The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [50]
The congregation was roughly 70 percent African American and the rest white, with a few Asians sprinkled here and there. Some people wore jeans, even old people. Quite a few tattoos. An African American woman in a silver suit and hat sat in front waving two flags in front of her, like a starter at a car race. There was a lot of hollering and swaying.
During the offering, “Late Breaking Genesis News” played on the screens—announcements about upcoming church events. Neither Nance nor Suzi put any money into the white offering bucket passed down their row.
Nance leaned over and said to Suzi, “This is an unusual church.”
“I’ll say.”
A chuckling African American man took the stage, made a few jokes about his short stature, and then introduced the youth minister Buffington Coffey, who was delivering the sermon, the regular pastor being out doing the Lord’s work somewhere else. Reverend Coffey wore jeans and a plaid button-down shirt untucked. He had a handsome face and long sideburns, like somebody from an Abercrombie ad. Then he started talking about taking his little girl swimming in the Gulf, and Suzi quit listening.
Nance, who’d slipped a beige cardigan sweater over her pink church dress, kept glancing over at Suzi and smiling, patting her hand.
Suzi was slumped so she could stick her leg out in the aisle, and she felt self-conscious. Her bare feet, in the ugly sport sandals her mother made her wear, were freezing, and, not being an old lady, she hadn’t thought to bring a cardigan. Maybe the cold was what made people here so lively. A middle-aged white woman with a long flowing skirt and bare feet was swooping and genuflecting in the aisle near Suzi, like she was hearing music on an invisible iPod.
Okay, this church was bizarre, but more bizarre than any other church? Just not as civilized as Faith Presbyterian, where people wore better clothes and sat quietly like they were half asleep.
Nothing was mentioned at all in the service about it being Grandparents’ Day. Maybe Nance had got that wrong.
Now the Reverend Coffey was talking about a vision he’d had that morning, and Suzi perked up. Who didn’t like a vision? He paced back and forth on the stage so they could get the full benefit of him, but Suzi watched his screen image rather than the actual him, because that way she could see his face more clearly.
“I saw a field,” he said, “a huge field, that stretched as far as I could see. I was standing in this field and I was a child, and God was there, too. He was my father, and he was standing a little ways away with open arms, asking me to come to him. ‘I will catch you,’ he said. ‘I will hold you up. I am always here for you! I’ll be here for you when your job evaporates, when your earthly relationships fail. I am all knowing, and all loving, and all protecting. That’s what a father’s love is.’ Now I know.” Here the Reverend Coffey stopped and stared out into the congregation. He had long eyelashes and dark eyes. “Now I know that many of you have never experienced that kind of love from a parent. And you want it. You need it.”
True, Suzi thought. She did need it. It was like he was talking directly to her. Cool!
“But you can experience that love with God,” the reverend went on. “With him, you can feel that safety, that protection, that unconditional love you’ve always yearned for. Just step forward. Move toward him. He’s waiting for you.”
Okay, Suzi didn’t mind God waiting for her, but she really wanted her mother. Why couldn’t it be her mother, waiting there for her in that huge field? She pictured her mother standing in a field, a soccer field, and then she started thinking about soccer and pretty soon the sermon was over.
After the service came to a close, Nance introduced Suzi to people around them. “This is my granddaughter.” The first time she did it, Suzi wondered if she’d just slipped up. But then she did it three, four, five times. Some people shook Suzi’s hand—clasped it—and others hugged her. They asked after her knee and said that Suzi should pray on it and ask God to heal it.