Notes from the Compiler

“She had the ability to sit in silence, stillness and solitude like no other human I have ever known.”

October 1, 2020

As I work on bringing Mildred Wheat’s work to digital life and to accessibility, she is three miles down the road from me, under the faithful attention of a host of skilled and caring people. I visit. She knows me, I think, and she knows everyone who comes and goes from her room at Morningside of Belmont. She’s my mother-in-law. When we call her by name, we call her Millie. For years I have called her ‘Mom’. That term, initially used out of respect, with a smidge of formality, came to mean something substantial to me over the last year. I was content to be an orphaned adult for decades, but proximity is everything, and when Millie moved from Arlington, Virginia to Nashville, Tennessee, just three miles down the road from me, she slowly and faithfully became ‘Mom.’

The past seven months have been been tough on Mom… COVID isolation, temporary displacement from her apartment due to construction, losing all desire and taste for food, knowing something was wrong but not knowing what was wrong. Over and over her internal sense of trust was spoken out loud when she would say ‘we will figure it all out.’ Those who know her story and her adversities will understand. She spoke not of tribulation and trial but of God’s faithfulness for bringing her through.

I recently discovered her self-published devotional Daily Bridges to God. Just as James, the brother of Jesus, wrote his letter to the early Christian Church, Mom writes to Christians in today’s church, but her straightforward wisdom applies to all. No condemnations, no apologies; she tells it like it is.

I continue to discover a lot of commonalities with Millie. Like her, there have been times when the church was my career, times when it was an oasis from my career, times when it was a place to grow, volunteer and serve. Like her, I have learned that the church is a place of peace yet simultaneously a place of tension, beautiful and broken, eternally constant but ever-changing. And like her, I am anchored in the fact that the living hope of the Church, Jesus Christ, is the antidote for a disillusioned, fearful, and weary world.

Millie’s husband, Jerry, recently expressed concern to me that not enough people were exposed to her teaching and wisdom. Challenge accepted, Dad! It will be slow, perhaps a week at a time. And from time to time I may add a thought or two of my own. Mom loved the hymns and attached one to each day’s reading. I am a visual observer, and all images and pictures I’ve attached are of my choosing, with credit given to the talented photographers where appropriate. As I reflect on her reflections, and consider her uncommon sense for my own life, you are invited to cross these bridges with me. Perhaps we shall be better for it.

Daily bridges… whether the water under the bridge was still or turbulent, she had the ability to sit in silence, stillness, and solitude like no other human I have ever known.

Patti Wheat,
Millie’s Daughter-in-Law and Sister-in-Christ