For Wilshire Baptist Church
Sunday we closed worship at Wilshire by singing “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” by Doris Akers. I was not feeling well and watched at home on live stream, but I texted LeAnn: “Just stay in your seat until it ends.” As far as I know, nobody got hurt.
I say that because one of the near-folkloric tales in our family is that sometime in the 1970s at the height of that song’s popularity and before it made it into the hymn books, my grandmother had her fill of it being sung in their service every week and decided to walk out of church. She stepped out the front doors of First Baptist Sherman, took a tumble and broke her arm.
Earlier in the service on Sunday at Wilshire, our student minister stepped up to the microphone with a guitar and announced we were going to sing “a song from the basement,” meaning a song popular with the youth who meet in the basement. The song was “Holy Spirit” by Victoria Williams. The youth center at my home church in Richardson was in the basement, and the same may have been true in Sherman. So, when my grandmother tried to flee “Sweet, Sweet Spirit,” I picture the spirit chasing her up out of the basement, into the sanctuary and knocking her down outside.
I’m not making light of broken arms; it can be a devastating injury and set you back if you’re a senior citizen and the meal maker for an ornery coot like my grandfather. Thankfully my grandmother survived her injury. But I’m also not making light of the power and tenacity of the Holy Spirit to chase us down and shake us up a little, especially when we go astray or when we need a nudge in the right direction. And most definitely, when we just need to be still and sit in the Spirit’s presence for a moment.
I’ve sat with the Spirit on and off my entire life, more so when I’m hurting, lost, afraid or finally smart enough to admit I’ve outreached by ability to fix something. I’ve been sitting with the Spirit a lot recently as I go through chemotherapy for a tumor in my sinus. More than that, I’ve been feeling the sweet Spirit of the body of Christ – the prayers of the faithful at Wilshire and beyond – as I go through this process. In times like these our focus on our physical self can become so intense that we don’t have words for prayer; we even forget to pray. It’s wonderful to know that others are helping rouse up the Spirit on our behalf. I definitely feel it and am so grateful.
The ironic twist to my grandmother’s story is that the service was far from over when she left. My grandfather probably thought she went to the restroom, so he stayed in the pew singing about the sweet Spirit with the keys to the car jangling in his pocket. Even if my grandmother had made it out safely, she couldn’t leave. So, maybe she just stumbled on her own and the Spirit followed her out and sat with her until help came. The Spirit is good about that.