Dear Jimmy,
Since you know all about Bluebell Baptist and some of the tricks we’ve pulled through the years, you won’t be surprised by this letter except in how it ends.
It all started when Brother Bobby announced this mornin’ that we needed to have a short business meetin’ after church because it was discovered durin’ the week that squirrels or some other kind of varmints have chewed plumb through the insulation on the electric wires in the attic of the church. Whatever it was that did it musta got quite a charge out of it because there wasn’t just one place that had been chewed on.
Havin’ bare electric wires in the attic was judged to be a mite unsafe, so the Property and Grounds Committee figured the church better approve of getting’ the problem looked after real soon like. That’s why Brother Bobby called the meetin’. The problem is once the committee started lookin’ into it they had trouble findin’ a place to quit recommendin’.
Our church house was built about a hundred years ago and aside from a new coat of paint every 25 years or so and gettin’ new pews after the old ones dried out so bad that Uncle Tyrone Tyree snagged his brand-new polyester leisure suit one Easter on a splinter, nothin’ much has been done to the buildin’. That was the Easter the church discovered just how fast polyester can unravel.
The only other change was when Brother Bobby first got here and didn’t know any better. He put up a pull-down movie screen. That caused quite a ruckus, but the folks against it finally just wore themselves slap out talkin’ about it and we left it up. ’Course, when Brother Bobby had the gumption to actually use it to show the words to the songs we were singin’ the slobber started flyin’ again.
Well, the funny thing is that the ones who bellered loudest when he put it up are now so old they can’t see the words in the song book even with their glasses on. That didn’t keep some of them from hollerin’ out of pure habit. Almost like they felt obligated to complain. It just seems like some folks are too deaf to hear when the opportunity to keep their mouths shut knocks.
Anyhow, the meetin’ commenced right enough when Denny Doer, the committee chairman, passed out pictures of the chewed places. Well, from there it went downhill fast. Now, mind you this wirin’ has been there a whole century and it seems to me that we got the good out of it. The committee thought so, too, so they recommended replacin’ the whole shebang: All the wires and switches and lights and even to put plug-ins in the walls of the church because people have been known to trip over the extension cords crisscrossin’ the aisle.
But can you believe it? There were a few that wanted to keep the historic wirin’ along with the ancient glass things it was hung on in those days. Beau Doer, Denny’s cousin, said that when you go changin’ things in an antique car the value goes down, so he figured the same would be true of a buildin’. He wanted to get new 100-year-old-lookin’ wire to replace what’s there.
And, that started the avalanche of opinions rollin’ down the mountain. I just sat there not believin’ what I was a-hearin’.
Finally, I heard somebody say that since the economy was so bad we ought to just replace the bad spots. “After all, that wire’s been there a hundred years. If it was a-goin’ to burn down the buildin’ it woulda done it before now!” The gal who said this is the kind who could say we all ought to show up for church next Sunday wearin’ only our underwear and say it in a way that would make you look dumb as a rock if you thought somethin’ different.
Well, that did it. I just couldn’t stand it any longer. I could see the same old thing about to happen. People were gettin’ mad and ever-body thought his own opinion was the only one that counted.
It seemed like the Lord was sayin’, “Speak up, Ida!” So I told them it was good to talk about what we should do. And even though we have a real good committee that has looked into the whole situation and has come to the church with a thought-out suggestion about what we rightly should do, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to ask questions and suggest other ways to fix it.
“But, lawsee me!” I told them. “It seems like we’ve lost sight of what we’re doin’ here. We ain’t here to preserve antiques. Not that there’s anything wrong with that in its place.” I told them I was afraid that we were about to become the kind of church that couldn’t make any decision because we would find seven ways from Sunday to fight about it. “The Good Lord can’t be pleased by this,” I said.
“The wire is old, the situation is dangerous, the committee has done its work. Let’s support them,” I said. “I want to be a part of a church that makes a difference in people’s lives. I want people to be saved because we are here. I want people who are hungry to be fed because we are here. I want folks who are havin’ a hard time to have an easier time because of what we’ve done to help them. And when I leave church I don’t want to go home feelin’ like I’ve been in a fight!” I told them we’ve got to change the way we do things and the way we treat each other and the way we go about makin’ decisions.
Well, by this time I was shakin’ so bad I could hardly stand up so I sat down feelin’ like I’d just made a mess of it. But after a few seconds when the shock wore off, folks actually began to clap. I couldn’t believe it.
The lady who wanted to patch the bad places made a motion to do just what the committee recommended and Beau Doer seconded the motion! People came to me later and said that they just needed somebody to say what we all knew was true.
Seems to me, now that I’ve thought about it some, that we lost our focus somehow. We started thinkin’ too much about buildin’s and keepin’ all the church positions filled and the like. We neglected the most important things like why the Good Lord put us here in the first place.
I feel sorry for Brother Bobby because he’s caught a lot of grief from folks who had nothin’ better to do than talk. But I think maybe he has missed the boat, too, in a way. I think maybe he, like the rest of us, got too busy takin’ care of church things and church folk that we just got in the habit of thinkin’ the work of the church was keepin’ it goin’. Seems to me now that if we miss out on doin’ what the Lord put us here to do then what’s the point of keepin’ everything goin’?
Well, that’s about all I have to say. Keep us in your prayers and come see us whenever you can.
Love, Aunt Ida