There’s a church in the valley in the wildwoodNo lovelier place in the dell
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the dell
Most old-timers will recall with great fondness these words of an old gospel song. There was such a church that was dear to my childhood in the middle of Mississippi called the Chapel of the Cross. Built by slaves in the 1850’s, it was part of Annandale Plantation, just across the road from my people’s home place. It’s Gothic Revival architecture drew heavily from 14th-century English country churches. It had a proud heritage within the Episcopal branch of the Church and had a unique history dating back to the early days of the state before the war of northern aggression.
My mother’s people were buried in the backyard of this little brown church, and in the spring and summer the Bennett clan who were still on top of this native soil would all gather for the task of cleaning the grounds of the family burial plots. The men did most of the clearing while the women prepared the picnic and watched us kids. Once they started telling those stories while sitting around the picnic tables, the young cousins would get lost in the old abandoned sanctuary where we would “play church”.
For whatever reasons, the Chapel had been abandoned as a viable worship center and had even been vandalized during the 1940’s and 50’s. That’s when the young Bennett cousins would turn it into a sanctuary fit for the God’s chosen youth group. Brother Jimmy would play the old pump organ while cousin Fanny Wee would beguile us all with ghost stories. Rocks from the driveway would be brought in as offerings and tastefully strewn on the empty altar. Nonsense was used in lieu of incense!
In my travels around the world since those ancient of days, I’ve wandered into many historic cathedrals that would hold a dozen of those quaint little Chapels at once. Ornate grandeur crowned them as sacred sanctuaries to the glory of God or God’s competition. Many of them took generations to complete. But none seemed to hold a candle to that sweet little church in those Mississippi woods.
We were innocent yet amazing liturgical celebrants creating a wild kind of church in our meager imaginations. We were not only kith and kin, we were the children of God without knowing it, like staring stardust in the face. Later on, we would realize that we were also sisters and brothers of the slaves who fabricated those bricks and walls to create a church for the people who thought they owned them.
Reckoning with that historical fact, we could feel so many shoulders – black and white – on which we were standing on that holy ground This little church in the wildwood and the holy memories from my own childhood within her slave-made walls would launch my religious phantoms and fantasies suitable for years to come and ground me in the sweet harmony and mystery of all my people who were all God’s precious children. God’s holy family.
Reckoning with that historical fact, we could feel so many shoulders – black and white – on which we were standing on that holy ground This little church in the wildwood and the holy memories from my own childhood within her slave-made walls would launch my religious phantoms and fantasies suitable for years to come and ground me in the sweet harmony and mystery of all my people who were all God’s precious children. God’s holy family.