Breath Prayer

A Sunday in September 1985 if memory is right. George had been absent from choir, unusual. Or maybe Ilse missed choir and George went to check on her, my memory slips there. We were having a parish fish fry right after church, mullet that some of the men had caught in cast nets the morning before, and all of us had gathered and cleaned Saturday afternoon. Beautiful they were, and fresh, fresh. The fryers were going full sizzle. It was our first parish fish fry since Linda, Tass and I had arrived at Trinity, Apalachicola the previous summer.

Linda said, “George Chapel is on the phone for you, he’s really upset.” When I answered, he was distraught. He had gone to Ilse’s house and found her lying facedown, dead, in her yard, self-inflicted gunshot. 


On the six or seven minute drive from the church, across the Apalachicola Bay Bridge to her house on the bluff overlooking the Bay, I wondered what I would say to George, how I would deal with this as priest and pastor. All the way, I said my Breath Prayer. “Whatever you say, Lord. WhatEVER you say, Lord. Whatever YOU say, Lord. Whatever you say, Lord.” 

It was a beautiful, bright, clear summer day, late summer, early afternoon, yellow butterfly time. Yellow butterflies were flitting all around, all round Ilse’s yard, lighting on everything, even on my shoulders, my arms, my back, even lighting on Ilse’s back and on her beautiful red hair. Whatever I said, to George that afternoon, and to the congregation of Trinity Church at Ilse’s funeral later that week -- don’t remember, doesn’t matter, it was fine. It was whatever the Lord said. Seems to me the yellow butterflies appeared in my funeral homily.

We started the Ilse Newell Concert Series the following summer. Whatever you say, Lord. 

TW+