1955 - CHURCH

1955 - Church

A loud moan escaped from the lips of the woman sitting right next to my grandma…she jumped to her feet and began shouting. “May the power of the Lord course through me! Halleluiah! Oy-yay all ye, sinners! All ye who may hear my voice sayith the Lord unto you: ‘Worship me in my heaven! Give of yourselves to the sinners and teach the children to walk the path of the righteous! Halleluiah!” Her voice took on a rhythm that was somehow echoed by the band and the chanting of a similar voice across the room. The noise was too loud to clearly hear this vague chant over the congregation but there seemed to be an undefined link between our seating companion and this, barely heard, chant. “Open your hearts to the way of the Lord! Walk no more in sin! Oh, glory, glory! His is the way, the path of righteousness! The light! The way! Oh the love of the Lord is…” she dropped into her seat draped in sweat and worn to a frazzle. She jerked and bounced in the seat, at rag-doll who still moved to the beat of the music. She wept aloud and moaned. She began thrashing until she fell across her companion and into the aisle rolling and humping and jerking in uncontrollable rapture. After a moment she sat up, elbows on knees and head in her hands as her shoulders shook uncontrollably from the sobs that tore from her lips.

As she had dropped to her seat in this large ex-theatre-cum-tabernacle I had heard another voice across the large room take up her sentence without pause, “…beautiful and shall lift you up to heaven to be with the Lord for the rest of your days. Yay verily, sayith the Lord. Sit with me at the right hand of God Almighty in the glory if heaven forever. Believe the word of the Lord...” he continued to preach in a strange cadence with that other voice, that chant that sang along, in strange harmony, and barely rose above the din. The chant ended suddenly and was immediately taken up, again without pause, by a gentleman seated 3-pews back from us and a few pews to our right. His voice was clear and powerful as he spoke loudly in a babble-language that I had never heard before and have not heard since…the language of tongues. “Abba dabba rumbuddy! Oh hah nieno jadidgoda!” This voice ended but the rhythm and language was taken up instantly by another invisible voice a few rows up who continued, “Badda dum dodogee…etc.” The congregation was in a state of rapture and the near riot of movement and voice that was fascinating to a four-year-old who found so much of the world new and amazing. As the two voices rose above the babble of the crowd the rhythmic beat of the spoken word and the undertone of the drums and cymbals pulled my mother and grandmother irresistibly to their feet. The tempo took hold of the congregation and they all began to move in a surging beat with the rhythm of the speakers who now spoke strongly. I drew my feet in and onto my seat to obtain some relief from the crowd. After a few seconds I stood up and watched the crowd around me with rapt fascination.

After a life-time of experience I can say with confidence from my memory that this overflowing house originally held around 400 or so movie-goers on the main floor. With the balcony open there was room for another 150 or so. With the big screen removed from the stage there was plenty of room for the show, including preachers, deacons, choir and band. The was even a cut-short runway that ran about 5 feet toward the crowd and enabled the preacher’s to get in close to the congregation while still maintaining a position that towered over the parishioners. Stairs had been added on either side of the runway that allowed the congregation access to the stage, or alter. These stairs ran the length of the stage in both directions and each step was wide enough to easily hold a prostrate parishioner. As I think back of my seared memories of this event, the style of the room, the curtains and the runway I think it is ironic that this room had, at one time was almost certainly, a burlesque house which meant this was certainly not the first time this room had seen an unruly crowd, almost all of whom were singing, wailing, shouting, dancing in-place, and causing a general hubbub.

The revival was a clear demonstration of the rapture of a religious experience that outpaces the human ability to deal with an outpouring of emotion and raises the emotionally vested beyond their ability to process the frantic motion of the crowd, the music, the choir and the shouted preaching that spontaneously gave way to the parishioners speaking, shouting and wailing undecipherable words, or words that were only understood by the translator…for there must be a translator to qualify as speaking-in-tongues. To speak this language without benefit of a translator whom is spontaneously moved by the spirit to interpret the Word is, I understand, a sin as the meaning of the words could be an evil message delivered by the devil. Speaking in tongues always includes two people.

Brother and Sister Broker manipulated the congregation like marionette-masters and, starting with a hymn and a few bible passages, had raised the congregation’s emotional state, over the last hour and a-half, to a frenzy. There were several calls for collection and lay speakers read bible passages that were followed by another hymn that was accompanied with gusto on the left side of the stage by a choir and to the right a band big enough to draw a reasonable amount of attraction and loud enough to make a very noticeable “joyful noise.” There was a piano played with gusto by the band director and accompanied by an organ that mostly held a droning background sound that only changed chords when a change in the progression of notes occasionally forced a chord change to reliably create the requisite pleasing harmony. A big bass drum was played marching-band style and a drummer who played snare and cymbals in the more traditional fashion but with a great deal of freedom and verve were joined by two spirited performers who helped out with wood blocks, bells, chimes and any additional cymbals. There were a couple of acoustic guitars and an upright acoustic bass. There was a small horn section that more than made up for its lack of size with an excess of sound. As the preaching grew more emotional, the music picked up the pace and the hymns, always sung with great spirit by the choir, were echoed with greater and greater fervor by the congregation. At just the right moment the room exploded into a kind of controlled chaos and the spirit spontaneously moved the congregation.

This was a rock show of religion that to-this-day reminds me of a similar experience I had several years later when I managed to witness my Uncle Del and his Fire-and-Brimstone Tent Show. Uncle Del was a long-standing fire-and-brimstone preacher with a style that enabled him to hold a congregation in the palm of his hand inside his old, worn and heavily patched circus tent. He was a slight thin and short little man who towered over his congregation by radiating the power of the Lord. He took them on a roller-coaster ride that took up most of a good Sunday afternoon and ended in an alter call of the saved to come forward to be healed, prayed over or blessed depending upon the particular needs of the parishioner. This congregation could also be found speaking in tongues on occasion when Uncle Del felt the power of the Lord and his sermon was particularly moving. The alter-call was, of course, held after some singing, some preaching, a monetary collection, some more preaching, some praying, more preaching, another collection and some more singing. Following the alter-call and just before the last hymn there was a final appeal for financial support. I wasn’t sure exactly what Uncle Del did with the money he collected but I do know it didn’t go to his family except in amounts necessary to keep them fed, clothed and housed. As true believers they did not live extravagantly. Uncle Del was, indeed, termed a true believer who spent any extra income performing good-deeds for others and earning a good spot on the bleachers for the after-death-and-unto-eternity-show. Evidently this brand of religion runs in my family.

On the day, so may years before Uncle Del became a tent preacher, my 5-year old self, my mom and my grandma had ridden the big bus to Kenosha from Zion to attend Brother & Sister Broker’s version of the Revival event. We were picked up early in the morning at grandma’s door and boarded the big yellow bus for the ride to the church with the bus full of praying, preaching and singing believers. Although the service itself was very similar, when Uncle Del preached, we drove our car out to the country and parked in a big field with only 20 or-so other cars…as the majority of attendees were walking to the event from a small town somewhere within walking distance. I hadn’t noticed a town anywhere near our location but there was a steady stream of people carrying their bibles and walking with their families, all dressed in their Sunday best. Ladies and girls in long dresses and sun-bonnets, most apparently home-made, followed a pace behind their husbands. The men strode on, family bible in hand with the older boys while the younger bare-footed boys brought up the rear, yelling and pushing and playing war with sticks and shooting Nazis with their fingers. As this was a community in a more rural part of Illinois, often their Sunday best included bib-overalls and more than one well-worn straw hat that would be used as a fan to relieve the dead heat and to chase the insects that buzzed incessantly around everyone’s head. In 1955 that condition was normal for either event as air conditioning was rare and insects were not. There was of course no air conditioning in the theatre-cum-tabernacle so ventilation was accomplished using the same method that had been used in Uncle Del’s tent: open doors and hand-held fans which were only effective at blowing the oppressively hot air around for very little relief.

In either case, after church we would socialize for awhile outside but would leave soon thereafter to return home to fields of green and a dog that always wanted to play. Mom and grandma would be fixing fried chicken and mashed potatoes, the traditional Sunday afternoon meal, while chatting and caring for my little brother, still a babe in-arms. Dad and grandpa would be sitting on the front-porch engrossed in a low conversation about family or religion or politics until we were called in to our Sunday meal. We gathered at the family table and quietly bowed our heads to pray.

I’m sure at the age of 5 this seemed like just another typical Sunday. Only this one was just slightly more memorable than most.