THE SCARY TRUTH ABOUT CHURCH AT AGE 5

        Church with Granddaddy Bill was interesting and a little scary. I liked the music and the singing.  I did not mind the preaching.  Reverend Lett would always call me “baby” and “sugar” and I loved him for that.

He would say, “Come on down here, Sugar, and put your money in the collection.”  I would stand erect and march down the red carpeted aisle to the table placed in front of the pulpit-- but on the floor level, not on the stage.

I’d put my dime on the table. I was not the only one to put my money in the collection like that: that was the way it was done. Everyone in the church—so it seemed to me—got up walked down the aisle and put their money on that table:  coins and paper money. (I realize now, that checks were not used and of credit cards were not even thought of!)  Bill and his helpers would count all the money right there in front of everybody.

The organist would be playing a certain style of music during this time. The tempo was upbeat and lively and it lent itself to marching down the aisle. This aisle was actually down—the back of the church was way higher than the floor area in front of the pulpit. Yes, it was the way theaters used to be-- before you had to take stairs to the higher elevations in the rear of the auditorium, as you do now.  The main floor of the church was tilted up in the back, down in the front!

So, I’d walk down a gentle slope to the lower elevation at the front--no stairs needed. Then, after placing my dime on the table I would march past the table, and then and back up the other aisle. It was, I guess, a parade of sorts. At age five, I loved that.

The scary part came when Reverend Lett would preach. What was scary for me came not from him, but from what would happen in the congregation.  He wore gold-rimmed glasses, a very low haircut and he had a disarming smile. He wore three- piece suits, very often white and all his accessories were white also—sometimes even his tie would be white.

He would start out calmly and speaking in a modulated very smooth, very pleasant voice.  As his sermon progressed, though he began to be more forceful with his words, and his gestures.

 As he raised his voice, it seemed his body temperature would go up too.  As he exhorted the flock about something:  he would really start to sweat!  He would periodically take his out handkerchief and sometimes wipe his forehead. Sometimes he would just blot his face.

The thing is this: that church was one of the few places that I went to in those days that was air-conditioned!  There was always a lovely peaceful shady-feeling-coolness about the sanctuary--no matter how bright and sweltering it was outside.

 This may not be so, but it seemed to me this way: as his volume increased, there would erupt punctuations of “amen” and “hallelujah” from the congregation.  All of a sudden, some woman—I never saw a man do this—a woman would start “shouting”-- literally. 

That’s what it was called. She would raise both arms and seem to rise from the pew then fall back.  She’d do that several times—with her arms in the air the whole time, shouting over and over, “Lord have mercy!”

Two of the white-uniformed, white-gloved ushers armed with paper fans would briskly walk over to her and they both kind of took hold of her arms and patted her arms and fanned her furiously till she settled down.

This stuff scared me to death! Just when the first woman was getting quiet again and looking as if she had swooned, another would start shouting in a different section of the congregation!  The whole thing would start all over again.

There were many of those white-uniformed white-gloved members of the usher board.  They would scramble to do their duty:   to attend the shouter.

After a while with this shouting breaking out in different sections of the church, Reverend Lett’s voice will begin to slow, and to soften.

As he wound down, toward the end, he practically spoke in a calm and gentle whisper.  As he did so, he would begin to smile.  He would wipe his forehead once more; and this time he folded and returned his handkerchief to his pants pocket.

The organist would play a soothing quiet melody, and the whole congregation, it seemed to me, let out a deeply satisfying “sigh”.  Then, church was over.