If you missed the start of this series, you can start here. But before I continue on, I have to add a note. When I started writing this story, I felt like I knew the ending, like I understood why God led me to the word, “Rooted.” Per His character, God is telling me that He reserves the right to change my story – to give it a new ending. I hope He does, but until then I will write the story I know is true for now. Today’s portion is Rooted: Going to Church.
***************************************************************************************
First Congregational Church of Brimfield © by Svadilfari
I was six when we moved back to dad’s hometown – just a skinny little kid whose legs were too long for her body. I hardly remember much about that first year of my sister’s life. I don’t know if we moved into our newly built home before she was one or after. We started to church at the one in town where my grandparents attended and where daddy grew up going. My family tried to get me some connections with a fiery red-headed little girl named Stacy. Just so happens that her family attended too. She was the first friend I had after the girl called Kelly from the apartment complex. Stacy and I were, as I recall, the only children the same age. Being in a little town but the biggest church, there were still only two of us. I guess, good thing she was a girl.
Ms. Patsy and Ms. Pam were my first Sunday school teachers. They were loving and sweet and Ms. Pam played the organ in church. When I think of the origins of my faith, I always go back to them in my mind.
I don’t remember who was the pastor when we started, or if the minister of music was new when we got there or if he came shortly after.
All I do remember is that he had a wild little red-headed boy named Wesley in the preschool department. Mom and dad worked in the preschool, and he would not obey.
I went to “Joy Choir,” which meant that I got to ride in the church van after school. We rode all over the backwoods of Cordova picking up kids to go to choir practice. The town was small, but the houses were hidden in the hills, and so too, the depth of depravity and lack. We rode all around, but we didn’t pick up many. The ride provoked laughter, joy, and singing, and I loved every minute of it. This is was my time to mingle with other kids, I guess, especially outside of the safe zone I usually stayed in. I don’t remember Mr. Butler getting on to me in choir. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Mom remembers that he did.
What I do remember was momma and daddy not being able to get along with him. They couldn’t control his child. This must have been hard on my dad. He controlled us so well and made sure we kept the appearance of well-behaved children at all times. Mr. Butler, too, was a skinny quick-tempered red-headed man, and I reckon (the Southern drawl has to come out as I think back) he took offense to whatever words mom and dad shared with him or his wife about his son. Mom said he took it out on me in choir one time. This seems vaguely true, but uncertain to me. No, as I type, I feel that it is true. I feel my little self sitting in the edge of a pew, probably talking and chattering along with the other little kids, and for whatever reason, he comes over and gets down in my face and frightens me, beckons me to be quiet and behave.
For a while sometime after this incident, daddy stopped going to church. There is so much I want to say here, but I want you to come on the journey with me, and it takes time to reveal the details. All I know is that tears spill down my cheeks as I write because I see how much my daddy loved me, defended me, protected me, and hoped to give me a better life than his. Mom and us kids kept going for a while without him. We always sat on the right side of the church, and the people were comfortable and familiar. We knew every single face, and no one was out-of-place with less than 100 in attendance each Sunday.
My grandpa was a deacon, and it seems to me, he and grandmother sat in the middle aisle. At some point, our family sat with them too.
My fifth grade year, no one in my family of four went to church at all. I hated it and begged mamma to take us back.
Come back Monday, for more of the story of my childhood in the church.
[…] Rooted: Going to Church […]