Aunt Ethel went to the foot washing church. The Primitive Baptists did the things
they did on the other side of town
in a brick building that could use a new roof. I only had it secondhand what went on
behind those weather-rawed doors—no speaking in tongues
where my parents and I attended at the worldly and sophisticated First Baptist
Church. Our preacher had been to a college,
and there was air-conditioning and carpet down the aisles, an organ to mend our
singing. The amen-ing had a self-aware quality. One of the deacons
owned a roofing company, and we all would have been mortified to be caught
splashing tap water over a neighbor’s bunioned feet.
I have a friend who is modern in every respect, but when she’s between errands,
unable to see the point in any of it, she’ll hear herself praying
that the Second Coming come now, the haze-grayed skies torn open, Gabriel’s horn
to blow. And when the clouds keep stubbornly shut, what else is there
but to hold the car in the road aimed into the next curve, as determined as the
Primitive Baptists emerging onto the steps after service,
fully shod, the fat Windsor knots of the men’s ties snugged into the collars of their
short-sleeved dress shirts, women in shapeless cotton shifts
faded from too many afternoons line dried and wind snapped, no pantyhose since
they knew there was going to be a foot washing. Who wouldn’t want to feel
just that pure? They still glowed with it as they went to yank open the doors of high-
mileage sedans and short bed pickups that would be leaning on the same low tire
outside the Brown Shoe factory come Monday. There’s a trick to opening your heart.
Most of what’s in there can’t get out fast enough, but deep down
you’ll come across some fleck of spirit that won’t be washed away or made humble
though it might soften and shine a bit as you bend
to bathe someone’s feet in a dented metal basin and sit still for the same to be done
unto you, then, hands dried, reshod, you can’t stop hearing
the hymn of commitment across the unpaved parking lot, each step pressing a breath
of dust from the gravel burnished amber in the evening’s unstirred light.