We had cement block classrooms, each interior of a different color not unlike Easter egg tones.

We were little angels and we sang loud and confidently ‘Little Is Much’ and ‘He’s Able’ and felt love for each other in what they called Junior Church. Little did I know the ‘repercussions’ that fellowship would have years later. We respected our Sunday school teacher whoever he/she was at the time because we not only were made to do so at the moment but had been taught to do so. Sunday school, by the way, preceded Junior Church.

We had cement block classrooms, each interior of a different color not unlike Easter egg tones. Most of the time we loved Moses, David, Jesus, Mary and the others who we studied, but some Sundays we just wanted the sermon to be over so that we could begin playing or be on our way to our grandparents’ house. Breaking routine was always exciting to us. We also wanted to be grown-ups so we could decide for ourselves whether or not we would go to church on a given Sunday. We had to hush until we grew up for it was heretical and unthinkable to imagine we’d not go to church anytime soon. When there was no Junior Church for some reason, it was worse. The preacher in the ‘big church’ talked about adult themes and related problems so we were bored. We had to be still, however, or we’d get one of daddy’s ‘karate chops’ on an upper leg. He’d gone to Asia in World War II.

We sang the same hymns over and over for so many years. We went away to church camp (almost heaven) a week or two every summer. We repented and prayed about our childhood sins which included behavior hardly angelic they said. The Bible verses that we learned by heart over the years would echo forty and fifty years later. And she or he who had left the fold and didn’t return in those later years was, to cite the book of Proverbs, simply a ‘fool’.

Revivals were held by preachers and singers brought (and ‘bought’) from other cities and states and regular church members and their ‘guests’ could resist no more when it was ‘altar call’. Some of the more hardheaded ones had to get ‘saved’ on a regular basis. Services during revival time were held every night until it ended. Sometimes ‘love’ offerings were taken up to aid the revered travelers in their expenses.

Practically all our social activities were centered round the church or our grandparents or even a combination of both. This was authentic Southern living.

The church life was never perfect, however. Just as today, mistakes were made, envy and jealousy existed among its members, money was always short, you heard here and there that some preacher was having an affair with a woman member of the congregation, etc.

All in all, the big issue was that people helped each other. This group helped that group, haves and haves not, etc. This was what was more important than all the other stuff—than the preaching, than the fine music, than raising money to add on to the buildings and other ‘thans’.

And many members and church officers tried to be good and live good lives. They didn’t come near any kind of perfection in these attempts, but they were way ahead of those ‘pagans’ who did not attend any church at all, I think when I look back.

Now I’m older and have seen the individuals who were raised without this church foundation. What do you think I think at this point? It’s not what I think but what we are commanded to do—love those individuals—our ‘neighbors’—as we love ourselves. I didn’t invent that.

Thanks for reading and my love.