Tiptoeing on Holy Ground

Many wars have started over religious beliefs. I didn’t know much about that at age seven, but I was starting to see the beginning of one erupting in my own household. For a while, my mother and my paternal grandmother had been listening to a religious radio broadcast which had both of them questioning some of their Southern Baptist beliefs. Mom wanted to make sure everything she believed came straight from the Bible. One day, she found a card in the mailbox inviting her to take a Bible correspondence course. She decided she would sign up and compare what was being taught with her understanding of the bible. The more she studied, the more convinced she became this church was more in tune with the way the Bible was meant to be interpreted.

She had already given up her position as a Sunday School teacher with my dad’s approval. He didn’t like going to church and always found reasons not to attend. Besides, he didn’t like the preacher and felt the man might be more interested in my mother than he should be. I think Mom was uncomfortable around him as well. At my young age, I didn’t know enough about what he might have said or done to worry about it. I just knew Mom stopped going to the big Baptist church, but still insisted Dad drop me off each Sunday morning for Sunday School. Most of the town kids attended there so I always had someone to sit with.

Mom and both of my grandmothers started having Bible studies at home once a week while Daddy was at work. Dad didn't have a problem with this, but when Mom decided she wanted to join another church, Dad went a little ballistic. He was sure she was disgracing the family because everyone knew there were only three kinds of churches in Newton, and if you weren’t Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian, then you must be a heathen. Mom didn’t let Dad’s opinion stand between her and what she had come to believe. She had someone from the church pick her up and drive her ten miles to the church so she could be baptized as a member.

After that, my dad seemed angry all the time. He stormed about cursing and destroying any material Mom got from her church. He even threatened physical violence against anyone who visited our home from the church. He didn’t make the threats around me, but I overheard and was afraid he would kill someone. If I’d realized he was only`full of sound and fury signifying nothing’ I might have been less upset and traumatized by his behavior. I didn’t know what he was capable off. He'd never done anything physical to mom or me, but the mental abuse was painful for me to hear. It usually took place in the early morning while I was still in bed. I don’t think he was aware I was overhearing it all.

My grandpa, who was a Presbyterian, didn’t care what grandma did, but he enjoyed arguing what he believed with anyone who would listen. He spent a lot of time reading the Bible looking for new points to argue. Grandma wasn’t convinced he could go to Heaven until he at least got baptized, sprinkled or whatever else it was that Presbyterians did.

Grandpa didn’t see the need because he’d been christened at birth, which he claimed made him a member for life. In the end, grandma won out, and he agreed to get in touch with the Presbyterian minister and do the ceremony. The whole family got to go watch, as he got some drops sprinkled on his head. I really doubt anything changed other than he’d managed to pacify Grandma.

At school, another religious war was going on. This year a new student had joined our class. Rene, a cute little boy who happened to be from a Catholic family. I think he was the only Catholic in our entire school system. Mississippi likely had Catholic churches in the larger cities, but Newton had nothing to accommodate them. There were a few Jewish families, but they had to travel to a larger city to find synagogues.

One day at recess, I was surprised to find Rene surrounded by a group of Baptist girls who had him angry and crying by telling him that all Catholics would be going to Hell. He was screaming back, with tears streaming down his cheeks, that it wasn’t so, and that only Catholics could get into Heaven. He knew this to be true, because he claimed his priest had said so. He said God had personally told the priest that only Catholics could go to Heaven.

Rene’s family didn’t stay in Newton long, and that particular war ended with his departure. I hoped he moved to somewhere like New Orleans, where Catholics were in the majority, so the poor kid wouldn’t feel totally outnumbered.

I continued to go to Sunday School every Sunday until one Sunday we heard sirens going off in the distance and saw pillows of black smoke curling toward the sky in the direction of the town.

I got dressed to go, and Dad drove to town to drop me at church only to find we couldn’t get anywhere near, because the largest church in Newton was engulfed in flames. The brick building was a total loss. It was sad to realize the most beautiful stained-glass window, with a two-story depiction of Christ the good shepherd, holding a staff and a lamb, no longer existed. The following year, Sunday school and church were held in the Newton high school auditorium while the church was rebuilt.

Although Dad’s threats and violent temper tantrums had me nervous for a lot of my young life, Mother apparently knew he would never carry out any of his threats, so she continued to invite people from her new church to visit. I was always antsy and afraid Dad might find some reason to come home while they were there. After they left, I would go outside and ride my bike over the tire tracks in our sandy driveway to keep Dad from knowing we’d had company. Dad was like a detective, and he would always ask who had been there if he spotted an unfamiliar tire track.

Ironically one day, Mother’s cousin who lived in Jackson wanted to come and visit for a few days. Marabeth had once lived in Newton, and she had attended a country school with my dad. Dad had actually had a crush on her before he started dating Mom. When Marabeth arrived, Mom was surprised to learn she was a member of the same church denomination Mom had joined. When I found this out, I was worried about what Dad’s reaction would be when he learned this. I had worried for nothing. Dad couldn’t have been nicer. He was delighted to see and talk to Marabeth. What church she belonged to made no difference at all.

I think most of what kids see in their minds as having the potential to blow their world apart isn’t nearly the Godzilla, they imagine it might be. Still, as long as imaginations are allowed to run full steam ahead it might make for sleepless nights and shattered nerves. Parents likely have no idea what anxieties might be playing havoc with their offspring.