The Church of Mesmenology’s Wednesday night sessions had started very slowly, but had grown somewhat steadily over a year’s time. The Executive Priest, Woodrow Hallmont, was extremely pleased. He had been in other cities, starting other branches of the church, and he knew that the early growth came slowly, and then faster growth usually followed.
The church had opened with a handful of “seed” members, people who were assigned by the church from its headquarters in Dallas to move to the city where a new church was to open and become the first official members. The church was very pragmatic in its outlook; it knew that potential members were more likely to venture in if others were in the local organization already. Safety in numbers—that was the way most people looked upon any group activity. The church, now more than sixty years old, had grown from very humble beginnings indeed, and had alternately sputtered and soared, depending on the stage it was in, and the methodology that it used.
The church had picked a spot in a building just on the edge of the downtown area. The space would accommodate up to one hundred people seated, pushing the fire code limits, but thus far the membership was hovering around forty. Turnout was good, though; there were at least thirty-five people in the audience this evening.
Hallmont surveyed the crowd, familiarizing himself with each face, and remembering back, as best he could, what he knew about each person. It was a habit he had long practiced, and he had become quite expert at it over the years. He had taught himself small memory techniques for recalling the kernel of what a person was about: their job, their family setup, their general likes and dislikes. He didn’t always get every detail right, of course, but enough that it sometimes startled, and yet impressed greatly, the people who attended the services.
On this particular evening, he thought that every face in the crowd looked familiar, for one reason or another—except one. As he scanned each row from right to left, then back from left to right, he quickly put a face with a story. He knew that it was possible he was mixing one person up with another’s story, but in general he felt like he got it right. Except for that one face.
The one face belonged to a man seated as close to the center of the crowd as possible. The current configuration was seven rows, with ten chairs in each row, and the man was seated in the fourth row about midway down the aisle. He was a slender man, with well-kept silver hair, and a short beard, generally brown but with patches of grey here and there. Hallmont estimated the man was in his late forties, possibly early fifties, and he seemed alert, yet hesitant, although nothing dramatic was going on at that particular moment.
“We gather here an evening a week,” Hallmont began, studying certain faces intently as he spoke, and as he paused. “Sometimes two evenings a week. Sometimes even more for some of you. We gather on these evenings, and at those other times, to re-examine ourselves, to look inwardly, some would say to search our souls, to use the lexicon of some of our sister religious institutions. We may not share all the terminology, but some of the principles are uncannily close. What is involved is a turning towards ourselves, to study what needs improvement, and to enhance what is already good.
“I know that many of you are new to the church, and that you are still finding some of the practices and principles unfamiliar, to say the least. Still, I applaud the good effort you have made to learn about us, to practice faithfully the tenets of the church, and to give it your best, in the best sense of that word.”
He paused at that point. One might have suspected he had paused for dramatic effect, but it was at least arguable that he had paused simply to let his words sink in, to let the crowd absorb them and roll them through their minds; it could have been an effort merely to enhance their learning experiences.
“The struggle to move ourselves toward a goal of complete self-enhancement is, of course, a continuing one, one that will never be achieved in sheer perfection. We accept that, and yet we push forward, attempting always to better our outlook, better our actions, better our goals, and better our interaction with our fellow beings. We believe that only in this way can we achieve the sort of happiness for which it was intended that we would achieve. One can’t find it in the false hopes and false religions, medicine or science, or mere philosophical fads. One must have a firm foundation, keep one’s feet planted on the ground, and never lose sight of where it is we are supposed to go.”
Hallmont casually scanned the crowd again, and his eye came to rest on the man in the center. The man had a somewhat amused look on his face, a look that no one else in the crowd displayed. One could have called it a sneer, but it wasn’t quite that extreme. It was a look of skeptical amusement that Hallmont had seen many times over the years, not only at services of the Church of Mesmenology—he had probably seen it less at those services—but at other, more traditional churches that Hallmont had attended during his earlier years as a more naive seeker of the truth. He had never forgotten those skeptical looks, and even though he had displayed them himself at various times in various settings, he felt it was out of place in his own service, and yet a part of it that had to be coped with on an occasional basis.
Hallmont continued his talk, stopping here and there to let his words sink in, continuing to scan the faces from one corner of the audience to another, up one row and down the next. His eyes occasionally darted around at random from face to face. It was a technique he had developed to give every individual in the audience the feeling that at any point in time he or she could be looked upon, both so that no one felt totally ignored, and so that everyone felt the need to appear engaged, to appear to be paying attention. In so doing, Hallmont hoped that they would actually be paying attention; that was his main purpose.
He deliberately tried to give the man in the center no more or less attention than he gave to any other attendee, but at times he felt as if his eyes were being drawn to the man. When that happened, he would let a longer period of time than normal pass before he looked again in his direction. But his curiosity was aroused; he was certain the man was not a potential member, and was equally certain that his motives were not pure.
At a certain point, he broke his talk so that those in attendance could take a break themselves—visit the bathroom, or get a sip of water, or even talk among themselves for a few minutes. Hallmont used the opportunity to go to his office to perform a task or two of his daily routine. He always filled out reports based upon each church meeting, and submitted it on to headquarters. Taking a break in the middle of his talk allowed him to begin the report, make a good start on it, and then finish it up either late that night or early the following morning.
When he emerged from his office, he looked to his right through a glass door that led out onto the street. He saw the man who had been sitting in the center of the audience standing outside, talking somewhat animatedly on his cell phone. There was no way he could hear the man, but Hallmont stood in the doorway to his office and watched him. He was turned sideways, and he gestured with his free hand, and his upper body moved somewhat in fits and starts as he spoke. It was impossible to tell if he was excited, or angry, or if that was simply his normal way of speaking on the telephone. Hallmont watched for a few minutes, then turned back to the left and made his way to the main meeting room.
Hallmont wondered if he would have to delay the beginning of the second part of his talk in order to wait for the man to return to the main room, but as that thought was working its way through his mind, the man entered at the back of the room, strode quickly to his chair, and took his seat. The rest of the audience, who generally had filtered back into the room earlier, soon joined him. Hallmont spent a few minutes looking at the crowd, letting them settle into their seats, and even letting another minute or two pass to let the chatter in the room diminish down to nothing. There was another period of about thirty seconds of silence before he resumed.
“As we begin the rest of tonight’s lecture,” Hallmont began evenly, “let me give you a gentle reminder to turn within yourselves, look t
o that inner core, evaluate it, determine what can be improved, or polished, and what can be discarded. Refrain from criticizing others, but engage in the most positive and constructive form of self-criticism. Over time, you will find how beneficial it is to”
Throughout the remainder of his talk, his eyes were drawn more and more to the man in the center of the audience. Occasionally, he had to force himself to move his glance around, force himself to remain fixated on a corner of the audience, or another corner, or still another, anything to avoid giving the impression that his interest lay in one person in particular. But he knew he had to explore this situation. It wasn’t just his individual decision; it was actually church policy. The church was very vigilant in rooting out detractors, infiltrators, and critics in general, and delivering a blow such that those types of activists were discouraged in the future. He had to get the man’s name; that would be the start. Learn a little bit about him—who he was, where he worked, what his interests were—then he could take action in a meaningful way.
Nashville: The Mood (Part 2) Page 16