Hello Again

Yes, it's been WAY too long since my last post...but I'm still writing! Here's a little bit from the memoir....

I am flying over Lake Michigan in a small shaky airplane. Ever since 9/11, I have nightmares about planes crashing, exploding, nose-diving, dying.

“That’d be the best way to go,” my husband would try and assure me—which was never helpful when we were up in the air experiencing turbulence so strong you’re bouncing out of your seat. “It would be over before you know it, and it wouldn’t hurt a bit—at least not for very long.” Luckily I’m flying alone today, so I can try to find my own inner peace without his sunny commentary on my impending death. Going down in a plane would be bad enough without him smiling at me the whole time.

I don’t care what people say, humans don’t belong up here in a rickety metal machine that was two hours late to take off because of mechanical difficulties. We were created to have our feet on the earth, that soft muddy ground way down there, where the snow has melted in the dirt making it black and fertile. It’s so far away right now. And I am here, in a dream, up in the clouds, hardly real, hardly human to those down there looking out their windows at a shiny silver speck in the sky.

I take deep breaths and try to put it out of my mind. I watch Ela’s tummy rise and fall, her eye lids flutter. I wonder what she dreams. She passed out on the take off. She’s so peaceful, so unaware of all the worries that dance through my head. I hope I can hide them from her for a long time. I hope that I can create a safe space between my arms, room enough for her to bloom.

It helps that spring is near and the sun is warm against my arm. I lean my face towards the window. It has been a long winter. I peer at our little lives below, our little houses on little plots of land. I find the rigid patchwork of perfect squares menacing, false evidence that we have conquered the earth and ordered her mystery. I find relief in the wild rivers and lakes and their curves—their unpredictable moves, round spontaneous and womanly. The sun sparkles and dances in the water’s reflection; it’ so bright I have to shield my eyes all the way up here. The trees are wild too—those that have been left uncut and alone. They are clustered near the water, defiantly natural and free. I am disturbed by a few neon green squares of water I see sitting dead in trenches cut deep into the ground, holding toxins, holding the waste of all of us, seemingly contained. The illusion is control. But the truth is wild.

I’m not only scared about being in the plane. I’m also scared about going to back to Rome, New York. Specifically, I’m nervous about visiting the charismatic church we attended, where my first memories of God and church began. I thought there was no way the group would survive the 80s. But when I looked them up on the internet I discovered they were still around. Not only that, but the same pastor is still there. I dashed him off an e-mail and he responded quickly saying that he remembered me and my parents. I told him the dates I wanted to visit and he said I picked the perfect weekend because a prophet was going to be at their church and they believed it was no coincidence that I was coming too.

Rome Christian Center traces its roots back to Charles Finney. Finny was an American evangelist in the early 1800’s who held powerful revivals all over cities in New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Finney had a radical conversion—in the woods apparently. He would retreat in the trees to read his Bible in private. There he could shout out the questions of his heart, weep and pray. He was a lawyer by profession and was embarrassed by the sudden compulsion to seek God and see if Christianity had any merit. He was also plagued with heavy feelings of guilt that were uneasily swayed—even by a lawyer. One day under the green canopy he finally let it all out. Confessed everything. He claims a profound feeling of love washed over him. It was so powerful he couldn’t keep the experience to himself. He had to tell everyone. And when he spoke, something strange happened. The same feelings that washed over him, washed over others too.

Revival broke out almost at the sound of his voice. I read some of his sermons, they were long and very lawyery and difficult for me to fully understand, at least without my head hurting. They were given in a cultural context which was apparently ripe for his words. Looking back on them from my computer screen I am amazed how hard it is to touch even recent history. Finney was preaching in a town close to Rome called Western. People from Rome began swarming the meetings so much so that Finney believed the Spirit was preparing Rome for a revival too. When he finally arrived in Rome, he preached three times on a Sunday on Roman’s 8:7, “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” Heads lowered, people wept with deep conviction. For many days after local leaders gathered in people’s homes with Mr. Finney to inquire about what was happening. At each meeting, the crowd grew larger. People were overcome with emotion. Finney urged them to keep composed to go quietly to their homes to pray. But loud wailings erupted; people were slain in the spirit and fell down on the floor where they had been standing. Eventually Finney needed to find a larger space to conduct meetings. In the twenty days he spent preaching in Rome there were over 500 conversions in the town. During the conversions, three local skeptics were drinking at the bar and ridiculing all the happenings around them. When they got up to walk home one suddenly fell down dead. From that point on, any doubt that was left in the minds of the locals quickly and fearfully dissipated. Soon the whole city had changed. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing people praying, reading their Bibles, weeping or laid out cold in the Spirit.

Ministers and folks from all over began visiting Rome to see for themselves what they were hearing. Upon entering the town, many confessed feeling the presence of God. When Sheriff Bryant of Utica came to Rome on business, he was cynical about the revival happening in the sister city. In fact, he and his friends had a great many laughs about it. Riding into Rome on his one-horse slay he crossed the old canal about a mile from town. As soon as he crossed the canal, a strange feeling came over him, awe, wonder, sorrow, something totally unexplainable. The closer he got to town the stronger the feelings became until he had to admit that the presence of God saturated the air around the city.

In the late 70s something of a revival had broken out in Rome again. Keith Green—a passionate folk musician with a wild John the Baptist flavor, challenged his peers to kick drugs, new age spirituality and the free love values of the time and live authentic lives committed to Jesus instead. Keith was deeply moved by the religious history of Rome, New York and with his rising fame he brought new attention to this spiritual place in some writing he did on Charles Finney with his wife. My parents along with other post-long haired hippies joined the movement. Some flocked to the area of their own choice. My father was stationed at Griffiss Air Force Base on his first assignment. After finishing up his Master’s degree at Texas A & M, he was now employed by the US government as a weatherman.

Pastor Ned says on his website, “We believe that Rome—and Rome Christian Center—will be the site of end time revival in this area, continuing the work that Finney began here in the 1820s.”

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The land beneath me is changing. No longer perfect squares, but roads that meander and twist. Trees are everywhere and I can see through the forests which are naked without leaves. I can see the paths worn down between the trees. I can see everything from the sky. I pretend I am looking for a fugitive, some missing person below, some stranger who is on the run, seemingly safe in the woods.