"JESUS FREAKED,,,WITH A CAPITAL J"
One day in I was walking down the hallway when I ran into this cute little blond girl. Sonja. I thought she was cute and in short order we started hanging out, going out, and making out. There was something about her that was different though something I couldn't put my finger on. One Friday night she was asking a bunch of her friends to come to a "meeting". This started to irritate me because she wasn't asking ME, finally I asked what was up? "I'm going to a Jesusmumblemumblemumble people meeting....I said "A what?" a " Jessumumble mumble mumble mmm Meeting" A what" .....A Jesusmumblemumblemumble......uh...Meeting. Obviously she was afraid I ridicule her and frankly between the long hair,leather and drugs I wasn't what ,you might say, a good candidate for a deacon at the local Baptist church. Finally I got it out of her clearly...WHERE ARE YOU GOING FRIDAY!!! A Jesus people Meeting....ok ....uh ....cool ...ya want me to go?...Sonja said that would make her "happy"....how ya say no to that?
To say my religious instruction was lacking would be an understatement. We never went to church, I never read the Bible and my impression of religious types was "in the dictionary under twits it says see them." Oddly enough one day I come home from school to find these two short hair guys dressed in black suits,white shirts and black ties sporting named tags saying"elder so and so"...the Mormons had invaded our home...unknown to me at that time my Dad had some Mormonism in his background from his mom's side of the family. So I sit and listen to their sales about Joe Smith and God coming down to a grove of trees and telling everybody else in the church world was WRONG ..I'm listening thinking"I thought I WAS HIGH" but somehow my Dad convinced me to hang out and I actually got talked into getting baptized...go figure...in fact the night I got dunked...some friends came and got me and we went to the University to hear some live music and as fate would have out came the beer.
I remember coming to under a table with my head hurting, hair still damp from being baptized thinking"Uh....
......something didn't stick" the next day I had to go see the "Bishop" A rather stern looking guy with the standard short hair, black suit, white shirt and black tie (I kinda like that look today) He informs that Mormons don't
drink alcohol,coffee,smoke,have sex outside of marriage or take drugs....I'm thinking...'What the hell do you do? cause you just shot down EVERYTHING I REALLY REALLY LIKE!!!....I was especially disappointed about the sex part...that alone was enough to make me run for the door. Needless to say I didn't last long and in fairness to my Dad he was cool when I finally said Sunday mornings weren't working out for me. I think he knew I was far to much like him at that age to be a dyed in the wool church type. Needless to say after that anything that smacked or smelled of church I avoided like the plague.
So when Friday rolled around I went because a) Susie sweet lips asked me to and b) It wasn't a "church" it was a house with long hair hippie types playing the guitar..reasonably cool.
I was totally ill-prepared for what was about to happen. In my home the only time I heard "Jesus Christ" was in reference to me doing something wrong. In fact I almost thought that was my middle name as a youngster was Jesus Christ, because every time my old man wrote up from a nap he'd look at me and say say "Jesus Christ look at the mess you made."
We were met at the door by a guy named Kim who every other word was "praise the lord" or "Thank you Jesus". Totally Odd. We were hustled into a fairly large living room full of all the accouterments of an elderly woman's home, family pictures, doilies, lacy lamp shades. Sitting in the middle in an overstuffed chair was Helen...everyone called her "Granny." Next to her were the "leaders" several guys strumming guitars, a few long hairs and a few who were obviously military. There were a few other odd balls as well. One guy was standing by the obvious leader (a military guy named Mark) holding a Bible the size of a Sunday turkey. He looked like a cross between Elvis Presley and Oral Roberts. He was sporting slicked back black hair with sideburns and was the only guy wearing a tie and loafers. He had an absolutely crazed, pentecostal hellfire and brimstone gleam in his eyes...scary...I immediately didn't like him. We continues to scoot over because the room continued to fill up to the point of kids standing out the front door. I was surrounded by a lot of people going "Praise the Lord," "Hallelujah," "Thank you Jesus!" It was disconcerting and so utterly foreign to me. Let me say that as I took all this in I had noticed something totally out of nature for me. A scene like the one I found myself in would have normally found me out the door as fast as my feet could take me, however, the moment I stepped through that door, and I mean as soon as my foot crossed over into Granny's living room, I felt SOMETHING! Some...........presence, and for the first time in my whole life I was surrounded by odd ball weirdo strangers and felt comfortable, utterly disarmed, and relaxed (even though my knees were practically smacking my forehead).
The service starts and the music kicks in. Rowdy, lots of shouting, hollering, and carrying on. People were "raising their hands" something I never saw and was unsure what it meant. Then someone over my shoulder started rattling off rather loudly in some odd sounding foreign language. The Jesus people later explained that that was "speaking in tongues." Frankly, it seriously shook my tree. As things went on the meeting began to seriously heat up both emotionally and physically (do the math 40, 50 kids crammed sides by side in an old woman's living room you get the drift.......or whiff). At this time the musicians are really cooking...strumming and stomping. Elvis is pacing back and forth behind them like a hungry tiger smelling fresh blood and ready to pounce. The other believers are singing, shouting, speaking in tongues and the whole house seems to rattle shake and hum.
Finally at some point the dam breaks and sure enough Elvis makes a bee line for guess who?....ya ME....
I don't know why but it seems my whole life if there is a nut case within 5 miles of me somehow they show up, start bumming cigarettes, and telling me their life story. Elvis bounds over the heads of a few nervous teenagers and reaches out for what I thought was a hand shake. He grabs me and and next thing I know I'm nose to nose with the guy! Reeking of butch-wax and body odor he shouts about hellfire and damnation while I realize Oral is sporting a lisp...sorta took the wind out of the drama of it all. Meantime I could feel my girlfriend go stiff as soon as she saw this happening. Out of the corner of my eye I see her go from being naturally a bit pail to deathly white. But I was cool. I remember thinking "Naw I ain't gonna hit this guy it would ruin my girlfriends night" I just wish someone had given Elvis some Right Guard and Chick-lets. After he was done with me he moved on down the line and continued to scare hellfire and damnation out of the less intimidating teens seated next to us. I felt my girlfriend breathe a sigh of relief over my reaction to Elvis' strong-arm tactic, or my LACK of reaction rather. Soon afterward the meeting ended. I stood up feeling hot wet and sticky and thought "I need a bong hit and a hamburger." As I'm standing there holding my girlfriend's hand an odd and unexpected thing happened.....suddenly a sense of calm and peace washed over me and in my minds eye I saw all those believers faces. The looks of love and joy. They seemed to glow and I knew I was dealing with something WAY beyond me. As I stood there, eyes closed, I felt a voice. A feeling from deep in some part of me I didn't even know existed... a voice... strong and resilient yet still small and comforting. Something I knew was from inside of me, yet came from some space way beyond me, and I "felt" as much as heard it say "See that joy? Feel their Love? Follow me and I'll give you that and much more." For the first time in my life I became aware that GOD had spoken to me..... unreal.
We finally get outside where some kids hanging around (Granny had a large yard so everybody was mulling around the grass). Sonja is standing there with a very wary and worried look on her face. I watch the musicians pack up and leave while I light up a smoke.... she's still looking at me....I turn around with this big grin and say "Hey that was fun... let's do that again next week!!!!" Little did she or anyone else know I walked away that night with a deep, deep hunger to know who that voice belonged to and how I could fill this void I finally became aware of.
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