Author Archives: Berniece

Dull greens and rust-colored trees rise above brown rooftops. A dove settles on the red fire escape. I hear steam rising in the wall heaters. It’s the fall time when I begin to add layers for work at the market. First a sweater and now a jacket and leggings. The customers buy root vegetables to make soup

The air is crisp. The sea off of Cape Cod softly dashed with the sky blue colors of fall, something different than the wild waves of summer.

Off-season Cape Cod is a delightful place. The beaches aren’t crowded. Seniors hang out at the  lighthouses. They offer interesting information like the man who told us the boardwalk in Sandwich was first built to haul bricks from a factory to building sites.

It was warm enough that first morning to have coffee on the upper deck of the Cape Cod-style house. We stopped in Plymouth where we had lobster bisque and clam chowder with a view of the harbor. We walked by the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, and past the Sparrow House built in 1640 to the old grist mill. The last day we toured the crude homes of Plimoth Plantation where there’s an awesome view right down through the village to the sea.

A fun fall memory is of riding the Metro North with friends along the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie where we ate a Japanese lunch and did the Walkway Over the Hudson. The hills were decked in fall beauty though they did not have the brilliant reds of last year.

It’s Bowery Sunday. A group is coming from Fleetwood, PA. The heat of summer is gone from the subway stations, and it will be comfortable to sing and pass out tracts at the Times Square Station.

Our dining table is set with a Thanksgiving runner.  I plan to serve soup to the friends coming for supper.

I’ll close with the benediction of the harvest Psalm:

Psalm 65:4-11 NIV – 4 Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts!
We are filled with the good things of your house,
of your holy temple.
5 You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Savior,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas,
6 who formed the mountains by your power,
having armed yourself with strength,
7 who stilled the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
and the turmoil of the nations.
8 The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.
9 You care for the land and water it;
you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water
to provide the people with grain,
for so you have ordained it.
10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;
you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
11 You crown the year with your bounty,
and your carts overflow with abundance.

Berniece

Step with me into the main room of Grand Central Terminal where Brandon Stanton, author of Humans of New York, has installed his visual love letter to New York. For two weeks, all ads in the whole terminal have been removed and the ordinary New Yorkers from each of the five boroughs are displayed to the world.

The people of the world have flocked to view the art installation as massive photos flash onto the pillars and hang silently on the walls. Seeing people, people from everywhere – maybe more than we’ve ever seen in Grand Central before – is in itself an eye sensory experience.

Dear New York: Shabby, chic seemed to be the style of the lady applying makeup on a crowded train this morning. The little girl talking into a plastic cell phone could be an Asian princess. I’d hire the man with a backpack and paint-splattered jeans. The older woman in a pink-knit sweater top calculates her Con Edison bill after reading the New York Times. The mother with a child on her back and the shaggy, black-haired older son walks by selling candy. A two some dressed for the office seriously discuss the partner who isn’t playing fairly. The bearded Muslim Uber driver tells me about community in his country of Algeria. The waiter talks about the police in his country of Nepal.

New Yorkers of every tribe and race, we love you.  God does too, a lot more than I do.

Berniece

Heaven is calling, and I want to go. I wonder if you think I’m strange. It’s not that life is burdensome. How could it be when the two of us are having hot tea and pumpkin biscotti? Laurence had the day off since he’ll work at the clinic tomorrow. I did cleaning and laundry yesterday, so I felt carefree today.

We took the train to Cold Spring, NY. It traveled beside the Hudson River. The river has its moods and today it was a peaceful blue. The hills on the opposite side wore early fall colors, which is really the drab green of late summer. Soon they’ll be dressed in their best orange, yellow, and red brilliance.

We walked to Little Stoney Point and hiked to the top where the view of the river and the hills is magnificent. We ate our lunch on a green lawn by the trail center, toured Main, had ice cream from Moo Moo Creamery, and dallied (Wordle players) a long time at Dock Park doing nothing. Dock Park faces Constitution Island where the two sisters lived who wrote the song, “Jesus Loves Me.”

I fell asleep on the train home until the conductor made a loud announcement, “Put your bags on the overhead rack and have only your seat on the seat!” A group of Westpoint cadets boarded the train at Garrison besides there being a Yankee game, so the train was full. After I awoke, I just stared out the window at the beautiful scenery.

However, the loveliness of today doesn’t compare with the beauty of Heaven. That’s why I say, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”

Berniece

PS The weather looks good for tomorrow, and I’m happy to be going to work at the farmer’s market.

“Therefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).

When I read the above verse this morning, I thought how Minister Wayne Amoth has joined that great cloud of witnesses whose faith I want to emulate. I can picture him hanging a garment bag in the hall closet of the Washington Heights, New York, apartment and telling Letha, “That’s all we have.” He hoped that the thief who broke into Reuben Shirk’s van and stole his Bible would read it. I remember deep discussions around the table in the open dining area of that apartment, and the time Wayne and Letha went with us to Brooklyn after our friend Cynthia’s husband had just died in a horrific automobile accident. In that desolate apartment with dogs barking just outside the closed kitchen door, Wayne offered words of comfort. He told Cynthia that we would be there for her and her young son.

So many memories . . .

Time skipped along and years later, we met Wayne and Letha in Arizona. I have a mental picture of Letha standing against the kitchen wall of our Airbnb in Tucson, encouraging our dear friend Ady to let go of what’s behind and to travel to her home country of India with courage. None of us who were there will forget how the evening ended with Wayne’s prayer. Afterwards, Waynes, Eds, Kyrons, Ady, and we continued to stand in that sacred space as the youthful Ady shared about her conversion and of being led to the mission in NYC.

These last years when we’d see Wayne, he’d always tell us about the evening he was elected to the ministry. How he did not know what name to put down for the deacon. As the congregation knelt to pray, the name Richard Penner came to him. Wayne and Laurence’s dad were ordained the same evening.

Wayne has joined that great cloud of witnesses. I will meet him and Letha there someday soon.

Berniece

p.s. There is something I must add. I went to my diary just now and saw that on January 28, 2024, Wayne had the sermon at Phoenix. He spoke on “inexpressible joy” – joy that can’t be expressed.

A plane roared upon takeoff from LaGuardia Airport this morning, and then another, and another. I listen, appreciating the ordinary. A truck rumbles. Its brakes squeak as it stops to pick up the building’s trash. Normal day, I love you.

In our room, lit by a couple small lamps, we read the Word. Coffee mugs sit empty beside us. We’re 24 years older than that first 9/11. Our hair is grayer; our hearts softer, and we’re still here where we were then. Laurence will go to his place of employment at Elmhurst Hospital. I’ll take the elevator to the laundry room. Lunch will be in our tiny kitchen. Supper too.

God has been good to us. We love Him more than ever before, and we find ourselves longing for that other Shore. We’re here though, walking the streets of Queens, worshipping at Sugar Hill Mennonite in Harlem, riding buses and trains, and flying from LGA.

I smile to think how on that 9/11, I did not know if we would still be alive at Christmas, but we’re still here. I cut out a newspaper clipping back then that said, “We look for a city . . .” Today, we continue to “look for a city whose builder and maker is God.”

I hear cheerful singing from the bathroom, “Watch and pray . . .” God who cared for us then is caring for us now. Keep the faith.

Berniece

There’s a place at the table for everyone in the fellowship hall at Sugar Hill Mennonite Mission. On any given Sunday, we gather from different tribes and nations to dine on Mennonite cooking. We, the people, are rich and we are beggarly, mentally unstable and well educated. We work for the MTA, in schools, hospitals, a library, a farmer’s market and more. We own our own homes, rent apartments, and live in a shelter.

We love breads, sweet deserts, and coffee with cream. One of us always goes to the cabinet to get the red hot pepper. The mission staff serves us well with main dishes, rice, and potatoes.

The food satisfies, but it is the conversation that causes us to linger. We discuss countries, customs, occupations, dress, volunteer work, and much more. Most of all we like to talk about God and His ways. We don’t always agree. Sometimes we are loud, and there is laughter. We love each other, and we always return to our place at the table.

I’m not sure why it works so well to sit together at the table. Why there is no place I’d rather be or no group I’d rather be with for Sunday dinner.

Maybe you want to come serve here. There’s a place for you at the table.

Berniece

P.s. The back of the Rice Krispie box says, “Everyone deserves a place at the table.” That’s where this title came from.

Last evening at sunset, we left our footprints in the sand. Those waves that climbed high and crashed when we were last out on Rockaway now only softly lapped against the shore as the tide went out. Surfers carried their boards over their heads onto the boardwalk and strapped them to bikes.

God painted the eastern sky in baby pink and blue, the deep blue beneath soft pink. I marveled at the sea scene as we walked a mile on the beach. Had there ever been such beauty as this evening by the sea?

On the way to the boardwalk, we walked past a home where the owners marked the level of Hurricane Sandy’s waters in 2012. That hurricane ravished this area of the coast. It tore at the boardwalk, leaving naked sentinels of posts. The angry waters swamped through homes built on shifting sands.

God who made the seas roar calmed them.

Psalm 107:26-30 expresses it best: 26 They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away.
27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards;
they were at their wits’ end.
28 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress.
29 He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea were hushed.
30 They were glad when it grew calm,
and he guided them to their desired haven.

Have a blessed Sunday, and may your storms be stilled to a whisper.

Berniece

Number 7 train to Flushing Main Street.

Squeak. Doors open.  “The next stop is Court Square.”

“Ride inside. Stay alive.” This announcement is meant to discourage subway surfing, a dangerous sport.

Several hundred commuters ride this train in the city that never sleeps. (“Never sweeps,” says the subway ad for Swifer).

We’re passing the Amtrak train yards. Your train starts here.

“Remember the best way to get out to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is with the MTA.” The US Open is going on and the 7 train will take you there.

The Queens tract workers are on this train. They were also on the Metro North train going to Peekskill earlier this evening. We’re happy about other Mennonites in Queens.

“This is Woodside.” Woodside. That’s where it all began in 1988 when we first came to the city.

“This is 69th Street.” Here you’ll find the Filipino stores and restaurants. “74th Street, Broadway.” Many people change trains here. The people of India, Bangladesh, Tibet, and Nepal come to this station and exit to the ethnic stores and restaurants they’re acquainted with.

“This is 82nd Street.” This is where we leave the 7 train and walk through well lit, throbbing streets to our quiet apartment on Layton Street.

Good night! Berniece

“It’s kinda like heavenly places,” Laurence says to me as the bus crosses Jamaica Bay, the water a dark blue out the window. The city skyline is silhouetted against a canvas splashed with the fading oranges of sunset colors.

We’re on the bus home from Rockaway Beach where we ate wood-fired pizza at a pink and green picnic table on the boardwalk with ambience provided by the restless roar of the sea. Hurricane Erin is out there somewhere and tonight the waves were wild and high, as high as we’ve ever seen them.

The surfers who gracefully rode the waves mesmerized us while we enjoyed the camaraderie of our fellow New Yorkers who were also awed by the sight.

We witnessed Glory when rays of the setting sun caught the waves just as they curled and crashed.

We’ve been to the desert, the plains, and the mountains, but tonight, I will take the beauty of the sea.

Berniece

I met a man coming from the subway station. Not a good sign. The R train platform at Elmhurst is empty. Not a good sign. The F train roars through on the express track. Not a good sign as I’ll want it at the next station down the line where I’ll board it for Roosevelt Island. Missed trains. Last evening on the way home from Forest Park, it was missed buses.

How much of our 30 years here have I spent waiting on public transportation? It doesn’t matter to me this morning. After being out of town for most of three weeks, I am happy to be back in the city I love. The city, my home!

My heart clapped when I landed at LGA on Thursday. I peered out at familiar sights as the plane descended. I pulled my suitcase and squeezed into a crowded bus. It didn’t matter. I was home. People bumped and shoved while getting off at Roosevelt Avenue. I walked past the Asian market, a bar, Thai restaurants, and more. People, people everywhere.

Laurence welcomed me into our apartment. He served up momos (Tibetian dumplings) from the street vendor outside the playground on Broadway. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Yesterday, I cooked and baked in my tiny apartment kitchen, a most peaceful place. Our miracle God but a kitchen tool that I left somewhere in New Hampshire back in the drawer right where it belongs.  (If God answers these little prayers then surely He hears my ‘big’ ones.)

The R train came, and so did the F train. I rode it to Roosevelt Island. The East River flows below where I sit on a bench beside it. Sunshine glints from a Manhattan hospital. Seagulls call. Traffic roars. The red tram glides beside the Queensboro Bridge, and I am home.

Berniece

Berniece