The Anatomy of Sunday

Boy, they could move.

The gospel of Big Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church had a reputation for rumbling floors, the rumble of soul song, deliverance, and agony. My legs always felt the music first. Feet nailed to the ground, but knees trembling with the crescendo of the negro spiritual. My school taught us that we are to praise the Lord in quiet reverence, but here I was meant to scream, clap and run. My feet never got the message, my palms never the strength to meet. But when the choir would find themselves absorbed by their euphonious gospel, my skin told the story, spotted with goosebumps that illustrated something resembling a map to home. Something that looked like a left turn on Guilford Forest and a right on King Street.

In usual form, come Monday, any piece of me still bearing reverence to my culture was neatly tucked away. Only 11, I could never discern how much black I could show without that being the only thing they remembered, so I stifled my Sunday secret. Yet, I’m not sure that’s something you grow out of. The disorderly worship of a black God that occurred on Sunday was a secret my whole family safeguarded. In unison, come Monday, we all sang a forlorn praise to the marble castle, of which our own sanctuary was merely a mime. I wish someone would have told me I could not find myself digging through the stone. Never to take for granted my sweet Sunday shelter; from the white crash of waves and the ring of the school bell.

On Sundays, The Mime Ministry came always ordained in black suits, white gloves, and starch white faces. They started on their knees and begged for grace. Then they took to the pews, descending upon the whole of the church. In passing glance, the white-faced clergy looked like my classmates, and I swore I heard the bell ring. At school, faces were a lot like these, though they stood still. White. Like stone, and the commandments engraved and a lot like order or more like its cousin, prestige.

Yet that’s the difference between paint and skin; paint will crack, and yet only in time will the skin crease. And still, if not for the same stretch of time, which may have permanently craned my neck down and sent my gaze to the floor, I may never have noticed the beauty in cracked paint. The paint that required the stretch of the black skin beneath, engrained with the movement from a scream in agony and the glee of His everlasting promise. And with the promise of Sunday and the community that stretched from sea to sea.

You see the church is lined with mirrors, and I was always careful not to look too long. Mirrors can crack. But like it or not, my face was written on the wall; or someone that looked like me, a rare version of me. Who had, for but a brief moment on Sunday, allowed her own paint to crack. Because on Sunday we move. I’d always worry about how many layers I’d need to re-apply before school.

At Big Bethel, church was anywhere between two or two and a half hours, something I read as extended brutal indoctrination at the time. Of course, years later, when we lost both my great-grandparents, a delicate line of thread that bound me to my culture, maybe even to myself, snapped under the weight of the Lord’s will. And yet every day when I sat in church, in a line of seven, who were me as much as I them, there was always a better place to be. I forget if I ever decided that for myself.

“Oh, Lord! I feel like preachin’ today.”

The thunder in the Pastor’s voice did not simply echo the word of God, fickle as it can be; no, it echoed the slave song engrained in the hot Georgia soil beneath us. Today he told the story of when Elijah asked the Lord to take his life. The pastor starts, and the organist slams down his keys.

Preacher said, “Sometimes the Lord gon’ sit on ya.”

In the middle of living your life, he explained, you’ll hit a roadblock. Something that feels like the light is gone, that his promise is broken. Like the Lord took a seat, and he’s nowhere to be found.

Louder this time, he said “Now, right in the middle of your praise, sometimes he’s gon’ sit on ya.”

The congregation became a sea of cascaded figures, some down at their knees in praise, some with hands raised to the heavens. My family and I sit still, never to lose composure. No one gave me permission to yell yet, or maybe it’s just that I never had. Not in school, like I said; white feels like stone.

Faster this time, “Right in the middle of Halle- and -lujah, sometimes the lord gon’ sit on ya.”

Sister Mary got up, the Lord took her spirit, as they say, and she ran about the sanctuary proclaiming, “Lord Jesus, Help Me!” My sister and I sank in our seats, muffling our laughs crouched behind my grandmas church hat. She was already on her feet; she never minded if she was standing alone. The Pastor spoke faster, the organist got louder, and with his every pause for breath, the crowd roared with “Amens” and “Hallelujahs.” At this point, we’d. all lost the composure we thought was engrained in stone. And I, stitched to the same worn pew, tried to hide the goosebumps on my skin. My skin told the story of my ancestors even if my legs refused to extend in their praise. Was this God at work? Or had he sat down, as I always did?

Slower this time preacher said, “Yes, he will sit down on ya, but you’re always gon’ get up!”

Now, if I went up King Street, took the 285 to Cascade Road, then turned right on Winfield Way (5 mins tops); my great-grandma would have already finished the cranberry salad, collard greens, and her “Jaymes Famous Chicken.” Before that, however, she dressed the table with her scribblings from today’s sermon: her recommendations for how the Pastor might improve next Sunday, and a list of the churches sick and shut-in to include in her morning prayer. She was a pastors daughter, sister, and council member of the church herself; in short, there was no arguing with her. And still, our Sunday Dinner rituals ensued: first, the battle of the two Jamye’s. Big Jamye was my great-grandmother, and if not for her intellect, her seniority was reason enough to dissuade the average individual from quarrel and certainly from issuing a single word of displeasure about the Pastor. Yet her usual Sunday competitor entered the ring, perhaps with courage only a namesake could have. Little Jamye, my older sister, could never remedy the scientific inaccuracies of the Bible with whatever hidden message of communal empowerment lay beneath. And I, the littlest, barely knew any better.

“You know Catholic Church is only an hour…” my sister began.

“Oh God Jamye, you don’t wanna be going to a damn Catholic Church!,” my grandmother, known to us as Ta, playfully shouted.

I guess she hated stone too; she never liked Catholics.

“Jamye, it wouldn’t last nearly as long if you were paying attention,” Big Jamye gently interjected.

Our church never had quite the same level of genuflection. Clinging to pesky pride, I may claim I was simply not god-fearing enough to desire inclusion in their prestigious rituals. Though I’d be lying, the marble alone was enough to procure my envy. The only time we’ve ever attended Catholic Church, I ignorantly extended only one palm during communion rather than two. The priest performed the sign of the cross, and sent me away; my hands not yet sacred enough to receive the Eucharist. The particularity of the church, which sent me back to the pew head hung in confusion forced me into a familiar reverence rooted in shame. A desire to become deserving of inclusion in their communal practice. Nothing I had ever been a part of had accepted me easily, except my own church, and that made it all the more unremarkable.

“Jamye, you oughta just join the choir,” Ta said; as she and I laughed, bumped hips, and “dropped it low” to the ground.

My father scorned.

When Sissy finished setting the table, and I finished pouring everyone’s glasses of Big Jamye’s Arnold Palmer, we nestled around the table as we did every Sunday. Today, Father wanted to rush the prayer; it was now inching toward 6:30, and we were a half-hour past when Poppy, my Great-Grandfather, and also a 99-year-old diabetic, needed to eat. My sister and I looked at each other, lingering in my father’s deliberation.

“Payton. Go,” he said

I’m up, but not entirely disappointed; I knew I’d have it over with the fastest. I wrestle between my Uncle Richards prayer, “Good food. Good meat. Good Lord. Let’s eat,” or the traditional Sunday Prayer. But I wanted dessert, so I opted for the latter.

“Gracious lord, thank you for the food we are about to receive, and the nourishment of our bodies in jesusnameamen.” As fast as I could.

Despite our faithful traditions, dinner was never anything short of a searing intellectual examination of the sermon, the news of the day, or various discussion topics my parents might offer up. However, we could never talk about church for too long, or we’d upset Big Jamye. She would spring up, raise her manicured pointer finger and say,

“Now, everyone, be quiet. Listen to me! The Pastor listens to me, so do the ministers, and so will you!”

Depending on the day, this reprimand was met with either joyous laughter or contemplative silence. Foolishly, we always tempted fate. My sister and I could never make sense of this authority; we hardly remembered the ministers’ names. But we could quote Shakespeare and anything else we felt written in stone. Yet, what Big Jamyes says goes; that we knew before anything else.

“If we are going to be there for two hours, you think the Pastor would at least speak in proper English,” Sissy said, planting her foot firmly in the ring.

Today it didn’t look like we’d end in laughter. The Pastor was a Stanford graduate, and my sister could never remedy the two. We’d never be understood if we spoke like that in school; we all knew that. When I made my first friends at school I learned that fast. Myself and two other black girls in 6th grade were each other’s only friends for a while, we were seen together so much they started to call us “the black girls carpool.” Hearing our nick name for the first time I began to acquaint myself with shame.We stuck together, though, as you do. Everyday we would tuck ourselves into the school reverends office during snack time so the decibel of our voices could temporarily go undetected or better maybe they’d even forget we were there. But at some point, the reverend told us we had to find another place to hang out; some of the other girls said we were too “intimidating” and they felt uncomfortable to come in at the same time.

What had we been thinking? We were so obvious grouped together that way. For the rest of the year we moved our hangout to the benches in the hallway by the bathroom. This was before I learned to mime. I was finally getting the message: being black, loud and in a group is a threat; unless on Sundays.

But my family prepared us for this, they knew our world looked nothing like the sanctuary. The goal was to be so well spoken they forgot the paint on our skin. My Great-grandparents, both Ph.D.’s in English, were meticulous when it came to grammar. I could never get away with mistaking a “who” for “whom” or “mommy and I” when it should have been “mommy and me.” We’d have to restart our sentence, go back, wrangle our instinctual tongue and correct our mistake.

And Yet the Pastor never bothered them. In fact, he had been communicating far more in his soothing southern slang than he ever would have clinging to Roman English orthodox. Yet the cool shade of naiveté, and the more chilling darkness of shame, prevented my sister and I from feeling the warmth of his familiar deep hum. This part of our culture was always amiss to us; a failure in language we were ritually forced to correct. But the word of God never came in perfect English, and maybe that’s why it never made sense.

Big Jamye responded, “whatever he says it’s just God talking.”

We were silenced; of course; there was no arguing with God or Big Jamye. Everything she said seemed to be written in unflinching marble authority. Her all-knowing glance eclipsed the white glare of punishing prestige we would return to on Monday. And when I would once again hear the beckon of the school bell, and paint my face white; guilty with my Sunday Secret. Something I knew I could never tell and could barely believe myself: the voice of God is black, broken, and loud. And maybe so was mine, even if it was muffled by stone.