Dear Jimmy,
I can tell I'm slowin' down ‘cause my mind is laggin' behind the calendar by several months. It seems like it ought to be about May with the summer comin' on instead of the middle of September with summer done gone!
I mentioned this to your Uncle Orley and he said it probably had somethin' to do with global warmin' or some such. But he was sippin' his mornin' coffee and readin' a past issue of Religious Herald at the time, so I'm really not sure he heard me. I figure the answer I got was to the question he figured I'd asked. Truth be told, though, I really can't imagine that I'd ask him a question that would have global warmin' as the answer.
Jim White
Well, I better change the subject or you'll be lookin' up what steps you have to take to get both of us committed. That would be a frustratin' experience for everybody especially those mind doctors ‘cause whenever I look at an ink blot, all I can see is an ink blot.
Your uncle and I did have an experience a week ago Sunday I wanted to tell you about. We went all the way to Knoxville 'cause his cousin, Ned, has been ailin' somethin' fierce. His wife, Nelly, is also Orley's cousin. I'd try to explain, but I'd get so sidetracked tryin' to untwist the branches of his family tree that I might just forget where I was headin' with this.
Anyhow, Ned has been at death's door and Nelly has been tryin' to pull him through. She regards herself as one of Tennessee's great unlicensed physicians. Actually, he is gettin' better. It's funny how folks see what they want to believe. Why, she has no doubt in the world that it's her salves and potions that caused his improvement. Everbody else suspects it has to do with his bein' in the intensive care ward for a week and a half at Baptist hospital.
Oh, that reminds me of what I wanted to tell you. While we were in Knoxville, we went to a big city church. Not one of those great big ones with elevators and everything, but this one was a lot bigger than Bluebell Baptist.
After some discussion and slight disagreement about which door we should go in, we went inside — and stood around for a while. There wasn't a person in sight. We looked around for some kind of map on the wall or somethin' that would tell us where to go, but nothin'.
We finally took off down a hallway thinkin' we'd run into somebody and eventually found the sanctuary, where a class was meetin' but they looked so serious we didn't want to go in and disturb them. Well, I stood there in that hallway wishin' I could tell those folks what it feels like to be a visitor in their church when I started thinkin' about my own church.
While Orley admired the softball trophies in a glass case, in my mind I visited our Bluebell Baptist like I had never been there before. I had to wonder if a visitor would know that if all the spaces in the parking lot are taken its OK to park on the grass. I wondered if we should maybe put up a sign sayin' visitors could park on the grass when it hit me that church members should park on the grass and have signs sayin' visitors could park in the lot.
In my mind, I walked into the buildin' over crumblin' concrete sidewalks and past a rusty handrail. Members who go to Bluebell Baptist all know not to hold the handrail or you'll get your hand rusty, but visitors wouldn't know that. Members have gotten used to it, but of a sudden like I saw how ugly it was and how desperately it — and other things, too — needed paint.
Now, findin' the right door at Bluebell Baptist is not a challenge. But once inside there's not a thing that gives a visitor any sign that we might have been expectin' a person from the outside to even show up.
Well, about that time Sunday school let out and folks started movin' in the hallways and we fell in with the flow movin' to the sanctuary. The worship service was good and all, but the real blessin' I got that day was unexpected. I saw my church through the eyes of a visitor.
And Orley and some of the other men in the church are sorry I did. At least that's what they say. They've been slappin' paint and working with Brother Bobby to figure out how to give visitors a proper reception.
They've all been joshin' Orley about keepin' me home so I don't go gettin' more ideas about what they ought to do. They don't know it yet, but the avocado-colored carpet (that we all call the “new carpet” ‘cause it seems like we put it not very long ago) has got to go. Besides bein' pert near worn out, it screams to anyone who will listen, “We are behind the times in this church.”
I guess I've come back around to the passin' of time again. It seems like church folks just don't notice things that need fixin' ‘cause things fall to pieces slowly over time for the most part. They see them without noticin'. We see what we want to see, and sometimes I guess, like Orley did with me, we are givin' answers to questions folks aren't really askin'. I wonder too if we give folks what we think they need without listenin' to what they're sayin'.
I've done a heap of thinkin' lately. Not just about sprucin' up our buildin' but about even more. I wonder about other things we do. I wonder if even worship can get rusty over time if we don't spruce it up ever once in a while to keep it interestin'?
I also wonder if other churches need to think about what visitors see when they come. No, I don't wonder about that. I know the answer.
Well, Jimmy I didn't mean to run on and on and take up so much time and say so little. Come see us when you can.
Love Always,
Aunt Ida