Why I Went to Church

I used to go to church to hang out with my friends and smile at boys. Friday night youth group, Saturday afternoon Bible study, Sunday morning Bible hour then church then choir practice then drill team. Gramma’s house. Gramma’s breakfast, cornmeal porridge with buttered bread torn into crooked pieces and mixed in with a spoon. I couldn’t take communion because I wasn’t baptized in the Baptist church. I was baptized as a baby at Grandma Joyce’s Episcopalian church in the South Bronx. That's where I'm from.

Dinner at Gramma’s. I don’t want boiled green banana but I don’t serve my plate. Say the prayer, “God is good, God is great, let us thank Him for our food. By His hands, we all be fed, give us, Dear Lord our daily bread. Amen.” Amen. My friends might be at the door. "Can I go outside, Gramma?" We walk the four corners of our block, the church our nucleus. I give boys my new phone number. I try to sing lead but I can’t sing that well. Still, I’m pretty and my hair is out today. I wear dresses I can twirl in when the sun is out and shoes that won’t keep my feet dry when it rains.

I never got baptized again. I think the first one took... because I see God in it all. Glory in hugging boys and giggling with girls whose hair I braid. Blessed Assurance that Sundays will always mean love, and friends, and dinner, and being woken up at 6 a.m. even though church doesn’t start until 10 and we live down the block. Now, I pray in tongues that are my own and I dance to bring the rain. I went to church for the Word. For the song. For the praise. I absorbed all that was good and left anything remaining. Now I hold all the good that is God inside me and I walk the world as a church onto myself. Holy and wonderful.