The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

“Sometimes I wonder if Eula finds fault with all these men because secretly she doesn’t want any of them, and is just doing what’s expected of her.”

Eula is pressured by her upbringing to pursue men and try to find a husband. She is in her late thirties or forties and continually finds fault in all of the men she dates, most likely because deep down, she doesn’t want to end up with any of them–she wants to end up with Caroletta.

“Do you think God wants you, or anybody, to go untouched for decades and decades? For their whole lives? […] All those women at church who think they have to choose between pleasing God and something so basic, so human as being held and known in the most intimate way.”

Caroletta asks Eula this in desperation to help her understand that she should be allowed to be happy and pursue pleasure. She challenges her to try to expand her understanding of God and God’s plan for her rather than thinking so rigidly.

“In the cramped space of the back seat and of our grief and our need, there was no room for guilt or fear. Only relief.”

The woman in “Not-Daniel” feels like she should be experiencing guilt because she is sleeping with a married man, yet she only feels relief from the grief she’s experiencing because her mother is slowly dying. She finds comfort in another stranger who is experiencing the same thing as her. Philyaw indirectly compares the coping strategies of the woman and Not-Daniel’s Christian mothers to their own strategy, which involves no guilt, shame, or inhibitions.