Adults talk about speaking your peace.
For us kids in church, it was more about saying your piece.
I always wondered where those pieces came from. Little slips of paper that contained
one or two lines, when you were real young, and a couple of paragraphs when you go
older, that you were expected to memorize and then to recite for church programs.
Pieces generally emerged for two major seasons, Christmas and Easter.
They looked like they were cut from a book. I always wondered what they did with the
book once the pieces were extracted.
Learning your first piece was a milestone in your life..
It meant you finally were old enough to step up in church. I think parents realized
you were memory ready when you started singing and reciting the commercials that
were on television and radio. After a few choruses of "Winston's taste good like a
cigarette should," I am sure they sensed I was more than ready for a more
appropriate rhyming couplet like "Jesus died upon the cross, to save us all who would
be lost."
It just seemed harder to keep the words from that little slip of paper in your head than
it was to pick up the latest catchy cigarette or beer ad. The commercials were
designed to stick in your head. The pieces were designed to have parents on your
head.
Learning pieces was a family project.
You would practice your piece at the breakfast, lunch and dinner table. Sometimes
reciting your piece was the bribe to go outside. For weeks prior to the program,
it was piece, piece, piece. No family wanted their child not knowing
their piece at program time.
Everyone would know if you did not know your piece. That is when the prompter, normally
your Sunday School teacher, had to intervene.
As you were there in front of the gathering of family, friends, church members, your
pastor, stumbling your way through your pitiful two lines of a piece, the prompter was
loudly yelling it across the room for you to repeat after him or her. By now you are
so shaken, that all you want to do is sit down. But dutifully, word by word,
you would ease the piece out.
I never had a chance to use the prompter. My Mon, Dad and Grandmom, all made sure
that was not going to be the case.
But there still were the opening night jitters.
The church usually was full for these programs. You got to see people that you did not
even see for church. They might not want to hear the preacher preach but they sure
would turn out to hear their own child say their piece.
We all had our best little outfits on. We were so clean, when we went to take
our seats in the first couple pews of the church,. I bet we squeaked.
Each class had its own pew. The program usually started with the youngest class and
worked its way up to the adult class.
There only were four or five of us in the pre-school class. None of us could
read. So it meant you either had good family preparation or...get ready for
the prompter.
I was batting cleanup for the class, .so I got to see my fellow debutantes on the
piece-circuit go before me.
The first little girl raced through her piece as if she was late for an appointment.
I think she might have been because instead of returning to the pew with us, she
dashed off to the vicinity of the bathrooms before her applause had died down.
The second piece came from my friend. He was a little shy and his piece was
delivered with his back virtually turned to the audience. It did not work. It just
resulted in him being turned around and he had to do it again.
He sat down with a sigh of relief. I then realized it was hard being last.
There is a certain air of anticipation placed on the last one. If there have
been nothing but successes before you...would you be the one to forget, flub or otherwise
cause that nervous laughter to run through the audience.
Just before me the prompter came into play. She lead my classmate through her piece
word by word. It was like a verbal connect the dots. She made it to the end
and was not even a bit flustered by the fact she could not recall her two line piece.
As far as she was concerned she had completed the mission she had set out on.
Then it was my turn.
I felt like my head was shining. Dad had lubricated my little curls with so much Vaseline
Hair Tonic, I could have slid through a keyhole. Plus you could smell me at 25
yards. I got into my Dad's Old Spice. I always saw him slap it on his face for
special occasions. I thought the coming-out day for my piece was special enough to
deserve a little slap of my own. By the way, it burned.
When you are standing at the front of the church, dead-center of the altar rail, it seems
like all eyes are on you. You also can sense the thoughts. "Will he
remember it or will he get prompted."
With the confidence and self assurance that only a little kid could muster, I went into my
piece with no hesitation. The first line was a masterpiece of presentation and
enunciation. Each word clear as a bell, emphasis given in just the right places.
And the second line, they say it was just as resplendid as the first.
But then, basking in the glow of the presentation, and relishing the sound of applause, I
took a deep, not-in-the-program bow. One of those sweeping,
I-got-everything-but-the-cape, I-saw-it-on-the-Zorro-television show bows.
Almost touching the floor theatrical bows.
Everybody was screaming at my innocent audacity. But a scream was as good as a clap
to me. I returned to my seat but since the people were still carrying on, laughing,
clapping, some stomping their feet, I returned to the front of the room and gave them part
two of my acceptance, and proffered another bow, as theatrically correct as a first.
By now people are falling out of the pews at the sight of this pee-wee, which I really was
at one time, milking his moment for all it was worth. Even returning to the church
front for an encore.
My family did not know whether to hug me or to swat me. I had said the piece just as
they had instructed me to. I did not miss a word. But that exaggerated bow did not
resemble the polite bend at the waist they had showed me.
That was the first of many pieces for me. God teaches us through those pieces not to
be shy in speaking a Word for the Lord. For many of us, it was our earliest training in
the preaching trade. A taste of what God had in store for us in the future.
I know that I made for some anxious times in the family. From then on, whenever
Sunday school programs were held at the church, my family held their breath, until after I
completed my piece and was safely returned to my seat with my class. I never brought
the bow back. I still am reserving it for my next great performance.
