IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH

Chapter One

FLASHBACKS

As far back as I can remember I have always asked the question, “Why...?” Perhaps I never quite grew up to advance past the three-year-old developmental stage of being curious or maybe I just didn’t understand adults. Sometimes questions were only in my mind, but often times I would ask them out loud, like the time I asked, “Why do people pretend to be who they are not?” This question was in reference to my Aunt Alma who was always broke, but wanted everyone to believe that she had money.

It was only one more moment in time when I remembered my mother shouting at me for being too direct and making off-colored remarks, all while she attempted to beat me down with her size ten multi-colored house shoe. It was during one of these kinds of episodes that I learned to tune out the speaker and continue to ponder such questions in my mind. On this particular day, my daddy, who loved to live in the past, was singing and listening to an old 1960s song by The Persuasions which kept ringing in my head:

“The whole world is a stage, and everybody is playing a part. The stage is set, the curtain goes up; the scene is a broken heart….”

Reflecting on the lyrics of this song seemed to answer the question in my mind of why people pretend. We live life on stage acting out parts given to us by the people who direct our lives.

During this time, my life was being directed by a strong-willed African-American woman who appeared to be mad at the world. As my mother continued to whip me, every now and then I would hear her say, “are you listening to me?” In a disrespectful tone, I said, I hear you! But of course I really didn’t, because I was too far gone and swept away by my own inner thoughts and analysis of life to really hear what ugly words she and my aunt were shouting at me as I endured my third painful whooping for the week. I became a master at blocking out dissenting opinions.

Later in life I learned that this was called selective listening--when you choose to hear only certain parts of a conversation or statement. For example, when my mother said “don’t you talk back to me, I will give you a backhanded lick”, I heard that statement loud and clear…maybe because a greater degree of danger was approaching as the licks from the house shoe got stronger. Nevertheless, this statement also begged a second question in my mind. What is a backhanded lick? Why do parents call all three or four of your names when they are upset with you? I had lots of questions about life that were never answered until I became an adult.

Over the years, I would learn to camouflage my true thoughts and search for answers that only God could provide. Today I was having a flashback to a time when I was six years old and free from the troubles of the world. Well not quite free from all troubles. I had several major problems growing-up: first, my mother told me that I was old in the head, and I was a woman stuck in a little girl’s body. Only my body was not little. It was chubby and to make matters worse, everyone called me Lil’ M.

My second problem was that I did not know what God had put me on this earth to do, and thirdly, I had an obsession with telling what I perceived to be the truth which really kept getting me in trouble with all adults and most of my friends. It was as if someone was putting truth-serum in my food and I could not stop telling the truth, eating and gaining weight. My mother’s immediate solution to all three of my problems was to take me to church and pray that God would someday bridle my tongue.

For years I thought that she was praying for my tongue to be cut out and I was too frightened to ask her what she meant. “Oh God of Abraham, Jacob, and Isaac, in the name of Jesus, I ask you to take control of my child. Lord…bridle her tongue and teach her dear Master to be thoughtful of the feelings of others before she opens her mouth.....,” she would pray. So naturally, I did what any six year old frighten child would do, I let my imagination run wild, as I envisioned God pulling out my tongue if I were to dare say something that my mother didn’t like…so I just stopped talking… that is, saying what I perceived as the truth.

My true thoughts were somewhere trapped inside my mind where a flurry of brain activity took place and formed characters that would interact with one another and could say anything that they wanted to say….including the truth.

Now, my older brother Joshua was one of the first to notice that my outward conversations were dwindling and were now mostly all trapped inside my mind. With a loud colored purple T-shirt on, snackin' on some corn flakes, and staring intensely at me, one day he said: “Well I guest mama’s prayers were answered. The Lord has finally bridled your tongue.

What are you so deep in thought about?” Quickly rolling my eyes at him with one of my eyebrows raised, it seemed like a life time had passed before I could muster up the energy and will-power to reach deep in my soul and tell him a lie…”nothing,” “Why haven’t you told me off lately, he said?” I did not answer. “Girl you can surely act weird at times,” he mumbled under his breath before leaving the room with his empty cereal bowel in his hand.

I just sat there on our cold leather beige sofa that day thinking to myself that I am weird. God had made me different from my sisters and brothers, and different from my friend Jennifer. Why was this? Why do parents whip their children that God gave them to love? Why did the Lord make Jennifer thin with long hair and a beautiful singing voice? Why is my mother mean to me, but nice to Joshua? Why do I always drift off to sleep with food in my hand without figuring out the answers to all my questions?

Startled by the pastor’s raised voice… “He died, didn’t He die,” I realized that I had been day dreaming and the pastor’s sermon had triggered early childhood memories while growing up in East Texas and attending Grace Baptist Church.

“But that’s not the end of the story. He was buried in a borrowed tomb,” Pastor Joseph proclaimed, as he leaned back shaking his head up and down, with one hand over his left ear and shouting into the microphone. “He got up,” he screamed. The congregation began to respond and got up from their seats shouting back at him, “preach it,” “say that.” When I heard Sister Chester tell the pastor to “bring it on in,” I stood up and clapped, knowing that Pastor Joseph would soon be closing his sermon because Sister Chester had said so. You see, she was sort of like the unofficial time keeper and co-pilot who would remind every minister preaching at Grace Baptist Church when it was time to land…meaning end their sermons.

Sister Chester could barely read the Bible, but was well informed and had memorized nearly every scripture. She also was known for helping newer ministers preach if they got nervous and stayed too long on a point. She would tell them to “go to the cross.” This meant, for them to tell everyone about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ which would get the members happy even if the minister had missed the mark in the first part of his sermon. Never quite understood why church members got happy.

My mother would always tell me that I would understand it by and by.

Okay…question 1001, “what on earth does by and by mean?”

Pixabay Image Credit
Pixabay Image Credit

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I hope you enjoyed this fictional story that was adapted from my original play Unwrapping Spiritual Gifts. The setting of this story takes place in the 1970s. This story is my entry to the contest The First Chapter Challenge created by @thewritersblock posted here.

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