Faith Wish

by James Bennett

  It was still sad. Anne-Marie watched the two parents gesturing in animated fashion at Sister Abigail, who only stood humbly with her hands joined behind her back. Anne-Marie couldn’t imagine Sister Abigail’s humiliation at this moment, yet she still seemed so poised. Anne-Marie’s admiration was total. Praise Him in all things, the Bible said. It was the only appropriate passage she could think of for the moment.

  Later that afternoon, when crafts were over, Rachel took Anne-Marie on an expedition. “I’ll show you the mountain-top,” she declared.

  They walked slowly down a dense and rocky incline until they found their way to the crude footbridge where Anne-Marie liked to spend her private prayer and meditation time. The bridge, made of aging boards, was framed up by rough gray two-by-fours.

  They sat side by side on the edge. “I’ve seen this gorge full of water,” said Rachel, “right after it rains. We haven’t had any rain for a long time.”

  “I’d like to see it full of water,” said Anne-Marie. “I could stand in it just like the River Jordan. You could be John the Baptist.”

  Rachel giggled. “I guess I’ve got the hair for it.” She lifted herself up until she was standing erect on one of the two-by-fours that formed a railing.

  “You better get down,” Anne-Marie warned her.

  Rachel was balancing with her arms extended, like a tightrope walker in a circus. She was giggling while she took tiny heel-and-toe steps. She might have been a drunk driver taking a “walk-the-line” test for a state trooper. “I’ve done this before,” she told Anne-Marie. “Don’t worry.”

  “But I am worried. Come on, please get down.”

  “I’ve had dreams about this bridge,” said Rachel.

  “What dreams?”

  “Vision dreams. Dreams of the Spirit.” Still walking very slowly, heel-and-toe, with horizontal arms for balance.

  “What visions?” Anne-Marie asked urgently. “What dreams of the Spirit?”

  “I dream the pale horse sometimes. He is running across this bridge with loud, pounding hooves. He is running and running, and getting all lathered with that white foam horses get around the neck.”

  And behold, a pale horse, Anne-Marie recalled from the Book of Revelation, one of Abigail’s favorite Scripture sources. And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed after. She looked up at Rachel, who was now trying her balancing act with her eyes closed.

  All of a sudden, Anne-Marie was very frightened. It wasn’t just about the disturbing dream, either. Wearing just her worn overalls, and her hair so wild, Rachel looked like a supernatural figure who might have been an out-of-time female version of John the Baptist. She looked for all the world like a creature who could disappear into these southern Illinois woodlands and feed on locusts and tree bark or whatever it was that had sustained the ancient Biblical prophet.

  “Rachel, please get down from there. You’re scaring me.”

  “Okay.” And down she jumped. She seemed so light on her feet, but then Anne-Marie guessed she couldn’t weigh much more than ninety pounds anyway.

  Once they crossed the bridge, and another smaller one later, which crossed another shallow dry wash, Rachel told her to follow her to the mountaintop. It was a long and rocky climb, cut into the side of an enormous limestone deposit that formed a crease along the mountain. Anne-Marie was reminded again of the Ozarks, from past family vacations.

  At times the footing was well defined and firm, but at other times they had to bend over so as to squeeze themselves around and between large rocks and boulders. Nevertheless, Anne-Marie could see far enough ahead to know where they were going.

  The climb lasted at least twenty minutes, but when they reached the top it was worth the effort. It was truly a breathtaking vista. The entire lake was visible from here, and it was huge. From this vantage point, Anne-Marie realized that Camp Shaddai occupied only a small niche of the timber at the southern shore.

  They were standing on a plateau of rock that was amazingly level but not much larger than their front porch back at home. Maybe fifteen by thirty feet. Anne-Marie could see that the drop-off was sheer, a sheet of vertical limestone with the lake at least 150 feet below.

  “Don’t get too close to the edge,” Rachel advised.

  “Don’t worry,” said Anne-Marie with a nervous laugh. “I’ll be staying right here next to you.”

  “Sister Abigail doesn’t like us to come here.”

  “She doesn’t?”

  “Not without supervision. She doesn’t think it’s safe.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “My lips are sealed,” said Rachel with a laugh. “Now look up. Look the other way.”

  Anne-Marie looked up. Another sheet of cliffs, just as vertical and just as sheer, rose above them so high it nearly seemed to pierce the sky. Stunning as it was, it gave her vertigo, so she had to look away.

  “I come here sometimes by myself,” said Rachel. “The Lord is here. He’s always here, just as surely as you are right now.”

  Anne-Marie was looking at her new friend. Rachel had a nice complexion and nice teeth. If she took more interest in her appearance, she could be attractive. But that was a trivial notion; Rachel was connected intimately to the Spirit, which meant she could confidently put aside the things of the world. What value could trifling things like makeup or jewelry have if you were living in a state of God’s grace?

  “I see why you call it the mountaintop,” said Anne-Marie. “It’s like the God of Abraham on his very own mountain peak.”

  “It is,” confirmed Rachel. “God of his very God on the peak of his very mountain. It is the El of Abraham’s mountain, the one God ever and Eternal.”

  “It’s El Shaddai,” murmured Anne-Marie reverently. And saying so, she thought achingly of that afternoon in Brother Jackson’s quarters where he had the poster of El Shaddai, the mountain penetrating the clouds and the clouds forming rings like haloes. It had been the defining moment of her life, the living union of spirit and flesh, and someday she would be able to explain it so people could understand.

  The two of them lay on their backs, looking up at the blue sky. Stubborn limbs of scrubby pine extended from some of the crevices along the cliff. “Is this your first year here?” Anne-Marie asked her.

  “No, I was here last year. This is my second summer.”

  “Are you going to be here all summer?”

  “Oh yeah, I wouldn’t be anywhere else. I’ll be here right up to Labor Day, right up to when I go back to school. I’m only a junior because I got a year behind.”

  “How did that happen?” Anne-Marie asked her, thinking uncomfortably of her own academic shortcomings.

  “I was on the street. It got me a year behind. Then they found me a good foster home, the first real good one I ever had.”

  “Who are you living with now?”

  “A pastor and his wife. They pastor the River of Life Tabernacle in Clayton. That’s a suburb down by St. Louis. It’s the first loving home I’ve ever known.”

  “What about your parents?” Anne-Marie asked her.

  “That’s a long story. My dad was gone, and my mother was doing so many drugs she was in detox programs half the time. That’s when I ended up in one foster home or another.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. It’s probably none of my business.”

  “I don’t mind,” Rachel answered. She let out a long breath before she continued, “It’s just like so complicated. I was doing drugs, too. Lots of them. My brother got me started on drugs. He was dealing. That’s why he’s in prison. He was convicted twice for dealing and now he’s got a fourteen-year sentence.”

  “That’s why you pray for him.”

  “That’s why. If he can accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he will behave like a model prisoner. You can get early parole for good behavior.”

  Anne-Marie shook her head. She knew of lives ruined by drugs. It was stupid how she herself had smoked pot and e
ven crack on occasion with Richard. It was the kind of “approval” behavior which had characterized her past. She asked Rachel, “So what happened after all the drugs and your brother going to prison?”

  “I was on the street. You could even say I was homeless. There was a homeless old guy named Otis who kind of watched over me, let me sleep in his van sometimes, et cetera. But all the authorities could think was that he was taking advantage of me. It was sad.”

  “What did they do to him?”

  “They put him in jail. After that he was in detox I think, but I never did find out for sure. Anyway, right after that, I got placed with Pastor Al and Marie. They sent me here to spend the summer last year.”

  “Was that when you became a Christian?”

  For the first time Rachel smiled so broadly she seemed to glow. “Yeah, it was. It was one night in June after a tabernacle meeting when I was filled with the Holy Ghost and speaking in tongues. It took my breath away. It was like I was lifted onto a different plane, a totally spiritual one. My life has never been the same since.”

  “Was that when you knew you had the gift of prophecy?”

  “No, that came a little later. I think it was about the first of August. I woke up one morning with a vision of my mom in the company of two shining angels. It was like they were suspended in the air, all three of them. I didn’t know it had a meaning, it was just like real spiritual.”

  “So what was the meaning?”

  “Two days later, I got a call from some social worker in St. Louis. My mother had died, and they were calling all the next of kin.”

  “I’m sorry your mother died, I really am.”

  “So am I, but she’s with the Lord now, and her life was hard. Real hard. What with the drugs and all the other failures in her life, praise Him she’s now at peace.”

  “Praise Him,” Anne-Marie seconded. She stretched her arms above her head. She felt at peace and mellow like she hadn’t felt for weeks, convinced now of the rightness of her decision to let Brother Jackson bring her here. There were sources of spiritual support here that she could never expect to find anywhere else.

  Even so, there was risk. Anne-Marie couldn’t get the scene with Michelle and her parents out of her mind. She asked Rachel if she’d ever seen anything like it before.

  “Sure,” said her mysterious friend, with a shrug. “I’ve seen it. Last summer, it happened twice. Once to this girl from St. Louis and another time to a girl from Dubuque, Iowa.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Their parents just found out where they were and came to take them. People think Camp Shaddai is like a cult or something. They can’t understand.”

  “But why would they think it’s a cult?”

  “Because it’s Spirit-filled. Spirit-filled living is always a threat to comfortable churchgoers.”

  “It’s sad, huh?”

  “Sure. But it’s like Sister Abigail says, if you decide to pick up the cross and carry it, life is never easy.”

  Anne-Marie kept silent for several moments. She couldn’t even imagine the shame and humiliation she would have to endure if her parents found her and took her home.

  Rachel interrupted these thoughts. “What’s that?” She was pointing to the cross linked to the ring in Anne-Marie’s navel.

  Briefly, Anne-Marie told the story of how Brother Jackson had given it to her as a gift, and secured it to the ring which was already there. After summarizing these details, she gulped and added, “There’s a baby beneath it.”

  “There is? You’re pregnant?”

  “Sure am. The father is the holy evangelist who gave me the cross. It seems like a sign to me.”

  “It does seem like a sign. Is that why you came here?”

  “He brought me here to stay for a while until he finishes a mission in Oklahoma. He’ll be back in a week or two.”

  “And you’re sort of here on retreat to pray about what you need to do next?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It just seems like the obvious,” Rachel replied. Then she laughed. “It doesn’t take a vision to figure that out.”

  Anne-Marie laughed, too, just before giving Rachel a squeeze on the arm. “God loves you and I love you,” she said with accelerating giddiness.

  “The Lord bless you, Anne-Marie, all the way home. You know what? We better be starting back or we’ll be late for supper.”

  Supper, Anne-Marie thought. For the first time in oh so long, a meal sounded great. “Let’s go then,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

  June 23

  One night at evening tabernacle, Sister Abigail preached a sermon on the danger of committee Christianity. Like Brother Jackson, she never called her talks “sermons.” The preferred terminology was always “fellowshipping with her flock” or “sharing the Spirit.”

  “The Lord is never happy with tepid religion,” she began, “any more than you would be with a tepid shower. How many of us would be happy taking a shower in chilly water?”

  The light was shining on her as she sat on her high stool on the stage; the light that gave her the angelic aura also attracted the bugs and kept them away from her. “Too many people who call themselves Christians want the blessings of God’s grace, but want that benefit without effort. They go to church on Sunday mornings some of the time. They serve on a committee, perhaps, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their bridge club or their golf game. They put money in the collection plate, but rarely, if ever, an amount that causes them any sacrifice.”

  Anne-Marie thought of her parents immediately. Sister Abigail couldn’t have described them any more accurately if she’d known them all her life. She also remembered vividly the words of Brother Jackson when he described the “committee Christians” who filled up the organized theological seminaries.

  “The Lord’s sacrifice for us was ultimate,” Sister Abigail continued. “He wants followers on fire for Him, not on low heat. He gave His life, He suffered the pain and humiliation of the cross, all so that we might love Him and serve Him and enter His Kingdom. When we choose to follow Him, we pledge to take up his cross.”

  Anne-Marie was sitting next to Rachel, who was beginning to speak in tongues. Just an irregular, guttural murmuring, very breathy, and not so loud as to disturb the focus of the meeting. Sister Abigail concluded her remarks by warning the girls not to be seduced by those whose brand of religion was the “armchair” kind, like sitting in a recliner and operating a television with a remote control.

  Anne-Marie felt like Abigail’s words were meant specifically for her. The real Christians, those who followed the Lord unconditionally, those who put Him at the center of their lives, they were the ones who could point to that fixed moment in time when they became Christians.

  It was the one thing people like her parents could never understand, and probably what Sister Abigail meant was that the cross to bear was heavy when people called you “unbalanced” or members of a “cult.” Or the “Christian Right.”

  At the close of the meeting, when it was time for prayer circle, Anne-Marie found herself praying out loud for the first time. She began by lifting up Chris Weems, praying that someday, somehow, he would find the Spirit leading him to change out of the gay lifestyle.

  Holding Rachel’s hand on her right and Crystal’s on her left, she felt the surge of the circle. She found the words. “Lord Jesus,” she began by saying, “we just give you all the praise and glory. We thank you, Father, for the gift of the Spirit and all the other gifts which bless our lives. I’d like to lift up Michelle and her parents. I just pray you give her parents the light to understand that her new life in you is not a rejection of them. Help them understand, Lord, understand and forgive.”

  And then she was finished. She wasn’t sure by now if her prayer was offered for Michelle and her parents or for herself. It didn’t matter. She felt both of her hands get a squeeze of affirmation. Standing in the light, Sister Abigail was smiling broadly at her.

  The next
morning, Anne-Marie awoke early and took a long, hot shower while her dormitory mates were still sleeping. She felt how hard and tight her belly had become. It wasn’t expanded; it was still flat as a board. But it was firmer. There’s a child growing there, she reminded herself. It seemed so remarkable she repeated it out loud: “The child is growing.”

  It represented a different dimension of being pregnant, this firm feeling. At least physically. She no longer had the morning nausea, and her appetite was returning daily. Physically she felt better.

  With a special energy she lathered her loins several times over—those parts which were ever the reminder of her extraordinary sin. Again, she wanted it to be an act of purification. But it couldn’t really be. It was an empty act because it was so after-the-fact. Like the people who sprayed their mouths with breath freshener after every cigarette they smoked. It couldn’t really change anything, not in any lasting way.

  She returned to her bed, wrapped in a large, fluffy towel. She noticed Rachel writhing in her sleep and moaning. Anne-Marie sat down on the edge of her bed and placed the tattered troll doll on her pillow. Suddenly, Rachel was awake, lying on her side and staring straight at her. She propped her head with her hand.

  “Were you dreaming the incubus?” Anne-Marie asked her apprehensively. She whispered so as not to wake the others.

  “Not the incubus,” Rachel whispered back. “I was dreaming the pale horse on the bridge.”

  “What is the incubus like?” Anne-Marie asked.

  “I said I wasn’t dreaming it.”

  “I know, but I want you to tell me,” Anne-Marie persisted.

  Rachel blew her nose on a tissue before she responded. “He can take any form. That’s the demon in him. He’s not limited because he’s one of Satan’s minions.”

  “But you said he was a hideous creature with nasty wings like a bat.”

  “Sometimes. That’s when he takes the scary form.”

  “Brother Jackson is the father of my baby,” declared Anne-Marie suddenly, in a voice too loud.