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Books by Dorothy
Rice
Pennies to Dollars
/ The Seventeenth Child
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Christians Are Forgivers: Obama as Healer
By Dorothy Rice
In 1977, after a
year of church-hopping, I joined a church in Richmond,
Virginia. I joined for three reasons: the country-church
intimacy, and great singing, and my mother was also a
member. The fiery, animated sermons fueled me from week
to week. Although the sermons varied, they always ended
with the pastor acknowledging the exact time and place
when he became born again.
There were things
about the church that occasionally annoyed me. For
example, the choirs' beautiful harmony and inspiration
were sometimes daunted by the repetitive and loud
attempts to whip everyone into a spiritual frenzy. My
mother and I would glance knowingly at each other to
signal "enough is enough."
Also the pastor,
for all his humility, was sought after during election
times. City council and state legislature members and
aspirants courted our vote. The pastor was partisan in
his politics and made no bones about whom we should vote
for. I resented that because I wanted to make my own
decisions. On occasion I would simply walk out as a
quiet protest.
Nonetheless, my
children and I participated in vacation bible school and
they also joined the children's, youth, and young adult
choir causing me to swell with pride as they proceeded
down the aisle in their angel robes. I could always hear
their individual voices as I watched them sing and clap,
and rock. The church also had the best meals. Ours was a
feeding church.
The pastor died two
decades later, so we floundered for three years with
interim pastors before we elected a young man from
Georgia. An educated fellow who had been preaching since
he was a boy. His father was also a preacher. This young
man could be articulate, but he also had some of that
Georgia countryisms which sometimes endeared us, made us
laugh. He was a crowd-pleaser with his characteristic
droning, and throwing his handkerchief in the air and
catching it. He lasted seven years until his lies caught
up with him. He had lost his driver's license because of
his drinking and driving convictions. Then he got caught
cross dressing as a prostitute.
But we were a
loving church, a forgiving church. So we recommended
counseling. After all, all of us had cross-dressed in
some sin. But he was not penitent either, so we had to
dismiss him. It tore us up emotionally because we had to
start searching again. Another three years passed,
during which time, I visited other churches and
considered joining another when my husband asked me to
stay so that the family could continue to worship
together. I stayed. We got a new pastor: a young,
impatient man ready to evangelize the world, take all
our tithes and offerings to build a mega church. Sure we
wanted to build a larger church, but mega was not on our
minds.
Little did we know
his impatience would morph into pitting congregants
against each other as he attempted to dismantle our
cherished traditions, disrespected our elders, and
demonized any opposition to his ecclesiastical
authority. It got really bad and was about to get worse.
He has become an outrageous dictator, but still it was
hard to leave our church. The church was more than one
person. It is all the people, resources, ministries,
traditions, and shared vision. But one person can
dismantle all the good will and destroy a church. The
reason we didn’t leave are as varied and similar as the
reasons Hillary decided to remain with her philandering
husband. Christians are forgivers.
Still, I wonder why
so many seemingly intelligent or educated people
continued to follow him. I wonder what character flaws
they share. My mother always said, “Tell me who your
friends are and I’ll tell you what you are.” And my
siblings and I were drawn to some unsavory associates
and friends. Sometimes we did what they did. Sometimes
we were mere voyeurs of their clandestine behaviors.
When one of my girlfriends got pregnant in high school,
some people denigrated her, but we remained friends. I
accepted her for the good friend she had always been.
Barack Obama’s relationship with Reverend Wright is like
that. Why throw away the baby with the water? I believe
Obama is the only candidate who has the qualities for
healing this war-torn nation. Belief and reason are
sometimes at odds. Sometimes qualifications are
intangible.
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Dorothy Marie Rice is a literature and
history resource teacher at the Arts and Humanities Center in
Richmond, Virginia. She presents her original poetry in
local venues. She was a winner of the first Furious Flower
Poetry Prize in 1995. She has co-authored two books:
Pennies to Dollars with her cousin Muriel Miller Branch, and
The Seventeenth Child with her mother Lucille Mabel Walthall Payne.
Both books are currently out of print. In addition to
creating poems, she makes paper jewelry and papier-mâché
bowls. |
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posted 3 April 2008 |
