Trespassers Will Be Baptized -- Elizabeth Emerson Hancock

Raised in Eastern Kentucky the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, Elizabeth Emerson Hancock was blessed with a father whose sense of humor and duty to his calling were never in question, and a mother who didn't always fit the mold of the Southern Baptist Preacher Wife. Emerson's wry wit cracked me up more than once, and made me sorry I was raised a Presbyterian -- clearly Southern Baptist children have more raw material with which to work when they become memoirists.

So the way I saw it, I only had one option to fulfill my holy destiny. I'd take advantage of the special truth God had revealed to me through Betty's dying -- that while passing out tracts with a magician's flourish and knitting sweaters for the cold were great missionary-talents of Baptists, their most inspired endeavors came when someone, anyone, got sick as a dog. For nearly a year, I had been witness to the great Southern Baptist artistry of working human suffering the way that some people could carve in marble or compose in music. Withered old church ladies who spent most of their time moaning and drooping off the front pews had suddenly become invigorated when the word came down that a soul was on its way out. Suddenly enough fruitcakes got baked to rebuild Jericho..... Suddenly there were no complaints. Just joy out of sorrow like wine from water.

I decided that the only way a kid my age could hope to really make the church take notice, could even dream of inspiring enough of God's glory to get her own name in the front of an honorary pew hymnal, would be to toe the line between distressed and divine for a while herself. I decided I'd volunteer to become afflicted -- sick, but holy. And famous. But with a purpose, of course.

What I especially enjoyed about Trespassers Will be Baptized was Hancock's affection and admiration for her parents, both of whom were loving and nurturing. When Hancock's father shares with her his own love for the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

"Now this," he said, "This is what keeps me going. People just singing about what keeps their hearts beating, what keeps them sane. Where they put their troubles; where they count their blessings."

When, much later in the book Elizabeth falls dangerously ill, and doctors suggest putting restraints on her to hold her still for a spinal tap, her father refuses, saying that he will hold her instead.

Everything in the room was silent. Tammy didn't make a sound as she wiped the alcohol over the bottom of my bare back, and I think the chill must have come through my bones and hit Daddy, because I thought I heard him make a shivering sound. Then I realized, he wasn't shivering. He was humming. It was some sort of hymn, I thought at first. But it couldn't be, it didn't have all the glory and rumbling about it that a hymn has. And then he added the words, so slowly and softly that even the doctors couldn't hear them. And I remembered.

"...don't you ever ask them why...if they told you you would cry...just look at them and sigh...and know they love you."

Just a delightful and warm and loving memoir, and recommended!