MEMORIES

From about the age of eleven I lived in the small town of Greenbrier, Tennessee. I was passing through Greenbrier last Fall and took a picture of the church building where I worshipped during my early years. A lot of memories came flooding back as I thought of those days. Sonny Childers, my best friend at the time, and I led the singing for most services. The singing in that old building without carpet and just bare walls really sounded great. There were deacon pews at both sides of the pulpit and that is where the teens would sit. That kept us out of trouble and in full few of our parents. Most Sundays the building would be filled near capacity. Everybody had "their" pew and that seldom changed unless a visitor got their first and caused them to sit somewhere strange. Most of the prayers had those all familiar phrases that you just learned to prayer from hearing them so often. You would have thought that we had a book of prayers that we prayed from. There were a lot of "Thees" and "Thous", just like you would read in the King James Bibles that we used back then. I especially remember brother Billingsly’s prayers. What struck me most about him was not the words he used, but his posture when he prayed. I can still hear the creaking of the wood floors and the pews as at the age of 90+ he struggled to kneel between the pews. Even as a teenager I was moved to see him make such an effort, not to be seen of others, but because this was a position of reverence to him, and to many of his generation. We did not have air conditioning back then. The funeral home provided us with fans and we keep the windows open in the Summer. I remember when they finally purchased an attic fan. It was the biggest fan I had ever seen in my life. The blades were about eight feet in diameter, and when it was cranked up on high it would pull a breeze through the windows that would keep everybody cool. It never was quite the same when we moved out on the main highway and built the new building. The church was growing and we needed more room. Barb and I were married around that time. I began preaching and we soon moved away. When ever we would get back from time to time, I would always drive by the "old building", and remember. That is where my spiritual journey began, on Maple Street, in Greenbrier, Tennessee.