Many years, and a few lifetimes, ago going to church on Sundays was a mandatory thing. This was back in the days of Sunday dinners, screen doors, cookouts and lots of friends being around. My parents would wake us up on Sunday mornings with an announcement of the time and add the solemn, “So get ready…” for good measure. Back then you didn’t have a choice, church was just one of those things that you had to do.
We attended Macedonia Baptist Church here in Newnan. My memories of the place are fond, softball games, going out to eat, listening to the sermons, writing notes back and forth with the people my age when we weren’t listening… there were a few preachers there while I attended, I liked them all, each one for a different reason… plus they were all pretty good speakers. That was always my favorite part of going, listening to the pastor preach. The one continuity of the pastors I had experience with there was their close adherence to time. Most of them would check their watches constantly while speaking. You could tell it was getting close to time for the service to be over when the guy in the choir behind the pulpit would start nodding off to sleep. They were a group of fairly soft spoken men, loud enough to hear, but they didn’t get carried away or shout when they preached... Most of the congregation seemed to like that.
There was a time when the church found itself without a pastor. There was a committee formed, there is always some sort of committee formed at church, that was to travel around and seek out a new preacher. One Sunday my father had announced on the way to church that there was going to be a new pastor speaking that day. Several different people had been through in the past few Sundays and the hierarchy of the church had shot them down for first one reason or another… church politics, at times, can be more cutthroat than the congressional halls in Washington…
The routine played itself out as it had for the past few people that had been through. The question floating around the Sunday school classes was, “Do they have any kids?” Turns out they did… he had a son that was our age. My brother knew him from a retreat he had gone to on the Georgia coast…
When eleven o’clock rolled around we sat down in the sanctuary and waited for the new guy to show himself. He walked out of the side door and made his way to the pulpit. The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing boots… I liked that. He was of medium height, an average looking man… who had the same squint eyed stare that my own father had. I knew then that he was one of those people that could bring a room to order without really saying anything. A few notes were passed around prior to the sermon, but I was waiting to hear what he had to say. I remember him walking up to the pulpit, you could've heard a pin drop, the floor creaked a bit as he took his place and laid the bible he carried down before him. He took his watch off and set it next to his bible, then looked up at the congregation. I couldn’t tell you what the first words he said were, but I can still remember the way everyone jumped when he started speaking. His voiced boomed through the room and everyone was suddenly awake, I couldn’t help but giggle when I noted the sleeping guy in the choir almost jump out of his skin…What followed as a sermon that I listened to from the first word to the last. This man was a great speaker. That was my introduction to Ray Freeman…
Ray had come out of south Georgia, preaching in churches for many years. I think the reason I took to the man was the way he reminded me of my own father. He had that John Wayne sort of way of talking to people that made you just listen to him. He was interested in the same sort of things that I grew up with so the feel was that a long lost uncle had come back to town. His wife, Miss Faye, is one of the best cooks I’ve ever encountered, there were many a Sunday afternoon that we would raid their refrigerator for the best meal you could imagine, cold fried chicken. I would love to do that one more time….
My grandparents were very fond of Ray. He would visit with them often and whenever I went down there they always talked about him. My own fondness for him over the years grew out of watching him as a pastor, more so than a preacher. He met with and knew everybody in the community. He has an easy spirituality about him, he doesn’t try to beat you over the head with a bible. As my grandmother would often say, “Brother Ray is a good man, you can just tell that he is, he would sit and talk with us for hours, you would never know he was a preacher, just a good man that loves God…” They looked forward to seeing him whenever he visited.
He met with everybody and took an interest in whatever it was they were doing. He attended all of the cookouts and barbecues, his sense of humor would make me chuckle, getting in that one “unpastor like” line as he walked away that always made you spray the sweet tea out of your mouth… I liked the way that he was a natural community leader. The man is a master of the soft sell, he didn’t have to tell you about God, or preach to you about your wrongdoings, he could just look at you and you knew you were about to get it if you didn’t straighten up. A classic example of ministering by lifestyle… If there was a sickness in the family, or something awful had happened, he was there. You could count on him at all times. He did the wedding ceremony when I was married, and I’m glad he was able to do it.
I had stopped going to church and hadn’t seen him in years when my father passed away. The awful night when my father’s “viewing” took place at the local funeral home is one that was a blur of colors and sound. There are only a very few moments that I can recall in total. Different people had an affect on me as I was shaking hands with them, some stronger than others. One of those moments happened when I was standing by the window looking out across the front lawn of the building when I turned around and saw Ray. For some reason that was the moment that the realization of the loss I felt hit me. He walked over and hugged me, and for one brief second in time it was almost as if my dad was there and I was about to sit down and listen to them talk about deer hunting while we ate some of my grandfathers barbecue… and for that inner peace Ray brought me at that moment, I will forever be thankful…
Ray’s son, David, contacted me a while back and asked if I would make a walking stick for his father. Ray’s getting on in years now, and is finding it more difficult to get around, yet I imagine he could still kick my butt if he took a notion. I went out and found a stout piece of sweet gum from by my dad’s shop and cut it down. David asked if I could put a quail on it for him, in light of his love of bird hunting. I searched the internet for a picture of a quail, but decided to just freehand an image on it and burn it in for him. For the times he inspired and comforted me over the years, I felt he deserved a creation that came directly from me.
I want to tell Ray, thank you for showing me what a true man of God is….
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