Gò0dNews for Everyone
How y’all been doin’?
T
by Deck Cheatham
hroughout the year of Covid-19, I missed those
and ancestry. We know we have been fed by more than
four walls called church. You can imagine my
the fixins, Aunt Dot’s squeeze, the “Do you remember?”
delight when, taking respite up on the mountain,
conversations, and the “Good to see y’all” goodbyes. Maybe
N. and I heard music coming from across the street at
that is why newcomers come away using the cliché—
a church. Seeing everyone gathering outside, we were
southern hospitality. To us, with all the ritual and dogma and
enjoined to mosey across the lawn and sit down. Welcomed
warmth, gathering is church without the four walls and
by sunshine, leaves whisking on the breeze, and good
steeple. Sometimes, it is that too.
conversation, a friendly usher crossed the street to say hello. We heard a good sermon and witnessed their ceremonial burning of the mortgage on a new Fellowship Center. Gathering together—even as a stranger—feels like home. I left fed and full. Sensing I had entered a desert in my devotion time, stumbling into this church service was a needed tonic. My morning devotions had become a bit like week-old-bread—not worth eating and best thrown out for the pigeons. So, to change things up, instead of reading to feed others, I decided to be fed. If anxiety is a response to the unknown, God answered my prayer. Allow me to give thanks to Henri Nouwen for giving me four words used in communion—taken, blessed, broken and given—to help me
I am convinced that Covid-19 will pass. There will
understand that God’s children live in His belovedness.
come a day when we say, “Do you remember the year...?”
As those words sank into my consciousness, this old
We will look back and be glad it is over. Gathering will
southerner realized that God’s people are a gathering
again bind us in God’s belovedness and feed us with good
people. Without investigation, gathering may or may
feelings. Until then, Christians should know that God has
not have been invented by southerners. Honed, chiseled,
the unknown in hand. We can go on loving our neighbors
sharpened—a southern gathering is so refined it is hard
and God with all our strength. We can gather with God each
to tell the difference until you either hear, “how y’all been
morning and give thanks for answered prayers.
doin’,” “you may kiss the bride,” “let’s remember Bubba’s life,” or “Go Dawgs, Tigers, War Eagle, Roll Tide or wait until next year.” Sometimes you hear them all. Southerners know that when the gathering is over, those
While Covid-19 demands me to give up gathering for now, I will not give up being a southerner anytime soon. “Those who have ears to hear, let them hear” (Matthew 11:15).
of a common table, of soil and seed and season, of name
40 // July 2021
About The Author
good feelings felt by all come from the familial binding Deck Cheatham has been a golf professional for some 40 years. He lives with his family in Dalton. He is a guest columnist for the Rome News Tribune, The Daily Citizen, and the Calhoun Times. Email him at pgadeacon@gmail.com.
