Free Mama B: A Time to Speak by Michelle Stimpson Page B

right on into the living room and served her fruit pizza right along with everybody else.
    Ophelia had her yellow legal pad ready to take notes soon as she finished with the prayer. She and I had already discussed some things for the agenda, including prayer for Geneva and Pastor, so she started with those items. Then she got to what was chewin’ on both our minds.
    “Mothers, B and I wanted to lead a special prayer for our church body, and also discuss the direction the church is going since Pastor Phillips has been out on leave of absence,” Ophelia said. She real good at saying stuff in a way where people won’t get so mad—when she tryin’ to be nice.
    Henrietta sat up, squared her shoulders. “What direction you mean, Ophelia?”
    “I mean in the direction of preaching the scriptures out of proper context or preaching with no scriptures at all,” she explained real proper-like.
    “I, for one, think Rev. Dukes is doing a great job. We got more new people visiting than we ever had,” Henrietta said.
    “But some of our regular members are skipping out ,” Ophelia opposed. “Including my own niece, Shantay, and her husband.”
    Henrietta mumbled, “One monkey don’t stop the show.”
    “What you say?” Ophelia asked, turning her head to the side.
    I jumped in, “Well, the purpose of our gathering is to pray and to figure out how to speak our peace with the deacon’s board.”
    “I got nothing to say to them,” again from Henrietta. “Rev. Dukes word workin’ for me.”
    “Always work for me, too,” Mother Powell added.
    I decided to ask our visitor, “Mother Powell, you more familiar with Rev. Dukes than the rest of us. How long you been under his teaching?”
    “’Bout two years, since the Lord brought me back in. I spent most of my life doing my own thing—in the clubs, drinking, and smoking. But my daughter started going to church, and she brought me. I heard Pastor Dukes preaching and teaching on the abundant life. Now I go to her church every time I see Pastor Dukes is preaching on the calendar.”
    “Your life is certainly a wonderful testimony,” I had to admit. It’s always better to be in the church than in the club.
    Henrietta nodded.
    I worked up to my real question. “So maybe you can answer this for me. Do he always preach about money and how to get what you want from the Lord? Do he have other things he preach on like, for instance, the fruit of the Spirit?”
    “Naw. He don’t talk about food too much.”
    Mother Simon sniggered. First peep we heard out of her all day.
    “How about holiness? Serving the Lord with your life?”
    She shook her head ‘no.’ “He don’t preach on stuff like that, and I’m glad ‘cause I would probably be nodding off in church!” She laughed so big her cheekbones nearly made her eyes shut closed.
    Nobody but her and Henrietta thought that was funny. I was beginning to wonder if Mother Powell was a church mother or if maybe she was just Rev. Dukes’ mother.
    When she finally realized the rest of us didn’t find respond to her joke, she straightened up her face. “Listen, I know what you’re trying to say. You all don’t like Rev. Dukes. Y’all think he ain’t good enough for your church.”
    “Nobody’s saying we don’t like Rev. Dukes,” Ophelia corrected her.
    “No, hear me out.” Mother Powell put up her hand like a stop-sign in Ophelia’s direction.
    All I could do was pray to the Lord for a split-second ‘cause one thing I know about Ophelia: she slow to get angry, but once she get there, she definitely there.
    “All he doing is trying to get us all to a point where we not struggling anymore. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, choosing between paying for medications or the water bill every month. But by the looks of your house and your high-dollar clothes, and all your kids’ certificates and degrees and so on, I see you can’t understand where the rest of us coming from.”
    Once again, Henrietta hissed under her breath,