Lizzie has decided that the only good thing about our neighborhood and the nearby park is the smells other dogs leave. So our “walks” consist mainly of me standing still while she sniffs, and dragging her like an anchor past the goose poop. Her favorite smells are in the pine needle mulch under all the trees. She could spend hours… It could be the heat, I don’t know. But woe-be the lazy rabbit or cat who thinks the dog doesn’t have it anymore—she can still give good chase. The other way to motivate her is to offer a ride in the car and a walk in some new location. I rarely see pleasure as pure as when she has her head out the window and her face in the wind.
On last evening’s tour of Northwest Guilford graveyards I listened in on a radio sermon from the Yadkinville Baptist Church. The reverend warned against using your children as an excuse to not attend church; because God has a way of removing your excuses. That’s one of the most sinister threats I’ve ever heard from a man of God (though I admit to not paying much attention to men of God—at least modern ones) and that’s certainly now how this doubter interprets the omnipotent-mortal relationship.
Which is all my way of saying that the Baptists I met today from Montgomery, Anson, and Chatham Counties were a blast, and proved exceedingly interesting. Naturally I mean Baptists ca. 1830-1860. On a congregational meeting-minute-level, they’re as fascinating as any Methodist and Quaker church I’ve seen. Part of this, I think, is the individuality afforded to Baptist congregations. Some were in people’s business all the time, punishing drinkers, uncovering adultery, punishing spouse-abusers; other congregations couldn’t seem to be bothered with any of that. In fact, the churches in the Pee Dee Association were so ambivalent about temperance reform that the formation of Temperance Societies had to be enforced from the Association level—a real un-Baptist move. One member of a Montgomery County Baptist church got expelled for joining a temperance society (she was readmitted once the general mood changed.) You just don’t see that kind of fun in a Methodist quarterly meeting minute.
The folks at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library's N.C. Baptist Historical Collection at Wake Forest were fantastic. Their finding aids easy to use; they were solicitous of my progress throughout the day, and best of all, the room was very well air conditioned, so I didn’t sweat all over 150 year-old documents. ew. I plan to be back Wednesday, which is kind of appropriate.
Alright, time to drag the dog through the neighborhood again.
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