Heritage

Today's Sunday School lesson was about remembering our religious heritage and to keep that heritage going for our families.  I got to thinking about growing up and going to church with my own grandparents.  My Mama and I would pick up my Granddaddy and Grandma and take them to Martin's Congregational Holiness Church in Double Branches.  Grandma would always wear a pin in front of her dress and would wear her hair in a bun on the back of her head.  I remember her hair being very thick, long and gray and always up in that bun.

We would arrive at church in time for Sunday School.  My shoes always, always, always hurt my feet.  It seemed my feet grew faster than Mama bought new ones.  I wore those frilly socks with patent leather shoes.  Mama would pin curl my hair and on Easter I would even wear a hat and gloves.  I still love hats and gloves! 

We never sat with Grandma and Granddaddy at church.  Grandma sat on the left of the church with women her age over near the piano and Grandaddy would sit on the right near the front doors with some of the men his own age.  Mama and I usually sat on the right of the church a few rows from the back of the church. 

Cullen Hicks was the preacher there.  I just loved him.  He wasn't a large man, had crow black hair that was always slicked back in his preacher's do.  I remember him being so kind and even though he was human, I couldn't imagine him any other way than the way I saw him on Sunday. 

The choir was located on the far left of the church. The choir pews actually faced the pulpit and not the congregation.  Back then folks didn't wear choir robes, but all the members were polished in their Sunday best.  Being a pentecostal church, the songs were nearly always upbeat and spirit filled.  I still love the old hymnals and find myself singing them even now. 

After the choir had sung a song or so, Brother Cullen, would come to the pulpit and preach a fire and damnation sermon.  After the sermon there was the alter call.  Folks from all over the church would go forward and kneel around the alter and pray.  I can't remember if the piano player was Shirley Holloway or if she played the organ, but I do remember she was a Godly spirit filled woman.  The other musician was Nan Wallace.  Boy, oh, Boy....I can remember her getting the spirit!  There seemed to be somebody dancing in the spirit or speaking in tongues every service.  No one was particularly eager to get home to Sunday dinner.  I don't ever remember getting home early.

The churches during the seventies were different than today.  Today we are "tolerant" of behavior, dress, and customs unlike those we grew up with.  Then, the churches weren't "tolerant" of anything outside of what the church doctrines professed.  Women couldn't wear makeup, they all wore the beehive hair-dos and gays surely would have been thrown out on their heads.  Football games were frowned upon and mercy to your soul if you were ever caught tasting whiskey.  While we may have gone too far in the other direction, that old church failed their members/attenders by maybe just not loving them enough.  I sure hope God doesn't throw me out of heaven due to my choice of wearing makeup or going to a football game.  God's love and mercy are so very great.  I had to have children of my own to even gain some minute insight into how much we are loved.