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Dear Ngaire
by Colonel Margaret Hay
New Zealand, retired
Major
Ngaire White is a retired officer of spirit who, though
suffering from advanced cancer, has long outstripped the life
expectancy predicted by her doctors. She has recently moved to
a hospital/home in Wellington, New Zealand. Margaret Hay
writes to her…
Wellington,
New Zealand
28 June 2006
Dear Ngaire,
Though we’d talked about producing something dramatic – a play
or a film, maybe – I hadn’t imagined you in the lead role,
until last Sunday, that is. You could have killed yourself,
heading out solo from the hospital in Wellington’s big winter
weather, in a determined if not desperate attempt to get to
the holiness meeting. Down the hill and a good couple of miles
along the road you finally made it, only to trip on the hall
steps and, as I heard it, stagger into the arms of the corps
officer, who, fearing for your life, had your daughter take
you back from whence you came. A pity for your parched heart,
and for our film. Imagine – the camera could have followed
you, a tiny figure beetling along Riddiford Street, breath
rasping, eyes shining, finally getting there with the lens
zooming in on you singing – what? ‘Let nothing draw me back’?
Or perhaps, more daringly, ‘When to death’s dark swelling
river/Like a warrior I shall come/Then I mean to shout
salvation!/And go singing glory! home’.
Sunday’s episode, it strikes me, is in tune with the dynamism
of our female forebears. I’m thinking of Kate Booth and her
cluster of girl comrades, Florence Soper, Adelaide Cox and
later Maud Charlesworth, who cleared the highway for the Army
in France and Switzerland. Famously fearless in the face of
the Paris mob, they were likewise unfazed in their response
even to the formidable William Booth, as Adelaide Cox’s
application for officership stunningly demonstrates in her
replies to questions on doctrine and authority:
What was your age last birthday? 20
What is your occupation? Young lady.
How long have you been a member of the Salvation Army? Not
been a member.
Have you ever been a member of any other religious society?
Yes.
If so, which? Church of England.
Do you intend to live and die in the ranks of the Salvation
Army? No.
Have you read and do you believe the Doctrines printed on the
other side? Yes, except No. 9.
The application form ends with: ‘I hereby declare that I will
never,…without first having obtained the consent of the
General, take any part in opening any place for religious
services, or in carrying on services, in any place within
three miles of any then existing station of The Army under
penalty of forfeiting fifty pounds…’. To which Adelaide
responded: ‘Except that I could not help working for God &
if I left the Army I should most likely return to help my
Father in His Church & Mission House wherever it is or
wherever it might be, or be occupied with some other Christian
workers’.
The form is endorsed in the Founder’s hand: ‘Accepted Feb 24 &
appointed to proceed to Paris with Miss Booth Feb 28. ’81.’
It’s astounding how contagious this confidence was, as Renée
Genge, a socialist commentator, noted of the band of young
women who joined them in Paris. What she found ‘remarkable
among these young girls, pretty as well as plain, is the
complete absence of the ordinary feminine expression…. In
looking with searching, scrutinizing eye at the faces
enveloped in this ugly bonnet, we have not deciphered the
least vestige of this expression, neither timidity nor
awkwardness, nor restlessness, nor the consciousness that
people are thinking of them. Nothing. These faces are the free
faces of free creatures.’
Ngaire, your venture to the corps last Sunday, though crazy,
was right in sync with our pioneer sisters in New Zealand, as
well. The 1890s, a shaking decade for the Booths in England
with Catherine gone, was glorious in New Zealand, the first
self-governing nation in the world to grant the vote to women.
On a tide of hope, hundreds of young women in this country
signed up for the fledgling Army with its unlimited
opportunities for leadership and service. The astounding
outcome was that, by 1892, only nine years after the Army’s
launch in New Zealand, well over half the total officer force
of 269 were women, with the five largest corps being commanded
by female officers.
Their mood is unmissable in the announcement in the War Cry of
4 June 1892 heralding ‘Women vers. Men. Great Tug of War. The
Equality of the Sexes. Men’s Wrongs and Women’s Rights. We
purpose publishing a Pair of Special ‘Crys’. The First…the
Women’s ‘Cry’, to be written and edited entirely by women. The
Second…the Men’s ‘Cry’, to be written and edited exclusively
by men. The special ‘Cry’ that attains the greatest
circulation will enable the people of New Zealand to form some
idea of the mutual position of the sexes…. Get your brains
burnished and your pencils pointed for this extraordinary
contest.’
Our territorial archive, and not only ours, is full of photos
of young women Salvationists, beautiful and bold in their
fitted, pin-tucked uniforms. And those expressions! – truly
‘the free faces of free creatures’. No wonder, Ngaire, that
our mothers, born in touching distance of them, were on their
mettle, on their knees, and on their bikes for the Lord.
All inspiring stuff, but puzzling at the same time, as I
confront my own fears, and observe those of women officer
colleagues. Jo-Anne Shade wrote in The Officer earlier this
year of ‘sadness, anger, hurt, guilt, resentment, ambivalence
– all part of the tension of being an officer and the mother
of small children’. Carol Seiler went further wondering why
Army employees ‘often seem fulfilled, healthier and less
victimized than officers. Their children don’t need counselors
just because their parents work for The Salvation Army.’
What’s holding us back, I wonder. My confidence comes and goes
even as I stand at the beginning of retirement, when choice
about the uses to which I am put becomes mine. Embryonic
visions blaze but easily shrivel. Vitality drains away; a
habit of limitation sets in. A former editor of The Officer
wrote to me bewailing the ‘torpidity’ of Army women in their
response to issues of equality. It’s a worry.
But you, Ngaire, darting to the Army remind me of something
different: of the first women at the tomb on Easter morning,
terrified despite being told not to be alarmed, but, once
their courage had risen a tad, rushing to tell the disciples
‘that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see
him’.
And you remind me of our Army foremothers. There are streams
of stories of unknown women yet to be told. Meetings, either
in the flesh or cyber-style, where these stories surface have
enormous clarifying and strengthening power, not only for the
Army next, but for the Army now. I’m thinking of John Ruskin’s
word ‘Today, today, today!’ Because today, by God’s grace,
there’s you, Ngaire, and your kind, rare and remarkable, with
heaven in view summoning us as you make your reckless dash to
where bread is on offer. Thanks for your testimony in attitude
and action. Do take care – but not too much! And from our base
here at the bottom of the world let’s send out across the
Pacific New Zealander Janet Morley’s blessing for all women in
the salvation war: ‘May you speak with the voice of the
voiceless, and give courage to those in despair. May you be
strong to confront injustice…. May you not be alone, but find
support in your struggle, and sisters to rejoice with you. May
your vision be fulfilled, in company with us; may you have
brothers on your journey’.
As ever,
Margaret
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