Let’s see, where do I start? And for that matter does
anyone care?
Answer: Well I do, or I wouldn’t spend the moment to
write about it and let you know how my roommate and I had the be-Jesus scared
out of our innocent little WASPish souls.
Late springtime in central Florida where our school
was lost on some country crossroads. As soon as dinner time was over, everyone
returned to their dormitories to do assigned homework and then lights out at
9:30.
“Hey Billy, they said at dinner announcement time that
those students who wished to could attend a tent meeting—something called a
revival. We just needed to sign up with Mr. Butler. Do you want to go? I don’t
know what they do, but they sing all those goofy church songs like Brighten the
Corner, In the Garden, and Jesus Loves Me. Stuff we never did when I was home.
It wasn’t a difficult choice to make; we could be
excused from homework. So began our big adventure into the world of being born
again. Trouble with that idea was that as two fourteen year olds we had never
known our moms didn’t already do the job once. Did they leave a part out and
these folks could fix it for you? I wondered if they could repair my Ranger
two-wheeler; make hair grow on my chest.
The tent was full of people stomping and crying and
waving their hands, and some were even dancing—which was not allowed at the
school. And it sure was awful hot in that tent.
Billy and I slipped inside, by the rows of chairs with
their swinging and swaying occupants, close to the tent wall and tried to
disappear. I had never seen people in this state except that time my big
brother took me to the movies to see “Reefer Madness.”
The singing stopped and the people sank into their
chairs. Then a big man dressed in a white suit, a little black string time with
beads of perspiration running down his forehead began shouting something about
hellfire and brimstone—whatever that was.
We both started to wonder why we were here and what
had we gotten ourselves into. And how could we escape? When several ladies all
dressed in flowing white dresses—sort of like angels I guess—passed among the
crowd holding out little baskets. Then they all sang a song and swayed a lot.
The big man cried out for all the little ones to come
forward to receive the word. We tried to shrink into the tent wall. This was
all so different and now we were being compelled to participate in an activity
totally foreign to anything we had ever learned.
They made us kneel down and mumbled something. Then we
were pushed aside to make room for more lambs being led to whatever. At this
point Billy and I found an opening in the crowd and headed for the tent
entrance.
Once into the cool evening breeze, heavy with the
scent of orange and grapefruit blossoms, our familiar world came into focus and
we had escaped from the clutches of hellfire and brimstone. The experience
being such that if that is the way Jesus loves you, we politely declined. Stick
with God is Love.
In more recent days when we are sometimes blessed with
our own reasoning, I acknowledge any number of compulsive actions—some bad and
some really great, at least at the time.
But ever since that formative religious compulsion, I
have learned to think for myself and find my own direction to “salvation,” if
that is on the timetable. All ashore who are going ashore!
© 9 November 2015
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