“Pray for Walter,” my mother said. “Marcella had to take him back to the hospital." She paused. Looked worried. And, then smiled. "Know what she said?“ My mother looked happy as she quoted her sister, “Patty, will you pray for Walter? Your prayers always work.” This made me curious and so I asked her about her experiences of religion and faith as she was growing up.
“As kids, Daddy went to church…I went with him. Marcella, sometimes, but not always. I never remember Mother in church.” Then she told me of when she professed faith in Christ. “I almost got a whipping. I had walked down the aisle in Sciotoville Christian Church in great conviction and tears. But, when Daddy and I got home and Marcella found out I had beat her to it she nearly had a fit. She began screaming and carrying on something awful. It was like I had beaten her to it. It was like she felt a personal affront like I had one-upped her, or something. Mother was fussing and yelling at me, too. Not because I had found Christ but because I had upset Marcella.”
Marcella, the oldest and the favored one of her mother, had an extreme sense of competition and preferred to trump her little sister in everything. “Mother did go with us when I got baptized, though. I have to give her that. And, Marcella was baptized shortly thereafter. I just think Mother (who the grandchildren refer to as Nana) was, maybe, afraid of Marcella. Marcella threw wild fits and Nana did not know how to handle her. And, Nana,” she chuckled, “had a mouth like a drunken sailor and Marcella hated to hear her cuss. Their fighting caused me to find my field of violets and pushed me into a love for reading."
It seemed that after Marcella began to scream and throw things that sometimes Nana would cuss and Marcella would ratchet up her fit and Nana would scream more and then she would begin to throw things; a real maelstrom of anger and angst. “In the winter time,” she continued, “I would grab a book at such times and hide out in the bathroom. I’d sit on the toilet and read and escape to my quiet place in my mind.” Then she considered her memory and continued, laughing, “Why I wouldn’t sit on it with the lid lowered so it would be like a seat, I don’t know. But, I would put the lid up, pull down my pants and sit down like I was going to use the toilet. I’d sit on it like that for an hour or more. As long as I needed to escape. I had a permanent ring on my tail.”
In the spring, summer or a pleasant fall day she found another quiet place. “I first found it when I was running from one of their arguments. I ran out the back and down over the hill that was
immediately behind our house. I would go down the hill, jump over the creek and go left and there I found a field of violets. And, there would be, it seemed, thousands of orange butterflies…either Monarchs or Viceroys. I don’t know which. But it was breathtaking. It became my getaway place.”
She then began to talk about all the reading she did as part of her escaping from emotional trauma.
She says, “I read Gone With The Wind in one week. I was, maybe, twelve. Maybe, younger. That’s how much I had to get away from them and their carrying on. I remember some favorites I read several times: Rocked In The Cradle of the Deep. It was about a girl that grew up on her father’s sailing vessel. She couldn’t sleep on land because she was used to a rocking hammock and she had a mouth like her father’s crewmen. And, I loved a story about White Rose, a girl with a rose shaped
scar on her wrist. It was called Street of Many Arches. I read it several times. Mother threw all those books away. She would save glass jars and rags," she laughed, "but would throw away Daddy’s carvings and my books.”
“I remember trying to read the Bible. All we had was the King James Version. I found it very hard. I remember reading Psalms 23. All I could see was, ‘The Lord is my shepherd…I do not want him.’ That’s how it read to me. So, I thought the psalms are not for me, because I did want the Lord. I wanted him with all my heart.” For Patricia, my mother, those years of emotional turmoil, from ages 8 to 14 were intellectually stimulating for her, because of her chosen method of escape. She says she found out when she entered college over twenty years later that some of her favorite authors, Victor Hugo and De Maupassant, were classics and recommended reading for entering freshmen. She says she remembers her father quoting Keats and Byron and credits him for her desire to learn through reading.
I asked her if she recalls praying as a child. At first she said, “No.” Then, she remembered one thing her mother always did was come into the bedroom after they went to bed to hear her and Marcella say their prayers. “It was just a ‘now I lay me down to sleep…’ but still…” she trailed off in silent memory. “She would do that until the twins were born. After that, all bets were off. Things changed. She really didn’t want to have any more children. Nana was very frustrated and angry. She had tried to get them aborted as she had done with numerous other pregnancies but the doctor said, “Marge. No more. I’ve done enough. I’m not giving you any more abortions. You’ll have to carry this child (not knowing she was carrying twins).”
She got back on track and remembered a childhood ritual that was a kind of prayer, in body language. “I guess I did pray,” she reconsidered, “because I was always telling God how sorry I was; and sometimes I’d promise to be good if I could go to the movies. And whenever I did something wrong and needed to show I was sorry I would lick my right thumb, rub in on my left palm and then strike my right fist in my left hand. It was just a silly thing children did. Like saying, ‘sorry, I won’t do that again’.”
As she thought about the guilt and the perpetual litany of little prayers that offered up an “I’m sorry, God,” she said, “Much of the guilt I carried was from the misery imposed by my mother and my sister. I always felt guilty of something--like being stupid; or in the way; or for being ugly.”
She then mentioned the only Sunday School teacher she could remember. “Mrs. Norris. She looked like she was 110. She may have been about 90. She was so old. She and her husband taught children in the Sciotoville church. And, every Easter she would tell the story of the crucifixion. She would just cry and cry. It had a great impact on me as I wondered why this story was so important to this woman. But, it made a great impression on me that the crucifixion would still be so powerful to someone after two thousand years.
Is there any adult equivalent to the field of violets, or the bathroom/reading room, I asked her. Then she remembered being in a service at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Jacksonville. She was alone of course. She has always sat alone in church. “I was not feeling well. A little depressed, I supposed. No, probably a lot depressed. When I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, ‘Read Psalms 91,” which I did. I don’t know what was going on in church…preaching…or singing, I don’t know. But, when I read about the ‘feathers’ in Psalms 91 I began to feel feathers all over my face, like little wings all around me. It was amazing. It was wonderful. I began to feel happy. Cared for. Protected. Like I wasn’t alone anymore. I had been so miserable. Divorce from your father was imminent. I didn’t want to get a divorce. But your father would not quit running around on me. He wouldn’t quit drinking or being so mean to me. I was at the end of my rope. I had come to a place where I felt it was OK to leave Sam and strike out on my own, but I was scared and I was feeling like I
was wrong. Like I was ugly. Or, stupid. But, the experience of those feathers just did it for me. I never felt abandoned or like I was on the wrong track after that."
The near presence of God in the experience of those feathers had become her adult version of her special place where she could be quiet and safe. Just like the quiet bathroom or a field of violets full of butterflies. Prayer she has learned is the breath of our new life in Christ.
Louis Templeman
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