“Down the hall the children slept three to a bedroom; Hattie could almost hear them growing, their wrists lengthening and poking out beyond the cuffs of their sleeves, their feet outgrowing their shoes, their shoulders widening and pulling the fabric of their coats taut.” ChildrenWorryGrowing Book:The Twelve Tribes of Hattie Source: The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
“A belief in God may not be fully within me anymore, but there's still a belief in belief. The high drama and power of the Church has stayed with me. As a child in church, I saw grown men at the altar crying out for God's mercy. And the idea of someone doing that has become a joke in the popular culture, but when you are there and you see it, you experience - for a moment - an incredibly raw, honest, strange insight into what it means to be a human being. Those experiences don't leave you. Whatever you think of them, they are powerful experiences.” ThinkingMenMeanChildrenMomentsCultureBeliefChurchPowerfulHonestCryStrangeDramaJokesMercyInsightPopular CultureBelief In God Author:Ayana Mathis
“Certainly I had from an early age a sense of the power and beauty of religious texts - the awesome magnitude of the Bible stories I was reading as a child. The hymns. The sermons. I can still vividly hear the sermons and the pieces of soft piano music played after them, the preacher asking if anyone wanted to come up to the altar and accept Christ as their savior.” ChildrenAgeReadingChristReligiousAcceptingSaviorPreacher Author:Ayana Mathis