'Come, tell your faith story to our J.O.Y. Class this Sunday,’ was the invitation from my friend Yancey Trucks. From the zigs and zags of my mind, a picture I have of the Women’s Bible Class of my home church bubbled up. Here’s a version of what I shared…

LBB – Long Before Bill – women banded together at Ensley First Methodist Church to form the class. 1930’s? 40’s? The attached picture was taken around 1970, most of them who started as mothers had long become grandmothers by then. Anyone recall when women wore hats and gloves to church?

As a child in the 1950’s and youth in the 1960’s, at least five of those dear women, marked by stars on the photo, played a significant role in my faith and life formation.

Their lifelong impact is hugely more conscious to me now, than then. Yancey’s request has proven catalyst for memory amplification in preparing for the J.O.Y. Class.

ISABEL SIMS – Front Row 3rd From Left Star.

Primary Sunday School Superintendent at the time, Mrs. Sims signed my 3rd grade Bible in 1957. But the main thing I recall is Mrs. Sims told us kids, usually in our two-week summer Vacation Bible School each year, about being a missionary in India as a young woman.

I have a memory of her wearing a sari as she talked about the people, how they were different in some ways, yet really like us. How the missionaries helped the kids there learn the stories about Jesus that we learned here. She showed us on a map where India was and how far it was from our country.

Mrs. Sims intrigued me, expanded my world, caused me in my childhood way to want to be a missionary in some far place.

Years later, in the early days of me being a minister, my mother recalled that when she was a little girl(!), Mrs. Sims told the kids about being a missionary, and how it made her want to be a missionary. I had not known that.

My mother went on to say she was so glad that as a minister I was getting to do something like what she had wanted to do. Sigh.

MARY YERBY – Front Row – 5th From Right Star.

For years, Mrs. Mary Yerby taught Intermediate and Junior High Sunday School, also always present and accounted for in Vacation Bible School.

“Boys! Girls!” Mrs. Yerby had a basso profundo voice that could get the attention of us wiggly boys and giggly girls.

Her face lit up and she rocked on her tip toes in excitement as she taught us about the Bible she clearly, dearly loved. There were the adventures of Abraham and Sara, trickster Jacob, Joseph and that “dreamcoat”, brave Ruth, tragic King Saul, shepherd boy King David, wise King Solomon, and more galore.

Much later, I learned that Mrs. Yerby lived on a shoestring. Her tumbly two-story house was divided into four apartments, one for her, and the other three rented for modest support of her. She loved books and was excited when she found one she could afford in the used bookstore. I recall her telling how she stayed up late reading it.

I spent a lot of time in college and seminary Biblical courses. But my basic love of scripture was ignited early on by Mrs. Yerby, Ensley 1st Sunday School teachers…and my Uncle Bobby – another story.

VARA LARKIN – Top Right Star.

Mrs. Larkin was among Sunday school teachers I had more than once along the way. Late 1950’s, early 1960’s, people in our church, as well as the country, were divided on matters of racial inclusion. …Not totally different from issues of sexual inclusion now.

One of Mrs. Larkin’s stories was about growing up on a farm with a playmate who was a little black girl. They had campfire roasted sweet potatoes. Eating them with their hands, Mrs. Larkin said both got charred potato skin smeared on their faces.

Mrs. Larkin told how she and her friend got tickled because they both had “black” on their faces. After they wiped their faces clean, both confirmed that neither had any “black” on their faces. Mrs. Larkin chuckled, said something probably not everyone in the church would have agreed with: “Boys and girls, it really doesn’t matter what color our face is. God loves us all the same.”

Mrs. Larkin was the first female chair of the Church Council – called Board of Stewards or Official Board then. In the early 1960’s with racial ferment and demonstrations, some white church Boards had ‘earnest’ conversations about what to do if black people came to our services. Should ushers block the doors, question if people were coming “to really worship”?

The account I heard was that Mrs. Larkin went into mother mode with the ‘boys’ on the Board. ‘We are the church. Everyone should be welcome here. We have enough trouble getting our members to come. We ought to be glad if these people want to come. Though they may be bored to death.’

Well, there are more Mrs. Larkin stories, her a bit older than me twin sons became ministers I admire. But suffice it to say here that Mrs. Larkin, other Sunday School teachers like her, my Uncle Bobby, and my mother put early into my heart how God looks for ways to include not exclude people. How Jesus calls us not to judge but love each other. Wife Dianne has deepened and held me accountable for that conviction over the years.

REGENT MCKINNON – 2nd From Right Second Row Star.

IRENE MORGAN – 4th From Right First Row Star.

These are my grandmothers – Mama Mack and Mimi. It has only kabonged in my mind now that Mimi was long-time pianist for TWBC. (Papa Mc and Pawpaw were in the Men’s Bible Class of which I also have a picture.)

It would be a long story to tell about the distinct aromas of their houses, their cooking styles, flowers, strong but different personalities. They were a daily part of the warp and woof of my childhood and youth.

For here, my point is how as a child, up to 10 or 12, most all Sundays, I sat between my grandparents in worship in the dark wooded sanctuary of Ensley First Methodist. I recall the scent of burning candle wax, intermingled with the fragrances of grandfather shaving lotion and grandmother perfume.

Years later, it dawned on me why Mimi and Pawpaw had me spend the night with them on Saturdays – the obligatory watching of the Lawrence Welk Show made tolerable by Mimi’s milk shakes and popcorn.

Spending the night insured my going to Sunday School and church. Though cradle roll members of Ensley First, my parents were more ‘occasional attenders’ of their couples’ Victory Class and worship services.

Back then, my time in worship was often facilitated by a half piece of Doublemint I was given to hold in my mouth, (not smack!), or the little bag of M&M’s I could let melt (not chew!) one by one in my mouth. The M&M process was conveniently about the length of the sermons – some stories of which I amazingly still remember.

I have shared along the way words from world renowned Bible scholar, missionary pastor and physician Albert Schweitzer…

‘From the services which I joined as a child, I have taken with me into life, a feeling for what is solemn (holy) which gives meaning to my life. I cannot support those who would not let children be in worship until they can to some extent understand them.

‘The important thing is not that they understand but feel something of what is serious and solemn (holy). The fact that children see their elders full of devotion (reverence) gives the service meaning to them.’

As much as I was head and heart taught about Jesus in Sunday School, I pretty much caught the faith sitting between my grandparents in church.

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Toward the end of William Kent Krueger’s fine recent book, (almost as good as his earlier ORDINARY GRACE), THE RIVER WE REMEMBER are these words…

“Our lives and the lives of others we love merge to create a river whose current carries us forward from our beginning to our end. Because we are only one part of the whole, the river each of us remembers is different, and there are many versions of the stories we tell about the past.

“In all of them there is truth, and in all of them a good deal of innocent misremembering.”

I have not intentionally ‘misremembered’, but if anyone can expand or correct these recollections, I would love to hear from you. Also about your grandmothers in the faith.

At this point in my life, memory excavation does not so much cause a retreating to the past, but a bringing forward memories that bless and enrich the precious now.