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Here’s a Prayer for the small-town.

The first one I lived in, where no-one left
Except to join the military
And school was closed on the first day of hunting season
and where the disabled girl was welcomed in Brownies,
But we had to go to the nearest city to earn our diversity badge
Where the KKK marched, and all the churches protested–
and my parents explained “free speech” to me
while we read books about the Holocaust
where I learned the N-word from another 1st grader
but also did a report on “My Left Foot”
And everyone was worried
Because the last Coal mine was closing
and there were no jobs to be had
And where we had to leave, because they didn’t want a woman pastor
(in 1980s)
When my mom graduated from seminary

Here’s a prayer for the small town
where the schools were all integrated
and we were in the Bible-belt, and attended “that liberal church”
Where I had the most black friends
but a lot of people did not go into the “Black stores”
Where I was the only girl who joined the baseball team instead of the softball team–
did you know baseball got snow cones after every game, it was NOT FAIR
And all the boys won the leadership awards every year, never the girls
And all the girls joined cheerleaders and wore makeup by third grade…
Except me, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
who, it turned out, wished they could be cheerleaders anyway
Here’s a prayer for that small town

Here’s a prayer for the NorthEastern Small Town
Where everyone made fun of me
when I said “Yes Ma’am” the first day of school
And never bothered to find out that I only lived down South for 3 years
Rich and Stuck up, no one had time for me
In their small, elite classes, in the small elite school
Drinking every weekend, Worried about who was in and out
The teachers even knew who was cool and who wasn’t
Everyone walked to school
but the people of color pretty much sat together
and there were still lines between the poorer and richer students
Here’s a prayer for that small town where status was everything

Here’s a prayer for the small town, where my husband went to college
And I lived for a year, where Obama said guns and God
And he and I laughed and laughed, because it was so true
Where I attended a small church on the same lawn of another small church
Of the SAME denomination
Where I worked two almost full time jobs, lived at the library, and never saw the sun–and was probably the strangest person in town, because every other adult who was weird moved away.
Here’s a prayer for that small town.

I’ve lived in every kind of small town–
Where the gossip was if your laundry was up all night
Where the whole village turned out to find my sister–
Who had been thankfully asleep in the garage the whole time
Where everyone knew who was mistreating who, and still it wasn’t fixed.
I’ve lived in places where the friendliness is real,
where it’s ok to talk to everyone, and that’s a kind of relief.
I’ve lived where religion is a second language,
and church is your second home.
I’ve lived in the small towns that are in the middle of nowhere,
and the ones next to cities,
I pray for all of them, because they are all over, and so important.
I pray for the small towns. Because it’s hard, in a small town, sometimes,
to try things
And yet so much of the Bible is God calling people
out of small towns
to try things
–so I pray for those small towns.