The Shattered Prayer

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Its true, ya know, not that I was ever looking for God in one. In fact, I don’t even own a crystal ball. There was a time when their use was interesting to me, but now that they’ve been appropriated (like everything else) by the New Age movement, and their meaning watered down a fluffified… meh.

I do my scrying in a black mirror, which I suppose is still too spooky for the fluff-meisters to appropriate. But really, I don’t ’scry’, I more or less use… oh never mind. I forget I’m supposed to put my spiritual crap over on Noumenal so R the P knows to avoid it, and won’t give me a one-star rating for my article.

Scrying isn’t what I wanted to talk about anyway. Those of you who’ve been reading Shattered Prayer for a long time may remember me talking about my former neighbor, Anita, who had a penchant for (and fear of) ouija boards. No, R the P, I’m not going to discuss ouija boards. Its all a buncha hooey, as you’ve pointed out on many occasions.

I’m going to discuss church.

Well, one day, one SUNday, Anita and I, for lack of anything better to do, decided to go to church. Now Anita was a lapsed Lutheran and I was… well in those days I was Wiccan, but I was already beginning my journey away from Wicca and into less religious, and more useful forms of magick.

We decided to go to a pentacostal church. I’d always wanted to see what went on in those places, so we dressed in our Sunday go-to-meetin’ cloths and headed to church. We certainly got our money’s worth. Even if we’d spent money on the event, we’d've gotten our money’s worth.

There were some pretty amazing feats of ‘transcendence’ going on in there. I can see where it might convince the ignorant that the Holy Ghost is at work. However, I’d seen more amazing stuff at voodoo rituals than at the pentacostal church. And in many ways, the pentacostal rites were very similar to voodoo, the use of rhythm and chanting and music to open one psychologically to possession. I was beginning to feel a bit possessed myself, but not by any Holy Ghost.

During the course of a fiery sermon, a sermon accompanied by clapping and shouts of ‘Amen!’, the minister yelled, “And yuh cain’t find God in crystal balls and taruh cards”, and pointed right at me.

Whoa.

Anita’s mouth dropped open and she stared back and forth between me and the minister. Then she whispered, “Thats just scary - lets go”.

Go? Hell no - not gonna let some bible thumper think he’d gotten the best of me. Still… it was pretty creepy. Though it would’ve been creepier if he’d mentioned Anita’s ouija board.

We stayed until the meeting was finished, then we were warmly invited back by people who probably would’ve loved to convert the crystal ball woman.

As an afterward….

When we got home, we discovered Anita’s mother had come for a surprise visit, and was waiting outsider her apartment door.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked.

“Oh we went to church”, Anita said, and her mother momentarily looked pleased until Anita added, “a Pentachostal church.”

“Oh”, Anita’s mother tried to hide her shock, and looked at me, “are you pentacostal?”

Anita laughed, “No… hahahaha… this is Che, she’s a witch. But she’s real nice though.”

Anita’s mother looked relieved, “Well if I lived next door to a witch, I’d call her nice too.”

Technorati Tags: crystal balls, tarot cards, pentacostal church

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