The Pagan and The Tiger

I read an article in the paper about an 18 year old woman in Bangladesh who was fishing for shrimp with her 25 year old husband when he was attacked by a Bengal Tiger. The hungry tiger grabbed the man by the knee and was dragging him off into the woods, but the young woman beat the tiger off with just the oar from their rowboat. For ten minutes she whacked away at the starving tiger until it finally gave up and limped into the woods.

B looks up at me and says, "Would you do that for me?"

I tell him you never know how you're going to react in a situation until you're in it.

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I drive B up to the Christian Centre where he's meeting his mom for Sunday service. She is in town for a few days and would like him to join her for the sermon. They are Charismatics in this church.

At the last minute I decide to go in with B. I want to be a good sport, I don't want to be that person who's "too cool" or looks down on everybody who's different from them. Besides, from the parking lot of the converted community hall, we can hear the strains of the live Christian Rock band floating on the bright summer air. Seems pretty harmless. How bad can it be?

The one thing I should have taken seriously before going in, is the fact that traditionally I get panic attacks in church.

Seriously. I love the architecture of traditional churches, Catholic churches, the Cathedral at Notre Dame, etc. When they're empty. When I can be alone to commune with my god, who is the one who inspired the craftsmen and artisans to materialize their vision of god in stone and wood. I understand what guides the spirit of the artist to make manifest the world through pictures, and carvings, and words, and music. This is the only god I understand. However, put people in a church - make the church "awake" through whatever type of organized program, and it's like a raw electric wire in my hand. I vibrate in a very uncomfortable way, my breath quickens, the walls close in, my heart beats in my ribcage like it would like to escape. I picture myself a bird up in the rafters, beating desperately against the roof and the walls, desperate to get out where I belong, into the free air. I will beat my wings against any restriction, until I am senseless, until I die from it, unless I get out.

That's usually how I respond to church services. So maybe it was a mistake for me to go in. But I was optimistic. I'm with friends, after all. They will protect me. Maybe it will be different this time. All those other times, I was just being silly, and really, I should be more mature.

We walk into the large open community hall where the children dance with scarves at the back of the room to the soft rock strains from the stage up front. There is also a table set up for coffee - how civilised! Everyone who greets us has a big friendly smile and a handshake. "Welcome!" B's mom is at the back of the congregation. She beams and waves us over. She is excited to see her son whom she has missed this past year and a half.

Mostly the congregation faces the front, swaying to the band. Several are moved by The Spirit. They raise their hands like antennae to channel the power of Jesus. They sing along with the band. The words to the song are projected on a screen - how modern! No dry paper photocopies of The Old Rugged Cross here. Instead, a new song starts with a rumbling one note baseline. It sounds like "With Or Without You." Okay, I can get behind that. That's a fairly spiritual song, I figure. But no, it's a new song that just sounds like the old one. B concurs, "Yeah, Christian Rock today sounds like U2 twenty years ago. Twenty years from now it will sound like Nirvana." The singing goes on for an incredibly long time, but that's okay, I'm not feeling too weird. The word "tread" is spelled wrong in the lyics to one song. "Where you go, I have tred..." Tred? You mean Trod? This occupies me for a while, the English student in me coming out to correct spelling and grammatical mistakes that don't really matter, not to the people here. Which reminds me that I should probably try to pay attention. Be respectful.

"Rain down on me... (rpt 8x)
"Rain down on
"These dry bones... (rpt 8x)"

"Repeat chorus (8x)"

The song turns quiet, returning to the rumbling one note U2 baseline. The drummer stands up from his kit and walks to the microphone. Everyone is quiet. He looks over the audience, making eye contact, gathering his listeners, and when he is ready, he starts his monologue.

"There is something very special happening here today." He pauses and smiles a small saintly grin. "Can you feel it? I can feel it. Can you feel the prescence of the Spirit, building here, in the room? Ohhhh, it's a beautiful prescence," he emphasizes, with the enthusiasm of a collector describing an antique roadster. "Just beautiful." Some of the others acknowledge the beautiful prescence in the room. He builds the expectation in his listeners with this rhetoric for a while, until we come to the main point.

"Who here has come today, in the prescence of this Beautiful Spirit, with head held low? Head bowed not out of reverence, or out of awe, but out of shame, full of feelings of unworthiness? Put your hand up now, if you have come here defeated. Don't be afraid."

A dyed blond teenage girl, slumping in that "I don't matter" kind of teenage way, sitting in the row in front of me, next to a bunch of her spirit-filled fauxhawk camo-wearing friends, timidly puts up her hand, but just barely. She keeps her elbow tucked into her side protectively, and her raised hand touches her own shoulder.

"Who here is in need of healing? Don't be afraid. Put up your hand."

The timid dyed blond girl is obviously in need of healing. I can't see her face, but I imagine it. Too much black eyeliner and mascara, luminous skin, full cheeks; she is beautiful in her youth and fragility, but not one of the pretty girls at school. Someone who desperately wants to belong by being different. "Fuck you, I can like punk music and believe in the healing power of Jesus at the same time if I want to. Let's see you be original. Let's see you believe in anything other than being popular, you pretty, slutty bitches. Who needs you." Her fingers still reach tentatively for acknowledgment.

"Reach out, brothers and sisters," encourages the drummer on the microphone. "Reach out and lay hands on those in need of assistance. Reach out and heal those in need of restoration of the Spirit. Lay your hands on them."

Yes. We've come to the Laying on of Hands. Now here's the thing. I know this works. Why? Because humans need contact. Humans need to be touched, to be held. There is a great deal of healing power in a simple hug, in one hand placed on a shoulder. We are not generally comfortable with human contact in our society. Some prudish Victorian isolationism leads us to be very uncomfortable with simple human contact unless it is with someone of our immediate family, or we pay for it. Perhaps we feel we don't deserve it, and so we don't take advantage of this natural resource - the hug - unless we feel someone owes us, or we can fairly recompense the hugger with money. We're okay with paying for sex for comfort, or paying for a professional massage for our health, but we can't ask a stranger for a hug.

I look at the dyed blond girl in front of me. I could reach out and touch her shoulder, but I would have to take a step closer. B and his mom would notice me. I can't bear to be noticed. She needs love. She needs comfort. I can heal her. But I don't. I am unworthy too. More so because this is not where I belong. I believe that the others believe, which makes what they are doing as true as anything else. But I can't become one of them. I don't deserve to heal her.

The voice over the microphone gets quiet again. "Is there anything, anything that you need here today? Because I really feel that, with this beautiful prescence in the room that we are summoning right now, I believe that there is nothing that you could ask that He would not grant. Ask Jesus, for today He will not deny you anything. Do you need to be healed? Ask Him. Do you need salvation in your home? Ask Him. Do you need forgiveness? Just ask. He is willing today to give his gifts. Ask now..."

An image of Jesus as Santa Claus jumps into my head. A Saviour in a red suit, inviting devotees to sit on his knee. "Ho, ho, ho, my child, ask and you shall receive. Ask now, while I am yet in a giving mood..."

I shake the image out of my head like erasing an Etch-a-Sketch. Pay attention. The dyed blond teenager in front of me continues to crumple gently, fingers only straining upward.

I move closer to B, to whisper to him, "Um... uh, she uh, she needs help over here." B shrugs and half smiles and stays where he is. I point, like a retriever, hinting "over HERE."

Ha. I think. I guess that answers that. I guess I wouldn't fight off a Bengal tiger to protect someone who needed me. I guess I would just point to them, and whisper to nobody in particular, "Uh, um, I think they need help over here."

B's mom gently nudges him from the other side, but B will not move forward. He is not like me, he does not abstain out of fear or feelings of unworthiness. He just doesn't buy in. He would not save me from the tiger either. He would stop to think, "Yeah, but what's in it for me?" or, "Maybe this will be a lesson to you - don't let tigers get so close. Pay attention next time."

It's B's mom who turns out to be the hero. She smiles gently, steps forward and puts her hand solidly on the girl's shoulder. She looks up at her healer. B's mom beams down at her gently. "It's okay," she's saying with her soft smile and bright eyes, "You're okay. I'm with you." She stays until the tiger slinks away into the woods.

The relief in this moment is interrupted as I look around to others, standing further away from the group, who also have their hands raised. What about them? No one will come to them, but they hold their hands up, gently curved little satellite dishes ready to catch any waves of Spirit that may float on the air toward them.

As the sermon up front becomes more intense, and the believers in the audience up their intensity too, I start to feel that creeping panic under my ribcage.

"Do you believe?!" comes the voice on the microphone.
"Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins?"

Um, uh, I don't know. I believe that Jesus was a very good man who had a few (no pun intended) fatal flaws and who suffered a very bad thing. A martyr, yes, but a supernatural being? No. The Son of God, yes, but only insofar as we are all Children of God. Thoughts start to spin in circles in my head, whirring like helicopter blades cut loose and cutting randomly. The walls close in and I am there, up through the billowy white draperies suspended from the ceiling, beating my wings against the roof. Let me free, let me free.

Something on the air slips next to me in the community hall. I feel an invisible hand on my shoulder. "Shhhh-shhh-shhh...It's all right. Don't let it bother you. Come with me." The congregation breaks for coffee. I slip out the front door while the others socialize and smile and shake hands. Outside the sun is warm and bright and the air carries with it the same atoms it carried billions of years ago and they mix with my atoms, also billions of years old, just in new combinations. My shoes are off and I am on the grass, running down the hill, running across the field, running toward the trees. The wind rustles the leaves in a comforting manner. They seem to say, "Shhhshhh-shhh...It's a beautiful day. Be calm."