I picked up the handle of the church fan laying beside me on the heart pine pew of High Bluff Primitive Baptist Church in Brantley County.
It makes my heart smile big.
I’m attending the annual meeting of the church, held every second weekend of September each year.
“Big” or “annual” meeting is a two-day gathering of all area churches of the same faith for prayer, worship and preaching if the Lord is willing.
The sights, the sounds, the aroma and, yes, the Spirit, of the place envelops me and peace washes over me.
That feeling is one I can find nowhere else on earth but there.
It is the church of my Mama’s family. Mama attended there when she was growing up and my grandparents, E.B. Sr. and Georgia Lee Jones, were faithful there throughout their lifetimes.
High Bluff dates back to 1821 at the site along the banks of Big Creek. The church itself was constituted on the Satilla, nearer to Raybon, in 1819, but abandoned during a yellow fever epidemic, so the oral history goes.
Best I can tell, the Lees have been their since the first.
It has been the church home to the maternal side of my family dating back to my great-great-great grandparents.
Kissed my grandmother goodbye there on an April Saturday in 1996 as the congregation lined the hymn “Lord, Remember Me” in the traditional calland- response style. The Elder “lines” the verses in couplets of rhyme from the pulpit and then the hymn is “raised” in the congregation. The tune’s slow mournful rhythms strike chords deep down in your soul.
The sermons are delivered in a sing-song chant, evidence that they are Divinely inspired, and come down straight from the Source.
It is timeless in that sense. It never changes.
It is a place of my heart and my memories that I can reach now in no other way.
That’s why holding that church fan was so special.
The morning was damp and cool. We barely needed the handheld fans for cooling comfort, but maybe we did for contentment.
Grandma had several but preferred one from a local funeral home that was dog eared and held together with masking tape she applied to it to doctor it.
She kept it, saying, 'It is a really good fan.'
My Aunt Louise threatened to throw it away. She often observed, “You’d break your arm trying to generate any wind with that raggedy thing.”
I’m on the second bench in the center aisle in front of the pulpit.
It is where my Grandma and her sisters sat in a row.
Prayer, singing and preaching is followed by intermission.
In long ago days, my great-grandparents, James F. “Jim” and Nancy Griffin Lee, hosted over-the-weekend company at their home at the end of the cemetery.
One such year, company had come to spend the night. Aunt Louise was a small child and a chatterbox. When they arrived at Grandma and Grandpa Lee’s the next morning there was a commotion in the home. It seems one of the guests had fallen out of the bed. The slats had broken. Aunt Louise was being taught how to sleep in the bed without falling out of it and thought she would proceed to give the house guest some pointers. That is until my Grandma pinched her to keep her quiet. I’ve always loved that story.
In years past, there was always a family gathering at big meeting time.
At intermission, the congregation breaks up into family groups for a meal. The lunch is generally spread on the hood or trunk of the car. Our family’s gathering place was near a bent-limbed cedar at the edge of the cemetery.
Grandma would have “an old hen and some rice” baked macaroni and fresh vegetables and Aunt Ann would make a 12-layer chocolate cake. Aunt Cina, Aunt Rhode and Aunt Serene would contribute their dishes.
Lots of laughter, catching up and love were there.
All of them are gone now.
Church broke for the day and I stepped out into a gentle “fodder” shower of rain.
A few love bugs fluttered by, their presence another sight of the big meeting season.
I linger a minute or two on the landing of the steps.
Looking toward the cedar, if I squinted real hard, I think I could see them in the mists in the shade.
They are sheltered there in the sweetness of my memory and in the most precious recesses of my heart.
