LYDIA’S LAVENDER LOUNGE

Sunday, I'm preaching about a Kingdom Basic called Speak Compassionately.  I am using the Story of Lydia as a foundation.  In my study this week, I found this great, creative story about Lydia by Barbara McBride-Smith in Storyteller's Companion to the Bible.  I won't be able to use it in my sermon, but I wanted to put it here to help us start thinking about Lydia.  

Lydia was baptized, and her household with her, and then she urged us, ‘Now that you have accepted me as a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house.’ And she insisted on our going. (Acts 16:15)

The Story

There wasn’t a dry eye in Phillipi the day Miss Lydia died. She was the proprietor and pastor of Lydia’s Lavender Lounge a home away from home for pickers and singers, preachers and peddlers, bikers and truckers, anybody who needed a place to sit a spell and feel welcome. You might eventually find applause and glitter in Phillipi, the music Mecca of Macedonia, but before you did, it could be the loneliest place in the world. Miss Lydia was den mother to many a lonely and road-weary wanna-be.

Miss Lydia was born poor, dirt poor. She was the oldest of twelve children. Her mama died giving birth to the last one. Her daddy split soon after. At age fourteen, Miss Lydia was left to raise all her brothers and sisters. She took a job at Levi’s Lounge, working sixteen hours a day waiting tables. The pay was lousy, but the tips were really good. The reason, of course, was that she was the best waitress in the joint, or anywhere in town for that matter. She greeted every customer at the door. She gave them just the perfect table. She got everybody’s order exactly right, even the substitutions that weren’t on the menu. Just give her a nod, and she was there to fill an empty glass. But, most important, she remembered everybody’s name and made them feel special. No customers ever felt hurried at Miss Lydia’s tables, and when they did decide it was time to hit the road, Miss Lydia always said, "Y’all come back real soon now. We’ll keep the light on for you!"

When that band who called themselves "The Apostles" showed up at the lounge for the first time, Miss Lydia could see that they needed comfort and encouragement. They seemed like talented and dedicated fellas. The music scene in Phillipi was hard to break into, but those guys had charisma especially the band leader, Tall Paul. That’s what everybody called him, but it was a joke. Paul was short, bowlegged, and had a nose the size of a melon. Paul said if he and the other fellas had that stuff called charisma, they got it all from their mentor, J. C. This J. C. they talked about so much was no longer a traveling companion. Seems as how he had wound up in trouble with the law in Jerusalem and gotten himself killed. The band missed him a bunch and were trying to pull themselves together and get on with playing their music his music.

Over the next couple of years, Miss Lydia was mighty good to that group of boys. She was their counselor, financier, and booking agent. Many a time, Miss Lydia gave them a small loan for their next road trip, a place to sleep on the back porch of her house, or a good word to her boss about having the band play a gig at the lounge on a slow night.

Miss Lydia’s boss, Levi Lowenstein, had always appreciated her hard work and her hospitable nature, too. He finally asked her to marry him. After a dozen years as his number-one waitress, she became his number-one-and-only wife. They had a few good years together, during which time Miss Lydia continued to be the friend and hostess of every customer who crossed Levi’s threshold. And then Levi got sick and Miss Lydia nursed him till he took his last breath. That was when Miss Lydia inherited the lounge. Many women wouldn’t have wanted it, and, by law, couldn’t have owned it anyway. But Levi deeded it to Miss Lydia in his will, so the authorities decided to let her keep it. She redecorated it all in lavender, her favorite color, and she put a new neon sign out front that flashed LYDIA’S LAVENDER LOUNGE. She wore dresses of various shades of purple every day of the week. Miss Lydia was fond of telling folks, "I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better." But, really, things didn’t change much for Miss Lydia. She continued to provide cold drinks and a warm atmosphere for every traveler who walked through her door.

It was a real pleasure one day when The Apostles came through town and stopped in to see Miss Lydia. They had finally gotten their act together and recorded some of J. C.’s songs. "It’s brilliant material," Tall Paul told her.

"Yep, a brand new sound that the whole world needs to hear." Tiny Tim assured her. "And wait till you hear my mandolin solos." Miss Lydia listened to it herself, and discovered that the boys were right. J. C.’s melodies and lyrics touched her down deep in her soul. She bought a copy of everything they had.

Miss Lydia put that music on her jukebox, next to hits like "Your Cheatin’ Heart" and "I Fall to Pieces," thereby giving it the best chance she could for getting played. And it did get played. The folks who paid attention, who really listened to the lyrics, got the message, and wanted more music by J. C. and The Apostles. They’d spend every quarter they had. Soaking in that music was better than a Saturday night bath. Pretty soon you couldn’t go into Miss Lydia’s Lavender Lounge or any place else in Phillipi without hearing the sweet sounds of J. C., the star who burned out too soon.

Everywhere the band played, Tall Paul told folks, "It was Miss Lydia over in Phillipi who made the difference for us. She was the closest thing to a business manager we ever had. She’s got a big heart. Wish we had more friends like her."

Everybody wished for more friends like Miss Lydia. When she died, in her eighties, they laid her out in a lavender casket and surrounded her with violets and orchids. They played her favorite song, "Meet Me at the Pearly Gates" by J. C. and The Apostles. Tall Paul preached her funeral. It was his finest moment of rhetoric. Too bad nobody thought to record it. Luke, an up-and-coming young writer, wrote her obituary for the Macedonia Times. It appeared along with a color photo of Miss Lydia wearing her best purple dress and a string of pearls on page one. There wasn’t a dry eye in Phillipi the day Miss Lydia died. (Barbara McBride-Smith)