The Pull

Note: I'm introducing a new feature to The Beach Chair. Periodically, I'll welcome in a guest blogger to post his or her thoughts. It's a way to keep things fresh, offer different opinions and promote other bloggers and their works. Today, I welcome Jameil, author-extraordinaire of Mind Space. If you would like to guest blog on the Beach Chair, just let me know. Enjoy Jameil's work.


Like many Black people, I was raised in the church. Really raised. My late grandfather was a pastor. His son, my uncle Jacob, is a pastor turned Presiding Elder. My mom is a former Sunday School teacher and Sunday School superintendent. We went to Sunday School and church on Sundays. On 5th Sunday we also went to 5th Sunday services for the district. We (my sister and I) were on the usher board and the children's choir. We were youth missionaries. On Tuesdays we went to Bible Study. I was one of the lucky ones. Our church had special classes for youth bible study and Sunday School. We had people who wanted to make our walk with God, present and future, as clear as possible. We learned all the books of the Bible, songs to sing and on and on.

It wasn't until right now that I realized how much we were really, really in the church. It wasn't boring most of the time because so much was geared toward our age group, and we had friends whose parents made them participate in all of the same activities. My mother was laying a foundation. The groundwork for our lives. When I went to college, I was for the first time able to decide not to go to church. Because please believe that feining a painful stomach or not feeling good was always met with a "Come on, get up and go to church, you'll feel better once you hear the word of God." I can laugh about it now because that's the standard momma response, isn't it?

When I got to college, I no longer had to pretend. I would just look at the clock and roll over. At first I was riddled with guilt. I tried to go at least once a month because I knew I would get that call from my mom asking if I'd went and I needed to be able to say yes to avoid a lecture. And there was the pull. You know it. If I didn't go, it didn't feel like Sunday. And like there was something missing. Like where was the beginning of the week? Part of the reason it was easier for me not to go, other than just the freedom of being able to make my own decisions, is because I hadn't been listening in church for so long. We'd decided our pastor wasn't talking to us and had tuned out. I now look for very stringent things when it comes to selecting a church. The pastor has to be concise and on topic. And brevity isn't at the top of the list if you stay on topic. I've heard pastors (Rev. Charles I. Jackson) who stayed on topic for an hour, and I was so riveted I didn't want to leave at the end. I could've listened to him talk for another hour. I will track that pastor down the next time I go to Atlanta. I always do.

Once I stopped going regularly, it just became commonplace. I still felt a bit strange, but I began to make all manner of excuses. I'm too tired after I get off of work. I just don't feel like it. I want to go to breakfast. And still there was something missing. I would go to the gym after getting off at 10am on Sunday morning and feel especially heathen-like considering I said I was too tired for church, but I had the energy to workout?? It took something that sounds as trivial as a break-up, but which was the loss of a person I really cared about as a friend as well who I'd known for years, to really obey the pull. I began to focus on myself and my relationship with God. I knew I had to go back to church. Of course just going isn't going to do it, but you have to start somewhere. It's still very early in my renewal, but I can no longer ignore that pull. It's the first step to getting some peace. Not just about a breakup, but in every aspect of my life.