A Laughing Prayer of St. Paul

Lightening flashed crazily in the oncoming clouds, occasionally cracking down to the prairie surface and sometimes even jumping horizontally from cloud to cloud. In storms such as the incoming one, lightning often hit the iron cross on the little church steeple simply because it was the highest point for miles around. The strikes, (which came often during the summer storm season), always were terrifying to see.

“Swa.a.a.a.tch”

Thousands of amps of lightning with a prairie sized flash blasted the tiny building, bringing blinding light for an instant. You would think that everything was vaporized but after recovering from temporary blindness, there it all still was, standing strong. The power had coursed down the lightning rod cable, past the little steeple and into the ground, keeping everything from instant incineration. It was an apt picture of humanity in God’s Great North American prairie. An open country storm was much more panoramic, much wider, than most people are used to. Any tiny observing human stood in a cathedral of unspeakable proportions to find him or herself slipping into awe. It was Genesis 1:1 in first person right there in front of them. In the center stood a tiny, battered little church complete with a little steeple. It clung to a country crossroads like a lost sheep trying to decide where to go in all this vastness.

A microscopic dot far out on the prairie turned out to be an open tractor, hurrying along. The rancher had a city relative riding on the machine with him. They had gotten carried away in this colossal example of a deity’s art work and forgot to head home when they should have. The rancher knew better. He had seen the majestic conductor’s baton fall throughout his entire life. Today though, he felt the wind and tracked the clouds, saw the colors, the movement and the passion. The awe of the newcomer riding with him made them stay longer than they should have. Now they were rushing as fast as a tractor could rush but there it came, racing at them since God waits for no person.

With a blast of wind, the incoming rain looked like a colossal gray temple curtain traveling across the countryside. Cymbals crashed, trumpets blared and violins tangled with woodwinds. In seconds, everything was soaked as the curtain of rain did as commanded, moving across the prairie on angel’s wings. The racing rain didn’t even hesitate as it swept over the hurrying little dot of humanity.

Thankfully both men on the tractor had hats on. The visiting city slicker had a new Green Bay Packers cap purchased the last time that he was in Wisconsin. The rancher driving the tractor was doffed in the much more practical, eastern Colorado, cowboy hat made from battered cowhide. Either way, to have a hat was good because the drops actually hurt when they hit the men. Each huge rain drop looked like a water filled sandwich bag. Initially, the ground puffed with bursts of dust as each water bag/ rain drop hit it. But the rain quickly overwhelmed everything. Even though it was only a minute or so before the men got under the church building overhang, still they and everything on the machine looked like they had just emerged from a river. The passing curtain of gray was gone in minutes but left everything soaked including the laughing but thoroughly chilled men.

From horizon eternal to horizon eternal, the gravel cross roads shot, straight, without a single curve, unwavering as the purposes of God on the now soaked prairie flatlands to meet at the church.  Patches of trees did show here and there on the countryside. This meant people lived there, (either now or in the past), because that is the only way that enough water came to this place for trees to grow. This was eastern Colorado after all. Obviously rains came here, sometimes even much rain, but never enough for a patch of trees to grow on their own. There were only a few trees in the entire panorama because only a few people lived here. 

The gravel east - west road was slightly different than the gravel north – south road. They both were straight as an arrow, without so much as a wiggle. The difference was that the road going west led to a different view than the other road’s horizons. This was Colorado after all. Off beyond the western horizon, as the storm clouds moved on, something huge loomed. Beautiful yet massive, silent yet dominating, the Rocky Mountains looked over the lesser prairies and foothills below and announced their unquestionable dominance in a dark blue Colorado afternoon following a rain. The rancher grinned at his wide eyed, city relative. He spit tobacco juice on the church’s covered tarmac, having no notion of the disrespect in the act. “Tamarra da whole prairie is gonna be greener den ya kin imagine” he worshipfully mumbled. The city relative grinned back. This was better than any movie, especially with the almost sweet, pure, wind in their faces.

Here at the crossroads, the church and its’ attendant shrubs and scrub trees stood very much like they did since the building was erected in 1911. In only a few days, an army of extremely well organized ranchers treated the project like a standard barn raising of the time, only this was more important because it was a church. This community built the building well because they didn’t know how to do it any other way, with multiple generations laughing together, eating, singing, meeting new babies, flirting and teaching each other how to build.  One 1911 morning saw a simple prairie crossroads and the next morning it was a prairie crossroads with a church, stone foundation in place and all. A steeple with a determined cross at the top acknowledged to anyone who cared to look, who was in charge here in the end.  Over the years, some obvious “updates’ were made to the building. There was the time in the 1930s when the wooden fence was torn down and a bit of prairie was plowed up to convert the congregational horse paddock into a gravel parking lot. The 1970s had plywood paneling put up in the sanctuary walls when the plaster came down after a tornado hit the church, making for a diminished sanctuary. Aluminum window “upgrades” of the 1990s were put in when the old windows gave in to the extremes of prairie weather. This always was a church maintained by ranchers, touched up and cleaned, often done by individual initiative just because it was needed, no requests made, no questions asked.

On Sunday mornings, everybody came to church because only seriously warped individuals didn’t believe in God out here on the open prairie. Only the most scarred veteran of a life gone extremely badly, only such a person disavowed the majestic symphony obviously around them. Everyone else came to church. So, St. Paul the Rancher packed his teen-agers and long suffering wife into his club cab pick-up and drove the fifteen minutes of gravel roads to church. Today they had a city relative in tow but life cycles are life cycles. It didn’t matter if a visitor was with or not.

Because of the 24/7 constant effort needed to keep a working ranch going, no one grumbled, favoring the down time as they drove. There were some comments on how green everything was because of yesterday’s rain but other than that, generally, most of the drive was in a comfortable silence. Theirs was a short ride to church considering that most ranches were the size of Connecticut around here. Farther away parishioners took fifteen minutes just to pass into the neighboring ranch lands on the way to church. Still, unless something exceptional happened, no one came late. Therefore the pick-ups were already gathering on the recently re-graveled parking lot when Paul and his family pulled up. “Hellos” and nods were in order.

“Fred, dis is my nephew Brett, he comes all da way from Milwaukee”.

“Pleasure ta meet ya Brett”.

Gloria had been playing the Hammond Worticer organ 1946 model 2 since she was sixteen years old and that was a multiple of decades and five pastors ago. She used the organ now as a bull horn in conjunction with Sam, her husband, pulling the church bell. “It is Well with my Soul” punctuated by bell tolls got the ranching families hustling into the building. Everyone grabbed their usual pew.

In 1911 when these pews were constructed, there was a theology surrounding the traditions that made them. Church at the time, was not to be enjoyed. Rather, church was to be obeyed, prayed, sacrificed, suffered and endured. Pleasure somehow had gotten sinful in itself though none could find such a statement in the book. Church pews were built accordingly. The astonishing craftsmanship in their construction that now drove collectors into ecstasy was presumed then, hardly worthy of mention. Of concern in 1911 was that parishioners, (young and old alike), sat with military precision, straight backed, alert and obedient. TO FALL ASLEEP DURING A CHURCH SERVICE WAS SACRILEGE. So, this Sunday morning found the family of Paul, (plus one), filing into their usual straight backed, stern, pew places, fully understanding all of their religious obligations,….well, possibly with the exception of the city slicker who was next door to a heathen anyway.

Now, comments must be made of the life of ranchers on the prairie. It is an understatement that God waits for no one here. Therefore, if it is planting time, the rancher got onto his tractor or the window of time would certainly close for the tardy. If fifty percent of the family income depended upon getting the extremely expensive seed corn into a patch of ground the size of some European duchies, (seed corn purchased on loan from the agricultural bank at tens of thousands of dollars), then the rancher stayed up night and day and plowed, fertilized, disked, planted, and did anything else to make the future harvest a success including coming to church to pray for rain. The same happened later in the year at harvest time. Such is the ways of the rancher, risking their entire net worth each year on God’s providence. Yup, they therefore came to church, sleep deprived but still,….they came to church.

St. Paul the Rancher had developed a system of working within his religion. If he hunkered down just right into his place in the 1911 pew, his body would stay erect and he would not give off the deadly head nod, that true and all too public indicator of a blasphemous penitent falling asleep. It didn’t help that the current pastor, (placed in this out of the way parish by the denomination), saw his calling as a “Cowboy Preacher”. This meant that besides the clothing style, he primarily spent his time reaching out to the wayward in the greasy spoons, tiny bars, and cattle auction stations of the surrounding countryside rather than in preparing sermons. This pastor did have a favorite sermon though and on the rare occasion that a newcomer came around, he would immediately dust it off and use it….again.

“Life is like a cowboy on a bucking bronco.”

“When the cowboy gets on the wild steed, the first thing that happens is that he loses his hat”.

“The next that goes is all of his change, his keys, and anything else that he has in his pockets”.

“The cowboy desperately hangs on anyway as he gets battered.”

“Then his pride leaves as spittle flies and his body flops uncontrollably on the bucking animal.”

“It hurts, it is frightening…and the cowboy begins thinking of letting go”.

“Hang on though cowboy,…HANG ON”!

It was quite a good sermon. The only problem with it was that the congregation had heard it so often now that some of the teenagers were mouthing the lines along with the pastor. Doubly problematic was that the boredom of a repeat sermon worked against St. Paul the Rancher, hunkered comfortably down on his 1911 pew. In Paul’s defense, with the arrival of their visitor, the already sleep deprived rancher slept even less. Therefore, before anyone could shout “Amen”, St. Paul the Rancher not only fell asleep to any watching angel’s shock, he also went into rapid eye movement as well. Now began the falling dominos leading to his demise. In St. Paul’s ever scantier defense, genetics and not his personal misdeeds kicked in next. With REM in place, St. Paul the Rancher let go a snore that would have awed the mythical Sandman himself. Some kids later claimed that the snore was so loud that it actually echoed in the church sanctuary. Whatever the case, it stopped a sermon about a cowboy holding on for dear life, cold in its tracks. Oh, but the actions of evil had only begun.

Sara loved Paul as ever a rancher’s wife could. They hugged, they fought, they played, (rarely), and they worked like dogs, (often), for all of their lives. They had grown up on these ranches. They went to the same home school cooperative together. He gave her their mutual first kiss. He was her man and she was his woman, no questions asked. Sara also could stand on a hay wagon and bail hay all day in the hot Colorado sun. She could change a semi truck’s flat tire, help birth a calf and still whup a teenage boy if he decided to challenge authority. So Sara did the natural thing, she gave her husband a muscular elbow that could have knocked a lesser man right out of his 1911 pew. Though Sara could build strategy with the best of them when the cattle broke through a fence for example, this Sunday she had panicked because of this chainsaw going off in church. She forgot that her man was not “with himself” of course. Sara also forgot about the small church tradition of “the benediction”.

(An explanation is necessary here.) Oh…the tradition of THE BENEDICTION, that curse of the ages. This was when a small church pastor would enact the displeasure of God upon some hapless soul and the pastor, (as a tool of God of course), would pick a cringing congregant to pray a benediction…OUT LOUD…in the hearing of the entire snickering congregation. It was used to punish the inattentive after the pastor finished his sermon.

“…an God,…thank ya…fer….fer…da missionaries!”

The hapless victim usually was a male head of household, though lest any wander down the sinful road of ease and comfort, occasionally others would be struck with the punishment. In today’s horror, the sleeping St. Paul the Rancher’s many malfunctioning brain synopses presumed upon his loving Sara’s urging elbow that he had been called upon for “The Benediction.”

Perhaps God has a sense of humor. You would think so since He invented it. Perhaps God likes to stir up things now and then to keep us on our toes. This is a matter for much wiser and gifted persons but to St. Paul, the matter was quite simple. He rose from his exalted place in the 1911 pew even as the Cowboy Pastor still held an impassioned finger in the air, in the very act of pleading for the bronc riding cowboy to “HANG ON!” St. Paul interrupted the pleading pastor with the standard benediction.

“…an God,…bless the missionaries!”

Then St. Paul the Rancher placed his battered cowboy hat on his head and walked out of the church building. Sara, not knowing what else to do, hurried after her man. The kids knew leadership when they saw it and followed their parents to be immediately imitated by their guest. To the shock of the Pastor, Gloria the organ player and Sam her bell ringer husband, the entire congregation took the cue and left silently as well. Church services ended a full hour and half early which had never happened before in any one’s memory in these cycles of life.

If God is the author of pleasure, of panoramic prairies and purple mountains majesty, then clearly it is the misuse of pleasure that is the sin, not the pleasure itself. Now, the question rests eternal for theologians to mull as follows. Did God hear St. Paul’s prayer? More importantly, did God think that it was funny if He did hear it? 

Genesis 21:6 (NIV)

Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”