Reverend Feelgood by Lutishia Lovely

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    “Nettie Jean!” Mama Max responded, working to move her size-eighteen frame just a little faster. Nearing three score and ten, she still liked to think she was as fast and feisty as any forty or fifty year old, and thanks to the twice weekly workouts she did with her daughter-in-law, Tai, this was sometimes the case.
    “Lord, you’re a sight for sore eyes, Mama,” Nettie said, her eyes unexpectedly welling up with tears.
    “Well, your eyes sure been viewing some sore situations lately,” Mama Max said as she enveloped Nettie in a long bear hug. “But you just rest your soul,” she added as she patted her coiffed bun and followed Nettie to the car. “Mama’s here!”
    Mama Max, her husband, the retired Reverend Doctor Pastor Bishop Overseer Mister Stanley Obadiah Meshach Brook Jr., along with their son and daughter-in-law, King and Tai Brook, KCCC pastors Derrick and Vivian Montgomery, and a host of others, had descended on the tiny town of Palestine for Nate’s momentous fifth anniversary as senior pastor of the Gospel Truth Church. Nettie had been busier than she could remember ever being. It seemed as if she’d blinked and it was June, and time for the week of faith-filled festivities. Truth was, there had been a lot on her plate. She was glad to finally have Mama Max here in the flesh, her ever-ready and ever-resourceful sounding board.
    “So, girl, tell me the latest,” Mama Max encouraged as she got into Nettie’s black on black Infiniti SUV and pulled the belt over her sizable stomach. She pulled her “sunshades,” as she called them, out of her purse and put them on. The large white glasses completed her summer-go-to-meeting ensemble of an oversized, floral top in greens, pinks, yellows, and lavenders over white capri pants and one-inch flat sandals. Mama Max might be getting older but as she often told the younger women: “I’ll carry style to my grave, honey-chile…. That and my purse!”
    “Whew, Lord, it’s hot here in Texas,” Mama Max rattled on when Nettie failed to answer her question. “Hotter than red pepper sauce on a fireman’s backside, and that’s while he’s fighting the fire!” Mama Max hooted at her own joke, generated purposely to lessen the uptight atmosphere.
    “Mama Max, I’m so glad you’re here,” Nettie said, taking her right hand off the wheel and squeezing Mama Max’s left one. “I thought I’d seen and heard it all, but what’s going on in Palestine right now? It’s a soap opera for real.”
    “Girl, you ain’t telling me nothing. I been in church a long time. People watching As the World Turns think they’re getting some drama. Hmph. They need to tune in to As the Church Turns, baby, walk into the nearest sanctuary and stay there for a Sunday or two. They’d see performances worthy of Grammys, Emmys, and everything else, and more mess than one can gather from a chicken coop first thing in the morning!
    “So let’s start with Simone. Will she be at the program?”
    Nettie sighed deeply and jumped into the muck and miry saga of Noble and Thicke. “She’s coming, and she’s on program to sing. We’re going to make the announcement at the early morning service on Sunday, and hope that will stop a few tongues from waggin’.”
    “And what is the reason you’re giving?”
    “Mark will be there too.” Nettie sighed again.
    “Girl, this situation is either God or good God almighty!”
    “Either way, the train has left the station and is headed down the road.”
    “Mark Simmons,” Mama Max murmured. “I ain’t seen that boy since he was…what—a teenager I think? Lord, where does the time go?”
    “Wherever it went, he’s a man now. And a good one. The more I’ve had a chance to sit with this thing, the more I believe it is God I heard that night. I think Mark believes it too.”
    Mark Simmons was Nettie’s nephew, Nate’s cousin, and close enough in looks that the two could pass for brothers. Seven years older and three inches