Every other Sunday, Rev. Phillips of the Church of the Holy Spirit, aside from teaching from from the Good Book, performed weddings and baptisms. The little church was just over the back fence of my grandmother’s farm in Middle Tennessee. Elizabeth, my grandmother Miz Lena’s maid, was a proud and prominent member of Rev. Phillips’ Baptist congregation.
In my early childhood, I often attended church with Elizabeth. Every member of her church was black. It wasn’t uncommon for the good reverend to preach all morning long, marry off a loving couple into holy matrimony and then head down to the nearby creek to baptize a half-dozen parishioners who felt the need to get closer to God.
The oldest member of the church was Miss Mama. Everyone gave her plenty of room. She was way senior to the rest of the church members. Miss Mama lived in her own world. She was a little bitty lady with white hair and a few small moles around her eyes. Every Sunday, she wore her same fresh-pressed purple dress, accessorized with white gloves and a little veiled black hat with a ladybug hairpin stuck through it.
Through the years, Miss Mama had been saved no telling how many times. On baptizing days, she’d bring a white sheet in a paper bag to church with her. She’d go into the cloakroom, take off her church clothes, wrap the sheet around her body and walk out to the middle of the creek into the very understanding Rev. Phillips’ loving and waiting arms.
Miss Mama sat right next to Elizabeth and me in a pew a few rows back from the reverend’s podium. Most times, I sat next to Miss Mama. She talked to herself, usually about her two younger sisters, who were living in sin. Every so often, she talked to her dearly departed pet rooster. Sometimes, she’d start clucking like a chicken.