**GRIOT** Pentecostal Ghost Stories (Part 1)

Please see the notes at the end of this post

So, I was raised in a holy-roller-type - aka "Holiness" church. I say "raised in" because, even though I only remember going from about the age of 10 to 14, I spent more time on those pews than I did in my bed.

Even though my mother and grandmother went to C.O.G.I.G. churches, they didn't exactly share all the beliefs. The church my family went to believed in things that some people outside the culture will find strange. Now that I am an adult who studies the Bible on a regular basis, I find them more than strange...

• "Shouting" (also called "getting happy" or "getting the Holy Ghost")

So... is the service about worshipping the Lord?
Or entertaining ourselves?

• Speaking in tongues - which, even as a child, I doubted was authentic.

Who is she speaking to?
 And who is interpreting what she's saying?
I have questions...

Not listening to secular music or dancing - like a lot of black churches did. Baptist, Holiness, C.O.G.I.C, etc. This is either ironic or not since so many great singers came out of these churches.  I give you Sam Cooke (Holiness), The Staple Singers (Baptist), Aretha Franklin (Baptist), Otis Redding, Billie Holiday (Catholic), Whitney Houston (Baptist), Marvin Gaye (Pentecostal), etc. If they didn't come out of the churches, they took their sounds from the churches.

• Women not wearing pants.
• Women not wearing excessive jewelry.
• Women not wearing makeup.

And when I say that they had these beliefs, I meant they lived these beliefs. Most of them. There were always the folks who had come straight to church from the pools halls and "jick joints" (juke joints). The majority though had grown up dressing and behaving like good, rule-keeping saints.

My grandmother adhered to the dress code and she didn't care for secular music or a lot of jewelry or makeup. However, she didn't get with all the shouting and speaking in tongues. Neither did my mother. Neither did I.

Another thing that I know now as "not cool" is a belief or participation in the paranormal. My mother and grandmother, though... they had horror stories to rival those found on Reddit. Most of their stories centered in some way toward Voodoo or Hoodoo or similar practices. 

One story was about a woman who had been "cursed" by a jealous rival who had married her lover. The jealous woman had warned the other woman that she would make sure she was never happy if she went through with the marriage. The marriage went through. Soon after, the newlywed began to get sick. Her stomach ached and she started to be really fatigued. She couldn't find a way to be comfortable and would have to be on all fours with her knees tucked under her belly. Things went downhill fast and soon she was confined to bed and started going downhill fast. As she was near death, someone attending to her saw her love rival peering into the window of the bedroom, looking grim and angry.  She focused her stare on the sick woman as she mouthed some words then left. That evening, the sick woman began to make a "lowing sound" - like that of a cow. She didn't stop making that sound until she died.

The other story I heard was probably to scare kids straight. Both my grandmothers were in awe of storms. Or rather, they were in awe of the power of God. Some people talk about Mother Nature, but holy rollers believe in "the master of the wind" (go read your Gospel accounts). When it began to thunder and lightning, everyone was made to sit down and be still. I wasn't around to know how Grandma Jack handled things but Big Mama made us unplug everything in the house. We weren't even allowed to read. If we were going to do anything but lay down and take a nap, it was going to have to do with prayer.

So of course, kids needed to be taught to respect the power or the weather. This next story is what was told to kids who came before me.

A bad storm broke out and a woman was getting her kids settled down to quietly sit things out. As in a lot of homes, the wife was devout but the husband was less so. He was actually quite the drunk and was often slightly abusive.

As the wife settled the kids and began shutting off lamps, the husband got angry about it. She had to bravely defy him to finish shutting off lights and closing shutters. She begged him to "Sit down and have some respect for the Lord." 

That really set him off.  He ran over to the front door, snatched it open, and began yelling curses at the sky. There was a loud BOOM of thunder and a flash of lightning that lit up the whole living room. The man went silent and fell against the side of the door. His wife ran over to see if he was all right.

According to my mother (and her mother), the man's face has been twisted into a stroke-like grimace that never went away.

As I have grown up, I no longer give time to a lot of the nonsense from my youth. However, I still sit my behind down when there is a storm thrashing around in the skies!

Peace

--Free

NOTE: I have to clarify that, as an adult Christian, I do not believe in ghosts, every dead person resting in peace just because they are dead, people becoming angels when they die, or any kind of communication with the dead. The dead are dead. My grandma is not coming back to watch over me or tell me where to find the old watch that was lost years ago. The only things from the dead "communicating" with those of us still alive are nothing I want to know about. As an adult, I also no longer believe "shouting" in church or other emotion-based disturbances in worship should be a thing. True faith is not based on emotion. True faith is based on the belief and hope in salvation through Jesus Christ. When music and apparel and other types of "show" become more important than worship and learning, we are making our faith more about us than about the One in whom we profess to believe. I think that churches need to be more focused on making sure that members know the Bible, know and can defend the faith, and in showing due reverence. We should not base the way we worship on pure emotion and imitation. We are to be a light to the world, not entertainment.

(Repost) Back to Church

(I'm recycling some old posts while my brain is on a sarc-induced hiatus. This one is from 5/14/19. I've been listening to music that uplifts my heart while I rest my body. One of my favorites is "Redeemed" and my mother and I both loved "In the Upper Room" and, another of my faves & and because Buckley does such an amazing tribute to Mahalia with his version"Satisfied Mind".)

I can't remember (and don't have the patience to check) whether or not I have ever posted here about why I left the Pentecostal church. Basically, it was all about that church being a legalistic man-based religion instead of being Bible-based and God-led. The church I grew up in worried more about a person's outer appearance than they did the inner heart. And they really loved to pick and choose which parts of Jesus' teachings to follow.

Anyway.

One thing I did always love about the church services of my youth was the music. There is no Broadway production that can beat a Sunday service at the right church. When the preacher finishes performing, then comes the choir with its musicians.

I have always had a hard time explaining to people what the music was like in the church I grew up in. Then I found this video. It took me back 45 years and sat me down in a pew in Big Spring, Texas just like I never left.

This is why some church services lasted well into the night. Just when you thought you were going to be dismissed and get to go home, someone on the keyboard or drums would get inspired to hit one more note and then someone else would start to get "happy" and we'd be back into another round of singing and shouting. I got used to being in church and banging a tambourine until as late as ten o'clock on a school night.

Say what you want about all the stuff that's just wrong about the "Holiness" church, you can't badmouth the musical talent.

My ex and his cousins were the musicians in our church and their talent was just astounding. My ex is the best musician I know. He grew up in church and around all that great music. Too bad that growing up around all the preaching didn't rub off on his behavior as a human being.

I want to mention that not all people associated with the church were bad. There were a lot of good, well-meaning and true-hearted Christians who attended. Just like in the rest of the world though, it's easier to focus on and criticize the worst of the bunch.

Peace
--Free