If You Know a Song, Sing It

By Patte Wheat LeVan

Humans need connection, and in a digital world, meaningful connections are harder to come by. Accomplished author, Patte Wheat LeVan presents a tool for recalibration. If You Know a Song, Sing It is a moving collection of e

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
• Release date: Oct 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885907712

Patte Wheat LeVan

Born in Los Angeles, Patte Wheat LeVan is a writer and editor. Thrust into the movie business at the age of 18 after marrying a former child actor, her writing career took off when her husband persuaded her to write a novel for him to produce. The novel Three for a Wedding was published and made into the movie Dr. You've Got to be Kidding! by MGM Studios. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including By Sanction of the Victim, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1976, and Hope for the Children, 1979. Hope received the Janusz Korczak International Literary Competition Honorable Mention Award in 1980. She served as editor of The Messenger, the national monthly publication of The Swedenborgian Church of North America, for twenty years.

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PREFACE

987—I was embarking on a spiritual quest, feeling again spiritually bankrupt, nearing a completed divorce from my second husband. He had equated my spiritual struggle with religion and a need for church, which he ridiculed. Did I need church? I needed to understand why I was here on earth at this time and what I was supposed to do. What was my purpose? The first time I embarked on this quest was in 1979, after my mother died. I had found some answers in a holistic retreat center in Hemet, California, but again lost my way.

So there I was in the middle of 1987, a transplant from Southern California, working two part-time jobs: at a health-food store in Chesterton, Indiana, for five dollars an hour, and for LaPorte County as an alcohol drug counselor, also for five dollars an hour, interviewing people who had been arrested for drunk driving. I asked the manager of the health-food store if she knew of a spiritual growth group in the area. There’s a group that meets on the shores of Lake Michigan, she said, once a week.

I struggled through a light snow on the designated evening to attend their meeting. I connected with a man who was a Swedenborgian minister, the pastor of the LaPorte New Church. I didn’t know Swedenborg from smorgasbord. But I soon learned. I married the man in August 1987. In 1988, I learned that the editor of The Messenger, Rev. Jim Lawrence, was leaving, and the position was open.

The Messenger is the monthly magazine of the Swedenborgian Church of North America. It’s a 150-year-old publication. I was warned by my husband that the editorship had always been held by a man. An ordained minister.

Well, it doesn’t hurt to try, throw my hat in the ring. I sent my eclectic résumé of published work and other related employment to the chair of the Communications Support Unit. (See About the Author and Also by the Author.)

Within a month, I was invited to a weekend at Temenos, a recently formed Swedenborgian retreat center in Westchester, Pennsylvania, where the Communications Support Unit was to decide who would be the new editor of The Messenger. I’m in the running?! My husband was excited, astonished. You’d be the first woman! Yeah. Don’t get your hopes up. On arriving, I discovered there were only two other competitors. The three women on the Support Unit and the former editor interviewed and questioned me extensively over the three days. Nobody asked me much about my former publications or how I moved from comedy writing to the field of child abuse, but they did scrutinize my understanding of Swedenborg. I replied that my extensive study of New Age literature had led me to understand and appreciate Swedenborgian thought, which was progressive and far ahead of its time (a belief in a loving, compassionate God, not a punishing one). And, of course, I was married to a Swedenborgian minister and was listening to and discussing his sermons daily.

The night before the decision was to be announced to us, I was lying in bed at Temenos softly singing The Lord’s Prayer. I really wanted this. I felt it, somehow, was my destiny. The next morning, they announced their choice.

I had the job. A huge responsibility. Carol Lawson, the chair of the Communications Support Unit, obviously had my back and was prepared to act as mentor. She asked me what the theme would be during my editorship. I wasn’t prepared for the question, but what came to mind immediately was healing. So much of humanity obviously needed healing. Little did I know how much healing would be needed over the next twenty years and beyond. I would be reminded many times of Swedenborg’s observation that nothing can be healed until it can be seen—until it comes up, until it’s visible, until it’s no longer hidden.

I was, yes, the first woman editor of the 150-year-old Messenger, and my first issue would begin in January 1989. The heading I chose for my editorial page was Moving toward the Light.

I’M WRITING THIS IN the time of the pandemic, COVID-19, 2021. We are looking at a half-million deaths and climbing in the United States six months into the Biden administration and many of us with PTSD from the last four years. Looking back at twenty years (almost) as editor of The Messenger, magazine/newsletter of the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem, General Convention, from January 1989 to June 2008—plus those years that included 9/11,¹ a ten-year-long Mob takeover of the Boston church² and record wildfires in California after I returned to my native state in 1993—another harbinger of climate change, I put together this collection, which includes some pieces by other writers who were published in The Messenger. It is simply minutiae observations of the ongoing human struggle to live, learn, listen to our better angels, and evolve.

Also included in this volume are three memoirs from the Chrysalis Reader, a yearly anthology that was published by the Swedenborg Foundation, two memoir pieces published in The Sun magazine, and one, The Grace Period, that the Chrysalis Reader rejected at the last minute because the art editor felt it was too raw. How raw is too raw? Well, you, reader, be the judge.

Healing

Ongoing

Find the glimmer of light

In every experience

—Patte Wheat LeVan

Kevin Cullen, A Tiny Church, a Pot of Gold, an Ex-Con Sparks Bitter Feud, The Boston Globe, March 15, 2004

Beverly Ford, Gods and Mobsters, Boston Magazine, August 30, 2010

Peter Gelzinis, As Usual, FBI a Decade or Two Late, Boston Herald, May 23, 2013

1 Alicia Titus, twenty-eight-year-old daughter of Urbana, Ohio, church members John and Bev Titus, was a flight attendant murdered aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the second plane to crash into the World Trade Center on 9/11. Moving through the family’s grief, John, a graduate and later dean of students at Urbana University for eleven years, established the Alicia Titus Memorial Peace Fund, hoping to develop courses in Peace Studies and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution. John and Bev joined the organization 9/11 Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow, founded by families of victims. He later wrote a book, Losing Alicia: A Father’s Journey after 9/11 (Frieson Press, 2011). Every September since 2016, the Urbana Police Department wears lapel pendants on their uniforms signifying Urbana as a nationally recognized City of Peace. The Alicia Titus Memorial Peace Team does an annual 5K run/walk.

2 Note: The articles cited below cover the 10-plus years when Eddie McKenzie, consummate con-artist and self-professed hit man for Mobster Whitey Bulger, insinuated himself into the Boston Church in the guise of a regenerating sinner and took over the Church, bilking members, congregants, and the church treasury. I was under gag order not to mention or report about it in The Messenger due to ongoing litigation. The Church was targeted because of its wealth—located on Beacon Hill for over 150 years, with 20 apartments built above it, its worth was estimated at approximately 30 million.

Justice was finally served. In 2013, McKenzie was arrested; in 2015 he was sentenced to 12 years in Federal prison for stealing millions from the church, and ordered to pay restitution. According to the current pastor. Rev. Kevin Baxter, the restitution is being paid off in meager monthly payments, healing is happening but restoration of trust is slow and painstaking.

It’s not within the scope of this book to relate the sad and horrifying details of that dark decade, but the listed articles below provide a cautionary tale—it can happen anywhere, given the right conditions.

JUNE 1989

THE POWER OF LISTENING

Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, And wishes to have a presence in the being of The other…secretly and bashfully he watches For a Yes which allows him to be and which can Come to him only from one human to another.

—Martin Buber

Y

ears ago, when I was returning to college for the second time, a young woman caught my attention the first day of class, and we struck up a friendship that lasted for fifteen years. We could pick up and go to the same deep level, sharing as though no time had elapsed, even when we had not seen each other for several years.

What caught my attention that day, I realize now, was a unique attitude of awareness finely balanced with healthy curiosity, humor, and a wisdom beyond her years. She was genuinely interested in my life, and the quality of the listening was contagious. When we talked, there was a mutual accepting, digesting of ideas, feelings, and insights; there seemed to exist a tacit and intuitive understanding that as we explored these realms we would know more, not only about each other, but about ourselves and the universe.

Her eyes would light up with recognition of a shared experience or discovery of new ground. Oh, I want to hear more about that, she’d say, or "How do you feel about this?" And she really wanted to know. And because she really wanted to know, the experience was enhanced—the moment was enhanced.

A few weeks ago, I was having a wonderful, enlightening late-night phone conversation with one of my daughters. Wonderful and enlightening because the same quality of loving attention was there; we were truly listening to each other, each eager to hear and digest what the other had to impart. We were not judging or interrupting or jumping in with advice or marking time with uh-huhs until we could say something. We gave each other, and thus ourselves, the gift of listening and hearing.

On another day, as I was conducting my weekly Saturday-morning alcohol/drug education class for DWI (driving while intoxicated) offenders, I noticed a young man leaning forward, sitting on the edge of his chair, apparently hanging on every word. This attitude is unusual in any class but especially the kind of class I teach, which is in the local courthouse and where sullen hostility is often the norm. As a result of this focused attention, I felt my lecture becoming charged with more energy. I felt more interesting, more alive, and because of this, other members of the class seemed to liven up and appear more interested.

Then I glanced at my watch and realized we were one minute past the usual break time. As I called the break, the young man grabbed his cigarettes from his pocket, leaped out of his chair, and sprinted for the door.

Belatedly I realized that what I had taken for rapt attention was simply his moving into racing position, readying himself to bolt for the exit. He was hanging on to my every word in order to hear those words that would liberate him. But during those moments when I thought he was fascinated with my message, I felt empowered, more energized; thus I became more confident and more interesting.

How many times have we heard it said that we learn more when we’re listening than when we’re speaking? But it isn’t just information that I receive as I really listen to you—I am enriched by a glimpse of your humanity. I am enlarged by your trust, honored and blessed by your allowing me to witness your miraculous process of becoming. I am newly opened up as I allow your opening. As I allow more of you to enter my consciousness, I see myself with more clarity and compassion.

What a powerful gift of living love, this not-so-simple art of listening.

OCTOBER 1989

CONNECTING THE DOTS, READING

THE SIGNS

O

ne of the themes that emerged as this issue was coming together was our environment, both internal and external. No longer solely the province of environmentalists, the toxic state of this planet seems to be on the minds and weighing on the hearts of everyone I talk to. And not coincidentally, more people seem to be acutely aware of improving their internal environment, from eating healthier food, exercising, and taking responsibility for their health to treating themselves lovingly and healing their emotional climate.

It’s interesting to note that often as we become more aware and healthier stewards of self, our attitudes toward our earth mother evolve. In the heedless youth of our long awakening process, we are usually oblivious to the pattern forming in the occasional, then more and more frequent, cries of protest, from within and without. Then the crises begin to emerge out of the attitudes of use and abuse, out of our demands that the earth (or our bodies) serve our purposes rather than our listening to our environment (or bodies) to hear how we might be better nurturers.

The spiritual maturing seems everywhere evident these days in the ability to look at the larger picture and begin to see the connections between runaway technology and hopeless pollution; between a million pounds of animal fat, hardening of the arteries, and the disappearance of rain forests; between the wholesale abuse of our children and a growing criminal population, violence, and bulging prisons. It becomes more difficult to gaze on a sea of plastic without questioning its final resting place. And then we begin to look at the whole illusion of disposability in the throwaway society we’ve fashioned and come to understand that nothing really disappears—in our relationships with humans or things, the disposed-of item either undergoes a healthy biodegradable transformation into another form of energy to nurture more life, or it becomes part of a burgeoning toxic energy that chokes off life.

In September, I visited my children in Los Angeles and discovered that they were doing a more thoughtful job of recycling than I was. For old times’ sake, we spent several hours one day at Venice Beach. The strand was still teeming with would-be musicians, skaters, funky clothes, fake tattoos, self-appointed gurus, and hedonists of every stripe. There were also, in the midst of all that, several people set up at tables with petitions for nuclear disarmament, for the banning of product testing on animals, for other causes we would have discovered if we had walked the entire length of the strand. These young people were well-informed, courteous, dedicated to doing what they could do to bring about peace and justice as they saw it.

The signs of growth and empowerment are all around us—the knowing that yes, it can be done, and yes, with God’s help, we can do it.

JUNE 1990

OF RUMMAGE AND JUNQUE

A

long with Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduation, weddings, and the feast of blossoms and greenery, spring and summer bring the glad shedding of many things—winter clothes, outworn attitudes—and the mounds of possessions that at one time we thought we couldn’t live without, transformed by a simple decree into rummage.

I’m not sure why we had high hopes for our last church rummage sale. Somehow the thought of fresh rummage quickens the pulse of some of us: the heart beats faster, and the imagination leaps. Visions of unearthed treasures dance in our heads, not to mention the promise of catharsis. The piles of tired polyester, the plethora of fake flowers in noxious green plastic that will never die, and the immortal stained orange drapes that stubbornly reincarnate every year are quickly forgotten in our euphoric recall of the cherished finds of rummage sales past. Those beautiful seventy-five-cent purple beads that go with everything, the lovely set of Japanese trays for only two dollars, the twenty-five-cent leather purse that was just right, and the big one that got away, the five-dollar armoire with one leg missing that somebody else snapped up before I could get across the room.

The Women’s Alliance called it a sidewalk sale this last time. It presented a livelier image than rummage. But we got rained out and had to carry everything down to the basement. The presorting excitement had come and gone. We had discovered the best stuff and sold it to each other. (That jacket is your color. Get some shoulder pads for it, and it will look brand new. Those earrings are the perfect match. For fifty cents, you’ve got a whole new outfit! You know the dialogue.) We each had our little stash of goodies to take home for ourselves and our unsuspecting spouses and relatives.

Quite a few customers showed up in the morning despite the rain. We were so eager to see them that we lowered the already rock-bottom prices. Even so, some folks were planning aloud to return after 3:00 p.m., when they knew we would reduce the ten-cent items to five cents.

The long damp afternoon wore on; Marcia, Kathy, Marge, and I cocooned in the basement exchanging confidences and swapping rummage stories. Marge and Kathy discovered a slide projector that would be good as new if they could just figure out how to get it back together. They sat cross-legged on the floor, intensely occupied with that challenge for the next two hours.

A woman who had made three trips and was loading up for a fourth asked again how much the drapes were (orange, yes, but no stains and nearly new!). We conferred and cut the previously quoted price in half. She staggered up the basement stairs with them, delighted with her bargain. We were delighted that she was delighted. What fun. Money wasn’t everything. Turned out it wasn’t much of anything when we began counting our profits. The dread hour had come when we must decide what to do with the remains, all of which must be hauled back up the basement steps and disposed of somehow.

Desperate calls to the Salvation Army and two thrift shops yielded only one out of three who would agree to accept anything; there had been many ill-fated rummage sales that day, all headed for the same overloaded burial grounds. The county home would accept the clothes, thank heaven. Two more exhausting hours and we were finished, amid vows of Never again! Rummage, we decided, was a glut on the market; we couldn’t even give it away; we needed to develop better fundraisers.

Some weeks later, my husband, Ted, read aloud an item from our local newspaper, The LaPorte Herald Argus: The Women’s Society of Winnetka Congregational Church in Illinois raised $170,139.76, breaking a record it set two years before with sales of $157,378.74 for a one-day rummage sale. They had made the Guinness Book of World Records several times and were billed as the largest one-day rummage sale in the world. It couldn’t be possible, but there it was. A church less