So, as I was saying in the blog The Quality of Friendship is Not Changed, one night Dan, Keevil, Jimmy and I somehow ended up going to this tent revival near the old Fairgrounds in Atlanta for a healing service.
I did stuff like that back then.
Anyway, we drive down to this big field where the huge circus-style tent had been erected, park in the field among all the other cars, and make our way inside.
The inside of the tent was kind of rectangular. The stage was in the middle, but closer to the south side of the middle of the tent. There were rows and rows of these old wooden folding chairs fanning out from the front of the stage.
Up on the stage was a choir, and a bit of a band, and a music director, and of course the preacher/prophet/healer.
There was a ramp running parallel to the stage that led up to a platform that was on the same level to and connected to the stage, and a similar ramp that ran from that platform back down to the ground. At the bottom of the ground on the far side was a big barrel, and inside the barrel there were crutches and stuff like that; leftovers, I guess, from previous healing services and the stuff left behind by formerly crippled people who no longer needed these aids.
What I learned was that the most important person in any service like this was the organist. Even all these years later, I can remember just how good this guy was. It was like a Hammond B3 organ, and the sound filled the tent.
And he set the tone. Whatever the mood inside the tent was supposed to be was established by the organist. It was like the soundtrack to a movie that you don't really pay attention to because the actions is so riveting, except that you know the action is riveting because the music tells you that it is.
So there's singing, and some preaching, and the people are exactly the kind of people you'd probably expect to be there (present company excepted, of course!). The crowd looked economically challenged; lots of overweight women and rail thin, leather-skinned men. Mostly they were older.
But they were mixed in race, which says something. These were people who came looking for hope, something to believe in, something to make them believe that life had meaning.
The organist was black; the preacher/prophet was white. Remember, this is early 1970s, so that was still significant. Even in my own church, you'd never have seen racially mixed worship. (see Conflict of Growing up Southern Baptist).
Anyway, Dan, Keevil, Jimmy and I are kind of hanging out in the back. We decide to walk around the tent, staying close to the edges. The tent wasn't full, so staying back by the edges kind of put us in shadows where no one really noticed us.
We walked around, listening, and made our way back behind the stage. No one stopped us - maybe because we were four middle-class looking white guys.
Behind the stage there was an ambulance, backed up to the back of the stage with its rear doors open. The stretcher was out of the ambulance and standing just behind the vehicle, and off to the side there was this little old white woman, wearing what looked like a thin hospital-issue robe over hospital issue-night gown. She was kind of peering out in a gap in the stage, looking out at the audience.
We finished walking the perimeter, and went back to see the finish. After all, we wanted to see the healing. I wanted to get as close as possible, so we moved kind of halfway down to get in the middle of the audience, as best we could.
That was when the preacher/prophet began to talk about healing. The organ music started low and slow, but as the preacher got warmed up to the subject, the louder and more excited the music got. The sense of anticipation began to grow.
(To this day, no matter what church I'm in, whenever I hear the music start to play quietly while the preacher prays, usually just before he asks people to consider making a decision, I think of that night in the tent.)
And then the preacher/prophet said something to the effect of, "Now, who came to see a miracle? We have a woman with us, from Jackson, Mississippi, who has ... (some debilitating disease or was the victim of some accident, I can't remember) ... and has been confined to bed for the past seven years!"
At this point, the paramedics wheeled out the stretcher, rolling it up the ramp to the platform in the front of the stage, and on it - you guessed it - that little old lady in the hospital gown!
So the preacher/prophet talks about harnessing God's healing power, and he's sweating now, and talking about this poor, poor "sister,'' and the organ music starts building again, and then preacher/prophet puts his hands on this poor woman and bounces her up and down a few times, like he's really struggling with her, or really feeling the power flowing through his arms, and she's convulsing and kind of flopping and the people are screaming and clapping and crying and the organ gets to the crescendo and ...
She sits up! She sits up and some men help move her to the side of the stretcher! She looks like she's trying to stand up, and the men - aids to the preacher/prophet - help her up, and the preacher/prophet stands behind her with his hands thrust in the air, fingers stretched toward heaven, eyes looking upward as if he's frozen, and suddenly ... she takes a step forward! And another! She's walking like Frankenstein's monster, but she's walking!
And the place goes crazy. The organ is sounding like the heavenly chorus itself has descended into this tent in an empty field at the end of the Lakewood Freeway! Handel's Messiah had nothing on this, never got a reaction like this!
The curse is broken! She's walking, for the first time in seven years!
Except, of course, for those few minutes behind the stage when Dan, Keevil, Jimmy and I saw her standing up and peering at the audience. But then, maybe this was just a creative re-enactment of the time she actually did receive her healing! I mean, it can't be easy to find a woman from Jackson, Mississippi, with such a debilitating injury/illness that she hasn't walked in seven years!
Regardless, the crowd went wild. I remember this tall, skinny old farmer-looking man next to us who jumped to his feet and started dancing, swirling around in circles, kicking over chairs, his hands raised in the air, talking in tongues. ... A rather large woman next to us was on her knees, tears streaming down her face, hands clasped together just under her chin ... women were waving handkerchiefs, men were twirling, people were laughing and barking and falling to the ground, slain in the spirit.
And just like that, the 'elders' came through the crowd with what looked like Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets, taking up a love offering, because if you wanted to receive a blessing from God on this night you had to be blessing first, and being a blessing meant giving!
People began lining up on the lower end of one side of the ramp, stumbling up to receive their blessing/healing as the preacher/prophet prayed over them, touched them, and then they practically danced down the other side of the ramp.
It was amazing. It was sad and wonderful at the same time.
Was it real? I mean, I know the woman in the stretcher was a fraud, but what about the others?
Here is something else I learned: these people believed. And I'm convinced that as flawed as the preacher/prophet was, as manipulating as the organist and organization was, the faith and hope and feeling of the people was sincere.
I hope - I believe - God honored that, even while He was no doubt broken-hearted by the deceit.
Oh, and remember how I said that was back when Jimmy had a new pair of contact lens that he wound up wearing too long, and the next day when I went to see him he was sitting in a dark room, wearing sunglasses, his eyes all red and blood-shot?
He'd have been perfectly willing to try the preacher/prophet.
When your pain is great enough, you'll try almost anything.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Sidebar: the Princess Bear was home, at a family gathering, when two of her very young cousins asked her, "Do you believe in crystals?"
The Princess Bear was taken aback. Believe in crystals? How could anyone not believe in crystals? They are rocks ... you can find them all over. What was not to believe in?
Then her young cousins said, "Our Daddy doesn't believe in crystals like we and Mommy do."
And the Princess Bear suddenly understood.
People place their faith in all kinds of things, from crystals to doctors to prophet/healers.
Me? If crystals have any power at all, it comes from the power that created them - just like doctors, whose knowledge comes from the one who is the author of all knowledge. Quite frankly, I'd rather believe in the power that created the crystals than believe in the crystals that were created by some other power.
Unless we're talking about Krystals.
Then I believe.
Oh, do I believe.
No comments:
Post a Comment