In the beginning,

…we stay with the preacher. We sit sweating on the mercy seat. We hear the preacher shout. We feel the fire in this man who built the church that burned down. This preacher read Nietzche. This preacher who was a carpenter with bent nails, who was the father of the cowgirl who ironed his handkerchiefs. The big man who cheered at wrestling matches, who drove a dark Chevy, who wore white shirts stiff from the laundry, who sang, “There was a crooked man, who had a crooked smile.”

The nuns…taught all the girls to say hell merry fuller grays, dolores wit chew, blast duh art dower mung wimmen, blast dis fruit uh duh loom, cheez whiz.”

If only she had a gospel voice, not a notebook full of Babylon.

-from “She Swam On from Sea to Shine”, Harryette Mullen : Sleeping with the Dictionary