Bibles and Butter Cookies

I took my sons to the grocery store, just the other day. Typically, I try to wait until my husband is home, but somehow Friday had arrived and I was not going to face the evening payday crowd. We went straight from the gym and I shamelessly bribed my two year old with a promise of a cookie. In the ‘aisle of junk’ I came across an innocent package of butter cookies, a kind I hadn’t had in years. We eventually made it home. I sorted, repackaged, and put away the groceries while Sir Thousand Hands had a snack. When I was through I asked him to point and ceremoniously placed two butter cookies on his small finger. They no longer fit on my own.

It only took that first small bite and I was back in the dirt lot of Tall Pines Baptist Church. Seven years old, grubby, and clutching a paper cup of kool-aid. The volunteers all herded the children out to the fenced play yard with the lure of “snack time.” Even though I grew up Catholic, Vacation Bible School was the official start to summer. Even at nine in the morning, the heat would be shimmering over the pavement. Eagerly, I’d stand with my sisters and friends on the corner, waiting for Preacher Pye to come around in the deathtrap bus. It had once been painted a bright green and white, but even that was tired by now. It was an old school bus that had been rescued from the junkyard and had seen better days. It was designed to hold sixty, but I’ll never know just how many kids were packed on. Most vividly, I remember the struggle to claim the bench seat in the way back. I may not have been one of the cool kids, but I wasn’t enough of an outcast to ruin the seat by staking a claim. In my mind it’s all a jumble of sandals, knees, and elbows. Kids sitting on laps chattering and singing; we’d often circle the neighborhood several times.

We would unload from the bus and seperate into our classes, set by the grade we had just completed. I still remember the scratchy upholstery and the way the sunlight hit the stained glass of the sanctuary, blessedly air conditioned. I remember singing unfamiliar hymns and being jealous of the kids who were selected to hold the flags for the pledges of allegiance. Even though the service was completely foreign to my Catholic upbringing, the short sermons didn’t fail to stir my blood and made me want to be a good missionary serving in a foreign land. The years of cynicism were still dim and distant.

The daily classes often befuddled me, I had never heard of Jesus referred to as the Prince of peas and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why that was a special name for Him. I memorized the books of the Bible and verses, too. It was so different from my Catechism classes that never seemed to actually require a Bible to be opened. To be honest, memorizing the books and verses were only another task to excel at. Each year we made our pine cone bird feeders with peanutbutter and bird seed. I imagine we left quite a mess on that poor old bus.

I have now returned to my roots and live within twenty miles of that small church. When I visit my sister, I smile as I pass. I heard somewhere that Preacher Pye passed away a few years ago. To me, he will never be gone. I will forever remember him driving that old bus. I now understand why the pastor kept circling and picking up stragglers. The pandemonium of kids excited about Bible school was a joyful noise unto the Lord.