"Sundays in a Small Town"

Sundays in that small town did not begin with quiet reverence. They began with heat, breathlessness, and the rising hum of a Pentecostal fervor that always felt too big for the building that held it. I remember stepping inside and feeling the air thicken around me, as if I might choke on the fear swirling beneath everyone’s shouted hallelujahs and trembling hands. Their emotions surged and cracked without rhythm, a storm of dysregulated cries, wails, and declarations that never seemed to soothe anyone, least of all me.

They called it the movement of the Spirit. I called it survival, standing still so I would not be swept under.

What struck me, even then, was how all that noise lived inside a space sealed tight against the world’s real needs. Hunger, loneliness, and heartache existed just outside the church doors, yet we remained enclosed in a room where performance mattered more than compassion. It felt like devotion practiced in a pressure cooker while life beyond the walls went largely untouched.

Threaded through every service was the quiet weight of shame. I was expected to smile, to nod, to silence my own truth. Any doubt was treated as sin. Any discomfort meant my faith was weak. Honest feelings had to be swallowed before they reached the surface of my face. So I learned to disappear in plain sight, to fold myself smaller, to let guilt settle in the soft parts of me where words were never allowed.

But now my Sundays are slower and softer, unfolding like sacred poetry.

Morning worship is reciting Mary Oliver’s verses, each word a prayer, while James Taylor’s “Shower the People” drifts through quiet rooms like a blessing. My mission is simple: to feed the birds, tend the plants, and offer tenderness to the earth in my backyard. My offering is sweat and breath as I run outside, surrendering both strength and vulnerability to the wild wind. My prayers are no longer spoken behind closed doors but whispered among the trees, thanking the Creator for the vast, radiant splendor I am privileged to touch.

To deconstruct faith was not to lose it but to set it free. No longer burdened by dread or hollow ritual, I walk a path lit by truth and gentleness, where Sundays open slowly, grace spreading through stillness, anxiety melting into wonder, fear softening into awe.