Grandfather’s tears:

Summers in China Grove were like going to church every day. We would be in the warm creeks all day and fall asleep in train sounds. There was a purity back then sleeping in my father’s boyhood bedroom with his soap box derby wooden cars on the dresser.
The first time i ever saw my grandfather cry was on a sunday at an actual church. My grandfather was kind but not very emotional. The palms of his hands formed by farming revealed something else about his inner heart, but i rarely saw it.
This was the man who had thrown my pacifier into a trash barrel fire when i was much past the age to need it, and he knew it, and took care of my letting go process. And I just rarely saw him openly show emotion.
But on sundays, the Holy spirit would come somewhere during the improvisational worship services and he and the rest of the main corner would start talking in strange tongues and often weep. At first i never understood it; why did church make Papaw weep?
Years later at a funeral when i was asked to pray, i saw that amen corner from a new angle. I was praying and those men were mumbling in the spirit and some were crying, and half way through, my prayer changed directions and got much more profound that i was capable of being. Those groans and cries actually carried away my prayer into something closer to what i have experienced as poetry. I was really praying for the first time, and something about those mens rumbles, were causing or at least encouraging it outwards.
After that experience, i never felt it as strange-my grandfather’s tears at church. It remained something of a mystery, but I accepted it as part of what made church Church.

Stirring my waters:
Up on Pilot mountain there is not much to do but stare out. But on this day, as i was doing just that, when two women approached me, both mumbling in some unknown tongue. One was short and withered like an owl, the other tall and gazelle like. I thought maybe they were guest linguist at some nearby college. But I quickly realized they were heading straight towards me on some sort of mission. They wanted to imbue me with something spiritual, and as I had had a long week, I wasn’t opposed to it.
How are you lady’s this lovely day? I asked.
It is well with our souls, but we sense that yours could use some oil.
Some oil, yes son, it’s time you had more of an experience of the Holy Ghost.
I knew about the holy spirit, but something about the word Ghost, perked me up into a mixture of fear and wonder.
What do you have in mind friends?
We will lay hands on you and you will be filled, you already know Jesus, it’s time you got to know more the Holy Ghost. That’s about all i recall. I leaned down, those two women laid hands on me, and I went somewhere between unconscious and staring out from my body. After a while, they just kept praying until i could stand up again, then said they had other tasks to move on to. That I would remain filled and empowered from on high.
And once i realized i could still walk, and get back to my car, i was happy to have all that joy water sloshing around in my belly. It kept sloshing for about a week, and then it stirred more gently, but it never really went away, starting on that day.

That type of silence:
That piece I wrote in my journalism composition class on my grandfather’s funeral. Do we have any idea where it is. It was my best “piece”, in the old sense of a complete and clearly stated observation which was detail filled, and it also had the right details, not just a whitmanesque explosion of the muscularity of language itself. I think i wrote something really nice once. I hope so. And I hope it is found some day in some kid’s drawer somewhere.
I kept it in my boyhood dresser, where I also kept all my recording equipment, i would sneak underneath the sofas when the many groups of hippies and seekers used to come over to my parent’s house each friday night.
These were gourds of people seeking truths by reading and discussing the bible stories. They were cool people—art students, people on the road, people who wanted to know if anything of christianity were true or not. And if it were, was any of it useful or relevant to real life.
My dad led the discussions, and I liked to sneak my panasonic hand pressed cassette recorder under the long gold sofa so I could listen to what they talked about after i went to sleep. I had made certain to buy a recorder that turned off quietly once done , so for years no one knew i was recording the meetings.
I would listen the following afternoon after getting out of school.

All day, during school, where i was usually distracted anyways, i would be looking forward to going home, slipping my hand under the sofa and recovering the deep spiritual discussions and listen to them in bedroom pretending to do homework.
What i mostly learned from these tapes, were that people needed room to ask their real questions, or even get to them; and then needed to ask them again until they knew what they were really asking. The theology then seemed to take care of itself, or fall into place.
I used to label my tapes friday by friday, so I could measure growth and who seemed to be progressing in their journey. I was secretly mapping the spiritual lives of many people. And I think i was learning something about the nature and pacing of spiritual growth.
But for me, the cool part was just that I got to record and hear so many people’s honest story of becoming. One guy named Noah, was an abstract painter who i really liked. His paintings were amazing to me, and some had titles like the Genesis, the arc of moonlight on grass at night, and other exotic and esoteric titles, which made me start to sense the mystery of art.
He rarely asked his questions in the group, but would often share a painting and ask people to respond. It was like the recordings of him, were mostly of him listening. I think i eventually came to see myself like that also, so i related to him. There was a tangible silence i still recall the texture of on those recording when they came to Noah. I always wanted to live in that silence.
Anyways, years later when i was studying writing, and finally wrote something which felt whole to me—that piece on my grandfather’s funeral-I came back from university and put it straight in the bottom drawer were i kept all my recordings of those house groups from my boyhood. Somehow I wanted the compositions to collaborate in the darkness of that bottom drawer, and share a certain knowing.
Noah later killed himself, but I still have his silences on tape. My grandfather also died, and i wrote a good article about his life and death, which for now is somewhere hovering in that type of silence.

Stealing communion as a kid:
We grew up protestant, so there was no good wine involved in communion. Still, the other preacher’s son and I used to roll under the pews during the communion service (which for the baptist was usually preceded by a very long exegetical sermon about the merits of the eucharist), and we would sneak into the place where they kept all the saltine crackers and welches dark grape juice, and drink as many of those little slinky glass cups worth of communion juice we could, before we realized the sermon was coming to an close, and the deacons would be here soon to serve the sacraments.

We then would quietly sneak from that back room, and roll our way back towards our places on the second and front rows respectively and respectfully.

I know people must have seen us rolling around, and we also saw lots of friendly faces from below on our way back and forth. There must be a certain grace for baptist preachers sons in this world. At least there was in our church!

So we rarely got caught in the act of stealing rather than receiving communion.
I’m sure also the deacons noticed that half of two trays of juice were always missing just beforehand. We tried of course, strategically to pick from trays near the bottom and to switch out as many as we could, so the missing glasses were staggered and would appear to have been skipped over by the pourer. I’m not sure that really worked, as more than one deacons would give us “the look”—similar to catholic guilt look—during the actual communion, when we were trying to look as sincere as possible in holy Peace and meditation.

If we had been catholic it would have taken years of penance to overcome this internalized deacon stare guilt; but as we were a church of Grace, we somehow were quick to forgive ourselves, pleading boredom and just thousands of homiletic hours under our belts.

I sometimes still feel a slight tinge of guilt arise when i take communion at various churches, but I always comfort myself with the fact that I was not stealing real wine after all; and that somehow the baptist were already bargaining when they served stale crackers and grape juice to represent Jesus.

Why I served communion as Elvis:
Later, for my thesis, i served a group of mostly jewish and buddhist friends communion. I was dressed as Elvis, and was playing amazing grace on an old guitar. Having just told the group the story of my grandfather’s suicide, I was preceding to symbolize wanting to become a man of the cloth. But to do so in style. In this case, as Elvis.
I had also preached as Elvis once, and gotten to do a Nixon like photograph with the president of a big seminary out west. I loved preaching in the character as elvis. It was like wearing the ironic king, but talking about the Real King.
But on this day, on a farm retreat with fellow artist, i was asked to perform a ritual of my life story.
I started with evoking a church building, as I was conceived in a parish house in NC, made of the same bricks as the actual church. There was never escaping the church for me, but there was the risk of not finding Jesus Himself. Fortunately, He showed up in truth for me, so by age ten, He was always a reality to me.
But I always felt that people took the religious part far too seriously, so i wanted to preach in character. In many ways, the preachers where i grew up lacked irony. There were amazing men of the cloth, but very few funny ones.
Of course, there is a baptist joke book, but the gospel was always presented as deadly serious, which of course, it is in the end. But we who tell the story don’t have to be. In fact, i always felt if someone could take themselves less seriously, but the Cross more seriously, we would be in business!
So I wanted to preach as Johnny Cash, or Elvis.
So I did my own thesis performance in character, but served the real deal communion. I remember the small group experiencing this great mixture of profundity and laughter. I think that is how I have always wanted to carry the gospel. For people to say afterwards, what a funny vehicle, but what a true word.
Authentic spirituality has always been the only option I’ve had. It’s also the one i most appreciate.
If Billy Graham would have come on stage as the race car driver Richard Petty, i would have been saved at age three. Plus, they look similar! So really I’ve always seen it as saving time to preach in character. At least, it keeps me from taking myself too seriously, and taking Him more seriously.

Bible formed:
Neurologically how it effects to brain to have heard 4000 sermons by the age of ten has yet to be determined. But, I did the math, i heard at least that many homilies from the womb till ten.

Now, fortunately, i still ended up meeting Jesus, anyways (despite or in addition—it was like I had heard all about Him when He showed up!). And I am thankful for having my mind formed by the categories of the bible. Still, when you are constantly swimming in the word from birth, there is a period where you have to be silent and sit and make sure your own thoughts are still yours.
In my case, the fruits of the spirit were also present all around me growing up—so that the word matched the actions and activities of our home. I think that helped.
Some people have the opposite problem if no word. I can barely imagine not knowing the bible stories and thinking through them out into every other thing. But I can imagine it could be cool to have a tabula rosa in that area. To start from silence.
But as for me, i am thankful, that i can only think through the lens of the bible; it has allowed to to be tethered as I started to study world religions and art.
My two fascinations have always been religion and art, and spirituality. How people incarnate what they believe. How people live it out, and then how they symbolize what they believe. I don’t really believe people brand themselves, i think we symbolize from who we are. And we symbolize from what we believe.
Still at times, i wonder what my life would have been like if the bible was not the very ambience or atmosphere around me at all times from the womb. I am still thankful that it was though.
I remember after a year of silence, where i was fasting from the word, a sudden rush of love for the Bible entered me. Since then it has been my book. I was very thankful that i already knew the word, when The Word came!

Mom:
My mother is a great singer and performer. I used to pray her over high C when she was leading worship at the church. We had a connection. That woman could bring in glory like no other. So I always associated mom with His Glory. Like her own spirituality was made of glory. Everything went gold when she sang.
But she also came out and did parades with homeless people with me in San Fran, and came and sang a private concert with my art friends in many places. She brings the glory down, and knows the difference between what we channel and who we really are.
I like that about my mom.