Weekend Freewrite - 9/21/2019 - Single Prompt: Ooze

The Church in the Midst of Life, because of its location, had a fairly large middle-class and upper-class clientele – square in the middle of downtown Big Loft, in walking distance from police headquarters, county courthouse, and the city's biggest banks and businesses.

On one hand, it was convenient to those classes of people to be ministered to during the week, on lunch and coffee breaks, and sometimes right after work.

On the other hand, it was EMBARRASSING, particularly in the context of Southern history in Virginia, for the higher of those classes to admit they were still in as much desperate need of help as they had been since the slaves had been taken from their foreparents.

That made Mrs. Onyx Baxter's life interesting, as the head of one of the ministries in the church that had persistent usage: battered women. Mrs. Baxter, just sixty years before 2019, would have only been “the help,” so it was hard, at first, for people of a certain class to deal with her as a person in authority.

It was also difficult, at first, for those people to treat those who provided so much of the help and support to the church and its programs on their scant breaks – a lot of clerical and service workers, many of whom were poor White, Black, and Latino – with respect.

It was also difficult for those women to treat others in the group – again, poor White, Black, and Latino, drawn by the diversity of the church and the flexible hours and the presence of Mrs. Baxter – as worthy of respect.

Mrs. Baxter calendared women of that foul attitude for appointments with her, appointments which some women later described as the moment when “Mrs. Baxter snatched up my soul like she snatched up Loretta's whole self.”

Around a quiet corner, in the back of the kitchen, in the yard at a quiet moment, in a quiet part of the main sanctuary, there would come that warm, firm voice out of nowhere:

“You know, the reason you are here in this place is a sum total of every decision and belief you have – including the toxic ooze of malice, greed, envy, and pride that is coming out of your soul toward people who are not battered and living good lives without being you or of your class of people. But isn't it people from your class of people who beat you down? You're silly, and spiritually, you stink. You're smelling up the whole place, so: repent and shape up, or I will ship you out.”

One woman had become indignant and forgotten it wasn't 1959. Mrs. Baxter had applied the appropriate reminder – snatched that hand that would have slapped and picked the entire woman up and threw her across the yard. That had been Loretta, who landed in the fountain and just sat there and cried … and then came to her senses, and to the Lord, and was now working with the ministry.

“Oh, you're new,” Ms. Loretta was now known for telling new women with the wrong attitude. “We don't do that here – you just need to know now that we treat everyone God made with respect here. Keep on oozing prejudice, and you will get snatched up in the holiest but most unforgettable way...”