Birmingham is sunny. The weather is chilly, but not unpleasant. I am in a tiny church, sitting beside my cousin, his wife, and his three kids. His two girls wear white dresses.
Times have changed. Once upon a time, I remember when all girls wore Sunday dresses. Today, I don’t see more than four or five in the congregation.
Also, I don’t see any penny loafers on the little boys. As a boy, my mother never let me attend church without wearing a pair of medieval loafers.
There are forty-two people in this room. Elderly couples, young families, a few high-schoolers, some children. It’s a trip back in time. A reminder of the days when Sunday school teachers taught us to say grace by rhyming:
“God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food…”
The congregation sings from hardback hymnals. Then, a sermon from a man with white hair, who pronounces “Lord” as “Lowered.”
I just read an article that said more Americans are working on Sundays than ever before in history. “Sundays are
a thing of the past,” the article claimed.
Say it ain’t so.
The pastor tells the congregation that he and his wife have been married for fifty-two years. The church applauds. Fifty-two years is a rarity.
When the pastor and his wife moved into their first parsonage, his wife placed a large cardboard box beneath her bed, she warned the pastor never to touch it.
“This box is private,” she explained. “Promise me you’ll never open it.”
He crossed his heart and hoped to die. For fifty-two years, the Baptist man honored his word.
Until a week ago. He opened the box and it surprised him. Inside, he found it full of cash and four eggs.
He confessed to his wife what he’d done, then asked her about the box.
“Well,” she explained, “when we married, my mama said, ‘Darling, a preacher’s…