CityView Magazine

8 April 2022 Mary Zahran, who is still nervous around women with calm and measured voices, can be reached at maryzahran@gmail.com. time. I would rather have crawled a hundred miles through a blizzard than face the wrath of two particular teachers at my church. All these years later, the memories of Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Adams still strike terror in my heart. Mrs. Barrett, one of the church's kindergarten teachers, was outspoken, strict and always upset about something. When she played the piano during our music class, she struck the keys as if they were naughty children in need of corporal punishment. She could make a lullaby, a Christmas carol, or a sweet children's hymn sound like a call to arms. When Mrs. Barrett wasn't traumatizing us with her bellicose rendition of "Jesus Loves Me," she was issuing threats to anyone who had the audacity to whisper or squirm during music class. Her preferred form of punishment was to send disobedient children to sit in the BROWN CHAIR, the place where kindergarteners' reputations went to die. If you sat in that chair, even for a short time, you were fair game for ridicule and endless teasing on the playground for weeks. Needless to say, I spent some time in the BROWN CHAIR, and I have always attributed all of my failings and quirks in my adult life to this unpleasant experience. Years later, when I read "Matilda,'' Roald Dahl's outlandish novel about an extraordinary girl and her sadistic principal, I immediately thought of Mrs. Barrett. She must have been the inspiration for Miss Trunchbull, the dreadful woman who tormented Matilda. If Mrs. Barrett was a growling bear, Mrs. Adams was a hissing snake, coiled up and ready to strike at any moment. She was my Sunday School teacher for several years, and most of the lessons I learned under her tutelage had nothing to do with the Bible. What I learned instead was how to avoid her withering look, an expression that reduced many children to tears and scared them into making a promise not to misbehave again despite their uncertainty about what their misbehavior had been in the first place. When Mrs. Adams finally did speak, her voice was so calm and measured that she was much more intimidating than Mrs. Barrett ever was when she screeched. Mrs. Adams exuded all the warmth of an iceberg. In contrast to these formidable women was our minister, Pastor Richards. While Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Adams used threats and fearsome facial expressions in their interactions with children, Pastor Richards offered a welcoming smile, a gentle voice and a sympathetic ear. He treated the children in his parish as people who mattered, not as hooligans in need of stern discipline. He was our shepherd and we were his sheep, and he was determined to take good care of us. Pastor Richards would pick us up and drive us to Wednesday Bible School and choir practice and then take us home. He would listen to our endless chatter and silly jokes. He never offered advice unless we asked for it, and he always kept his promises. e most important lesson I learned in my encounters with these people is that God must have an amazing imagination and a mischievous sense of humor to put three such different people not only in the same church but also in my path. I guess you could say it was divine providence that I learned the lessons that each of them taught me, even if one of those lessons was merely to figure out how to avoid spending time in the BROWN CHAIR. M y religious experiences as a child were a mixed bag of tender and frightening moments. One of my first memories of going to church was getting locked out of the Sunday School building when I was about 4 years old. My father, who was the Sunday School treasurer at the time, had brought my three older sisters and me with him that winter morning. Somehow, in the short distance from our station wagon to the building, I became separated from my family. When you are the youngest person in the group, it is very easy for the older ones to assume you are keeping pace with them. Before I knew what was happening, I saw my sister Amy go into the building, pulling the door shut behind her. I pulled on the doorknob and banged on the door, all to no avail. I was stranded outside in the cold. Shivering and fighting back tears, I walked back to the car and climbed inside. I lay down in the very back behind the second row of seats and began to cry. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I remembered was my father waking me and putting his jacket around my shoulders. Feeling safe and warm in my father's arms, I vowed then and there that I would never be the last one in any line ever again. e prospect of being abandoned on a frigid Sunday morning was not the most frightening scenario I could imagine at the SOMEDAY YOU'LL THANK ME Suffer the little children BY MARY ZAHRAN When you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. Truist Bank, Member FDIC. © 2022 Truist Financial Corporation. Truist, the Truist logo and Truist Purple are ser vice marks of Truist Financial Corporation.

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