The Church of the Nazarene

Catholics, in Brooklyn Indiana were scarce. In fact we were the only Catholic family in town. You could count Mrs. Losh, but she lived on Cabin Row, which I never considered to be part of Brooklyn. She was also just one little old lady, not a Family, and she wasn’t a regular attender, not like the Witmers. In all my years in Brooklyn I only remember one time when we did not all pile into the VW Micro Bus and make the eleven-mile trek to Martinsville to attend St. Martins Church. A blizzard had dumped two-feet of snow, the night before, and the only hope of having the Witmers represented at Sunday Mass was for Mom and Dad to make a run for it in the Rambler. The Rambler had a posi-traction rear-end and, in theory, could cut through the deep snow. Even so, the kids would have to stay behind. Besides there not being enough room for all of us in the sedan; it was too dangerous for children to be out in a blizzard. The possibility of nine children being orphaned when the Rambler slid off the road and plummeted into a ravine, didn’t seem to be an issue.

Brooklyn was protestant through and through. There were three Churches within three blocks of our house, that’s probably what put the “Church" in Church Street. The most mysterious of these Churches was The Brooklyn Church of The Nazarene. The Nazarenes were a “Holiness” denomination which meant the women did not cut their hair, did not wear make-up and kept their arms and legs covered. When they met to worship, the whole neighborhood could hear the exuberant “AMEN”s and “YES LORD”s. Kim and Kevin Dyer used to speculate with us about what was going on in the church. Curiosity got the better of Kevin and he actually went to a service. Kevin was about nine-years old when he recounted, complete with reenactments, his experience in the worship service.

“First they started beatin on the pews, then they started beatin on the floor…” At this point Kevin got down on the ground and demonstrated. “…Then they all ran up and started beatin on the altar!” Whether any of this was true or not I will never know. I could have never pulled off what Kevin did. I would have stuck out like a sore thumb, the catholic boy in a Nazarene church. I would have been spotted as soon as I walked in the door when I would have asked where the holy water was, so that I could make a proper sign-of-the cross. Kevin, on the other hand, blended in.