Hair like wool

Growing up, I was a PK times two. Dad preached on Sundays in the small sanctuary of our humble church plant. Mom taught Sunday school in the classroom down the hallway. For a half hour each week, she was momma to eight kids instead of just my sister and me.

Mom’s assistants were two puppets: Patchy the rabbit and Snowball the dog. Snowball was saved, because he had accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and was destined for that ethereal abode where all dogs go, including the one made out of a gym sock and a foam ball. Patchy, on the other hand (literally), was the unbeliever, the doubter, the heathen whom faithful Snowball ever endeavored to witness to. This Shakespearean drama of existential stakes for the eternal soul of a brown button-eyed rabbit puppet played out on a weekly basis before a rapt audience of children sucking on Jolly Ranchers. More than 30 years later, poor Patchy still isn’t saved. (According to Mom, Patchy’s redemption will come when Mom has grandchildren.)

Mom also had a felt board and an assortment of stickable Bible people: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of Jesus, the disciples. The Jesus sticker was White with straight hair like the rest of them, a thin frame robed in spotless white, aquiline features set in a serene expression. Except Mom had made an ever-so-slight but essential modification. She’d taken a colored pencil and, with a careful hand, very lightly shaded Jesus’ face and hands a soft brown. With her brown pencil, Mom resisted centuries of violent whitewashing, both psychological and visual, so that we could recognize ourselves in our Savior.