Hello World,
I hope this Sunday morning finds you well and you’re on your way to church to give Him praise morning…If you have been in church for a while, particularly a black church, you’ve heard of the term church mother…A church mother is a matriarch, whether formally or informally, of a congregation…An older woman whose wisdom, earned through years and years and years of living this life, is one of the church’s most valuable possessions…Though the beauty of youth has long departed, another beauty only acquired by watching God work things out time and time and time again, has descended upon her countenance…She is a jewel…a rare gem…
Photojournalist Alysia Burton Steele is capturing the rare brilliance of church mothers in her book in progress ““Jewels in the Delta.” From her Facebook page, below are descriptions of a few of the 50 Mississippi women that Steele photographed and interviewed for her book…
Mrs. Leola, 102, was thrown off a plantation in Yazoo City because she refused to have her little girls pick cotton. She wanted them to go to school. The overseer told her she had to leave if she wouldn’t let them work because she would “ruin his other blacks” because they would want an education too. She left and said it was the best decision she ever made. All of her girls have masters degrees and one has a Ph.D.
Mrs. Rebecca, 99, talked about how thankful she was for the woman she worked for as a cook. The woman taught her how to save $2 every week for a year and make a payment on her home. She paid her house off in 15 years. It’s not much, she said, but it’s hers and she has the original deed.
Ms. Velma, 78, dragged a woman out of church after she heard the woman talking about how fine her husband was. Punched the woman between the eyes and went back in and “sat quite comfortably” in church. Never saw the woman again. Husband had no clue she did this.
Read more about Steele’s book and see some of the photographs of the women in the The New York Times article “Chronicling Mississippi’s ‘Church Mothers,’ and Getting to Know a Grandmother” by Samuel G. Freedman…
And below is a video about the book…
So when you see one of the elderly ladies at your church today, maybe you shouldn’t just speak and keep on going…maybe you should get her talking and learn from the wisdom only she can share…
Any thoughts?