BELMONT PRESBYTERIAN

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BELMONT PRESBYTERIAN

I don't know how it happened that my parents, both of whom had been raised in other denominations, happened to become Presbyterians. There must have been something special about Belmont Presbyterian, because they had their choice of churches in Southeast Roanoke. It was not a large church, by today's standards, but it had achieved a measure of fame in church circles because it had paid off a sizeable mortgage during the lean years of the depression by a voluntary commitment of the congregation to tithe. It was located on Ninth Street, about halfway down the North side of Belmont Hill, an easy half-mile walk from our house, which was on the other side of the hill.

For our family, Sunday services began at home with the radio tuned to the Charles E. Fuller Old Fashioned Revival Hour, which always began with the choir belting out "Heavenly Sunshine". For some reason that program always irritated me; probably because I couldn't escape its sound while I was rushing to finish breakfast, get dressed, and read the Sunday funny papers. But sometimes Pop would tune, even earlier, to the Elder Lightfoot Michaux Gospel Choir, who sang gospel songs with an irresistible beat to a first-rate stride piano accompaniment.

Pop always wanted to arrive at Sunday School well before the starting time, much to the frustration of my mother, who had to see that I was washed and dressed and make preparations for dinner before she could start getting ready to go. When Pop became an officer in the Sunday School, he wanted to leave even earlier. That led to an arrangement whereby he would leave early, and Mom would come later, either walking (she never learned to drive) or being driven by another church member.

The service began with the entire membership gathered in the basement of the main sanctuary for some songs, the offering, a responsive reading of the scripture for that day's lesson, and some announcements. The best part was the singing, because the songs were tuneful, and our pianist, Claire Burnette, knew how to bring out the best in the music and our singing. When we sang hymns like "Bringing In The Sheaves" and "Brighten The Corner Where You Are", the music reverberated through the basement room with its low ceiling and painted cinder block walls. Today, that kind of singing has pretty well vanished from the mainstream churches, for better or worse, and appears to be relegated mostly to the more fundamentalist Pentacostal type churches.

After the announcements, we would go to our classrooms, which, for the children, were in the Sunday-School building, an old frame structure that stood behind the brick sanctuary. Our teachers made a sincere effort to teach us the lessons, but they had their work cut out for them, with giggling girls and restless boys, bent on showing off. And somehow, in spite of all the playing, scuffling, and whispering we managed to pick up some measure of biblical knowledge. We learned about the patriarchs, the prophets, the judges, the kings, Jesus, and the apostles, as well as their stories - from eating the forbidden fruit to the travels of Paul. At the time, it was more or less forced on us, but now I treasure this priceless knowledge, not only for its spiritual meaning but also for its cultural significance. Since those days I have come to love and appreciate many masterpieces of music, painting, sculpture, and literature that would have remained meaningless for me if it had not been for those weekly Sunday-School lessons.

After the class meetings we reassembled for the attendance and offering report, the treasurer's report, and a concluding hymn and benediction. Then there was a fifteen-minute break before the church service began in the main sanctuary upstairs. For the children, Temptation dwelt next door to the church. The drug store that resided there was open on Sunday, and its wares included candy bars, popsicles, and dixie cups. Some of the boys would sneak over there after Sunday-School and spend the coins that were supposed to be destined for the offering plate. That sin was a little too flagrant for me, but I would often carry some cash from my allowance to purchase a pre-church snack, despite Mom's admonition to stay away from the drug store on Sunday.

From the earliest day I can remember, it seemed that every Sunday morning when we entered the church, the pianist was playing the same prelude: the Largo from Xerxes, by Handel. I came to associate that composition with a solemn, reverent occasion; and even now, whenever I hear those measured strains played on a piano, a vision of that church leaps into my mind - with its hard wooden pews, chandeliers hung on long chains from the high beamed ceiling, the tall arched windows on the back and the sides, and the long-time members filing into their favorite seats.

The service always proceeded in the same order, with an invocation, a hymn, announcements, the scripture reading, another hymn, the offering, the anthem, the sermon, a closing hymn, and finally, the benediction. When I got my own watch, I could keep track of the schedule because I had figured out that everything up to the anthem required a half hour; the anthem, five minutes; the sermon, twenty minutes; five minutes for the final hymn and benediction; and, if nothing went awry, we could be out by noon. When special sacraments like baptism or communion were included, we knew ahead of time that we were in trouble. Even with Rev. Whiteley's efforts to shorten, or even forego, his sermon, we would usually still be in our pews well past noon. I squirmed a lot, but I think that Pop suffered during those extended sessions more than I did.

Rev. Whiteley was not what one would call a dynamic preacher. He was too systematic in his approach to be dynamic. He was not at all embarrassed about using notes, and would even call attention to the fact by stating at the beginning of his sermon, "I jotted down four thoughts on this subject", (or sometimes it would be five or six thoughts). With that rather considerate accounting system I could keep a running check on the progress of the sermon. I tried to keep a time check as well, by dividing twenty minutes by the number of "thoughts" in the sermon with the expectation that he would spend the same amount of time on each "thought". But he was not that systematic. Sometimes he would get carried away with one of the thoughts, and then have to rush through the remainder. Mom would try to keep me from squirming by giving me a pencil to doodle on my church bulletin; but by the third or fourth "thought", the doodling was reduced to simply filling in the o's, p's, and d's in the bulletin. I suppose that it is not surprising that today I can't remember a single "thought" from any of the sermons.

What Rev. Whiteley lacked in dynamism during the regular church year was made up for in one or two weeks of revival services during the summer. It almost seemed as if the revival evangelists, with their screaming, gesturing, foot-stomping deliveries, were selected to compensate for our regular humdrum sermons. And, unlike Rev. Whiteley's presentations, I remember quite well the messages of the revival sermons. They were straightforward fire and brimstone lectures on the consequences of human vice. Consequently, for years I believed that the most iniquitous sins were drinking, smoking, profanity, and fornication - in that order. (Actually, I'm not certain about the order of the last two.) One of the evangelists kept saying, "Why would anyone want to make a chimney of his nose?!"

Another of the evangelists used a slide projector to illustrate his sermons, and concluded the final sermon with a huge full color picture of Jesus bleeding on the cross. His voice broke as he convicted us of sin, and before it was over pretty nearly the entire congregation was in tears.

My parents would marvel over the abilities of these evangelists, but I can't believe that my father, who needed to get to bed early, actually enjoyed those long, hot, crowded services, with their interminable altar calls. I still think that they served as a kind of penance for having it so easy the rest of the year.

It was not until I was about thirteen years old that I began to suspect that I had perhaps taken the hell-fire sermons about drinking and smoking a bit too seriously. This realization came about largely because of an embarrassing incident that occurred at the church one Saturday afternoon. Belmont Presbyterian had decided to enter a basketball team in the Church League, and we held our practice sessions on Saturdays in the large upstairs room of the old Sunday School building. Billy and I went early to pick up the key to the building from Rev. Whiteley, who was always in his study in the main church building on Saturdays, preparing his sermon. We found the door to the study closed and thought he might have gone home already, but then we heard a sound inside, so we knocked rather timidly, with some trepidation about interrupting him.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity in the room, and nearly a minute transpired before the door was opened. The pastor's coat was on a hangar in the corner, but he still wore a tie and the vest of his business suit. He was smiling and cordial, but - the unmistakeable smell of cigar smoke filled the room! Billy told him why we were there, while I surreptitiously surveyed the room in search of the source of the offending odor - but none was to be seen, even in the trash basket. However, when the pastor finally opened the drawer of his file cabinet to secure the key, there, on top of a pile of papers, sat an ashtray holding a half-smoked cigar. Poor Rev. Whiteley! In his haste, he had stashed the cigar in the very drawer that contained the required key. He handed Billy the key and kept up a running monologue about his aspirations for the basketball team, but he made no mention of the cigar. We didn't say anything at all after Billy asked for the key, but I will never forget the smirk on Billy's face as we walked away from the study.

The Monday after the public school session ended, Vacation Bible School began, and ran on for the next two weeks. It seemed unfair, after all those weeks of study, to have to turn right around and start memorizing Bible verses and the catechism and, worst of all, having to sit in a classroom. Fortunately, we were permitted to play a little, and we were taught some arts and crafts which, in the early years, pretty much amounted to coloring with crayons and watercolors, but eventually progressed to doing silk screen silhouettes of leaves and other simple objects. This craft required a one-foot square frame covered with wire screen, an old toothbrush, and a bottle of blue ink. Mom and Pop patiently made the frame for me, and then I proceeded to make several embarrassingly splotchy messes before I finally got the hang of it.

On the second Saturday of Bible School and on Sunday afternoon, we practiced for the "finals" program to be given at the Sunday night service. When I was six, I stood up at the ceremony and was presented a New Testament for memorizing the child's catechism, and when I was twelve I was awarded a Bible for learning the adult catechism. After that there was little left to conquer in the world of Vacation Bible School, and Mom started letting me skip some days until I was finally old enough to drop out altogether.

In the early thirties that church almost dominated our lives. We attended Sunday School and church services on Sunday morning, the evening service, and Wednesday night prayer service. At that time I was still too young to attend the Christian Endeavor youth meetings. In individual homes there were "circle" and prayer meetings, and something called the "auxiliary". From my point of view the circle meetings were the best, because refreshments were served.

When I became old enough to attend the Christian Endeavor meetings, I enjoyed them at first, because they provided an opportunity for the boys and girls to socialize together, and also an opportunity to get a popsicle at the drug store. Then, when I was about thirteen years old, one Sunday evening turned into such a fiasco that afterwards I dreaded the thought of attending those meetings. I accept the major part of the blame for the incident, but I still think that Mom was partly at fault. It was getting well into autumn, and the days were growing shorter. One of the neighbors mentioned to Mom that she was concerned about her daughter walking to and from church alone after dark, and asked if Mom would get me to walk with her. Mom agreed. But when she told me, I was so upset that I was almost nauseated. I was angry because the decision had been made without my acquiescence, and I was scared because I didn't know how to act in that kind of situation. Even if it wasn't a real date, I was afraid that the other kids would see it that way. The girl was not unattractive, and I had known her since infancy, but my mind was on another girl, and I didn't want the appearance of any kind of involvement with her.

Sunday evening came, and I was still protesting, but Mom said I had to do it. It was already dark when I left the house and started up the street. I stopped in front of her house and saw her sitting inside. I walked on, then came back and stared in again. I kept walking up and down the sidewalk. I feared the consequences of disobedience but, for the sake of me, I couldn't make myself go up and knock on that door. And I never did.

Eventually I had to face my punishment: a long lecture by my mother about how disappointed in me she was (while I stared sullenly at my feet). But that wasn't the worst part. She hardly spoke to me for the next three days; the girl's mother never spoke to me again; and the girl didn't speak to me for twenty years. Then, by sheer coincidence, I ran into her in Charlottesville, and we chatted amiably for a few minutes, as though the incident had never occurred. Still, it was one of those deeds that I thoroughly regretted, and often wished that I could have the opportunity to replay the episode with the right ending.

As if attending numerous church services were not enough, Pop accepted a post on the Diaconate. The deacons met on Sundays for the purpose of accounting for, and distributing, the finances. However, several years later he was promoted from deacon to elder. The prestige of holding an office was not a motivation for Pop. It could not possibly have been sufficient compensation for the trouble and even suffering that the position imposed. The Session usually met only once per month, but the meetings were on a weekday evening, and he would almost invariably return from them well past his usual bed time and so upset that he couldn't easily fall asleep anyway. He didn't complain much about disagreements over routine problems, but what really bothered him was having the meeting dragged out by some elder that would deliver a long speech about some inane self-invented problem "just to hear himself talk."

By this time Rev. Whiteley had retired, and the Session had to appoint, and meet with, a pulpit committee whenever the church required a new pastor - and several came and went in short order before the church settled down with one that they were happy with. The elders heard criticisms of these ministers and of their wives, and dealt with petty rivalries within the choir and within the congregation itself. At one time, a serious and totally unanticipated charge was brought against the pastor. A segment of the congregation backed the accusers while the others stood behind the pastor. Pop agonized over the situation so much that at times it seemed that he was carrying the whole weight of the church on his own shoulders. Fortunately, he had Mom's sympathetic ear, and their frequent discussions helped ease the burden until the crisis was resolved by the painful process of asking for the minister's resignation and the lengthy procedure of hiring a new one.

The way that my parents related to the church gradually changed over the years. In the early thirties they were faithful members, doing their part in a passive role. They became more active in the decades after that, as Pop became first a deacon and a Sunday-School officer, and later, an elder. Mom served on pulpit committees and then took on the job of teaching an adult Sunday-School class.

Then, after Betty and I were on our own, the church became a kind of extended family for them. Although the frequent circle and prayer meetings of the old days were all but gone, they had been supplanted by other types of events, many of which involved dinners or covered-dish suppers. These events provided Mom with the opportunity to display her cooking skills as well as to socialize.

Especially after they retired, and worker-colleague associations were a thing of the past, they became so involved in the church and the personal lives of its members that those things tended to dominate their thinking and their conversation. Whenever I visited them, I would inquire about relatives and old friends and neighbors, but somehow the talk always seemed to drift back to Belmont Presbyterian Church.

Not all the associations were happy ones, and Mom was occasionally on the receiving end of an unkind remark along with the compliments. In fact, there were times when there were so many conflicts between church members, and with the pastor or some church officer, or with the latest revision of the Presbyterian official doctrine, that I was surprised that they didn't consider leaving. But they remained steadfastly loyal to that church. I found the matter a little baffling, but also fascinating. Today, after years of hearing many people describe the situation in their respective churches, I realize that Belmont Presbyterian was pretty much a typical, mainstream denomination church - probably not much better or worse than the average. The church life encompassed many kind and loving acts as well as those of the opposite type. Still, I anticipate that eventually someone will publish a comprehensive study of the various psychological types within congregations, together with their typical interactions.

My parents were hurt, more than I would have guessed, by my need to move in a different spiritual direction and, later, by Betty's choice of another church. My decision troubled them deeply, because it was a move away from mainstream denominationalism; but somehow Betty's withdrawal from Belmont Presbyterian seemed to bother them even more - probably because she was present in Roanoke and I was not. It may appear strange that parents would be so reluctant to acquiesce in their grown children's choice of religious direction, but that was all part of the deep and complex relationship that they had with the church. It had little to do with doctrinal considerations and certainly nothing to do with spiritual experience (about which they had mixed feelings), but more with social relationships, loyalty, continuity in their religious life, and sheer habit. In any case, for them Belmont Presbyterian filled a definite need, and from their point of view it served them well. However, something must have been lacking spiritually, because the religion seemed not to have prepared them well to face impending death.

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