Church Kid

Today I got to attend Homecoming at the church I grew up in. I always love to visit there. I was baptized there, married there in 1982 and then brought all four of my babies almost straight from the hospital to Sunday morning service. It was the family at Airview Baptist that sent Michael and me off to work at the children's home, the same family welcomed us back after a year. Michael was called into the ministry there under the guidance of Gerald Sykes, they ordained him and prayed "us" through seminary. That place holds very special memories for me...they go back far and deep.

I was probably four or five, still a baby really, but once you could sit up without assistance you were booted out of the nursery back then. Church was a part of life, a part most children endured unhappily but tolerated just the same. I really didn't mind. I loved the preacher, he rarely yelled or pounded his fist like some I'd seen on TV, and he was always working in the neighborhood, visiting people, rolling up his sleeves and helping out. Once, my mama backed over one of my kittens. If that wasn't traumatic enough for her she had to bare me screaming at her like she had done it on purpose, our preacher was driving by and undoubtedly heard the commotion , he stopped, carried me into the house (probably praying all the time) then disposed of the dearly departed. I felt comforted later that my kitty had gone to Heaven in the back of my preacher's truck, my dog Trixie (who loved the cat) never forgave him though. From that day on every time he even drove past our house Trixie would chase his truck and if he even attempted to get out at our house she would nip at his cowboy boots...he seemed to understand though, he never held a grudge against her.
Our church was pine paneling on the inside of the sanctuary. There was a river Jordan scene painted in the baptismal "pool" that I thought was really beautiful, I don't remember who painted it but I do remember the fight that broke out when someone paid my aunt to make heavy green velvet drapes to go over it. The drapes were to remain closed behind the choir until the time we needed the river Jordan to appear for a baptism, this made some people in the church upset, I suppose they wanted to always feel as if they were gazing at the river Jordan, I think the thought of it there made other little kids like me remember that they didn't go to the bathroom after Sunday School and to avoid constant disruption somebody decided it would be best to cover up the distraction. Either way, it really didn't matter to me, I was a child and I thought it was really neat when the lights would go down and someone from behind the choir loft would pull the cord that opened the drapes to the beautiful river scene. Then "Billy Bob" or "Betty Lou" would get dunked and we'd all clap....something rarely done in our church back then.
Most Sunday nights I got to stay home with my daddy to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" and "Bonanza" on TV. He'd always make us some sort of messy snack and we'd wait to see if Mama would care or not. My favorite was "parched" peanuts and Coke. Daddy would cook them on a big cookie sheet and we'd watch whatever they were showing that week, sometimes we watched "Mutual or Omaha's Wild Kingdom" but I could never stand it if a lion or tiger was chasing some poor gazelle or long eared rabbit so we were particular about those. One the occasional Sunday night when I went to church with Mama I remember dozing off on the hard wooden pews, head propped on hymnals. I'd sometimes shed my shoes and socks and stretch out to count the ceiling tiles. The lights in the sanctuary reminded me of pictures I'd seen of our solar system, circles within circles with one big light bulb in the center. In the early summer the doors to the outside would be propped open and you could hear the crickets and frogs and a car passing by now and then, on more than one occasion a neighborhood dog or cat would wonder in to see what was going on...this convinced me that animals did too go to Heaven, some of them even went to church.
Church was a place of comfort for me. As I grew up I found myself going more and more by myself. It really didn't matter though, I had family there, not biological family but related in a more important way than blood, family put together more by God's design than a gene pool. I am grateful for those early years, for the sweet memories of tapping around the folding chairs in my Sunday shoes, of "Sunbeams" on Tuesday afternoons, of sweet little old ladies who taught me stories about Noah and Moses and David and the Giant. I am who I am today because I was a church kid.