But:
"I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds,
Yet ever and anon, a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity.
Those shaken mists a space unsettle,
Then round the half-glimpsed turrets, slowly wash again.
But not 'ere Him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal; Cypress crowned.
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether Man's Heart or Life it be that yield thee harvest
Must Thy harvest fields be dunged with rotten death?"
( The Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson)
There were times, Sam, when I felt a nudge in my side. The event was clear, quiet and distinct. I knew what it was and what it said. It never mattered how I felt at that moment, for I could always hear it. It frightened me in a different way. It was asking me for my life! Yet, without a note of death, except that kind that is the relinquishing of rights, much like cold feet on the night before marriage. I had a "clever" way of dealing with that nudge. I would pray in a Catholic tone: religious, reverent, evading. "An 'Our Father' should do it, I'd say to myself," then addressing that voice, I would pray a polite "Our Father", close with a "see I'm praying: That's what you want, right? Now, go away!" Then I would go have a beer.
This happened about a dozen or so times throughout my early life.
The same quiet request -- my same polite evasion. What a life I lived!
"I pleaded, outlaw--wise by many a hearted casement,
curtained red, trellised with inter-twining charities,
For though I knew His love who follow d,
Yet was I sore adread, lest having Him,
I should have nought beside.
But if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of his approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue."
(ibid)
Be still, my pounding heart! How well I knew this dread!
During that time, I met by accident a Christian man who invited me to a home meeting. At first, I declined for it was on the night I went to Friday's Club in NE Atlanta to have dinner and get so drunk I couldn't find my way home. But on second thought I said I would go. We drove my car to the meeting.
I met two "entities", if I may use the term, and a number of surprises awaited me that night. The first was this group of genuinely joyful people, but the second was a definite presence in the home. The place simply glowed invisibly and it was on these people's faces, in their voices and expressed in their warm, nonworldy manner. They opened an impromptu meeting that was run by the owner of the home.
I found out later that it was a loosely organized group of about fifty people. I learned that they were mostly from traditional church backgrounds, but they seemed to know God in a very dynamic way. They also knew a lot about Him as well, it seemed to me
I had heard basically the same thing growing up, but never with such irrefutable personal and uniform harmony among its proponents. They relied on the Bible for their doctrine! The New Testament seemed favored but was not exclusive. They were unconcerned with deep theological matters but were intriguingly adept at finding appropriateness in it when it came to their personal lives. This also surprised me because Catholics in my remembrance shunned the bible and I was taught to discredit it as too arcane, riddled with hopelessly cultural anachronisms and fables.
Certainly, I thought, these homespun believers were different in spite of but not because of the Bible. I pondered things heavily, but not gloomily for the first time. I went home that night from the meeting with a fever of 103. It was common for me to get one, since it was a kidney infection that had probably been developing for awhile. Within three days I doubted all of the experience. I called my new friend and told him how I was feeling. He came right over with another Christian.
After some time at my home, their presence seemed incidental but not inconsequential. In my mind, they dimmed, and I found myself praying out loud, "Jesus if you're real, I want to know. I'll give you my life!" I had actually surprised my two friends who were halfway through a verse when I blurted this out. (Boy, it's hard to get men to commit. Ask most any woman!) Eventually, they left and I went to bed with no change in feeling or awareness or anything. I felt though that I had finally accepted the request in those dozen nudges, and that those two friends were acting as witnesses in a formal sense, to my "I do." Their arrival that evening of May 20, 1975 was necessary to facilitate my frame of mind. But, it was my own. Apparently, I had had enough of words that evade. Perhaps -- perhaps -- so had God. I shouldn't speak for Him on this point, it's just my opinion.
Be that as it may, the real test was to see if anything of substance would follow upon this "release." I had grown used enough to my own misery, that any real hope of rescue had long ago evaporated for me. Lo, the next morning it was there. (Be still again, my pounding heart as I write!)
My entire being and it seemed my entire house was filled with living joy. I felt as if I was swimming in an ocean of it! That experience lasted for two weeks. It never diminished, it never changed in that time, but like honeymoons, so to speak, it dimmed to allow the common pressures of life to test it: A development I knew instinctively should occur.
Sam, allow me to continue on a new post, as this is getting too long. I want to tell you about what happened with that bible. Please indulge me at least one more time.
Thanks.
Stan
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