HOW DO YOU SPELL PRESBYTERIAN?

In a small Southern town before television, there wasn't a lot to do. The one movie in town changed films every two weeks. If it was a good movie, we would sometimes see it twice. But mainly we went to church.

Although we were Presbyterians on my father's side, my mother complained because they couldn't sing and she didn't want to be anything she couldn't spell. So we attended all kinds of other churches. As visitors. We would always sit in the back. We watched. We listened. We sang.

We liked the Church of God, the Pentecoastal Holiness and The Four Square Gospel churches. My mother called them "Holy Rollers" because they shouted and talked in tongues. It used to scare me at first to see them rolling their eyes, flinging their arms and babbling. But I got so I liked it because their music was so good.

The only part I didn't like was their ritual of playing slow, sad music and calling sinners to come home. There was even a song: "Come home, come home. Ye who are weary come home. Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling. Calling all sinners, come home."

As I understood it, they wanted all sinners to redeem themselves and to accept Jesus as their Savior. Usually two or three people went up. If it was a good night, even more. And they all usually came from the back where we sat. The Sinner Section.

I felt secure in the knowledge that I myself would never go up. For one thing, I was only eleven years old and they didn't expect children to jump up, shouting and talking in tongues. And if a child ever did, he got smacked and put back in his place.

It was my mother I worried about. Especially since she dressed in bright, ruffled dresses and wore make-up and earrings. Whenever the preacher called for sinners, they would often mention in disgusting tones, "You out there with rouge on your face. You with painted lips. You out there with dangly earbobs and diamond-studded combs in your hair."

I would think, "My Lord, he's talking about Momma." Except they were rhinestones in the combs and not real diamonds.

Every time the ministers would call for sinners and describe them, I would sneak a glance at Momma and could easily confirm that they, indeed, had her number. I soon took to praying in earnest that the Lord NOT let her jump up and make a fool of herself and humiliate me. I would remind the Lord that we were, you know, really
Presbyterians who did not take to public spectacle in religion or in other matters.

"Please, please, God" I would beg. "Don't let her be saved."

It was syears later before I realized that I had worried needlessly about her ever being saved. My mother wasn't about to be saved if it meant giving up pretty clothes and ear bobs. Looking good was more important to her than living right. At her request, we buried her in a bright pink dress. She was wearing her favorite earrings, a little lip-gloss and a touch of blue eye shadow. But she did ask us to have the organist play, "Come home, come home. Ye who are weary, come home."