Tuesday, April 05, 2005
AOTGA - Act 4 Cont'd
Some people left St. Mark's and went to other Episcopal churches. Some people stayed at St. Mark's. People began to disagree on nearly everything, but almost everyone agreed on one thing: it wasn't smart to talk about what had happened. It brought persecution. I was told by the church administrator that we would be acceptable at St. Mark's on condition that we never speak publicly in tongues or tell anyone of the phenomenon. But even so, I was told we could never again hold office in church.
One night I was in bed reading a book. I was alone in the house except for my dog, which I had owned for many years. She was lying beside my bed. I was aware of a presence in the room. I didn't say anything or move but the dog knew also -- she began to whimper. She had never done anything like that before or since. The sense of someone's being there was so intense that I got out of bed and knelt beside it and began to pray. I was facing the crucifix on the wall, and a light shone from it just as it had on the morning of my conversion. I asked Christ what He wanted from me. I knew He was there. I told Him I would give up everything and I would do anything He asked. I meant it.
Suddenly I knew what He wanted me to relinquish, but I didn't know why. I also knew what He wanted me to do, and I didn't like it. He wanted me to stop attending the Episcopal Church and to join a Pentecostal church. Such a thing had never occurred to me. I hated the idea. The Episcopal Church meant a great deal to me. Security, the sense of belonging to an elite group -- I love it for all the wrong reasons. There on my knees I told God I would join a Pentecostal church. I was so confused that to me it was as though I had stepped from Park Avenue into the gutter. It was wrong but that's how I felt.
As I promised Him I would make this sacrifice, the room filled with an odor of perfume. My hands became damp. I thought they were perspiring and I rubbed them together, but it was not perspiration: they were oily. I rubbed the oil off on teh blanket and it returned to my hands. I smelled them and they were fragrant. Three times I removed the oil and three times it returned. I had never heard of such a thing, and I didn't understand it, but I assumed it was a sign of the presence of Christ. I later discovered that I couldn't talk about this experience to Pentecostals. It upset them terribly. It seems that at the beginning of the outpouring of the Spirit in their circles such things had occurred and unscrupulous men had tried to capitalize on these manifestations; thus in their groups speaking about "oil" is verboten. But you see, we didn't know the rules.
So I joined a Pentecostal church. And because of that I missed a lot of the infighting and I really found out firsthand what Pentecos was all about -- both the good things and the things to avoid. It was quite an education.
Of course, I was banned by my friends; but then I had been rapidly becoming unpopular anyway. I wouldn't conform. I truly wanted to, but somehow it never seemed to work out that way. The peculiar part of it is that before I was baptized in the Spirit I had conformed much more successfully. Perhaps that was the reason they couldn't accept me the new way. But how could I soft-pedal something that had transformed my life so fatastically. This was what I had been looking for all those years without knowing it. This was the power that activated the early Christian Church.
Father Bennett had gotten a small church in Seattle and was packing to leave. He said he would never tell anyone about the Holy Spirit as long as he lived. He had had it. I was shattered -- completely shattered. God-wise, my security had been in the church and my parish priest. I felt as if I were falling apart. I grieved over the fact that the Episcopal Church would not accept this remarkable gift. But the day arrived when I was over the hump; I knew I was going to follow God no matter what everyone else did. I felt very much alone.
People frequently confide to me that they are afraid to do a particular thing that they know is right because their motives may be wrong. I have come to the conclusion that if one waited until one's motives were perfect, one would never do anything. I thought, "Father thinks this has to be a part of the Episcopal Church -- I'll get it into the Episcopal Church for him." How wrong can one's motives be?
I telephoned Time magazine and told them the story. "We wouldn't be interested in that sort of thing," they haughtily informed me. I telephoned Newsweek and they sent one of their best men out for an interview. I met him at 9:00 AM at Coffee Dan's in Van Huys and gave him the whole story. He wanted to know where he could reach Father Bennett. I knew Dennis had an appointment at 10:00 AM so he would be at the house at 10:30 AM. I suggested the reporter be there then and not mention who sent him. I was rapidly acquiring a reputation of being "too Pentecostal" because I felt strongly about the importance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the use of the gifts of the Spirit, and in my zeal I made a lot of stupid mistakes. However, this didn't turn out to be one of them.
Newsweek wrote up the story of the furor at St. Mark's, and the story went all over the world. But I didn't think they had delved deeply enough; I felt that every Christian was entitled to hear that there was something more for believers -- something so exciting and effectual that nearly two thousand years previously the people who possessed this gift were known as "the men who turned the world upside down."
I wrote a letter to Time magazine in New York. I told them I had called Time in Los Angeles and had been told they were not interested, while Newsweek had been interested enough to do a one-page story on teh singular events, and I didn't think they had scratched the surface. Shortly after a reporter came from New York. We told her everything and took her to a prayer meeting. She was an atheist. At the end of the prayer meeting she said, "At least the split in your church was over something valid." And that from an acknowledged atheist.
Things happened thick and fast. In Seattle, Father Bennett's vestry read the articles in Newsweek and Time and eneded up baptized with the Holy Spirit. I had been ostracized by my friends, and now suddenly they wanted me to be head of a new prayer group. And I had learned a great deal at the Pentecostal church I attended. The people were kind and good, and they were wonderful to me. But one thing bothered me. They were only interested in their chruch, their families and their missionaries. When I told them what was happening in the world outside, they humored me; but they appeared to have no vital concern for anythign apart from their private bailiwick. I did. I was fired with it. I couldn't bear people's not knowing about Jesus Christ and Him crucified and the power of the resurrection. I didn't know how to go about communicating Him but I burned with the desire to do so.
By this time The Living Church, the Episcopal publication, had picked up the news. There was a letter in the magazine from a priest who said he used to be a Pentecostal. He had received the gift many years before and found it exciting but said that it wore off. I knew he was wrong. I knew he hadn't really discovered what it was all about. I knew it wouldn't wear off. I'm writing this thirteen years later and I am more sure now than I was then that this is the secret of the New Testament Church.
I answered the letter.
Later, as I was praying, a curious thought crept into mind that I should talk to a priest whom I had not previously met. I had only heard his name. I felt foolish, but the desire persisted. I telephoned his church and made an appointment to see him. I deliberately made the appointment for the following week, so that when the desire to talk to him left me (and I fervently hoped it would) I could cancel.
The day arrived and the feeling was stronger than ever. What would I say? I didn't have the vaguest idea. I went. When I walked in Father G. asked, "What parish are you from?" The question took me by surprise, and before I realized what I was saying I replied, "St. Mark's." An expression of interest crossed his face. "Do you know anything about speaking in tongues?"
"Quite a lot."
"Father Williams wrote in The Living Church --" and he proceeded to read Father William' letter.
I fished in my purse. "I just happened to have a letter I was sending to The Living Church to answer Father William."
He read the letter and suddenly jumped from his chair, kicking it over in the process, and said enthusiastically, "But this is the answer. This is what the church is missing, isn't it?"
I modestly stated, "I think so."
And we talked. And talked. And talked.
Two days later Paul Castle and I went to the church to pray with him and he was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And then it really broke loose. It seemed the committee appointed by Father Bennett before he left us had decreed that women were not allowed to pray for priests!
Paul Castle, a member of that committee, was called on the carpet and I was in the soup again.
Click here for the Table of Contents
One night I was in bed reading a book. I was alone in the house except for my dog, which I had owned for many years. She was lying beside my bed. I was aware of a presence in the room. I didn't say anything or move but the dog knew also -- she began to whimper. She had never done anything like that before or since. The sense of someone's being there was so intense that I got out of bed and knelt beside it and began to pray. I was facing the crucifix on the wall, and a light shone from it just as it had on the morning of my conversion. I asked Christ what He wanted from me. I knew He was there. I told Him I would give up everything and I would do anything He asked. I meant it.
Suddenly I knew what He wanted me to relinquish, but I didn't know why. I also knew what He wanted me to do, and I didn't like it. He wanted me to stop attending the Episcopal Church and to join a Pentecostal church. Such a thing had never occurred to me. I hated the idea. The Episcopal Church meant a great deal to me. Security, the sense of belonging to an elite group -- I love it for all the wrong reasons. There on my knees I told God I would join a Pentecostal church. I was so confused that to me it was as though I had stepped from Park Avenue into the gutter. It was wrong but that's how I felt.
As I promised Him I would make this sacrifice, the room filled with an odor of perfume. My hands became damp. I thought they were perspiring and I rubbed them together, but it was not perspiration: they were oily. I rubbed the oil off on teh blanket and it returned to my hands. I smelled them and they were fragrant. Three times I removed the oil and three times it returned. I had never heard of such a thing, and I didn't understand it, but I assumed it was a sign of the presence of Christ. I later discovered that I couldn't talk about this experience to Pentecostals. It upset them terribly. It seems that at the beginning of the outpouring of the Spirit in their circles such things had occurred and unscrupulous men had tried to capitalize on these manifestations; thus in their groups speaking about "oil" is verboten. But you see, we didn't know the rules.
So I joined a Pentecostal church. And because of that I missed a lot of the infighting and I really found out firsthand what Pentecos was all about -- both the good things and the things to avoid. It was quite an education.
Of course, I was banned by my friends; but then I had been rapidly becoming unpopular anyway. I wouldn't conform. I truly wanted to, but somehow it never seemed to work out that way. The peculiar part of it is that before I was baptized in the Spirit I had conformed much more successfully. Perhaps that was the reason they couldn't accept me the new way. But how could I soft-pedal something that had transformed my life so fatastically. This was what I had been looking for all those years without knowing it. This was the power that activated the early Christian Church.
Father Bennett had gotten a small church in Seattle and was packing to leave. He said he would never tell anyone about the Holy Spirit as long as he lived. He had had it. I was shattered -- completely shattered. God-wise, my security had been in the church and my parish priest. I felt as if I were falling apart. I grieved over the fact that the Episcopal Church would not accept this remarkable gift. But the day arrived when I was over the hump; I knew I was going to follow God no matter what everyone else did. I felt very much alone.
People frequently confide to me that they are afraid to do a particular thing that they know is right because their motives may be wrong. I have come to the conclusion that if one waited until one's motives were perfect, one would never do anything. I thought, "Father thinks this has to be a part of the Episcopal Church -- I'll get it into the Episcopal Church for him." How wrong can one's motives be?
I telephoned Time magazine and told them the story. "We wouldn't be interested in that sort of thing," they haughtily informed me. I telephoned Newsweek and they sent one of their best men out for an interview. I met him at 9:00 AM at Coffee Dan's in Van Huys and gave him the whole story. He wanted to know where he could reach Father Bennett. I knew Dennis had an appointment at 10:00 AM so he would be at the house at 10:30 AM. I suggested the reporter be there then and not mention who sent him. I was rapidly acquiring a reputation of being "too Pentecostal" because I felt strongly about the importance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the use of the gifts of the Spirit, and in my zeal I made a lot of stupid mistakes. However, this didn't turn out to be one of them.
Newsweek wrote up the story of the furor at St. Mark's, and the story went all over the world. But I didn't think they had delved deeply enough; I felt that every Christian was entitled to hear that there was something more for believers -- something so exciting and effectual that nearly two thousand years previously the people who possessed this gift were known as "the men who turned the world upside down."
I wrote a letter to Time magazine in New York. I told them I had called Time in Los Angeles and had been told they were not interested, while Newsweek had been interested enough to do a one-page story on teh singular events, and I didn't think they had scratched the surface. Shortly after a reporter came from New York. We told her everything and took her to a prayer meeting. She was an atheist. At the end of the prayer meeting she said, "At least the split in your church was over something valid." And that from an acknowledged atheist.
Things happened thick and fast. In Seattle, Father Bennett's vestry read the articles in Newsweek and Time and eneded up baptized with the Holy Spirit. I had been ostracized by my friends, and now suddenly they wanted me to be head of a new prayer group. And I had learned a great deal at the Pentecostal church I attended. The people were kind and good, and they were wonderful to me. But one thing bothered me. They were only interested in their chruch, their families and their missionaries. When I told them what was happening in the world outside, they humored me; but they appeared to have no vital concern for anythign apart from their private bailiwick. I did. I was fired with it. I couldn't bear people's not knowing about Jesus Christ and Him crucified and the power of the resurrection. I didn't know how to go about communicating Him but I burned with the desire to do so.
By this time The Living Church, the Episcopal publication, had picked up the news. There was a letter in the magazine from a priest who said he used to be a Pentecostal. He had received the gift many years before and found it exciting but said that it wore off. I knew he was wrong. I knew he hadn't really discovered what it was all about. I knew it wouldn't wear off. I'm writing this thirteen years later and I am more sure now than I was then that this is the secret of the New Testament Church.
I answered the letter.
Later, as I was praying, a curious thought crept into mind that I should talk to a priest whom I had not previously met. I had only heard his name. I felt foolish, but the desire persisted. I telephoned his church and made an appointment to see him. I deliberately made the appointment for the following week, so that when the desire to talk to him left me (and I fervently hoped it would) I could cancel.
The day arrived and the feeling was stronger than ever. What would I say? I didn't have the vaguest idea. I went. When I walked in Father G. asked, "What parish are you from?" The question took me by surprise, and before I realized what I was saying I replied, "St. Mark's." An expression of interest crossed his face. "Do you know anything about speaking in tongues?"
"Quite a lot."
"Father Williams wrote in The Living Church --" and he proceeded to read Father William' letter.
I fished in my purse. "I just happened to have a letter I was sending to The Living Church to answer Father William."
He read the letter and suddenly jumped from his chair, kicking it over in the process, and said enthusiastically, "But this is the answer. This is what the church is missing, isn't it?"
I modestly stated, "I think so."
And we talked. And talked. And talked.
Two days later Paul Castle and I went to the church to pray with him and he was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
And then it really broke loose. It seemed the committee appointed by Father Bennett before he left us had decreed that women were not allowed to pray for priests!
Paul Castle, a member of that committee, was called on the carpet and I was in the soup again.
Click here for the Table of Contents
# posted by LeeSun @ 2:30 pm 
