The Visitation (7 page)

Bob continued, “He was fishing down by the Spokane River when he saw a man standing on the riverbank, just the same as Sally Fordyce saw. The man, or angel, or whatever it was, said ‘Jesus is coming to Antioch,’ and then he disappeared. It was that quick, that simple.”

“Do you believe him?” Paul Daley asked.

Bob considered his answer for just a moment and then replied, “I believe he’s sincere about whatever happened to him. I’m just not sure what happened to him. His account sounds very similar to a popular rumor that circulates every once in a while.”

I stole a glance at Brett Henchle. He just sat there with a stern look on his face, silent as a stone. I could guess he wasn’t about to stick his neck out, and I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t about to speak up, either.

“Travis,” Paul said. “I heard the people at your church are seeing Jesus in the clouds.”

I smiled at Paul without saying a word, then leaned over and spoke to Kyle. “That’s your cue.”

“I’m not so sure,” Kyle answered. “We had some folks who were seeing Jesus, but they were also seeing animals and a door and a flame of fire. Little Pammie Forester saw a rooster and then Bugs Bunny.” That got a laugh from the group. “A few of the women came back on Monday, but the weather was too cloudy. You can only make out shapes when the clouds are scattered to broken. Overcast won’t cut it.”

Sid offered, “So for visions in the clouds you should get a weather briefing.”

“Absolutely.”

More laughter. Laughter was usually a good idea at these meetings.

“By the way, everyone, this is Kyle Sherman, the new pastor at Antioch Pentecostal Mission.”

Good old Sid, always the bridge builder. Introductions went around the table and Kyle was off to a good start. I breathed a little easier.

Paul Daley offered, “A man in my church once received a prophecy from a cutthroat trout, but this could be a little different.”

“What was your evaluation on that one?” Bob Fisher asked.

“Oh, the fish was delicious.”

More laughter. Paul was good for loosening things up.

I couldn’t be sure if Burton Eddy was really sneering or if it was just his usual crooked way of talking. “But we’re starting to see a schematic here, aren’t we? One supposedly supernatural occurrence breeds another, and then another, and before you know it, we have a real hysteria.”

“So you don’t think any of this is real?” Sid asked.

“Oh, it’s real to those experiencing it, I suppose, the same as any dream or hallucination seems real. But this stuff catches on, and we’d be making a big mistake to cater to any of it. We’d only be feeding the frenzy.”

Kyle added, “And there’s always the possibility that these are demons we’re dealing with.”

No laughter. Burton just stared at Kyle.

“That’s my concern too,” said Bob.

“Whoa, now let’s approach this carefully,” Sid cautioned.

“Here we go again!” said Armond Harrison, glaring at me as if
I
was the one who said it.

Bob fired back, “Armond, it’s only wise to be wary of deception. You can’t believe everything that comes down the pike as though it’s from God.”

“Well if God does send anything our way,” said Howard, “it’s about time!”

Al was keeping cool outwardly, although his face looked a little red as he asked Kyle, “Are you suggesting that a demon healed Arnold’s arthritis?”

“Well, just check the long-term results,” Kyle answered.

“You mean, the much greater church attendance, or Arnold jubilant, walking about and rejoicing in what God has done?”

“No, I mean people turning their attention and devotion to an idol instead of to the Lord.”

Armond’s big jowled face was so red you could feel the heat clear across the table. “I see nothing has changed at Antioch Pentecostal Mission.”

Morgan started laughing, wagging her head. “And the beat goes on,” she said, then confronted Kyle
and
me. “There
might
be a good side to this. Don’t condemn something just because it falls outside your religious paradigm.”

Kyle tried to counter, “We’re not condemning anyone—”

“
Let
people follow their personal sentiments. It can’t hurt, really.”

“Hear, hear!” said Burton Eddy, clapping his hands.

“After all, what is religion but—”

Sid raised his hands for attention. “All right, fine. Kyle’s had his say, you’ve given your response, I think that should be enough—”

“No!” Morgan insisted. “We came here to share observations, and I’m going to share mine. Religion is a cry of the human heart for meaning. Every tradition has its myths and visitations, and this case is no different.”

“You’re saying this is all a myth?” Paul Daley asked.

“A myth,” Burton said with a nod, his arms crossed. Then he added, “Not that myths aren’t a legitimate expression of culture—”

“I don’t want to get sidetracked on that,” Morgan cautioned.

“Well isn’t that what we came to determine,” Sid asked, “whether we’re dealing with myth or reality?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter?” asked Howard.

“What matters is what it all
means
. I don’t want us to get into a big fight over whether this is God, demons, or myth and miss the deeper causes.”

“But you said it was a myth,” Andy protested.

She brought her chin low over the table and scolded him. “I did not say it was a myth! I said—”

“Arnold’s healing is real enough,” said Al.

“Well what
was
your point?” Sid asked, trying to help out.

“This is a
human
thing.”

“A human thing!” Burton repeated with another nod.

“So Arnold healed himself?” asked Al.

“The pilgrims aren’t visiting Arnold,” Paul observed.

“
May
I finish?” Morgan’s Janis Joplin voice was rising. The others backed off. “When people have religious experiences like these, I take that as the expression of a need. Now we can expend our time trying to attribute this stuff to God or demons—or myth— or we can look for the spiritual needs these occurrences represent and be ready to minister to those needs in practical ways.”

“But you’re totally overlooking the deception that could be involved,” Kyle countered.

She shook her head emphatically. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter! The truth always matters!”

“Whose truth? Yours or theirs?”

Burton raised his index finger and plopped it down. One more point for Morgan.

Al jumped in, addressing Kyle. “These people are not worshiping an idol! They are waiting and seeking the God the image represents.”

“They don’t need an idol to do that.”

“It’s
not an idol!”

“They don’t need
any
mediator save Christ himself!”

“Judging, judging, judging!” Armond Harrison bellowed. “Of all the arrogance!”

Sid was shaking his head, looking toward heaven. “Our Lord must weep.”

Paul Daley looked at me. “Well Travis, what’s
your
view on all this?”

“NO!” Sid shouted—and shouting was something he rarely did. “I don’t think—”

“He’s no longer a part of this ministerial!” Armond growled.

“Then let him speak as a layman,” said Bob Fisher.

“You don’t get it,” Morgan lamented, still on her previous subject. “You just don’t get it.”

Burton Eddy said something about my prior record, but by now everyone was talking at once and I couldn’t make it out. Armond heard it and bellowed out his agreement, but Paul was still harping on getting feedback from everyone present while Morgan was still trying to make her point, whatever it was. Howard and Andy had gotten into an argument that somehow drew in Bob Fisher, and Sid was trying to straighten out Kyle on what was and was not acceptable in a ministerial meeting. Nancy Barrons was having trouble taking notes.

I did hear Al Vendetti counter Sid. “I might like to hear what he has to say.”

“Me too,” said Bob, turning from Howard and Andy.

“If he speaks, I’m leaving this table!” said Armond.

“Now, now . . .” Sid tried to calm things.

“He’s my guest!” Kyle objected.

“If
either one of you
says another word, I’m leaving the table!”

Kyle rose from his chair. I reached over and pulled him down again, but that didn’t keep him from saying another word. “We are commanded by the Word of God to contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, and if there are lies and deception—”

“So now we’re all liars?”

“Has anyone seen Jesus?” I asked.

“In the latter days there shall be false christs and false messiahs showing great signs and wonders!” Kyle was preaching by now.

But Sid heard me. “What?”

Howard and Andy stopped arguing and looked my way. “What did he say?”

“In order to deceive, if possible, even the elect! Read your Bible! That’s all I’m saying!” Suddenly Kyle noticed how quiet the room was and how everyone was looking at me.
He
looked at me.

Paul asked, “What was that, Travis?”

I scanned the room, a little jarred by the sudden silence. “I was just wondering, has anyone seen Jesus? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

For a moment, they just looked at each other.

Morgan offered, “Sally’s ‘angel’ spoke about the answer being on his way.”

Al said with emphasis, “The pilgrims here
are
looking for
Christ.”

Bob built on that. “My person said the angel said ‘Jesus’ was coming.”

Suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, Brett Henchle spoke up. “That’s what an angel said to
me!”

Everyone’s head turned so quickly I thought I heard some neck joints crack.

“You saw something?” Sid asked.

“A hitchhiker,” said Brett. He quickly recounted the story and then said, “So there’s one more side to this. It might not be God or the devil or myth. It might be some clever huckster moving in on the town, and he might have some friends in on this with him. Now I’m not here to downplay anyone’s religion, but I’m not looking for some heavenly vision here, I’m looking for a suspect. You tell the people in your churches that if anyone sees these guys again, I’d like to know about it.” He rose from the table. “Thanks for letting me sit in. It was interesting.” Then he walked out, his boots clunking on the linoleum in the hall, his portable radio hissing as he clicked it on.

“If
Jesus
shows up, then we’ll really have something to talk about,” I said.

Silence.

“Well, if I may change the subject,” said Bob Fisher. “As most of you know, we’re having a week-long revival with Everett Fudd. We expect the Lord to do some great things and we’d appreciate it if you’d pass the word around.”

“What about the softball team?” asked Paul. “When does that start?”

EVERYTHING WENT WRONG
on the way home. Kyle, emotionally wounded, kept bleeding all over me and making it sound like my fault, and I was sour and brooding about a conversation I’d just had with Bob Fisher.

“You just sat there!” Kyle huffed as we drove across town. “These are pastors, ministers, people answerable to the Lord for how they lead their flocks and they get off on this stupid, wishy-washy, tolerance stuff—that’s Morgan Elliott’s bag, right? She and that Burton what’s-his-face. She’s some kind of liberal, feminist, radical, politically correct female pastor type, and all the men in there don’t want to stand up to her, right?”

“She’s a widow, and she made sense.”

“Not if she thinks the truth doesn’t matter!”

“I was talking about the people-having-needs thing. She’s concerned about people, and I think that’s commendable.”

“At the expense of the truth?”

“That’s an entirely different issue.”

He really turned on me. “It should bother you!”

I shrugged. “I’ve already been bothered.”

He shook his head in dismay and disappointment. “Something’s happened to you, Travis.”

I muttered, “Sure it has.”

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing.”

“And who in the world is that Armond Harrison character?”

“He’s a cult leader.”

Kyle checked for traffic, jammed on the brakes, and pulled over. “What?”

I did not want to go into it. I didn’t have to go into it. I don’t know why I did go into it. “He came out here from Michigan with about thirty followers, and they have their meetings in his house over on Maple Street. Some of them work in town; I think a few commute to Spokane. They’re just average, hard-working people.”

“But they’re a cult?”

I ran down the list—an old, wrinkled list ingrained in my mind through months of public and private discussion, debate, accusation, counteraccusation, and vitriol. It was a list peeled off a can of worms, and I would have loved to forget it. “The Apostolic Brethren deny the deity of Christ, don’t know diddly-squat about atonement or salvation, and think they’re all going to be christs someday because Jesus was just one of many ‘christs’ one of many ‘sons’ of God. They’re into pop psychology—you know, deep meanings behind bodily excretions and private body parts and whether or not your mother breast-fed you. They consider the whole church one big extended family, so they move the kids around from family to family wherever Armond wants them to go. Armond usually requires the young women to live with him for a while so he can teach them about sex—whatever his view of it is, anyway. They, uh, they do things.” I wanted to cut this short. “That’s about the gist of it.”

Kyle’s grip on the steering wheel was so tight I thought he’d bend it. “And he’s on the
ministerial?”

“You have eyes.”

“Why isn’t anything done about it?”

“Something
was
done about it.”

“But he’s still there!”

“End of story.”

“But he’s a heretic! He’s a pervert!”

“Nobody’s asking you.”

He yelled at me. “What?”

I tried to explain, even though I was pretty sure it wouldn’t do much good. “Kyle, in the long, drawn-out scope of things, it’s really none of your business what the Apostolic Brethren do and believe. You can preach the truth just as God called you to do, but what Armond and his bunch choose to believe is up to them and you’re better off just leaving them alone. If you don’t believe me, just try to break up their little church. See how far you get. After you fall flat on your face, you can thank God you live in a country where heretics like Armond Harrison can still roam free, because
his
freedom is
your
freedom.”