She was an old spinster, Great Aunt Charlotte, but she became a profound illustration of life in many churches. Born in 1889 in Ely, Minnesota, one of the three older sisters of my grandfather, Jack, Sr., she lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three. Mathilda was her middle name. Just before she died, my wife, our two children and I visited her in her old home.

Charlotte didn’t live on my grandpa’s farm, but when we are talking about Ely, nothing was far from the iconic farm, just outside of town. I was much older now and looking to revisit some of my early childhood memories. Easily finding the old woman’s home, it was located a few roads back from main street. Immaculately kept, it sported a white picket fence surrounding a meticulously maintained yard, the clapboard looked forever freshly painted; it was picture perfect. Apparently, she had a man take care of the outside of the house. Coming through the unsqueaky gate, we knocked on the door. Her scratchy voice called out, “I’ll be right there.” It took a while for her to get her bent body from the kitchen to the parlor and the front door. She fumbled at the multiple locks on the front door, and finally, we saw the doorknob turn back.

Opening up, she stood there in her properly kept old dress, likely her Sunday best, the same one she had worn for who knows how long; it was something from the days of black and white photography days before people experienced life in colored liveliness. Her grey hair was obviously a wig, coming down over her ears and swept back into a bun, neatly pulled tight. We were denied the insider knowledge of how she looked without the hairpiece.

She knew we were coming but would not have recognized us—and I didn’t recognize her but knew it was her from the name on the mailbox out front. She invited us in to sit in her parlor. The wallpaper on her walls looked old and musty but not peeling. The carpet was well used but not tattered. Light from the small imitation chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling glowed dimly, combining with the dusty sunlight streaming through the small parlor windows.

After a few minutes of stilted chit-chat, she invited us to sit down on the davenport in the parlor as she went to the kitchen to get the refreshments she spent the morning preparing. We examined the pictures on the wall, primarily black and white photos of who knows who, along with some ancient paintings, the kind you see in antique stores. Everything matched, but almost too perfectly, in a dull sort of way. It was just the way she liked it; for her, it was comfortable and familiar, so why change it? And it was warm, too warm for our comfort.

While sitting there, my son had picked up one of the accent pillows, the kind that decorates a sofa but is meant to be used by old folks who need the lumbar support for their lower back, and he began to spin it in his hands. What else is an eight-year-old boy to do while his parents are looking around, fascinated with this blast from the historical past, a truly Norman Rockwell scene, but with an olfactory experience; this was not Old Spice, the cologne, but the old-smell of a home long-lived-in by this spinster, my great aunt Charlotte.

She did not invite past the parlor, my guess being that the rest of the house did not rise to the presentment level of the parlor. But in time, she returned with what might be described as crumpets and tea. She quickly put the sterling silver tray down and swiftly (for an old person) crossed the room and scolded our son, “That pillow is not a toy; you shouldn’t play with it.” He looked at us with surprised eyes as he slowly stopped spinning it and put it down sheepishly. Everything had its place, and that’s how it had been for years.

My wife and I sat there as undisturbedly as possible, keeping our children under tight control as we forced a conversation with my great aunt Charlotte while sitting in her parlor, perfectly arranged and decorated just the way she wanted it, perfect for her taste and style. We gauged our children’s patience (and ours) as long as we could and finally got up to leave. I felt terrible, thinking we may have been the only visitors she had had in a long time, but we could only take so much. We bid her adieu and left by the same way we entered, through the front parlor door, down the sidewalk, grass trimmed neatly to the edges, and out the front gate of the white picket fence.

As we drove off, we commented that the house needed a complete makeover to loosen up the stodginess, redecoration, pulling off the old-style wallpaper, livening things up, and making it kid-friendly. Yet, that’s how my great aunt Charlotte liked it—and we concluded we would never want to change it as long as she lived there. It was hers, and it was just as she liked it. But we would never want to live there.

The experience reminds me of some churches I’ve been in: old, stodgy, musty, permeated with spiritual old-smell. I say this not to be critical but to observe that it is easy for a congregation to settle into old, comfortable ways, oblivious to how others see it. Same old hymns, same musty piano or organ sound, same kind of activities, same old prayers, same old same-old. When the children are old enough, they leave. Things are hidden away in the backrooms of the church’s history that no one is allowed to see or ask questions about. The shining light of the gospel seems dim and clouded by small, dusty windows. Picture perfect on the outside but musty on the inside. It’s just the way they like it, and I wouldn’t try to change it for them. They have a long life invested in getting it to where it is. But just like I would not want to live in my great aunt Charlotte’s parlor, I am also sure I wouldn’t want to raise a family there.