8:03 a.m. - Friday, May. 23, 2003
In the Fellership of Jesus
I don�t know about myself sometimes.
I set myself up all the time.
Like this entry.
I wanted to remember the feeling of driving through the south on a Sunday. So I made a note at the bottom of my entries. It was a promise to write about the Fellership of Jesus. But then I�ve made a commitment. Now it�s an obligation. Now I can�t do it. And when I try, it turns into this big ol� project, and I over write my feelings. I turn into a pompous bitch. I turn into my third grade teacher. I lose my voice.
Oh, you don�t believe me? OK.. read this . Go ahead. I�ll wait.
See what I mean? If I TRY to write, I lose my feelings. Of I think you�re reading my words, I get crazy.
All I really wanted to do was try to capture the images and the sense of coming home-ness I felt as I drove straight as a slash across the southern states on a spring Sunday.
It was the luscious dark green of giant magnolia trees and the pure white of their wide-open blossoms against it. It was the fragrant dogwoods in bloom too. It was the ancient low hills, worn round by the eons, and the valleys shrouded in smoky mists that weren�t smoke at all, and the tiny pentecostal churches that stood shoulder to shoulder with the great tabernacles of the southern baptists.
It was stopping for gas and being able once again to understand what the cashier was saying. Being where the machine-gun paced words gave way to the slow sweet drawl of a girl who wasn�t in any hurry to reach the end of a conversation.
But most of all, I think it was finding, almost all at once, that three of every four stations on the radio were devoted to the Christian gospel.
I know, I know.. I keep saying it over and over: I am not a Christian. I don�t believe in supernature; my very own way of saying I don�t believe in God or Santa Claus. That doesn�t mean I don�t appreciate �em though. Christians fascinate me. Southern Christians fascinate me the most.
Driving with a radio is a novelty for me. The radio in the van never did work and I never did want it to. All the driving I did was what you might call minimalist. I rumbled across an alien landscape, alone and silent, with no connection, really, to the places I was leaving behind. In my new hoopty car, that�s not true. Now I drive in comfort, with a gentle breeze of exactly sixty-nine degrees blowing on my cheek. I�m no longer suffering, and I�m no longer just leaving mile after mile behind. So there�s emotional room left for listening to the radio.
I set the button to �scan�. The radio went around and around the dial, stopping for a few seconds on each station. There were, of course, rock stations, always a public radio station, a couple of oldies, and so forth. But the vast majority of the stations I found in the south were a part of what one announcer called �The Fellership of Jesus�. I chose that station and drove on.
What I gained as I drove along, listening to that station or one of a hundred just like it, was that long lost connection to the communities I was traversing. I listened to the music, which was concerned more with love and comfort than with sin and judgement. I heard the preaching, punctuated with passion and exultation. And at the same time, I noticed the billboards� big ones� exhorting me to come to Jesus; every billboard reinforced with dozens of spray painted messages on every bridge support and overpass to trust Jesus, Jesus loves me, Jesus is coming, and Jesus is coming IMMEDIATELY.
I realize that most congregations in the south would have a very difficult time accepting me. It�s not that they wouldn�t want to, but their fundamentalism would just not allow it. But for most of a day, through the radio, I was accepted into the fellership of Jesus without my having asked to be, and it was nice. It was good to drive on the main arteries of the south, watching the hills and the towns and the flowers and the trees change from one thing to another, and it was made better by the friendly voices and songs of hope I heard.
I dunno� maybe it was another of those rare occasions when I feel like I fit into the space I occupy. Yeah, that�s it. A transsexual ex-mormon vietnam veteran father, grandfather, ex-husband and current woman who for a day fit into her space in the universe.
I may not believe in God, but I know a miracle when I see one.
Coming Soon: -What Not to do with Siang�s Pure Oil
-Suite Dreams at the Wildwood Inn
-Ms Leslie Goes to the Dogs� the Greyhounds
-What Ms Leslie Wrote in the Guest Register at the S.S. Bang Saen Beach Hotel
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