Sunday, May 11, 2014

SUNDAY SERMONS AND WITCHES

          Sunday morning is here once again.  At this age and having been a long time since I had a job-job, you know the kind I mean; 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, Sunday just seems like any other day of the week.  There was a time, so long ago now, but I still remember those Sundays, when my stepmother would make me scrub myself squeaky-clean, put on my best clothes, give me a dime for the collection plate and send me off with my two sisters to church.  As I sit here, just closing my eyes and feeling the warm sun shining through the window and thinking back to those times, I can almost see the United Church minister dressed in black, wearing a white clerical collar as he leans over the altar looking down at a row of us little boys and girls saying, "It's time to sing, "Jesus loves me!" and hear the soft rumble of people beginning to stand.  In those early years, Sunday School was a must and even then, I had doubt and questions concerning whether there was really a God or not?  My eyes still shut, I drift a little further ahead to when I was about 12 or 13 and my sisters and I went to stay with their grandfolks at New Sarepta, Alberta for our summer holidays. I really enjoyed that summer on their large farm, filling my belly with Saskatoons, riding large workhorses and playing Huckleberry Finn on a small raft I discovered floating at the edge of a large pond.  
          My mother's parents had come from Germany and still had very heavy accents, at times, difficult to understand, especially when they got mad at me.  One day, not sure if it was a Sunday or not, while poling my way across the tea-coloured pond on the dilapidated raft, I noticed a huge black cloud approaching from the west.  Filled with lightning and roaring its discontent, realizing I would most likely soon be caught in a deluge of pelting rain or perhaps even hail, I leaped off the raft and ran towards the safety of the huge barn that was situated a short distance from the house.  Just barely missing the rain, I raced inside the large open doorway and quickly clambered up a wooden ladder to the hay loft.  As I lay in the soft broken bales of hay, looking out a small doorway used for loading the loft with bales of hay and straw, at the almost black sky punctuated with slashes of lightning, listening to the cracks of thunder and pounding rain overhead, I heard a strange moaning sound below me.  After quietly creeping to the edge of the loft, I carefully peered over to see what was making the eerie noises.  Being an inquisitive boy with an imaginative mind, expecting to perhaps see some sort of a monster or wild animal below, I was more than a little taken aback when I saw our grandmother kneeling on the ground, her hands tightly clasped together and pointing towards the heavens.  For someone who believed in God so much, I couldn't and still don't understand why she looked so frightened and frightening at the same time.  However, probably because she was soaking wet, her extremely long black hair containing streaks of grey, which was pasted to her tiny, skinny body and the tears that were streaming down her deeply lined face while she writhed around on the dirt floor, to me, she looked like a witch screaming incantations in German.  The storm blew away in a very short time and as much as I wanted to immediately return to the raft, I waited until I knew I was completely alone.  I never mentioned what I had witnessed to anyone, especially not my sisters, because the last thing they wanted to believe was that their grandmother was a wicked witch. 
          To this day, I'm not sure what I believe about God and have on occasion gone to church to sing the hymns and pray the prayers.  I usually have a good feeling when I come away from a church after mingling with the people; there's something about family that comes to mind.  And speaking of family, this fine Sunday morning, it's time to go into the house and greet my wife, who I'm sure by now has a a hot pot of coffee percolating on the stove.  Yes, there's nothing quite like the aroma of coffee in the morning and adding some "elephant balls" to it, gives coffee a whole new meaning - time to chug one back - cheers, eh!

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