if only I knew how to blog....

Sibley,
This was is today's Writer's Almanac, I loved it and would like to share, if only I knew how to blog....
Nancy Dillon


The VCCA Fellows Visit the Holiness Baptist Church, Amherst, Virginia
by Barbara Crooker

We are the only light faces in a sea of mahogany,tobacco, almond, and this is not the only way we are different. We've come in late, the choir already singing, swaying to the music, moving in the spirit. When I was down, Lord, when I was down, Jesus lifted me. And, for a few minutes,we are raised up, out of our own skepticism and doubts, rising on the swell of their voices.The singers sit, and we pass the peace, wrappedin thick arms, ample bosoms, and I start to think maybe God is a woman of color, and that She loves us, in spite of our pale selves, so far away from who we should really be. Parishioners give testimonials, a deacon speaks of his sister, who's "gone home," and I realize he doesn't mean back to Georgia, but that she's passed over. I float on this sweet certainty, of a return not to the bland confection of wispy clouds and angels in nightshirts, but to childhood's kitchen, a dew-drenched June morning, roses tumbling by the back porch.The preacher mounts the lectern, tells us he's been up since four working at his other job, the one that pays the bills, and he delivers a sermon that lightens the heart, unencumbered by dogma and theology. For the benediction, we all join hands, visitors and strangers enfolded in the whole, like raisins in sweet batter. We step through the door into the stunning sunshine, and our hearts lift out of our chests, tiny birds flying off to lightin the redbuds, to sing and sing and sing.