A prayer makes me giggle.
The sermon makes me giggle.
Mrs. Johnson’s double chin flapping up and down like day-old Jello as she sings “Amazing Grace” makes me giggle.
When she gets to “When we’ve been there, 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun,” the jello gets a life all its own and starts rumbling and shaking her face like an earthquake, sending tremors all the way to her nose.
When I was old enough to go to church...and you’re always old enough to go to church....I went. Mama holding one hand and Daddy the other. She pulled toward the church and daddy pulled away. That’s how I grew, I think. Pulled toward the church and then away. Lucy followed behind us at a respectful teenage distance, not wanting to be known as a member of our family. Lucy wasn’t anti-family...just over hormoned.
My sister sat in church and thought of things that even God hadn’t thought of yet. She thought of things that I couldn’t even spell. “Lucy,” I said, “God can hear your thoughts! You you wanna go to hell?” But Lucy just kept on thinking them. Boys....puberty....drive in movies... smelly perfumes that did strange things to teenage boys... The preacher preached, I giggled, and Lucy kept right on thinking.
Daddy cleaned his fingernails with the same knife that he peeled the skin off my apples. He said that digging the motor oil from under his cuticles helped him concentrate on God. I giggled. Lucy thought. Mama frowned.
Mama would frown a lot as she sang “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.” I think she was happy but it’s hard to smile when you’re in charge of the salvation of a nail-cleaning husband, a giggling little girl, and a teenager who’s thinking God-only-knows-what.
I used to memorize things in church. ........ The crack in the plaster above the preacher’s head that hadn’t gotten bigger or one bit smaller ever since I was a baby. ..........the picture of Jesus knealing down in the garden with the yellow spotlight hitting him right on the head... ...........the place above the piano where they tried to match the paint but didn’t... ............the back of Mr. Kinsell’s bald head and his birthmark which looked just exactly like Alabama...or Mississippi......or maybe a Pineapple...I never did look it up.. But it made me giggle.
I had just turned nine and had only been that old for two days when Marilyn Hopper told Mama that a girl should not giggle in church. Mama had told me this herself but she was not the sort to take this kind of holy-roller condemnation from anyone....least of all, not that moral windbag, Marilyn Hopper. Mama huffed a good, strong huff right in Marilyn Hopper’s face and told her that Christ said, “Suffer the little children to come to me.” and if Jesus could suffer me then Marily Hopper could too.
It was Marilyn Hopper’s turn to huff. But that’s all she did.
I looked up at Mama, sorry for causing her the shame. Mama looked down at me and smiled. I learned a lot about Mama that day. And I listened to the sermon .......some. I think I knew what Jesus was trying to say.