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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