, and loved us by speaking to our little girl hearts where we were at... Im thankful for my father, and for my mother too... I am who i am as a woman because of my dad's love and my mom's example... Well, and a plethora of other reasons too...

Tonight, after spending a good part of the last few days reading theology and thinking about the Christian faith in a very logical manner, im ready for something a little less cut and dry, a little less controversial... I decided to have a tea party with my Holy Daddy. While logic, theology and critical thinking skills are important, there's something to be said for an emotional connection with my Daddy, Jesus... I can theorize and think and live in a world of abstract possibilities, and miss the relationship. Tea parties with Jesus are important, at least for me. Jesus still looks at me over a cup a tea and some homemade shortbread cookies and smiles at me and tells me im precious while i tell him about all of my theories and hypothesis... or even just dump all of my silly girlish feelings on him... in spite of it all, i am confident in his love, and his steady and soothing voice compelling my wayward and sinful self towards his holiness...

I may not dress my best for Jesus, or bust out the stale graham crackers, but i connect with him over tea in a way that can never be rationalized.

Thanks goes to my earthly daddy, who, while still a fallen human, gave me a small picture of what a heavenly father looks like.

My mom, for stale graham crackers, and her nurturing of little hearts

Traci, for her tea set.

And Jami for being my tag-along. :)

And Jesus for having tea with me tonight, as i try and figure out what the heck predestination is all about.

"I thought it was 'if a body catch a body,'" I said Anyway, i keep picturing all these little kids, playing some game in a big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, i mean - except me. And im standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What i have to do, i have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - i mean they're running and they don't look where they're going I have come come out from somewhere and catch them. Thats all i'd do all day. I'd just be the Catcher in the rye and all...." J. D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye

The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think. I should have remembered that from other years. Too warm, too damp, too soft for any real mental discipline or sharp flights of spirit. One never learns. Hopefully, one carries down the faded straw bag, lumpy with books, clean paper, long over-due, unanswered letters, freshly sharpened pencils, lists and good intentions.

The books remain unread, the pencils break their points and the pads rest smoothly and unblemished as the cloudless sky. No reading, no writing, no thoughts even - at least, not at first.

At first, the tired body takes over completely. As on shipboard, one descends into a deck-chair apathy. One is forced against one's mind, against all tidy resolutions, back in into the primeval rhythms of the seashore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across the sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, time tables and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today's tides of all yesterdays scribblings.

And then, some morning, in the second week, the mind wakes, comes to life again. Not in a city sense - no - but beach-wise. It begins to drift, to play, to turn over gentle careless rolls like those lazy waves on the beach. One never knows what chance treasures these easy unconscious rollers may toss up, on the smooth white sand of the conscious mind; what perfectly rounded stone, what rare shell from the ocean floor. Perhaps a channelled whelk, a moon shell or even an argonaut. But it must not be sought for or - heaven forbid - dug for. No, no dredging of the sea bottom here. That would defeat one's purpose. The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should like empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

--Gift from the sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

The building is beautiful. The warm wood is inviting as you walk in the door. As you walk through the hallways the building becomes more and more beautiful. It has an interesting history, however, in one of the hallways there are portrait drawings of the nuns that are said to haunt the hallways. Ghosts from the building's history.

Its said that way back, the building was home to the Lucas family, one of the daughters in this family drowned in a nearby pond, her ghost still walks the area.

In its not so distant history, the building was a convent. A hospital of sorts. One of the wings was used to house the older and sickly nuns and another wing is said to have been a Psychiatric ward. Roughly 200 nuns lived and died in the building. Their bodies are buried in a cemetery not far from the UMSL campus. It seems though, that some of their souls did not rest as well as their bodies did

The drawings that are on the wall in one wing of the buildings are taken from student sightings of the "ghost nuns". Strange things happen to the students that live in the hall on a regular basis. Some hear running on the floor above them when there is no one there. Some hear a tapping on their door when no one is there.

Today, the building is used as the Honors College building for the University of Missouri - St. Louis. My best friend spends most of her time in this building. I was able to shoot some pictures of the building while she was in class. Finding out the history of such a beautiful building was fun and intriguing.

Note: Maren and Steven and Renita, If i got any of my facts wrong please let me know. =]

Citation: Drolet, Kate. "Ghost of the Provincial House." The Current (UMSL Student Newspaper). 2/24/03