Red Flag for a Prayer Service
A series on Purity, Patriarchy, and Reclaiming Goodness
It was in the midst of deep grief when I decided to take a train trip to Kansas City. I had heard of a prayer center where you could spend hours in a chapel with live music that rang out like a trance. And I longed to be consumed. Music has always been a comfort ever since I was little. I would sit in on my dad’s band practices, and the man with four fingers would play the fiddle, and another would jam on an accordion. My dad would howl harmonies, chin lifted high into the air, while I would sit in the corner, tapping my feet and humming in awe. So yeah, after a wound so big that there wasn’t a bandage large enough to cover it, I wanted to go where the music was, but not just any music, the God Music. Only this God Music could transport me somewhere that, I believed, was the opposite of this depressive decline.
The train screeched to a halt with a sound that scraped along the metal rails like nails on a chalkboard. I hopped off the train, put my bags away in a tiny motel room, and took the shuttle to the prayer house. From the outside, it looked just like the strip malls in North Louisiana, concrete white buildings with low ceilings devoid of any personality. This building was an old Foot locker stripped bare, converted from soles to souls, and filled with hungry people like me. The only difference here was a large cross at the top of the building that sat tall like it was on a Christmas tree.
The prayer room was filled with hundreds, young and old, standing and kneeling. The room vibrated with music from a twelve-member band that filled the stage: one main singer, three backup singers, a piano player, two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, three young hipster types that were... I don’t know...backup dancers for Jesus?
I found a spot to sit on the chapel floor, with my back pressed against the wall, and watched the band perform, their melodies mesmerizing. And I stared around me, all these hungry people, their bodies swaying side to side like in a trance. One woman with gray curly hair that fell long past her shoulders stepped onto a chair, a precarious position, and raised her hands towards the ceiling as she howled. I watched her mouth as it seemed to move quickly, unintelligible words that fell out, as her tongue made flicking sounds. The more she did this, the more those around her did it too, like a wave of voices that rose and fell, a hypnotic and dizzying wave pool of religious hype. I didn’t mind if it took me down, even if I drowned in it just a little.
The sounds reminded me of my Grandma Jean when she would visit our Louisiana home from the Atlantic coast, her hair permed and dyed a light auburn with a tiny bit of tan across her cheeks.
“Oh, sweetie...” She’d say as she walked through the door, carrying bags of food for baking and gifts. Wrapping her arms around me for a big hug, her skin was soft against my own and smelled of warm butter. She would shut her eyes tight, and I could feel the words moving around in her mouth, the tongues she used to speak aloud when we hugged for too long.
“It is God’s love language,” she would say. “Shamala shikita sodinatalil.” When she spoke this mysterious language, she rolled her eyes back inside her head and smacked her lips. I would try to mimic the words back under my breath to see if I, too, had God’s love language in me. But on my tongue, I felt more like a parrot than a priest.
As I looked around the prayer room and watched the bodies sway, I closed my eyes and let my mind drift. What was I doing here? This large crowd was meant to make me feel less alone; the music meant to transport me farther than my pain, but I felt more alone than ever.
After a time, I opened my eyes and left the prayer room, walking the long hall to a coffee shop attached to the prayer hall, where people gathered around small tables. I found an unoccupied one, and I pulled out my journal. Writing had always been an escape for me, but it became more pronounced on this trip, especially when I didn’t know what to do with my hands in a public place. I drew circles and wrote letters to myself to fill, but in actuality, I just wanted to look like I was there, by myself, on purpose.
In the corner of the room, a speaker rang out with music and the preacher's voices from the prayer room. It reminded me of high school when the principal spoke through the intercom, and you prayed to God it wasn’t about you. “Megan Peters, please go to the principal's office.” Goddammit, did they find out I was skipping school again?
On the speaker, someone said something about baptism. I remembered all the times I’d been dunked under by a man who held my hand and the back of my head as he lowered my body into the water and lifted me back up, my clothes soaking wet, sticking to my skin, and people cheering as they watched from the sidelines. I’d become addicted to this kind of baptism that said all your sin is washed away and all your pain evaporated. Every chance I got, I ran towards that God Water, hoping it would cleanse me.
Sometimes, it felt like it did, depending on my desperation. I’d go to the water, seeking emotional relief, and after the submersion, I truly felt like something burning on the inside was put out. Then, other times, when I followed the wave of spiritual obligation and stood in the baptism line like the way we stand in line at a supermarket, and my turn would come, someone would push me under, the water washing over me as people watched from the line as they waiting their turn, I felt nothing at all, just sheer boredom at the redundancy of what I had experienced over and over again.
I put my journal away and ran towards the baptism hall, where I stood in a long line of people, all waiting for the water to save them. I went back day after day, extended my trip, and was baptized more times than I can remember. After each baptism, I would go back to the motel room and fill up the bathwater to baptize myself again until my skin turned pruny. My body was soaked through day after day as I sought relief from hurting inside. Something in me thought I could flush this heartbreak out through all this prayer and ritual. I don’t need to tell you it didn’t work. If anything, it only exacerbated the reality that took me on the train in the first place.
Eventually, my time and motel money were up, and it was time to get back on the road. I had received everything I could from this strange chapel, the momentarily religious highs that lifted me out of my heartache, a drug so strong it pulsed through my veins and made me shout right along with the rest of the congregation, only to follow with a depressive low when the music stopped. I felt the high dissipate with the reality of my feeling of lostness. I suppose I was looking for an answer, a remedy to the hurting that sent me on the road in the first place, but when that feeling wasn’t fixed at this stop, I jumped on the train to continue my journey home. Not home, as in the place, but home as in a deeper healing for my heart as I continued the search for my story.
I went from one train stop to another, stopping at several places throughout the U.S., met several people, and sang loudly into the night on empty train cars as I watched little worlds pass by. For months, I searched for something that would heal the ache and answer a question whose solution was within me, not outside of me. A question that asked me if I would stay. Sometimes, we run so hard from ourselves that we pass our truth right on without noticing. Sometimes, we jump on trains, succumb to salvation that’s on sale, seeking something to fill the hunger. After a while, though, we become exhausted from all that racing. That’s when we look back, only to recognize our face walking towards us. We can’t outrun our story.
Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your open heart. Love, Megan
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“Sometimes, we run so hard from ourselves that we pass our truth right on without noticing.” Oh my. Amazing reflection.
Profoundly good. And yes, you inspire me.