We had a long discussion, Paul and I, about whether to continue on for a week or even two (in which case we would still be on the road now!) I was for continuing. A very big focus for me on this trip (though I've not often written about it) has been my novel, which I'm on the absolute verge of finishing now. I've been on the revision process all along this walk, carrying the manuscript along on my flashdrive and taking every minute of library computer time I could get to work on it. (Incidentally, that's why I haven't been so great with the blog. It coulda been better, I know.) And it's worked wonderfully; the walking life was the perfect writing life, as long as I got enough time. I wanted just a little more of it, to finish the book.
But Paul was exhausted; and when I stopped being driven and admitted it to myself, I was too.
Although I did wonder what kind of ending we'd have to our walk. Two more days, and not a church service in them; we'd probably meet no-one. I wished it would end with meeting some wonderful people who felt inspired by us, but I knew it probably wouldn't.
We took our last night in a town of many churches; we wandered from church to church, looking for a good place to spend our last night outside. There was a revival sign outside the Civic Center; it was at 7:30, and it was now 7:27 on the dot. A woman called to us and invited us inside. We deliberated, and came. "Oh my goodness they came!" she said.
I had voted for coming in, because it seemed the right thing, a little too coincidental to be properly refused; yet I hadn't been looking forward to it. The Gospel, in its somewhat over-bullet-pointy Southern Baptist form, would be rehashed for us, and many phrases like "If there's anyone here who has never accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior" would be used, with all eyes on us because we'd be the only people there who weren't from First Baptist, and slightly dirty to boot.
Well, did I get a surprise.
It was an interracial revival with all the preaching done by two African-American women. Let me tell you; I probably couldn't have told you this before that night, but when the sisters do a revival, they do a revival. And they do not use bullet-points.
There was singing, there was preaching, there was shouting. (Well, some of the preaching was shouting, is what I mean.) It was done with passion and it was done with sincerity, and one of the preachers had some things to say I liked very much. "You look to the left," she said, "and you look to the right, and that is your brother or your sister who's been tested in the fire same as you have." I looked.
They invited people up for prayer and anointing afterwards. They invited us up specifically (if they hadn't, Paul wouldn't have gone!) We stood at the front of the church and were anointed with oil on the forehead and hands and were asked no questions, except by a concerned-looking lady who seemed kind of separate from the proceedings; "What do you know about the Lord?" she wanted to know. Well, what a question; did she want to know all of it? "I know Him," wa what I came up with. I think she was worried about vague spirituality: "Have you read the Bible?" she returned. I reassured her briefly on that point and turned back to the black women who had laid their hands on me, and were calling out to God to give me whatever I might need.
I haven't been in a lot of groups that pray as loudly and passionately as these people did. But whenever I am, a strange double reaction happens in me: I feel a little odd, a little uncomfortable, because I'm not able to muster up the level of energy they have got--and I feel totally freed to show whatever passion happens to truly there. One of the preachers grasped my hands and told me nothing was too much, she'd seen miracles happen, and I began to pray, as I have prayed all along this trip, for a friend's healing, a healing that would have to be miraculous. Then I prayed for healing itself, for the gift of healing I suppose; for God to use me as a healer, to use me in His healing of those who come to us on retreat, who will come bearing so many wounds. I prayed as hard as I have ever prayed, but I don't know if they heard me. I was whispering, maybe only mouthing; but they might have heard me. The preacher gripped my hands harder. "There's power in these hands," she said. "Don't waste it."
I'm still not sure what she meant, or what the whole thing meant. They knew nothing about us, to them we were... I don't know what. Young hippies, weary, grubby travelers, a couple down on their luck? But God knew; and God gave us something much better, for a close to the walk, than another bullet-point Gospel sermon.
There's a coda, too. The folks at the revival, when they heard our story afterwards, said their church a block down the street was a good place to sleep. We followed their directions, and came to a spot much better than any we'd seen; a big covered deck, out of sight, that kept us dry all night in the pouring rain. (OK, except when the rain bounced off the large A/C unit onto me, but I moved right quick.) We didn't know till the next morning that we'd come to the wrong church.
A woman came by with a little boy. Impulsively, I waved at her, and she said hi; after going into various parts of the building on mysterious errands she came over and asked if we needed anything. We were just finishing our celebratory last-day breakfast (croissants and honey ham) so we told her no, we were just sitting here eating our breakfast and hoped it was OK... she got nearer and said, "Hey! I saw you in Spectre!" (All right, all right, it wasn't Spectre, it was whatever that town was really called, I can't for the life of me...) We grinned, and confirmed. She rushed off to deliver her boy to his day-care and said she'd be back to let us into her office to use the bathrooms.
We waited, and waited, and were about to leave when she came back. With a friend. And let us into her office, gave us an umbrella, and they both stood there asking questions about what we were doing and listening with great fascination to everything we had to say about the walk, about the retreat ministry, about what we had learned. The church's youth pastor came in too, and joined the discussion group; three enthusiastic young people, asking every question under the sun. Acting excited, inspired. Making us feel, here at the end, like even now we weren't doing this for nothing.
And that was the ending God gave us for our walk.
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