Growing up in the sixth pew ~ February 19, 1987

David Heiller

We stood at the back of the church, hand in hand. A scattering of people spread through the back pews on the left hand side, our side. The very back pew sat vacant, but nobody sits in the very back pew of a church. It’s bad manners.

So hand in hand, we stepped forward one pew, two pews, three pews, breaking new ground as we progressed six pews up, the farthest ever for us. No more hiding in the back of the church. The sixth pew challenged us, and we took it up like soldiers of the cross, marching as to war.

Α solitary figure satin the sixth pew, as we slid in beside her. I recognized Mardy Youngberg. She smiled at us. I nodded back and gulped. Here was the test, the sixth pew, all those people behind us taking notes, and Mardy Youngberg at our side. Ι could just read her column of Bremen News in this week’s American:

Α mild uproar occurred last Sunday at Faith Lutheran Church as David Heiller and his…

A tiny voice interrupted my thoughts.

“I want to go home, Daddy.”

My son, Noah, looked at me. The tiny voice echoed into a louder whisper: “I want to go home, Daddy.”

Noah had been looking at Mardy Youngberg too and he eyed her once more as he repeated the question. Here he was, sitting in the sixth pew, Carnegie Hall to a kid three and a half years old, with a full audience staring from behind and he’s got to be wedged in between his old man and a lady who looks like his grandmother. How the heck can you have any fun in church like that?

Child raising, reduced to its simplest form, is nothing more complicated than a series of threats, promises, and bribes, all of which can best be wielded when the right powers prevail. I carefully noted Noah’s expression as he eyed Mardy Youngberg and slid closer to me. This was not his usual church turf. Usually he had an entire pew farther in the back. Maybe two pews. In his prime, rivaled a busy bowling alley with his noisy crawling, stomping, pounding and whining. But blocked into the sixth pew like that, he couldn’t even lie down, let alone run wild and free.

So I held the power, on a sheer stroke of luck and Mardy Youngberg, and Ι knew it, and Noah knew I knew it.

Noah and David, a fine team!

‘We’ll go to Landwehr’s after church,” I promised. “I don’t want to go to Landwehr’s,” Noah said. “All right then, we won’t.”

“I want to go to Landwehr’s,” he said two seconds later.

“Then sit quietly, please.”

And that’s what Noah did. We read Little Red Riding Hood until the first hymn began. Noah sat when we sat, he stood when we stood, he even folded his hands on cue. I greased the wheels a little with a plastic bag of raisins, granola, and Cherrios. That’s the bribery part Ι mentioned.

Pastor Judith Wilt started the sermon, while Noah picked Cheerios out, one by one, and chewed them, one by one.

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” Pastor Wilt said to begin her sermon. “Everyone knows that song by little children.”

“I’m not little, I’m big,” Noah said in a voice almost loud enough for Pastor Wilt to hear.

Mrs. Youngberg glanced at me, and smiled at Noah. Noah smiled back.

“Yes, you’re big, so you have to be quiet in church,” Ι whispered. Noah sat quietly through the rest of the sermon.

Αs the service ended, we headed hand in hand for the door, leading the way in a march of triumph.

Pastor Wilt reached down to shake Noah’s hand. He looked up at her in surprise, as he shook her hand. “Aren’t you going to bless my head?” he asked her, putting his hand to his brow.

“That’s only at communion, at the front of the church,” she answered in a somber tone that hid her smile.

“Pastor Wilt forgot to bless my head,” Noah complained as he put on his coat. Here he had sat quietly through an entire church service, in the sixth pew no less, and all he gets is a handshake? Not even a pat on the head?

Well, maybe next time. And who knows? The seventh pew is beckoning.