Day 699: 5 Minute Freewrite: Thursday - Prompt: no panic

The Church in the Midst of Life in Big Loft, VA had a motto on the wall in the big community kitchen:

“TRUST GOD, NO PANIC. DOUBT GOD, KNOW PANIC.”

Indeed. Big Loft was having a terrible time, and all kinds of panicked people came through, glad to know people who claimed to know a loving, caring God and cared enough to not just be present on a Sunday, but every day of the week.

Among these was Mrs. Onyx Baxter, so named for her gorgeous dark skin, and precious to many because of her strong, warm personality. She had retired from years as a professional counselor, and stepped right in when it was necessary to start a ministry for battered women, right in the heart of downtown Big Loft. Her hair, too, reminded one of her name: still thick and dark, with white hairs sparkling in it.

The city of Big Loft, and Lofton County in particular, was having a terrible time – white men who thought themselves invincible had been exposed to the world for corruption in politics, law enforcement, and criminal justice. The mayor, vice mayor, five police commissioners, and dozens of police officers had fallen; across the county, some small towns scarcely had local law enforcement, the county sheriff's office having to fill the gap.

In the midst of all this, domestic violence incidents in “the best sorts of homes” were going up, rapidly. The stress of being seen as the true face of corruption and terrorism was too much for a lot of people, and since they couldn't face their complicity, and couldn't get to the external aides to their misery, their wives, daughters, and girlfriends caught the brunt of the frustration.

Many of those women were shocked as well – again, those sorts of things weren't supposed to happen to them. Many of them had a church background, so they ran back to what their grandmothers and mothers had taught them. Since Church in the Midst of Life was open every day, many came there.

Onyx Baxter was certainly not the mother figure that they wanted – it hurt their type of woman to be under guidance from someone their mother would have treated as “the help” – but she was the mother figure they needed, a woman of tough but deep love, strong Christian faith, and quiet power and influence in many circles for these women as they struggled to pick up the pieces of their lives and idea of the world.

Mother Baxter also cultivated friends like the secretary to the police commissioner, Mrs. Magdalena Thornton, and had a permit for the big Colt 45 she carried. Working with battered women in a known location was interesting work, but again, all the security of every type went back to the sign on the wall:

“TRUST GOD, NO PANIC. DOUBT GOD, KNOW PANIC.”