Flannelgraph Jesus

My ancestors started a church in the small Iowa community of Adelphi. From what I understand, the church didn't start out as a Baptist church. It was a congregational, or community church, or some other generic denomination, but then a new pastor came to the church sometime in the 50's, maybe, and the church became Baptist. It was a big controversy. Some of my relatives left, but my immediate family stayed on and we became Baptist. It's still a sore spot within the Beattie clan. Those who left still hold a grudge toward those who stayed, and vice versa.

We attended this church, the Adelphi Calvary Baptist Church, until I was about 12, when two deacons had a fist-fight on the front lawn. Then we started going to a church in the big city of Des Moines that was "contemporary." The singers used hand-held microphones. It was really controversial at the time. Oh, and they even used taped accompaniment. That was controversial, too. But we thought we were really cool going to the new "contemporary" church. But that's another story.

The Adelphi Calvary Baptist church, the one my ancestor's founded, sits on a hill, and there’s a valley inbetween the old home place -- the 80 acres where my Scottish ancestors settled in 1856 -- and the church. You can see the steeple from the highest point on our hill. Here’s what I remember. I remember the pews smelling like Pledge. And the green sculpted carpet that I walked down on the 4th verse of Just as I Am. And my mom playing the old Hammond organ. We always sat on the right side of the church, in the front, so my mom could easily slip out when it was time for the altar call. I can still see her sitting straight-backed, pumping the pedals of the organ in her bee-hive hairdo. She always seemed so serious. She practiced early on Sunday mornings...and it annoyed me because the whiney droning of the organ that wafted up the stairs from the living room to our bedrooms at 7:00 a.m. In my hazy dreams before waking, I would hear "The Old Rugged Cross," and "Softly and Tenderly".

The church basement smelled like bathroom sanitizer. And my Aunt Colleen was our Sunday School teacher and used flannel graph, pasting the figure of Christ, and the disciples onto the cartoon-like scene of a Middleastern landscape. She would tell the story but was interrupted by the head of Christ drooping down off the graph. She would have to turn around and flatten her ample hand on top of Christ’s head. He would stay upright next to his disciples but then we would watch as first his scalp, and then his eyes and ear and finally his chin would peel off the board again. A bobble-head Christ was much more interesting than listening to my aunt read scripture verses from the gospel of Luke that didn’t really make any sense.

At the time, these were stories that were just that: stories. What did they mean? What did it really have to do with our lives of kickball, Nancy Drew mysteries, and catching salamanders in the back yard? We memorized scripture -- one new verse every Sunday. I usually waited until Sunday morning to memorize the verse, quickly reciting it in the 5-minute car ride up the hill to the church. The verse stuck in my head for about 30 minutes -- long enough to recite it in class and get a gold star. By Sunday morning dinner it had left my head and landed in a heap of other temporarily memorized bible verses.

The rationale for memorizing these verses, we were told in Sunday School, was so that during those hard times in life we would remember the verses “written on our hearts”. You never know when you might find yourself stuck in a prison cell without a bible. I guess World War II was a close enough memory for the adults in our church that this was a distinct possibility. Plus, we were still in the Cold War with communists....so you never know when you might be taken prisoner and sent up to Siberia.

I was obedient and memorized the verses, while imagining myself in a cinder-block cell sitting on a cold floor. Luckily, I would find a piece of stone and write scripture on the walls – and all of those verses would come back in an instant. I’d find a crack in the wall and whisper them to my prison neighbor to be an encouragement in between our torture sessions. We’d be bloodied and bleeding, but we’d comfort ourselves with scripture.

In reality, I’ve only remembered bits and pieces. I don’t know where they are in the bible. I can’t recite entire verses. I'll be in bad shape if I'm ever sent to Siberia by the Communists. My husband seems incredulous that I don’t know more about the Bible. For pete’s sake, I have a minor in Bible – a requirement at my small Christian college.

But I did get the gist – that he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. That In our suffering we will grow. That it’s important to have deep roots so that we’re not tossed to and fro by the waves of life. That love is patient and kind and selfless. That to really live, you have to give away your life....like Christ did for us.

I used to feel guilty and bad for not being able to quote scripture, until I realized I live it every day and it is so much a part of me that I can't really recall the exact words. The verses didn't stick in my brain, but I think they seeped into my heart. Although I've never been in prison or tortured, I've been a prisoner of my own sick thinking, and unhealthy patterns and depression and loneliness. I've been tortured by ugly thoughts and bad relationships and the mundane-ness of life. And I've been through loss and grief. Battered by this fallen world. Through it all I know that God is good. That He loves me. That all shall be well. And that resurrection happens all the time...in the midst of ruin.

I have a little angst about the little white church on the hill. But those flannelgraph lessons pointed me in the right direction. I had to cast off all of the pieces of that legalistic Christianity that didn't work, and that I found out later were just constructs made to feel certain people feel more secure and okay. And somewhere along the way, the cartoon, bobbing head Jesus jumped off the flannelgraph board and became real.