All my life I have been told that I have to go to church. That’s supposed to be where my blessings are to be found. I agree that that is where I can go to praise the Lord, but if you ever get a chance to go to my church, even the most devout of Christians will have their doubts.

I am a member of the Mount Galilee Missionary Baptist church in Zion, Mississippi. The church motto is: The church where every body is somebody. Just thinking about that makes me want to laugh. I’ve been an active member there since I was about six years old, and I have yet to begin to feel like I’m somebody in that place.

There has been problems in there forever, and they all seem to focus around my family. Now I don’t know who is right and who is wrong. It really is not my place to say. I just attend and go home. I used to sing in the choir, but there is no choir for me to sing in anymore.

Maybe I should go back and give you a little history of how I remember things. Then you can get a feel of how I came to the conclusions that I came to.

It was a beautiful August Sunday, and the Shelton house was getting ready to go to go to their weekly church service. Mama (Masie) Shelton, Dad (Peter) Shelton, their daughter Angel (that‘s me), and their son Peter, Jr. were all gathering up Sunday school books and Bibles to head out. The Mama and Dad were having their regular before-service argument, and the children were sitting back rolling their eyes as usual. There was not a Sunday that went by when Mama and Dad were not fussing about something.

Last Sunday, it had been something about the other deacons at the church not treating Dad like he was a deacon there, and Mama was telling him that he was being paranoid. This Sunday, it was something just as petty. Mom was the president of the choir, and she was complaining that the choir members were all after her job. My dad was trying to tell her that nobody wanted her job, and believe me, he was right. They both had something to gripe about every single Sunday.

It seemed that no matter if we were going to regular worship service or to a special afternoon program, they were always going on about something that was going on in that church. At this particular time, I was about four years old. I remember everything so well because I am now in my thirties and all this is still going on. Nothing has changed.

By the time we finally got to church, my parents had quieted down. They always had to make sure they portrayed the perfect Christian family whenever we were in public. They were smiling and grinning at all of the people that had been talking trash about all morning. The sight of it just made me want to vomit. I didn’t understand then, and I really don’t understand now, why they couldn’t just tell everyone how they really felt.

Anyway, service started with a long devotion. The congregation sang hymns, and then Dad got down on his knees to say his five minute long prayer. That prayer was so dull and practiced that in my later years, I entertained my friends by praying long with him word for word. Then, it was time for the choir to sing. My mom got up and lead the first song. She sang as if she were appointed by God to serenade Him personally. You would never know that the two of them had spent the entire morning fussing, cursing, and talking about people.

The pastor at that time was Reverend Morgan. He was an old man of about sixty or seventy. He was nice, though. Between Sunday school and morning worship service, he always took the time to speak to each of his members personally. Of course, you can probably guess that there was something said if he spoke to one of the other deacons before the spoke to my dad. It was a crazy time.

One this particular day, there was a business meeting after service. My parents, Reverend Morgan, and the other two deacons, Deacon Davis and Deacon Jones, and their wives were in attendance. There was also Sister Ella, the church secretary, and Sister Violet, just a nosey woman who came to all the church meetings. All the children were taken into the fellowship hall for a snack while they met in the sanctuary. Everything seemed to be going fine, but about ten minutes in the ladies, and I use that term loosely, started to get loud. I crept away from my place at the snack table to go take a peek at what was going on in there. You would not believe what I saw!

My mother, who might have weighed a buck-o-five at the time, was standing toe-to-toe Sister Davis, and Sister Davis was a big woman. They were fussing and guess what else- cursing right there in the house of the Lord. Me, being the little girl that I was, laughed at the commotion, but there was really nothing funny about what those grown women were doing. They knew better. At least, that is what I would have been told if I was arguing with one of the other children at the church.

They went at it for a few minutes, and then the men started. Everyone was yelling and screaming. Everyone, except, Sister Violet. She was just sitting there with this odd little smirk on her face taking it all in. At least she was until Sister Jones pulled a little knife out of her purse and threatened to cut everybody. That should have shut everyone up, but it didn’t. No one hushed until Ella pulled a little handgun from her purse. It was an all out gang war in the church!

By this time, all the children were standing in the doorway peeking in, and poor Reverend Morgan looked as if he was about to cry. I can’t remember all that was said that day, but I do remember that Reverend Morgan never came back after that day.