Tag: Reverend Raymond Jones

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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Website: www.anitagarner.com

 

 

Happy Father’s Day From One Of The Preacher’s Kids

By Anita Garner

Daddy was Reverend Raymond D. Jones, aka Brother Ray: preacher, evangelist, high lonesome tenor-singing rhythm guitar player, pioneering pastor for his sect and Mother’s forever boyfriend.

Born in 1914, if he were here today he’d take a look at social media, say  “Don’t that beat all!” and figure a way to work it into a sermon.

Photo above:  1955, First worship service inside the new church in Bogalusa, Louisiana

The church under construction

In Americus, Georgia early in his ministry, he was in charge of creating a congregation and building a church.  During the war no new lumber was available, so the congregation bought an old hotel and demolished it, re-purposing the lumber for a new building.

That’s Daddy on the left, wearing his preacher clothes,
working with the crew.

And one of my favorites.  Brother Ray in a Sunday morning suit.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy, from one of the preacher’s kids.

******

 

Morning Preacher on The Glory Road

By Anita Garner

Brother Ray’s mornings started with newspapers and moved
on to the radio station.

Arkansas, 1952

Daddy and Leslie Ray and I all woke before daylight in the parsonage, ready to face the day.  My brother and I got up early on purpose because it was rare quiet time we could spend alone with Daddy before heading to school. Since leaving his father’s house, Daddy had kept to their farmer’s hours when every child was a farmhand and every farmhand was out in the field before sunup.

Leslie Ray took his place at the table, bringing his breakfast with him, and the three of us shared a comfortable intimacy. From behind my cereal box, I watched Daddy read the morning paper. To be present while he read The Arkansas Gazette was to watch a food lover devour a favorite meal. He smiled.  He frowned. He exclaimed,

“Well I never!”

He savored every page and remembered all of it. This was evident in the many references to newspaper stories that turned up in his sermons on the radio and in church.

If someone who didn’t already love reading sat across from Reverend Raymond Jones while he sipped his tea and read his morning newspaper, that person would have to re-think the power of stories told in newsprint.

If we were quiet for a long time, he’d read out loud a headline or the first two or three lines of a story. Then he stopped. When we became intrigued and asked him to keep reading, we could see him make a determination right then and there about content. He scanned ahead before proceeding, editing out references he didn’t want us to see. He underestimated our curiosity. When we left the parsonage we would find out the result of any story he censored at home.

Editing as he read created an intriguing rhythm. His deliberation caused a delay of a couple of seconds, so in my mind I played a game, racing ahead, guessing how the sentence and the paragraph and the story might end.

My brother and I went to the stove for several cups of the coffee Daddy made first thing when he got up. We’d been drinking coffee since we were very small, mixing in copious amounts of sugar and thick, fresh cream, like Southern children do, to turn it pale. Daddy brewed the strong Luzianne coffee with chicory Mother liked.  It would be re-heated hours later when she woke. Her coffee was so dense by the time she got out of bed, Daddy joked he could slice it up and serve it with gravy and call it supper.

Without looking up, he admonished us every morning,

“Leave enough coffee in the pot for yore Mama.”

With his head still inside his newspaper and without a glance at the food I had on the plate before me, he chided me about my breakfast selections.

“If that’s all you plan to eat, Nita Faye, you’ll never get big like your brother.”

Then he questioned his son about the care and feeding of the outside animals, some of which were destined to become our meals one day soon.  Did you feed them, son? No matter what the truth might be, Leslie answered, yessir.

To any other questions Daddy asked while reading his newspaper, we answered in the affirmative and sipped our coffee. In that companionable time, Daddy was easily pleased, satisfied with the way his days began.

As we cleared our plates and made ready for school, we left him with scissors in hand, turning the pages back to where he’d inked notes in the margin of a story, cutting out the ones he wanted to share with his wife. Mother didn’t relish mornings, but she loved news as much as Daddy and they had an agreement that he would bring to her attention points of interest by placing clippings next to her coffee cup. Later in the day the two of them held animated discussions about current events.

A few minutes more and he was at the sink, washing the ink off his hands before grabbing his hat and heading out on his early morning pastor calls and then to the radio station for a morning sermonette. I wonder how many stories-worth of newsprint he must have washed off over the years.