Church of our Lady Scarlett O'Hara

Lately, the subject of tradition keeps coming up, particularly southern traditions and our kooky, southern ways. I think Ouiser from Steel Magnolias summed it best

Ousier: Here. (Throwing a bag of homegrown tomatoes at the ladies in the salon) Tomatoes. Somebody’s gotta take em. I hate em.

Arnelle: Then why do you grow ‘em?

Ousier: Because, I’m an old southern woman. We are supposed to wear funny lookin’ hats, ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt. Don’t ask me those questions. I don’t know why! I don’t make the rules!

How true! We don’t know why we do them, we just do. Recently, I was going to a potluck and a dear friend of mine asked if the people coming to the potluck made normal food. I wasn’t sure what she meant. She said “Do they mess up food, like deviled eggs? Deviled eggs are not supposed to have smoked salmon and capers on them, Laura! Good southern women don’t mess up deviled eggs!” Now I’m not a fan of deviled eggs, but my friend has got a point. There are just some things we southerners just don’t do.

When I got married, a sweet Southern Lady gave me a deviled egg dish. She said “Laura, every good Southern women needs one.” Graciously, I accepted this sweet gift (without telling her that I HATE deviled eggs). For some reason, I could not get rid of the dish. For years I had this deviled egg dish sitting in my cabinet, just taking up space, but couldn’t let it go. I kept asking myself “Why I’m holding on to this thing?“ The only reason I could come up with is because you never know when you MIGHT need it. What if I needed to do an Easter Egg display? Shabam! Deviled Egg dish to the rescue. So after many years of struggle, I finally gave up the deviled egg dish. But gave it to another true southern lady, my sister, who loves deviled eggs.

Often, I take for grated the reason we do things and our southern heritage. I just assume that the rest of the world does things like us to. A good friend of mine, who will remain nameless because she is a Yankee, is always asking me why we do the things we do. She thought that all southerners were evangelical Christians. Not true. There are many degrees of the Christianity in the south. So I explained to her the degrees of evangelical Christians in the south, based on denomination. Your list may vary, but here’s mine, from least evangelical to the “bible thumping, snake-handling, you ain’t going home till your right with God” Christians:

Catholic
Episcopalian
Presbyterian
Methodist
Baptist
Church of God or Church of Christ (tie)

Southerners are religious people. We come from a long line of Protestant, Scotch Irish, English and German stock. Mention revival to a southerner, and they know that that means a week of church, usually in the summer time, often under a tent and there is a empty KFC bucket being passed down the rows for the offering. Whereas in other parts of the world, a revival could mean to them the reopening of a beloved Broadway play like “Fiddler on the Roof” or a furniture style like “Oh, Brad, I love that Greek revival settee” But in the south, revival means your going to be praying. All. Week. Long.
When my dad died, I learned more about us southerners. We are good people, but in times of crisis, we shine. We will supply you with more casseroles, sandwiches, cole slaw, fried chicken, pies, cookies, cakes, cokes, lemonade and sweet tea than you will ever need. Then we will follow up with a note, usually on our personal stationary, just letting you know that we are thinking of you and keeping you in our prayers. Do you know that mother personally keeps all the Hallmark stores in her town going? As long as my Mom is around, they will do great business. When Mom realizes that she forgot to send the sweet lady at church a card because it’s the 39 anniversary since her husband died, she runs out, gets a card, fills it with meaningful, thoughtful words and puts it in the mail by the end of the day and then says “Whew! That was close! I almost forgot! Thank goodness I put it on my task reminder!”

I kid you not, the week Dad died, someone was reorganizing the refrigerator at Mom’s 2 times a day, trying to fit the wonderful gifts of sympathy into it. And when John and I got home, for 6 weeks, our mail box was full of sympathy cards and notes just letting us know they were thinking of us.

I could go on and on. Yeah, I know, we are kooky group of people. But y’all keep moving to the south, so we must be doing something right! And we’ll be by your house later on this week with a green bean casserole and some deviled eggs to welcome you to the neighborhood! Did you know we have several church in the neighborhood? First Methodist, First Pres, First Baptist and the catholic church - the Church of our Southern Lady Scarlet O’Hara. Yep, they are just a few blocks down…..