Good Intentions, Southern Style

 

Country preacher building a new church

Though it’s still the early part of the year, I’m having nothing to do with resolutions. I know better than that. I’m not promising myself I’ll do a particular thing by a particular time. The stubborn kid that lives inside me prefers a suggestion. Wouldn’t it be nice if we…?

I wake up one day thinking about a project that needs doing and something resembling reflection creeps in. Why haven’t I already done it? Followed by maybe I should. Which could lead to all righty then, that’s exactly what I’ll do next. If this brings on a burst of energy, I try to latch onto it before it can trundle away and plop itself down with the other intentions in the “To Be Continued” pile.

Right here is where I hear Daddy’s Southern preacher voice enter the conversation, telling my brother and me that the time for reflection has passed and he’s going to need to see the speedy completion of our chores, ready or not. He would not have accepted my present-day maybe I will or maybe I won’t. He was a new preacher, always on duty, even at home. Every story contained a lesson.

“Girl, where is your intention? You’ve got to set out with intention. You know what I mean?”

Oh yes, we Jones kids knew exactly what he meant. He’d be right there with an unnecessary demonstration, taking the broom handle from my brother, the dustpan from me, and energetically showing his perfectly capable children the exact amount of intention he expected to accompany the sweeping of the kitchen floor every night after supper.

“Y’all know how it ought to be done.”

Of course we knew and he knew we knew and it would be best if there was no further discussion about the cleaning of the kitchen and whose turn it was. Just do it.

One thing you could count on from preachers in the Deep South back then, especially the evangelists, was the way they chose favorite words or phrases with a specific cadence and worked them into most conversations. Like a trademark. When Daddy started out, he was already blessed with looks and musical talent and charm, but he wasn’t as well educated as some of his peers. He worked harder. He talked about the work with pride. He studied scripture. He completed all the courses for ordination and along the way his vocabulary changed. We observed him latching onto words he liked the sound of, and once he got hold of a new one, it kept showing up, not only in the pulpit but everywhere.

When a brother/sister discussion reached an unacceptable decibel level: “You two stop being contentious, you hear?”

Reading the newspaper, remarking on a story about a criminal: “That man  is just plain mendacious.” It sounded delicious until we looked it up in Mother’s giant dictionary.

He told us stories about his childhood, about plowing fields and picking cotton. He wasn’t complaining. He was insisting a person ought to be grateful for any kind of work he got to do. He talked about other people who were worse off, people with all manner of tribulations, who would evidently be happy to trade places with my brother and me any time. How our undue procrastination  was not going to be acceptable in this house. Nossir. We would not be awaiting inspiration.  We would do the work that needed doing and if, along the way, the Good Lord decided, inspiration might arrive. Until such time, we were to do our work with intention.

When he started slinging words around in church, a rhythm crept in and when a gospel piano or rowdy church organ punctuated his walking and talking, it might turn into a song. Whether he was preaching to a big crowd under a revival tent or reminding his kids how they ought to do, by the time we were out of elementary school, his language was laced with numerous, newly-acquired, multi-syllabic words. We watched and listened as he gathered them up and carried them with him for the rest of his life.

This year, I’m starting off with a full tank of intention and hoping some of it will last a while. I plan to begin some days with “I get to” instead of “I have to.” Sermons duly noted.

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