This Rock (3 page)

There was a chair to the side and behind the pulpit where the preacher set. And that's where I waited while people come into the church. I didn't want to look at people as they shuffled in and set down, so I looked at the Bible in my hands, and I even opened it and tried to read. I'd seen Preacher Liner do that. But I couldn't see the Bible verses in front of me because of my nerves. I'd marked the places and I'd memorized the passages so I could recite them if I had to.

When Charlotte started playing the organ I stood up and everybody else stood up. “How Beautiful Heaven Must Be,” I called out. But my voice sounded trembly and weak in the empty air over the congregation.

“Page 302,” Mack called out.

While they was singing I tried to join in but couldn't even think of the song. I hoped the song would go on forever. I looked out over the faces and tried not to look at any one face. I knowed everybody in the church, but I tried not to recognize them. The light was glaring from the white-painted windowpanes. I kept my eyes on the last window on the left side.

When the song was over it was time to lead in prayer. I knowed the custom was for the preacher to lead the first prayer. I was about to bow my head and start praying when I seen the door open and somebody slip into the back of the church. It was Moody, and he didn't take his hat off when he come in. Moody never did hardly go to church. He was the last person I expected to see there, and he was the last person I wanted to see there. He had said he wouldn't come. He slid into the back row with the other boys and backsliders. He
never did take his hat off. It was time for me to start praying, but all I could think of was Moody setting there with his hat on.

I bowed my head, but instead of praying I said, “Will Moody Powell please take his hat off in church.” The words was out before I could stop myself.

Everybody in the church turned around and looked back. There was snickers here and there. With a grin Moody lifted his hat and held it a few inches above his head, then dropped it to the floor. There was more snickering and titters from the boys in the back row.

I prayed but don't remember what I said. I had thought for days about what I'd say in a prayer, but I couldn't remember a single word of what I'd planned. Moody had throwed me off. I swallowed twice and said something about thanking the Lord for bringing us all together on such a fine day. My face was hot and the sweat was breaking out under my arms and in my hands.

When I finished praying and opened my eyes I seen Mama looking at me. She smiled and nodded, like she meant to say, You go ahead and do a good job now. There was circles of sweat under her arms. But I couldn't look at her. And I couldn't remember what hymn we was supposed to sing next. It was the offertory hymn and the two deacons, Silas Bane and my cousin U. G. Latham, come forward and took the collection plates from the table in front of the pulpit. Charlotte was looking at me and Mack was looking at me. And I remembered I'd told him “Nearer My God to Thee.” But it was too late. Mack frowned and flipped through the songbook and called out, “Number 326.”

While they begun to sing, and I pretended to join in, all I could think of was what a gom I'd already made of things. I looked at the collection plates passing among the congregation and wondered why I'd even thought I could preach. How did I know what was the call and what was just vanity? Nobody but Mama had thought I had the gift. What was I going to say when the song ended? For then it would be time to begin my sermon.

When the song was over the deacons brought the collection plates to the front, and Silas Bane poured the contents of one plate into the other and put the empty plate over the money like a lid. Both Mack
and Charlotte took their seats on the benches, and I was alone in front of the church. As I stood up I felt the stares of the people like a furnace blasting my face. I wanted to step back out of the heat. I wanted to run out into the fresh air and sunlight.

Stepping to the pulpit, I realized I'd left my Bible on the floor beside the chair. I'd already opened my mouth to speak, but I stopped to pick up the Bible. I spun around and kicked the chair so hard it banged the wall and clattered over on the floor.

When I stood up again behind the pulpit and opened the Bible, the air in the church was absolutely still. You could have heard a spider scratching itself, or a moth belch. The air was so hot and tight it was in pain. The skin on my forehead felt stretched. The skin around my mouth was so tight I thought it was going to break. And my lips was stuck together.

I tried to find the verse in Matthew about the Transfiguration, but I kept turning pages and couldn't spot it nowhere. My hands was so sweaty they stuck to the paper. I thought I seen the chapter, and then it disappeared. I was looking in the Old Testament. It seemed like minutes and hours was passing while I flipped through the pages.

“I want to read you a Bible verse,” I tried to say. But the words stuck in my throat. I swallowed and tried again.

There was snickers in the church. The air was dead still, and I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. Sweat gathered on my forehead and dripped down on the pages of the Bible.

Finally I found Matthew 17 and started reading, but I couldn't recall what I'd planned to say about the text. What was the point I'd wanted to make about the Transfiguration? Peter said we should build three tabernacles on the mountaintop, but he'd been talking crazy with excitement. There didn't seem to be much point in speaking about that.

Because I couldn't remember what it was I wanted to say, I kept reading. I read beyond the place where Matthew talked about the Transfiguration. I couldn't think of anything to say.

I seen Annie setting in the third row beside her mama. Annie looked at me and she looked at her lap. Why had I thought I'd impress her with my preaching? Why had I ever thought she cared
anything about me? She looked so young she seemed just a child. She didn't care what I said in the pulpit. I'd wanted to say something about going to the mountaintop, but what was it?

“This is what can happen when we go up on the mountaintop,” I said. “This is what happens when we get up close to the Lord.” But I couldn't recall what else I was going to say. It had all seemed so clear when I'd planned the sermon. But I couldn't remember what the connection was.

“Now let me read to you what Mark says,” I said. I crumpled pages of the Bible trying to find the passage in the Second Gospel, but I finally located the right chapter. “Listen to this,” I said. But as I read the verses I heard my voice in the still air of the church, and it sounded more like a boy reciting in school than any preacher. I couldn't think of what words to say next, so I just kept reading again. And when I got to the end of the chapter I said, “There is blessings for us on the mountaintop if we'll just go there. We can see the shining face of Jesus, and we can see his raiment white as snow.” I could feel the voice coming to me a little bit. It was not the talk I'd planned, but at least I was talking.

“We can stand with our faces in the wind and feel the Spirit moving,” I said.

Just then there was a whine in the back of the church. It was like the whine a wet log makes when it burns. The whine thickened to a blowing sound, and I knowed it was a poot, the loudest and longest fart you ever heard. It was like a trumpet and trombone together blowing a fanfare.

I forgot what I was saying and couldn't go on. My tongue was tied and flopped around helpless as a fish in mud. I tried to recall what I'd been saying, but nothing come out. I was froze, and then I seen Moody stand up and walk to the back window. He raised the back window with a groan and a bang and stuck his head outside. Laughter started at the back of the church and swept forward until it filled the whole sanctuary like a mighty song.

Ginny

I
HAD ALWAYS
wanted there to be a preacher in the family. From the time I was a girl and started going to Holiness meetings I thought a preacher was the most wonderful man there was. What could compare with a man of God, a man of the Book, a man of the faith? If I had been a man I would have been a preacher myself.

“All preachers have an eye for the girls and a mouth full of easy words,” my sister, Florrie, said. She always did like to say the worst thing that come to mind. She would say the most irreverent things, but she married David that wanted to be a preacher, and I married Tom Powell that didn't hardly like to talk at all. Who could have foretold the choices of the heart? But even then I wouldn't let Florrie smart-mouth me.

“Next you'll tell me preachers love fried chicken,” I said to Florrie.

“Preachers do like fried chicken,” Florrie said.

But Florrie knowed as well as I did a true preacher is the vessel of the Lord. A true preacher is a lamp that lights our feet and burns away the darkness of this world. A true preacher can charge the air in a church and in a congregation, and in a whole community. A great preacher can make the trees and rocks seem witnesses to the
power of the Bible. A great sermon can make time itself seem a testimony to the grace meant for us.

The best preacher I ever heard was Preacher McKinney who held the revival where I first received the baptism of fire and spoke in tongues. I had been saved before when I was twelve and been baptized in water and joined the church. I'd heard talk of sanctification and the baptism of fire but never thought much about them until I went to Preacher McKinney's meeting. I'd gone to church all my years without loving it. I'd gone out of duty and habit. My pa had built the church when he come back from the Confederate War. I liked singing and good preaching, but I'd never seen the beauty of fellowship together.

Preacher McKinney's best sermon was not the one where I first spoke in tongues and done the holy dance and received the baptism of fire. I was so stirred by that first service I wasn't hardly aware of the sermon anyway. I looked into his eyes and the Spirit swept me away, as it had to. What happened to me then was meant from the beginning of time. That night Preacher McKinney was the true vessel of the Word, and I was there to receive it.

Preacher McKinney's best sermon that I remember, the one that showed me what a sermon could be, was preached a few weeks later in daylight. It was preached in the afternoon in the little church up on Mount Olivet. It was the funeral service for one of the Tankersleys who had gone to Preacher McKinney's revival and lost her letter in the Green River Church. That's why the service was held up on Mount Olivet instead of Green River. All of us Holiness people had lost their letter in the Green River Baptist Church.

It was the brightest summer day you ever saw. The trees was green and the mountainsides was green, and the weeds along the road was green. Pa and me and Joe and Lily had took the wagon up the mountain. All kinds of birdsong sweetened the air. The world was lush and sharp. It didn't seem like no day for a funeral. The light was so bright it stung your eyes. June bugs circled and buzzed over the grass. The cemetery on the hill above the church was fresh mowed and looked like a garden of stones and shrubbery.

Preacher McKinney stood calm and cool in the pulpit after everybody
was seated. His manner was different from what I had seen at the revival. There was a great peacefulness and poise in him. “Let us pray,” he said. I bowed my head and listened, for I felt the strength in his quietness.

“Lord, we are here to celebrate life and salvation,” Preacher McKinney prayed. “We do not need to mourn the passing of Sister Tankersley, for we know she has gone to a better world, to a long-sought rest. If we mourned we would only mourn for ourselves, for we miss her presence and her inspiration. We will miss her example and her kindness.”

When the prayer was over we sung “Work, for the Night Is Coming.” It was a slow, simple, sad song that had a strange firmness and comfort. The notes seemed to give voice to the day itself, to the cool little church, to the weeds and woods outside in the sunlight. Out the window I could see a white cloud hanging over the mountain.

Work, for the night is coming. Work through the morning hours
.

Work while the dew is sparkling. Work 'mid springing flowers
.

Work while the day grows brighter, under the glowing sun
.

Work, for the night is coming, when man's work is done
.

As soon as the song was over I heard a cardinal in the woods outside. And when Preacher McKinney started talking he didn't holler like he did at revival services. He stood perfectly still and spoke in a voice so quiet I had to listen close at first.

“We are here to celebrate the goodness of our sister,” he said. “We are here to take comfort in her strength and example. We are here to strengthen each other with our fellowship and with our song.”

Preacher McKinney said our lives in this world didn't have to be lived in misery and aloneness. He said our lives might be hard, but they was not too hard as long as they had meaning, as long as we could see far enough ahead, toward the plan of salvation. Preacher McKinney was so calm and slow he seemed like a different preacher entirely. He said it was our labor that was our wisdom. It was our struggle that was our satisfaction in this world.

Preacher McKinney talked about how we should forgive seven times seventy and help our neighbors. It was the simplest message
there was, and yet it was the one hardest to follow. He said in all the New Testament there is only one new commandment: Love each other even as I have loved you.

“Can you feel the hand of Sister Tankersley leading us into the sunlight and into the day and across the threshold to the rest of your life?” Preacher McKinney said. “In the heart of a Christian it is always eternal morning. I am not here to mourn and I am not here to accuse and threaten. You are all the children of the Savior, and you are all my brothers and sisters.”