ENCW 205: Art & Identity in New Orleans

STAINED GLASS: A personal account of religious experiences & traumas
Lane B. Vuick
Sweet Briar College

“Be still, and know that I am God”
-Pslams 46:10

Grace Tabernacle Baptist Church

There is a sentiment often quoted in the Christian religions that stems from a verse in the book of Matthew, that says that those with “Childlike faith” are revered the most in the Kingdom of Heaven. The implication here is that children are not clouded by thoughts of doubt or maybe rather their own opinions. Instead, children do as they are told.
This unassuming small, white church is on the side of a cliff and at the beginning of the tail of The Dragon. Of course, I do not mean this figuratively, passing Grace Tabernacle Baptist Church is a marker on the maps of sightseers & motorcycle enthusiasts seeking a thrill. The Tail of The Dragon is America’s curviest road, 318 curves in 11 miles and it claims 4 souls a year. And here Grace, my mothers’ church, signals to all the journey they are about to begin.

When I’m asked what my earliest memory is I’m nearly never truthful. This is because I’ve always wondered what the grand significance of lying down underneath the pews in the far corner of the room upholstered the same blood red as the plastic, tightly wound carpet. Crouching below the sermon in my own world with only the view of aunt’s white pumps and skin-toned tights inches away from my uncle’s only nice pair of shoes, black leather, never polished. I spent my summers and countless weekends in their care before I started what I then referred to as “real school”. I remember thinking how lucky I was that this was still acceptable for me to do, my older cousin and sister with the posture of soldiers, would look down at me with eyes of heartbreak. At the time I wanted nothing more than for them to hide with me, but I knew not to ask. They were “big girls now” and I was not, I was still small and therefore afforded the luxury of resting my head in between my aunt’s feet while scripture was read that lulled me to sleep. I haven’t rested that peacefully since.

This first memory is not the one that tortures me. But when I think of it, the very next one occurred only a few Sundays later, when I turned big. It started like all the others, waking up and being fed pancakes by my Uncle, whose wife didn’t even know where the silverware drawer in her kitchen was. Drowning them in the “real” syrup that was golden brown and came in a tall clear bottle, incomparable to the clear liquid my mother used that came in an industrial gallon jug. Once I finished my stack my sister stuffed me into my itchy costume and frilly white socks and buckled me into my new “big girl car seat” which should’ve been my first sign. We’d always have to sneakily creep through the side door and tiptoe down the altar, in hopes of avoiding stares from those who managed to wrangle their children and be sat in their usual spot before opening prayer. Looking back now, I see why we sat in the back corner. We took our seats as my Uncle glided up the altar to lead the chorus in “Lily of the Valley”. This usually being my cue to slip down into my carpeted daydream. Just as my knees brushed the ground my aunt yanked my left ear and plucked me back onto the pew. I looked up at my sister, with tears welling up in my eyes and she whispered “Please don’t cry, Lanie”. I think a part of me thought I could show everyone that I was still small if I lost all my civility and broke down right there. My loud sobs attracted the looks of the Mckeehan’s missionary family who sat in front of us, while the choir was working against me and drowned it out from those sitting further ahead that one side eye was all it took for my Aunt to scoop me up, and take me outside. She always looked beautiful on Sundays, hair perfect from wearing hot rollers throughout the morning and makeup that was perfectly subtle but made her cheeks look ever flushed. I looked up at her all at once quiet once we were outside, I was so grateful she’d changed her mind. I thought that this day would be like the others when I couldn’t sit still so we walked around the cemetery and lay wildflowers on her Grandparent’s gravestone. She took my hand and walked me to the side of the car, my face still puffy and pink as I looked at her. Once we were sufficiently far enough away from the presence of the Lord she lifted me and sat me on her knee and said, something to the effect of learning how to sit through the service and that she knew it was hard but that I was smart enough now to be able to listen. As I stifled back even more tears, she flipped me over, my stomach still swollen from pancakes pressing against her thigh and in an instant whipped me until the tears dampened her denim skirt. She carried me like an injured puppy over her shoulder back inside once I’d dried it all up and she rubbed my back as I stared at the stained glass that shined all its vibrant colors in my eyes until I fell asleep exposed, above ground, and not at all peacefully.

First United Methodist Church

After that summer, I started “real school”… the first grade. I hadn’t even thought to consider my two years in the same building as anything more than eight-hour play dates with my friends who couldn’t count to 100. First grade was going to be an entirely different ball game. My Dad always took us to school because my Mom worked night shifts at the time, I didn’t know what that meant but I always liked to tell people that she was nocturnal. First, he dropped my sister off for her first day at middle school with nothing more than Lunch money. He’d always had to conserve time for our more melodramatic drop-offs. Of course, I was never the one needing one more hug, but I was okay with letting him think I needed it because it made me feel small again. He pulled my teacher aside and instructed her of my pickup plans that we’d been going over for weeks. When the bus riders were dismissed I was to go with them and find my friends Torin and her little sister Lochlan, together we would walk to a white minibus at the front of the line that read “First United Methodist” and step on. I would introduce myself to Ms. Suzanne and be on my best behavior. A school day, never felt as long as the ones I would for Ms. Suzanne. That first time I was so nervous, my hands shaking in the grasp of Torin on one side and Loch at the other. As we stepped onto our white carriage, I was greeted by a smile so big that the only thing that made me look away was the long blonde ringlet curls that surrounded it. Ms. Suzanne was not at all what I expected, she was young, bright, and so happy. The antithesis of every Sunday School teacher I’d had to base my idea of her on. Once we arrived I just looked out the window for a minute, marveling at the building that I’d passed in the car almost every day but never went in. It was a grand cathedral in my eyes. Ms.Suzanne came back to my seat on the bus and asked if I was excited, I don’t recall exactly what I said but I remember she held my hand and only mine until we made it to the stage. I remember thinking how confused I was at why a building so ornate would don itself with the same red polypropylene carpet and cloth pews that I’d memorized from Grace. Ms. Suzanne began by explaining to us that she was the newly appointed head of the Children’s Choir & Theatre program and that we were all members. I was going to get to sing and act, for free. My joy was utterly pure. And over the next five years, I spent two hours after school every day being wholly happy in a church. We weren’t going to Grace anymore, except on Holidays. Sometimes I think about how being with that group made me love God. But then I remembered that my friends who did Girl Scouts instead weren’t at all deprived of happiness. I remember that I was only there because it was glorified after school and My mother couldn’t wake up until 4 pm. I remember that I loved to sing and play and dance, things that were looked down upon at Grace. I remember that my childlike faith was due to my still being a child. I wasn’t any different from any other kid, I just wanted a stage to perform for my parents. Whether it was in the Methodist or our living room. I just wanted to shine, and back then my only way to was in the reflection of the sun through the floor-to-ceiling panes of stained glass.

 

Lone Oak Baptist Church

The summer before I started middle school completely changed me. I didn’t go to my Aunts because my sister and I were too busy being tossed back and forth by my parents who’d explained to me at the start of the summer that they were getting “separated”. I hardly remember any of it. But there was one day out of that whole summer that I will never forget. My Mom had me and my sister for a full week so that we could go to Vacation Bible School and stay at my Grandparent’s house. Everyone in the greater Cherokee County area knows that Lone Oak Baptist threw the best VBS every year and this was my first time attending. It was honestly a scaled-down carnival in the church parking lot. Lone Oak was big but not grand like the Methodist. It was modest like Grace. Any other year I would be at the lackluster Sunday night VBS services at Grace, but that was my mom’s family church and the separation had caused some turmoil. I remember there being games and crafts and a huge dinner all before the big service. Four nights in a row the Pastor preached on Sin, nothing I hadn’t heard countless times but this time it was different. Perhaps I’d gotten too comfortable with the Methodist way and how they avoided the subject of Hell. Then I remembered why my Dad never went to church with us. He was raised Presbyterian, better known as the step-sibling of Catholicism. I’d heard bits and pieces from him about times that My Mom would get him to go to Grace. He never talked down about religion itself, only that he had no patience to be screamed at while trying to pray. I think that there’s no better way to describe a Baptist sermon. As such after four nights of refreshing my memory about the depths of Hell, my condemned, my wickedness, I clung to every shrieking howl that left his mouth. I hardly slept that night, I knew what I needed to do the next day and I lied awake in terror. I recalled scripture from Revelations that the Day that God returns and the rapture is carried out, no one will anticipate it. Henceforth began my nightly routine to outwit God by praying the rapture would happen the next day, and therefore making my request void. My body was tense on the last night, so I barely ate. I was too full of guilt. I listened the best I could to the sermon but I kept replaying everything I’d ever done wrong in my head.

My mind raced and the memory that settled was the first time I unknowingly took the Lord’s name in vain. “Oh my god” the words passed through my lips so easily in response to my sister while arguing in the backseat. “Oh my gosh,” my mother quickly corrected me from the passenger side. I jolted back to the sermon when I heard the Pastor say “he could feel that there were unsaved souls”. He’d caught me hiding amongst the true believers dressed up and playing the part. Kids ran down the altar to kneel on steps and one by one got saved. My knees were weak and every time I looked down the altar it felt like it got longer and longer, like a hallway in a nightmare. Water started flowing from my eyes but I wasn’t crying. This was an entirely involuntary reaction. The pastor’s daughter took notice of this, grabbed my arm and dragged me down to the steps at the altar. As I kneeled I didn’t know what to do next. The daughter had gotten on stage and softly sang the chorus “Pass me not, Oh gentle savior… hear my humble cry”. An elderly woman bent down next to me, King James in hand and started reciting scripture. The pastor came to my side and I admitted out of breath, I didn’t know what to do. He told me that all I had to do now was “Ask God to come into my heart” so I did. Exasperated, my heart started skipping beats and I took that to mean that God was knocking. The pastor said, “Now you have to let him in”. “Let him in” After hours of mental torture this was the key. It was so uncomplicated and not at all what I’d expected. I started to catch my breath. The daughter finished the verse “…While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by”. I stood up and realized I was the only one left at the altar. The elderly woman grabbed the microphone and exclaimed “This sweet soul has been saved!”. She pushed the mic up to my lips and asked why I felt the spirit compelling me on this day in particular. I looked up at the crowd, all waiting for my answer. I didn’t have anything left in my mind but the truth. I looked at Christ on the cross detailed in the stained glass, closed my eyes, and said “I don’t want to go to Hell ”.

 

Religious Identity

It’s been eight years since I got saved. Since then the journey to where I am has been unequivocally shaped by God. Not by his hands nor his presence. Rather his servants. My entire Identity was formed by them.
This past Mother’s Day I went with my mom to Grace for the first time in a long time. At first, it felt good, knowing my immoral presence got people a little riled up, and then it happened. All at once. The choir sang “Pass me not”. Suddenly I was eleven again,

“Dear God,
I hope you can hear me
I don’t want to go to Hell
I’m scared
I’m small
I believe
I promise
I promise
I promise
I can’t go yet, please don’t take me to Hell yet
I’ll be good.”

Water once again coerced from my eyes. In some twisted combination of rage and despair. I think about why I lost my religion, and what caused it. Was it because it was force-fed to me, first by spoon and later intubation? Maybe it was because I knew better. God never listened to a single prayer, not even a cry for help. Constant neglect. Maybe in the end it was the commandments that I couldn’t help but break. Maybe it’s because I always cried reading about Isaac. I wondered how he must’ve felt on Mount Moriah, Abraham standing over him. Realizing his father would’ve ended his life in the name of God. I wondered how he ever spoke to him again, and if Abraham ever apologized. I wonder if Isaac ever felt truly loved by his father.

My mother has given up on dragging me to church. She believes I’m saved and in the end, whether I lived a life of sin, won’t matter. I won’t go to Hell. She has religious trauma. Maybe one day she’ll believe that it’s real and together we’ll break out of what was passed down from her mother and father and theirs before them. She once told me that both of us are broken a little bit. She has this dream of having a stained glass window on the front door. I told her I would try to make it myself. Turns out those gorgeous, blinding, astonishing pieces of art are just pieces of broken glass welded together.

 

References
Bible gateway passage: Psalm 46:10 – new international version. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+46%3A10&version=NIV
Centeradmin. (2022). Jesus didn’t commend “childlike faith” like we think of it. Retrieved from https://hebraicthought.org/jesus-didnt-commend-childlike-faith/#:~:text=Of%20these%20options%20to%20imitate,accepting%20God’s%20answers%20as%2Dis
Scoochmaroo, & Instructables. (2022). How to: Stained Glass. Retrieved from https://www.instructables.com/How-To-Stained-Glass/
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