November 12, 2006

• The Return from Homework Hell

  Hi gang,

  It was nice to get people’s emails checking in.  Nothing was wrong, just was in the bowel of homework hell.  This isn’t part of the memoir series I’m working on, but it is a memoir piece, and not very long.  It was for an assignment to write a reaction to a speech, either famous or not famous, that had impacted your life.  I would challenge any writers out there to do the same. 

  Happy Reading & Productive Writing,

  Janette

  And I Fell on my Knees, Weeping          

   

            Winter is always cold in Michigan, but January 1985 was an especially brutal month with mountains of snow lining the ice covered roads.  I was the tender age of twelve, and I remember complaining to Mother about the weather as we got into our best dresses to attend a revival meeting at the Bath Baptist Church.  The guest preacher was Reverend Tom Harmon, a tough talking former state trooper that brought new people in droves to the small country church during the week he was there.

              It was the last night of the week-long revival services.  Every other night, the children were in the church basement singing songs about Jesus and making crafts for their parents.  On this night, however, Reverend Harmon requested that the children join the adults for what was being touted as a very special service.

              After the last hymn was sung, a hush fell over the congregation as the preacher rose from his seat above the altar and walked ominously to the pulpit.  I felt fear, real fear as I peered up at the man from my seat in the third row.  His strong baritone voice rang out as he told those seated in the wooden pews that he felt it was time to get back to basics, it was time to get back to the real and true God.  As such, he was not going to preach one of his own sermons, but one more powerful than any he had ever heard, one from the old days of the American church in all its glory, one from the time of The Great Awakening; Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

              I remember feeling puzzled at the preacher’s statement:  an angry God.  At that point in my life, I had never thought of God as anything but a loving Father who yearned to save all of His people and bring them to heaven.  I thought of Him as my friend, my confidant, and as a shy and lonely child with few companions, I prayed often.  I told God all my secrets, wishes, fears, and hopes.  I sang to Him in the middle of the night whenever I felt afraid.

              He began the sermon quoting a verse from Deuteronomy that said “Their foot shall slide in due time.”  Having obviously memorized the sermon, Harmon preached as if it were his own words.  With each dramatic turn of phrase, it was as if the eighteenth-century revivalist Jonathan Edwards was indeed in our very midst.  Each sentence of the introduction brought us closer to hell and damnation as the listeners wiggled uncomfortably in their seats.  My eyes were wide with fright and I knew, then and there, that I was a wicked little girl just as Mother said I was and that the flames of Hades were real and for me.

              His words of condemnation reverberated through the auditorium, eerily punctuated by the sounds of crying and gasping.  In my mind, the Devil was no longer a cartoon figure with fire-engine red skin, bull-like horns, and a pitchfork.  He was suddenly a monster wheedling me, whispering in my ear that I would be his dinner and that he would devour me like a greedy and hungry lion.  I imagined the fires of the abyss licking at my body as I screamed, abandoned by the God I cherished and helpless against my powerful foe.

              Suddenly, God was a judge and a terror.  The holy man waved his arms about, his voice fluctuating, rising to a shout and retreating to a whisper.  The hosts of people he held captive with his doomsday message were quite literally on the edge of their pews, certain of God’s wrath.  Harmon shouted the warning of Jonathan Edwards and it rang out in my head even as I cupped my hands around my ears to protect them from this menacing threat.  He shouted, “God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment.”  A moment of silence ensued.  He repeated it again in a menacing whisper.  “God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment.” 

              Those words brought despair to me.  My Sunday school teachers always said that God wanted to save me.  Why else would He send Jesus to die on the cross?  Now this man was telling me something very different, and in my mind it was as if he was saying that God didn’t make a real promise, He made a promise He could take back. 

              Reverend Harmon was in a righteous frenzy.  Foamy spittle would fly from his mouth and he absentmindedly wiped it from his cheek and chin as he continued.  I wanted him to stop and I began to pray silently to God that He would make this man shut up.   Then a chilling thought startled me.  What if by praying that, I was making God even more upset at me?  I knew this made me evil and I was absolutely certain of my sinfulness.  I worked myself into a terror, certain that God would punish me for these thoughts and my spiteful prayer by striking me dead and sending me to hell to be eaten by the Devil.

              The tears flowed freely from my eyes and I looked up to my Mother for reassurance, but she was weeping unabashedly.  I squeezed her hand so that we could comfort one another but she shook away my embrace and hugged her knees to her chest, disregarding any scorn, and rocked herself like a child.

              Terror soon turned to rage.  I felt as though I were the victim of a rotten prank.  How could God love me if He was so angry at me?  If it really were just a matter of “the pleasure of God” that kept me from certain death, what would I do if that pleasure were to disappear?  I wanted to stand up on the pew and scream, I wanted to point my finger at the man’s face and demand answers, and again a panic rose within me.  It was as if I couldn’t help myself, my sin was everywhere and my mind was utterly infected with it.

              How could that have happened?  I wanted so desperately to be a good girl.  I always helped my Sunday school teacher Mrs. McGonigal, I tried to obey my parents and my grandparents, and I never fought with my little sister, even when she really deserved it.    It seemed as if there was no escaping my inherent badness.

              After what seemed an eternity, Harmon reached the end of the dreadful tome.  His voice becoming raspy from shouting, he lifted both fists to the sky and cried out, “Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.  The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation: Let everyone fly out of Sodom: Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed.”

              His voice returned to normal and the organ began to play.  He begged and cajoled the members of the congregation to get right with God, get right with Him before it was too late.  As if actors in a movie directed to our actions, a great majority of the congregation immediately fell to their knees in prayer and supplication from where they sat.  Many men, women, and children went forward to the altar, begging the revivalist to pray with them to ensure their salvation.  My Mother and I hugged each other desperately as we huddled together beneath the angry brow of Jehovah.  The sermon was long, but the time in staying after was longer as no one wanted to leave the church without that blessed assurance that they were in the Father’s favor and grace.  The doors of the church did not close until after midnight when God’s people, haggard and emotionally spent, made the way towards their respective homes.

              Mother and I drove home in silence, each of us still wiping tears from our puffy eyes, each of us still unsure that we were indeed rescued from the stench of fire, hell, and brimstone.   That was the first time in my life that I knew genuine and absolute loneliness.  It was as though my best friend had been ripped away from me and murdered before my very eyes.  My heart was aching, and isolated, my grief was inconsolable.

              God and I were never quite the same after that.  For weeks, I could not bring myself to pray.  Gone were the midnight tunes to my unseen Father.  I was no longer God’s special daughter, but a sinner, doomed and outcast.  About a month after enduring that awful night, I refused to go Sunday school.  Mother didn’t push me and soon we all stopped going.  It was about a year before our shadows casts themselves on the door of the church. 

              Hearts and children heal.  My relationship with God the Father returned but the innocent nature of it was gone and shattered.  My prayers were no longer conversations but rather a recitation of  my sins with a plea for reconciliation as I fell on my knees and wept.

   

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