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| Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Thomas, US, Virgin Islands. |
A church is described as a place of worship. I grew up in two churches, the Methodist Church in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, to which my parents belonged, in which I was christened, and received Holy Communion. I also attended a Catholic elementary and secondary school and attended mass.
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| Christ Church/United Methodist Chruch |
My sister, Arlene and I attended, Sunday school at Christ Church near Market Square in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. Sunday school took place before church services began. Probably around 9 or 10. It is there we listened to unforgettable Bible stories. As a child, Sunday services seemed like an all-day thing that began with Bible classes and followed by the main service that started at 11:00.
After that, there was “class,” a sort of Sunday school for adults, where a class leader prepared an inspirational message which he/she shared with members of her small group.
During sermons, our minds often strayed. I remember playing games with my handkerchief, or with a China-made fan if it was hot. I looked forward to the ice-cream treat from the shop across the street, when the Sunday ritual was all done.
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| Painting by Shauna Meiri |
As a young adult, my mind took off on journeys during sermons. It happened after the pastor’s voice became a distant droning sound in my head. A “things to do list” would suddenly appear on my mental horizon and take my attention somewhere else. But I was not the only one. If you looked around, you would see people lost in “nod-land” or eyes shut in pretend-meditation.
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| Women of Church painting by Pharris Art |
Special occasions like Christmas and Easter would bring out the fashionistas. We, too, would be attired in new clothing and new shoes. One had to arrive early to get a seat because during these special, blessed days, people who had not seen the church door all year, would rediscover God, and suddenly the congregation numbers would double.
Lord, Take the Rein
They sit in the first pew
in the row on the right—
young women whose skin
are shades of dark fudge,
caramel, pale brown sugar.
Their dresses bright as sunrise,
the orange glow of sunset,
verdant tropical grass and lime,
sky and ocean-blue, and teal.
Their tiny hats contrast
with barely restrained breasts.
Short skirts must now and then
be pulled down after riding high
on glistening vaselined*
or cocoa-buttered thighs.
One would think
they had come to a theater
to audition for the role of seductress.
Had they taken a wrong turn?
The church is packed
this Easter Sunday.
Colorful-wide-brimmed hats
hide the narrowing eyes
of older women
whose straight faces
mask horror and disdain.
The preacher at the pulpit
prays, “Lord take the rein,”
before announcing
an unplanned opening hymn.
“We shall overcome.”
© Althea Romeo-Mark 2018
This poem was inspired by the painting, Fellowship of Divine Divas After Church Soiree-Black Art in America
Some old church members would become irate because the pew where they sat all year would be occupied by strangers. There was no such thing as turning the other cheek or Christ-like behavior if the usual occupant, who had sat there for fifty years, could not be seated.
I can still remember an older woman sitting on my hand, and with great determined, pushed me out of her coveted space.
I also attended a Catholic elementary and secondary school and attended mass. Ten years of Catholic education has had an impact. So, I was a Methodist on Sundays, and a sort of a Catholic on weekdays from age eight to nineteen. There were many Hail Mary’s and hymns in Latin and religion classes taught by nuns and priests. The nuns were Sisters of Charity. They were bent on saving us from going to hell. I also volunteered to help nuns do their chores, like cleaning the altar and fleetingly thought about becoming a nun.
Getting to Mass
Sister Francis, voice cloaked in authority,
said we had to be in church by half past seven.
A protestant in a Catholic school,
I leave my home late,
dash along Kronprindens Gade to Mass,
heart pushing, pumping.
Do I hear it clanging too?
It would be crushing to disappoint God
and see nuns in white habits and veils
wear masks of disapproval,
wag fingers at my daring to be late.
God, who hovers somewhere around the altar
near the Blessed Sacrament
invisible to our eyes, will be wrathful.
What sacrilege!
I leap two steps at a time,
to reach the Church’s door
hear Latin incantations
see a congregation in genuflection,
knees bent on a hard torturous surface.
I slip into the pew,
kneel and clasp my hands.
“Credo in unum Deum
Patreum Omnipotentem
Factorem coeli et terrum…,”
slowly slips away from my ears.
Is it seconds or minutes
before soft slaps on my cheeks
bring me back to my surroundings?
So determined to reach God’s house,
to feel His omnipresence, omnipotence
in the syncopated chants of Latin verse,
I am there, yet not there.
© Althea Romeo-Mark 2016
Published in St. Peter and Paul 50th Anniversary High School Year Book
In high school, non-Catholics, no longer attended mass and were assigned a room where homework or other lesson preparations were done. However, we still had to attend mass on special occasions.
Non-Catholics
Protestants, Jews, Palestinians, we are excused
from attending Mass at St. Peter and Paul High
and assigned to a sunlit classroom with
warm wind blowing through windows.
In small clusters, our animated conversations
reveal matters close to the heart, hated homework
or frivolous talk about Archie, Betty,
Veronica and Jughead Comic Books,
the latest mysteries solved by Nancy Drew
or torrid love stories in the forbidden True Romance.
We exchange our latest news: make-up brands,
clothes patterns from Butterick, Simplicity, Vogue,
crushes on movie stars featured pin-ups on our walls,
our recent letters from pen pals.
We laugh about our recent Macbeth reenactment:
three witches stirring broth in a cauldron,
spells cast in listless Virgin Islands’ accents.
Sister Regina’s flushed face hinted at the verdict.
We fantasize about Bluebeard and Blackbeard
fighting battles over buried treasure
on Hassel Island across the bay
where boats play see-saw on the surface.
Gilda, Thamet and I break into song,
“Yo ho, ho and a bottle of rum.
“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum.”
We do not think about our religious differences.
It is the mid-sixties on a tiny island
where suspicion and hate hasn’t yet
divided us by race and religion.
Prejudice is reserved for recent immigrants,
the “garrots,” from "down island*",
who are taking away jobs we don’t really want.
Our Catholic classmates soon return,
with ashy crosses on sweaty foreheads,
having marched around the schoolyard
after Mass is done.
We are sent back to our classrooms
basking in the joy of
our non-Catholic freedom.
© Althea Romeo-Mark 2016
And then there were family members who left the main churches and became members of Pentecostal congregations. My sister and I were sometimes invited to visit. But it was difficult to contain our laughter when members “caught the Holy Spirit”, and began to recklessly throw themselves around, or danced up and down aisles. At times, I felt it was an alternative night club, without the booze, but there was the blessed wine of course.
Magda
If you see her,
chocolate faced-Magda,
she makes a woman proud
the way she wears
her age, her hats.
Magda’s life is church
her son, Raphael
a collection of hats
paraded on Sundays
and Cuthbert, the husband
she mostly hates.
In church the Holy Ghost
takes her dancing up and down aisles
to beats that rival nightclub bands
a disco queen in a trance
her hat hanging on,
barely.
Raphael is sometimes there.
He comes along
when she pleads with him
and on her knees begs God
to stop her son’s drinking.
A hoard of hats
stacked according to colors
fills a glass cabinet
where you’d keep your best china.
Magda’s battled Cuthbert
since she sturdily walked him up the altar
he promising to look after her
and Raphael
and buy her hats
she’s always carried off
like a peacock ‘til now.
Her face still smooth chocolate,
hat tilted on her head
she hobbles along
on two walking sticks,
Raphael’s drunken abuses
rubbing Cuthbert’s nerves raw,
she always forgiving
overlooking his excesses.
When church members visit,
the Holy Ghost isn’t tame.
She becomes a contortionist
in her chair, swirling back and forth,
hat’s secured with a pin.
And Raphael found dead in a chair
with Bacardi rum in his hand
always in Magda’s prayers,
his memory igniting fires
between her and Cuthbert.
Their love long dead,
Magda’s got the Holy Ghost
walls plastered with pictures
of Raphael and a cabinet
full of hats she’d die for.
Althea Romeo-Mark © 2009
From poetry collection, If Only the Dust Would Settle
Fiends Again on Monday
Holy Ghost!
Something Pauline catches
on Sunday mornings
when hymns take her out
on a salvation tide
and bring her back
dancing up and down
the church’s aisles.
A tsunami of words
rushes from Pauline’s mouth.
Then Jesus Christ,
sitting like a period
on the edge her tongue,
rolls off at the end
of declared praises.
Pauline flaps and shakes,
spews the secret code
of the highest holiness.
She screams in “tongues”
unheard of by the hell-bent.
In the air of hysteria,
a chorus of the burdened joins in.
Shouting to the rooftop,
they set down weighty sins.
The storm of voices subside
in a drizzle of hallelujahs!
Outside his Holy Presence,
Pauline is “cutting eye” in the street.
Enemies are forgiven on Sunday,
are fiends again on Monday.
© 2015 Althea Romeo-Mark
*cut eye- give threatening looks at one’s enemy.
“The people who shout the loudest are the worst sinner,” a quote by someone very dear to me.
I married a Catholic in Liberia, West Africa, my children are Catholic, and while living in Liberia, I started the process of becoming a Catholic, but that process was interrupted by the start of the Liberian Civil war.
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| Lady of Lebanon, Catholic Church, Liberia |
The church, which had always been a place of sanctity and served as a source of refuge, became a place of prey. Liberia had its first church massacre, a memory, nobody can erase. We knew then, that nobody was safe.
In Switzerland, where I now reside, there are many empty churches, not just because you are sent a yearly tax bill when you join one, but people now rely on the spirit within to guide them. There have been too many contradictions of what is Christ-like behavior. There are too many members of churches whose fundamentalist views show little tolerance for other people and their religion.
Though still, there is great comfort, if you have found fast friends who share your goals and exhibit great respect for their fellow man within or outside a church. We all need to have a sense of community and belonging within the environment in which we live.
Churches, the experience they have provided, the memories they have created, the people and personalities within and the stories they have created, are treasure troves of inspiration.
For those who do not wish to be confined to a building and the views of people who worship within them and are concerned with the human spirit and soul, a personal relationship with “God,” " a higher power" or nature is a great alternative.
Going Where the Roof is Vast
They go where their bare feet take them,
beyond the scorn and condemnation
of those who have burned their homes and crops
in the name of Allah and Christ.
They will dig up the bones of their ancestors
and go beyond trees blanketed by dust,
beyond washed out roads,
manned by those who constrain their lives.
Let them get away from
eyes that lynch them,
words that strip them of dignity,
and scorn them as a godless tribe.
Unconquered by foreign Gods,
they seek sanctuary within their borders
seek peace in the deep forest
where they can hear gods
speaking in the whisper of trees
and the gurgle of running rivers.
Let them go where
sun, moon, and wind guide the universe,
Let them go where
they can read the messages in the sky at night.
“Heathens” and resistant to alien beliefs,
filled with the spirit of the driver ant,
they will find a home where the roof is vast.
©2016 Althea Romeo-Mark
*A tribute to animism- the attribution of a living soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena. Animism is the oldest known type of belief system in the world.
What has been your church experience? Has it been positive or negative? Why?
© Althea Romeo Mark
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| Althea Romeo Mark |
Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia (1976-1990), London, England (1990-1991), and in Switzerland since 1991.
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