Clara Ward
An old helpless old woman was treated badly at a food court downtown were I used to work. People use foul words and threw her out because she smelled bad. My experience with the old lady reminds me of The Welcome Table by Alice Walker (1994). Clara Ward was treated badly at church despite hypocrisy she was not moved because of her faith in Jesus.
The fact is this Woman stopped in a church and gets treated with bad words and unjustness. The white people wont her thrown out because they are racist Christians. This could be because they all feel uncomfortable about having someone of color among them or feel that this is their place of worship and she invaded their privacy. The white people people are stunned when they see her near the entrance of the Church and are curious of what to do. They all have a different point of view of the old lady; some take her in as she is, an old black woman with a mildewed dress that is missing buttons. Others look at her as black workers, cooks, and the others see her as black mistresses or jungle orgies. Most of all they look at her as a foreshadow of what to come, black people invading the one place that is still considered the white people sanctuary, the Church. They see her and start to be afraid because of her presence and wont her dismiss at once.
The point of view switches to the usher who tells the old black lady to leave. The point of view switches back to the white woman inside the Church, who takes it a personal insult and feel the most threatened about the old black woman being in their church. Then they rouse their husbands to throw the old lady out. The white woman was happy and scornful after the old woman was out of their church. The old woman was not a happy camper when they threw her out the church.
Suddenly, she saw something that made her jump for joy, her imagination made her believe she was looking at Jesus coming down the road. She pictured Jesus just like the picture hanging over her bed at home. The old lady was so happy she saw Jesus and started waving at him so he can see her. She was so convinced it was Jesus she was talking with him and following him. The old lady told Jesus She knew the people that tossed her out the Church and how she clean and nursed them. She was walking with Jesus and was breathing hard to keep up to keep up with Jesus. She started to hallucinate because she was dying walking on her way to Haven to be with Jesus.
The people in the Church never knew what happen to the old woman; they didnt care because they are racists people. Many of them saw Jungle orgies in an evil place (2). The only thing that was evil is the congregation. They are unwilling to welcome her into their church because they know this woman. The pastor may have called her Auntie and the usher may have called her Granma. The use of these words symbolizes a relationship with this woman, a relationship that they have outside of the church, but are unwilling to have inside the church.
Work Cited
Listening for God by Paula J. Carlson and Peter S.
Hawkins. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994
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