The Rev. Susan Sparks tells a wonderful story about her grandmother whom she and the rest of the family called Ganny.  Ganny lived in a tiny town in South Carolina, says Rev. Sparks, and when they’d go to visit, the aroma of all kinds of good things cooking would float through her screen porch and out into the yard to greet them: delicious Southern dishes like creamed corn, collard greens and hopefully cornbread. 

She says “hopefully, cornbread” because the one thing Ganny could not cook was biscuits. Now, as some of you may know, this is a sin for a grandmother in the South. Ganny, Rev. Sparks says, was just not a big believer in things like baking soda or baking powder.  On those ominous days when she would decide to bake biscuits, she would open the door of her wood stove and pull out …