Thursday, January 22, 2015

Chapter Eight

Blaine started the tape. Hearing his father’s voice startled him. That voice. That long-ago, preacher voice. The voice that Blaine believed as a child was God actually speaking through Big Carl. It had been a long time since he'd heard it. For the last couple of years—since his mom died, really—Big Carl had sounded frail and old on the phone. The booming bravado in Blaine’s memories was missing. Now here it was blaring from an old cassette tape player. It pulled Blaine in.

Big Carl gave the congregation instructions concerning where to turn in their Bibles. A peculiar sensation started to form in Blaine’s stomach; it felt like a mixture of fear and sadness. Blaine pushed away the feelings and focused on the story his father was telling.

“A little boy told his mother he was having trouble sleeping at night. She said, ‘Why can’t you sleep, son?’ He said, ‘Mama, there’s a whole lot of dust under my bed and it scares me.’ She said back to him, ‘Son, why would the dust under your bed scare you?’ He says, ‘Well, Mama, my Sunday school teacher said that from dust we came and to dust we shall return. I can't sleep knowing that under my bed somebody is either coming or going!”

Blaine heard church people laughing like they were hearing standup comedy. "Sad," he thought. He could remember four different occasions that Big Carl had told that same story to those same people. They laughed every time like it was the first time. Weird. His dad made a couple of remarks out of mic range and continued.

“Fear is a common human emotion. And one of the most common fears is the fear of flying. People avoid it, take a train or drive, they medicate themselves, they sit for entire flights holding onto the armrest like that’s going to keep the plane from going down. But while some people fear flying, many people have a lifelong fascination with it. Have you ever dreamed you were flying? Without an airplane, I mean? I have. Pretty simple explanation for why we dream that. It has to do with wanting to get above your circumstances, with feeling like you need to escape. I’m glad everybody is not afraid of flying. I’m glad when I need to get to Charlotte to see my mama that I don’t have to drive 13 hours. I’m glad pilots aren’t afraid to fly, and stewardesses. Do they still call them that?”

Muffled sounds from the congregation.

“Oh, flight attendants, yeah, that’s right. Don't get me started. Anyway, flying is an age-old quest. A most common desire, this desire to fly. Men tried to fly for centuries before they figured it out. They jumped from high places; they ran with contraptions on their backs, pedaled until their legs gave out. Icarus, Leonardo DaVinci, the Wright Brothers. Our literature and history books are full of stories of men trying to rise above the shackles of gravity. Scientists say that there is DNA that they have no idea what it is for and some folks theorize that it is the untapped ability to fly. Now there’s a thought that'll keep you up at night.”

Big Carl was notorious for dropping a bomb like that into the middle of a sermon. He wasn't exactly well-read, but he read a wide variety of stuff. He preached without notes. The bulk of his sermon was stream-of-consciousness, so as he remembered something he'd read, which may or may not pertain to his subject, he would say it, without a lot of explanation. His congregation thought he was a deep thinker. Blaine knew better. Big Carl was about as deep as a Petri dish. Blaine’s word for his father’s preaching style was a made-up word he had heard another preacher use: Scatteratic. And the congregation mistook their own confusion for awe.

Big Carl had moved on.

“Ezekiel 37:1 says, ‘The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones,’ God’s hand was upon Ezekiel. And he knew it. There is nothing like that feeling, nothing like knowing that the living, powerful, mighty God, the All Sufficient One, yes, the Eternal One, the Holy One, who created everything out of nothing, I said He created everything that is - out of nothing - and to know, to know that He has His hand on you. Mmmm…I already feel His hand on me in this service. I said, I feel His hand right now. It’s called the anointing. He’s here to touch you, too. Whatever you need today, He will supply. God is a good God. I said, God is a good God. Can you say amen? Oh, I'm about to get happy in this place, but I've got a message to preach. I need to show you in God’s word that there is a recipe for Revival.”

“God placed his hand on Ezekiel…you know while I’m there, let me just say that there are all sorts of people: preachers, ministers, evangelists, men who say they are men of God, who claim - and maybe really believe - that the hand of God is upon them, but talk is cheap, you ever heard that? Doesn't the Bible say that many will stand before God and say that they cast out devils and did great things…talk, talk, talk, even to God - all they got is talk. Where is their fruit? Where are the changed lives? Where is the revival? Hoo boy, I could stay there awhile; let me get back to Ezekiel.”

“Ezekiel had more than just talk; he had an encounter with the miracle-working God. It’s one thing to say the hand of God is on you, to have some tingly, goose bumps run up and down your spine but it’s quite another to be CARRIED AWAY BY THE HOLY GHOST!!! I’m gonna shout! I’m telling you, you better clear a path for me down that center aisle, ‘cause I’m gonna shout!!!”

Blaine sighed knowing the next few moments would be taken up with an emotional outburst from the people there. He could hear the organ as it began to play the chord progressions that would get it started. He could hear their loud shouts of “Halleluia” and “Praise the Lord” mingled with other talking and laughing and crying that was all labeled, along with running and dancing, as “shouting.” It was a Pentecostal thing. To "shout" was more than just loud talking.      

Blaine hit “Fast Forward.” Three times he restarted the tape and three times they were still carrying on. Blaine sat and stared at the now silent tape player. Only someone who was Pentecostal in the 70’s could understand how that flat, black machine made him feel. Not nostalgic, exactly. Just transported back to a time when “Tape ministries” were an integral part of church life. The portable model tape player was a common accessory at church services and conventions. Other people had cassette players, but Pentecostals lived with them, carried them around, on top of their Bibles. They taped meetings for themselves and swapped the bootleg recordings like baseball cards. It was a freaky, hard-to-explain subculture. Information was effectively disseminated, passed person to person, through those tapes and nothing in later years would replace the fervor that people felt back then for cassette tapes.

Blaine stood up abruptly. He had lost interest in listening for now. He decided to take a little road trip to clear his head. He snatched up the tape, headed out of the house and into his car.

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