I was a kid who spent a lot of time in church.

But I wasn't a church kid.

You'd have to spend a lot of time in church to know the difference, but there absolutely is one.

And there were a lot of practical reasons for me to be in church all the time.

I played piano for Sunday school and vbs.

When i was old enough, I sang in choir on 4th Sundays. When my grandfather (a pastor) died, my grandmother would church hop on 3rd Sundays, or whenever there was a 5th. I'd hang w/her to go see boys.

But we weren't a churchy ppl. Religion informed ZERO of my parents' decisions.

But I noticed VERY early on, that in both the church my grandfather headed, and the one my mom and I belonged to (i was out of law school before my father set foot in a church of his own volition), ppl like us were in the minority.

My friends' parents prayed over food and caught the Holy Spirit. They spoke in tongues and advised them to consider what God would think of their actions in all things. And my friends caught the Holy Spirit. My friends spoke in tongues.
I willed myself not to fall asleep.

Lol.
Wait.

Lol. This took a turn. That was a lot of detail, and not really in line with the thing I actually want to say.

I'm sorry.

Here's my point.

I was in church with my grandmother once, at one of my favorite churches to visit. I liked a boy who played bass (and we would reconnect later when we were a bit older and that actually laid the foundation for why I don't date men who play bass, but that's a tale for another day)

but i actually really liked the pastor, too. He was one of the most frightening men I'd ever seen. Tall, deeeep, raspy voice, perpetual grimace, somewhat hunched back (it sounds like a mess, but hear me when I say he was one of the AME circuit's most sought after bachelors).

And he was really eccentric. He lived in the parsonage. He didn't drive. Amazing speaker and good pastor, but kind of standoffish. But the bottom line was, one got the impression that he ALSO wasn't a man who churched. He was a man of God, and his congregation loved him...

But he wanted very little. He wasn't showy or fancy. He didn't really need to be. Like, he was *very* much a commanding presence all on his own.

Anyway, one day he was talking about God's use for us...like, how what God needed from us should manifest itself in our daily lives.

I was 14, but remember it like it was yesterday. Because it felt like he was laying directly into his own congregation (entirely possible if you're at all familiar with how AME conference assigns clerical positions). He talked of how so many ppl quoted scripture and took pains

to hold their lifestyles out as holier than their neighbors. How ppl walked about in their Sunday finery with no regard for the poor they bypassed in their own churches. How people talked all of the religious talk and abstained from anything having to do with "the world"--

how they shaped themselves up to be the purest, most "godly" vessels, oblivious to the crumbling society all around them. he said some of us should worry less over the kind of Christians we appear to be, and more about the people we really are.

Then he shouted, "Don't be so HEAVENLY bound---
that you're no EARTHLY good."

Then he told the choir to sing something, and sat down.

It has stuck with me all my life...

But it feels like it's on constant loop in my head these days.

I've grown old enough to remove all religion from the sermon itself, as well as the takeaway.

B/c they're broadly applicable.

I'm not here to tell you how to put it to good use.

Just...

*shrug*