"The Gospel Chariot" / Part One: The Great "Going Forward"

                  

Any of us who have ever kept a pet for any length of time knows that the very idea of "owning" a pet has gotten it totally backward.  We never "own" our pet dog, or cat, or iguana, even a school of tropical fish  -  they in fact and of course  -  own us!  These dumb animals (all creatures great and small) which we choose to bring into our clean and orderly homes and to lavish with “three hots and a cot”, become in every sense, a family member.   Constant companions and confidants they become  -  for life.  Come prosperity or financial struggle, come good times or bad,  in sickness or in health they are confidants constant and true. They can and often do, become closer and dearer to us than our very own chosen spouses and blood relatives. 

Many people fail to appreciate that there is something unseen; that exists between humans and animals –  a telepathic channel we can use to communicate with the animals we love.  But pet lovers world wide know that what I say is true.  Reflect for a moment about all the ways your lonely and desolate life has been enriched by and through your love-affair with your pet.  How often, even our anthro-centric stories involving human interactions have, at the beginning of the story, a dog on (or off) leash?  How much of what we refer to as "us" is not really us - but a projection of our pet’s personality?     How many times in your own inner voice - honestly - have you wished your pet could have the ability to carry on a conversation with you?  So that the bond between you  -  like a pair or cooing lovers  - could  become even tighter and more meaningful.

          This story is the full and honest accounting of one very singular episode in the life of one such faithful pet.  It is an epic adventure story for pet lovers; and an allegorical journey for people of faith, or those who seek it.  And don’t these traits so often go together  -  like collar and leash?  This is the incredible true adventure story of Isabella Emergent Victorious  - "Ice" for short  -  a  half-breed, teenaged Labrador retriever.   Follow along and learn of her epiphany and the wondrous happenings revolving around her family’s relocation from under the dark shadow of the pyramids of Memphis  -  and onto hallowed grounds in middle Tennessee.  It is  a  - "book, chapter, and verse"  -  modern day translation of a timeless theme: "The Righteous Shall Live by Faith".

Isabella must have realized something life-changing was going on: what with all the turmoil revolving around the packing and the emptying of cabinets and closets.  Not unlike,  the Hebrews preparing to leave Egypt on the fly -  on that night forever more to be known as Passover.  Then early on that fateful Saturday morning,  the bee-hive of activity continue with the loading of all the boxes into a strange bread box looking truck with dual wheels on the rear axle. 

        Then there were the muchachos, hired by El Jefe to assist with the weekend moving job.  Tracking endlessly in and out of the house - with dirty shoes, and the eating of Cheetos on the front steps and all that gibberish and banter only added to her state of confusion.   Isabella understood enough Spanish to get the gist and so she played along and smiled at the appropriate times - and did her little soft howl when everybody broke out in laughter over a spilled soda pop.  Mostly she just shadowed me "El Jefe" as I assisted and arbitrated the loquacious proceedings; shuttled back and forth like a badminton cock; whacked on one end by the pleasant yet willful orchestrations of my wife "Mamacita" who was exhorting the team to carry out the pre-game plan on schedule.

          Anything that could be carted up and into a sort of arc on axles  -  up the aluminum loading ramp or stacked inside its bellows  - was about to embark upon an exodus of new proportion.  (Not at all unlike the parable of Noah's ark)  Isabella watched the proceedings with anxious optimism as to what might be about to transpire.  She had understood enough chit-chat to know that the family was planning to relocate, tan pronto como younger son Kevin had finished his enrollment at Hermanos Christianos - conveniently located just across I 240 from the predominately kosher east Memphis subdivision - developed  in the sixty's by a couple of opportunistic Frank Lloyd wannabee builders.

          Us hombres would be carrying on back and forth in a jocund Spanglish spoken with the staccato stack of a Cuban accent.   I would have of course, been taking every opportunity to practice speaking my newly found tongue; whenever the way was easy and the path was wide  -  until I would inevitable run out of vocabulary, and lost in translation be forced to revert to a rather frustrated King James English and repetition, repetition to get my points across.  Repetition. 
        The effectiveness of communication either way was pretty much a toss up; about like trying to witness the gospel through a translator - one whose command of English is less than fluent - who does not understand the idioms and euphemisms of the southern dialect. (One whose translation of your sermon can hardly be truely verified; because of the language barrier itself  - and because of the gravitational pull of orthodox viewpoints  - and because of certain other questionable motives we won't go into right now. One develops the tendency to wonder; which hybrid form of gospel the convert even agrees to accept upon the receiving of the sacrament of baptism.)  However, I digress.

  The worldly vessels of twenty-five years of marriage - of house keeping and child rearing - had been packed up like so many pairs of animal crackers inside wax-paper protection -  and tucked away inside its carton and stacked away.  And then early on the Lord's Day, the treasured possessions were wheeled outside the spacious contemporary brick ranch house and into the odd looking moving van.

   We had been about as happy as I suppose any family could have been;  in the aimable and Wrightcomfortable dwelling, with it’s contemporary low-pitched, slanting roof and full length glass windows in the living room.   It was typical of the houses so popular in "Little Jerusalem" - perched on the outskirts of Memphis - because of the large combination dining and living rooms and ample and fenced back yards, so convivial at festival times -  and giving the frugle families the option to hang the laundry in privacy, thereby saving on the electric bills. 
 It was a neighborhood built of, by, and for a new generation of Memphis middle class Jewish families,  although any denomonation was more than welcome to purchase at the right price.  (A sort of every-man's vision of  the Frank Lloyd Wright waterfall house. Complete with gas lamps and BBQ grills, built in dish-washers and four bedrooms (to accommodate the larger-than-average-sized families) these sought after properties had been developed by one set of brothers, built by another, and sold by yet a third  - all at good profit during the golden age of the America's ascendancy in the manufacturing of durable goods and well-attended gospel meetings.

        The particular dwelling had been purchased  - on faith - that the co-mingled incomes of El Jefe and  rising star Mamacita could afford the tuition to allow them to educate their two exemplary sons at nearby Christian Brothers High School.  The dwelling site was chosen in the final analysis because it met spec and was within after school walking distance of the esteemed institution.  We had purchased the house at a bargain price from Mr. and Mrs. Perlman - who oddly never even bothered to counter-offer our original low bid -  and agreed to the immediate sale so they could go on vacation to Sandestin  -  and the ghost of Mrs. Rosen; who continued. we were convinced, to inhabit an area of our living room -  next to and above (and perhaps inside) the Toby jugs display cabinet, which in turn looked out in beneficence over the antique English grandfather clock.

          In what we understood to be a sort of appreciation offering;  for the way I nicely kept up the landscaping about the property so loved by Mrs Rosen while on earth.  She had so loved  her little oasis;  where she had nurtured the Bermuda grass and played croquet with her son Israel - proprietor of the well known gentleman’s clothiers “I. Rosen’s” of Memphis.  And especially for the fact that Mamcita and I often listened to Neal Diamond and Leonard Cohen CD’s in the evening instead of watching television.   Mrs. Rosen would sometimes wax insomniac and  would yield to the temptation - and  the danger of exposure - to come out into the back yard; into the cloistered yet moon-lit suburban oasis where she would silently dig wild onions and  exorcise Virginia creeper from the pear-shaped lawn.  Softly she would work and hum  "Suzanna" or "Sisters of Mercy" - or perhaps break out in hushed  rendition  to “Kentucky Woman” - against a lively cricket-chirp accompaniment   Bringing all the passion without all the extraneous noise.  (Like a drummer playing cymbals with brushes rather than the  drumsticks.) 

Sha-Zam!  Out and through the suddenly-agape double front doors proceeded the boxed-up antiques and family possessions under escort  -  those that is, not previously jettisoned in the garage sales.  (El Jefe having utilized his intermediate Spanish skills to post bi-lingual signs on Summer Ave and en la calle Jackson.)  Other cast-off belongings had been donated to the association for Disabled American Vets - who were known to give a rather miserly and questionable percentage of proceeds to war veterans. The remnant of the family possessions were carted or carried - up the pull out aluminum ramp and  - into the goofy-looking bread box truck.  Segregated.  Again not unlike the Noah epoch  - with one pair each of unclean species kept in the lower holds just for grins, and seven pairs each of clean species pampered on the upper floors and secretly kept under the auspices of the commissary.

          "Praise Him!"  "Seventy times seven in the congregation of David"

      Some few of the nicer furniture pieces and many of the plastic boxes had been thoughtfully stacked near the head wall of the bread box, and consigned into storage until a permanent tabernacle location had been made manifest.  The remnants of the precious cargo had been packed  and strapped down into or onto El Jefe’s clean but scratched-up GMC pickup truck - white as Lazarus’ smile.  The collection of about a dozen cherished oil paintings - (Were they not manifestations of the unconquerable lure of the lust of the eye?) - had been laid down as if into sepulcher;  one on top another: nestled into the hatch of the lily-white ark disguised as an Altima sedan. The  entire lot of paintings had been wrapped in swaddling cloths and tucked prayerfully away for safekeeping;  to be unloaded into storage and apparent abandonment - forgotten among the frontier boom towns of Antioch and Smyrna.           Smyrna that New Testament city, where by faith we were prepared to undergo a visceral and very real wilderness trial which was to assault the very bedrock of faiths -  and put to the test our marriage as had no other trial we had ever faced together in our nearly twenty five years of marriage.

          The antique English grandfather clock was like Zachariah (father of John the Baptist) struck dumb, dismantled, and packaged for transport. The Stafford-shire dogs and the Toby jugs had been wrapped with sheets of incensed linens and ceremonially crammed into structurally sound red  or green plastic boxes with hinged and folding lids. (Earthen vessels stored in jars of clay.)

           Each dumb-struck and muted Royal Daulton or Bestwick, or other branded porcelain "Toby Jug" figurine was a mimic of some well-known British personae from history or Dickens-esque literature. These curiosities had been conceived within the union of original sin of greed - and nurtured by methodology of child labor under deplorable conditions.  19th Century robber barons, who were masters the steam engine and sweat shop, gave birth to these curiosities - in comic tribute to the virtues of draft ale. Originally marketed as common household trinkets to be peddled by profiteers in the K-marts of the 19th century, these keep-sakes had become by the post-Restoration mid 20^th century, valuable collectors’ items and of which we were avid collectors. ( I got a great discount at my father's well-respectd and profitable antique shop in midtown.)
           Each recognizable countenance, seemed bound and fixed in secret with-holding of some sorted story it's very own - scrupulously with-held from publication and paparazzi.  Some fascinating and often times dreadful story - lying dormant for our  modern day enlightenment.  Could we but unlock its secret. and roll back the language of time.  Oh what fascinating and sorted stories we could hear!   Could we Could we like in Back to the Future:  go back and time but unlock the muted syllables of these tennents - who had lived  to witnessand perhaps remember a half- dozen or more generations.  And then I imagine,  through the circle of lady fortune  - to have lived in the homes of both the working poor, the rising middle class, the  lavishly wealthy, and now the declining middle class.  Oh my goodness, I often fantasized, what stories they could tell -  if we could just let Diane Sawyer do an interview and see it on 60 Minutes.  If we could only trust in the Lord as had the patriarchs!  Perhaps then, we could speak to the rock  -  like Moses should have done at Petra. 

  

"There’s a fountain free, ‘Tis for you and me, let us haste of haste to its brink"

          Were not the shores of the great "Bluff City" lapped with and increasingly more tinged by the brackish waters of the Mississippi River - that surging and unyielding sewage pipe for the populated and agro-industrial Midwest?  Did it not flow with increasing vileness  past all the evil multi-national chemical manufactures in the boot-heel - stopping for a milk shake in Osceola - and then lapping up the scummy run-off from pesticide infected corn and bean fields - rumbling right down through Arkansas and stumbling stupefied into Memphis?  Into its garish heathen pyramidal sports complex - smelling of slave markets and cheap domestic draft beer - where it would inevitible slow its course.   Did not the old man river linger in Memphis longer than was necessary?  Where did he go to what place that  wasn't where it was supposed to be on TomTom?  Who did he visit while on  furlough in the harlot on the river bluffs.?

          Do I need to remind you that Memphis was in fact named after a thriving Nile river-port, once the second-greatest Metropolis in all Egypt?  A site soon to become abandoned and the materials from the homes of its leading citizens  re-cycled to build the suburbs at Fosat  - sight of present day Tunica, which now these later days dissipates  -  a graying southern Gothic spinster.  Tunica.  A down-time Mecca for the poor white trash and leisure seeking tribes migrating up from the vast expanses of Nubia.

        Taking his time to get drunk on Beale Street  - and finding B B King to be engaged elsewhere - he resumed her course for the juke joints of Helena and Greenville  - gaining momentum towards an ultimate orgy of food, drink and wanton-ness in the red-lit bedrooms along the banks of Lake Pontchartrain: -  before visiting that whore of Babylon better known as New Orleans - where he would ultimately surge to a hedonistic climax in the French quarter  - before de-flatting in a symbolic up-chucking gluttonous puke-out into the toilet of the vast Dead Sea.
 

            Memphis had in keeping with the plan, been faithfully and fatefully thrown off, like the dust from the apostles’ feet  -  in those towns were the people refused to listen to the good news preached within its walls. Sights had been prayerfully re-focused on the hills around the bountiful Harpeth River watershed which - following a few refreshing raindrops from heaven - would flow us right into our very own river Jordan.  The valley toward which the family had been called was in fact of the matter, near unto the ancestral grounds of the venerated Lipscombs and Hardings;  founding fathers of the great Christian boarding schools and colleges of the great Restoration Movement which would later bear their names.   
          We would soon be encamped within a carriage ride of some of the camp meetings where were witnessed the revivalist sermons of Barton W. Stone, Calhoun John Smith, and Franklin Camp.  The hills and valleys themselves in middle Tennessee could well testify as to zeal of the faithful-departed in these parts;  for its likeness in appearance to the Garden of Eden.  And would there not forever-more be the refreshing  Harpeth River-runs-through-it toward Jordan;  a land flowing with Milk Bone and Honey Grahams. 
          As I checked both mirrors and floor-boarded our rented gospel chariot - accelerating the bread box to merge onto I 40 eastbound  -  I could have sworn I heard a woman's alto voice humming Leonard Cohen's, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye". 

          Well, like I was saying earlier, Isabella must have known it was going to be an ever-so- momentous occasion when first thing right after breakfast upon the First Day of the Week -  a quick affair of coffee and Howard’s Donuts - no customary cereal with blueberries and milk - no cinnamon toast.  None of El Jefe's leisurly reading "The Commercial Appeal" or else trying to nuzzle in on Mamacita before Bible Study.   Isabella was called up by El Jefe  -  and exhorted to hop  into the cramped cab of the bread basket on wheels  -  sharing the passenger side seat and floor-board with her water bowl and a half-dozen assorted house plants.  Just enough room to sit still and to be reverently quite; to meditate among the palm trees and to expectantly gaze out the over-sized windshield of the odd bread-box truck.   Isabella the Expectant settled in and slobbered out the over-sized windshield  -  and out the open side window of "The Gospel Chariot"  -  and on the truck seats and the houseplants.

"To Canaan’s land I’m on my way where the soul never dies."

Still I imagine her sense of mystery and monument must have nearly boiled over when - as she was driven the short and not unfamiliar thirteen miles to a large brick building nestled into a nice landscape of red bud and dogwood trees and a spiffy new church-bought and child-safe playground area used by the day care center from nine to five.  Ice had been here before, in the back of the pick-up truck as El Jefe had retrieved or deposited one of the boys, who were always  going with the church YAC shack youth group on this or that sanctified sojourn or parental approved outing or lock-in devotional type thing.  She knew about the YAC shack and most of the teens and of course about the upscale play pen adjacent  -  and so would have felt no reason to worry when she was ushered from the pick up into the cage. (Very much un-like the occasions when Papaw Murley would corral a steer for market.) 

           Soon enough, however her mind would have begun to dwell on the uncertainty  - and a sort of panic woud have sort of set in  -  like that up-dwelling of unease just preceding the thinking of a negative thought. She would have been anxious, I imagine as to her future role within the company and her position in the new chain of command. 
           Had not Isabella become a well-liked celebrity in her home town?  Was she not always so well-behaved, and so eager to join in with anything fun or adventurous that could be conjured up?  Was she not  legendary in "Little Jerusalem" our clean and kosher east Memphis neighborhood?   A holy site; situated providentially within walking distance of two weathering art deco era synagogues  Anshei Sphard: Beth El Emeth  - strong hold of the progressive moderates - and Temple Israel - a longer and more arduous hike  - but the path taken by the more deeply devout or simply "old school" sectarian / octogenarians.

           Had not our entire family of restoration-principle reared Christians respectfully assimilated ourselves into the venerated customs and traditions of the quiet if not charismatic east Memphis community?  Had we not cheerfully cut our willow branches (there being no native palm trees in Memphis) for those who needed to construct a temporary habitation?  Had we not watched - while restraining from laughing out- loud each year - whenever they would go to converting a two-car carport into a holy dwelling for the week-long Feast of Booths?  Had we not been accepted as members at the Jewish Community Center. (Until that is,  I (El Jefe) stupidly sat down  -  after executing a pretty dang good one and a half  -  in the vacant "Russian section" of the pool lounge area when I was kindly asked to leave) 

         Was not Isabella herself easily recognized as queen bitch in the subdivision  -  a fixture she was in the neighborhood  -  jogging with El Jefe on leash and sometimes off leash  - gloriously romping and patrolling with a real take charge attitude?    Was not her tell-tale ...Tinkle-Tinkle…(those melodious plinks of her dog tags bumping her choke chain as she hit her skewed stride)  - a familiar sound in the neighborhood  -  recognized by all the sons and daughters of the covenant: who in turn would most always wave or say hello to her in respect.  …Tinkle -Tinkle…  No fu-fu wimpy pink collar for she.
No sir-ee.   Like Joan of Arc in full battle araiment and armor  -  a  chrome plated choke-chain anchored fast with a cut length of climbing rope and carabineer would comprised her sports attire.

"Throw out the life-line across the dark wave there is a brother who someone should save"   Somebody’s brother; O who then will dare to throw out the life-line across the dark wave?”

Had she not continually proven her worth on every hiking trail in half of Tennessee - a faithful scout and trail guide to be trusted?  ...Tinkle-Tinkle...  Had she not - when allowed free reign - tracked down and engaged demon squirrels?  Exorcising them of their dark possessions:  stopping just long enough to snap their necks in her smiling embrace before tirelessly resuming her off-kilter stride.  ...Tinkle -Tinkle…   As if her front-end was in need of alignment. 

And ourselves, Mamacita and El Jefe?  Were not we identified in the neighborhood as the "parents of Isabella the Energetic"?   Had not ourselves  hosted numerous in-home devotionals and informal dinners for the church mission group?  And had not Ice revelled in entertaining the odd gaggle of  spiritually minded and hungry “singles” - with her howling crescendo whenever urged along by El Jefe or Kevin.   Had she not respectfully listened to the group’s prayers -  and learned the devotional songs  -within the hallowed confines of the expansive front dining room  -  and monitored by the resident musician poltergeist Mrs. Rosen? 
 In retrospect, were not she Mamacita a sort of arch-typical  Mary and myself El Jefe, simply a modern English translation of a gullible Joseph?  And were not we combined nothing more than a pair of misfit remnants? (and then Isabella by association?)    Nothing more than witless-yet-willing accomplices to an eternal scheme  -  one conceived in love before the beginning of time and enacted  - generation upon overlapping generation  - as a sort of spiritual "Never Ending Story" throughout all eternity.

          "Oh the richness and depth of his wonderful love, flowing boundless, and full, and free”

           And so, not unlike like the lad Isaac - as he and his father came nigh unto Mt. Moriah -  I’m sure that she, initially would have felt no reason to fear another new adventure: nothing encountered with her striding steadfastly alongside El Jefe could present itself any real obstacle.  No test of faith should ever reveal even a shed hair of doubt regarding the sureness of her calling - her election. So as she was coaxed inside the cyclone-fenced playground, and then as she watched while Mamacita and El Jefe marched, New Testaments in hand, up the long parking lot toward the church with its circular drive -  she sat still in her sphinx pose  -  and knew that He was God and  - she His willing servant. 

            To avoid any smart-ass "Beverly Hillbilly" jokes from the good-natured deacons, the art-gallery laden and  lily-white sedan, and the accessory-laden gospel chariot had been parked in the back corner of the Forrest Hills parking lot beside the YAC Shack.  Isabella must have known there was something epic in the making.  I am sure of it - I could see the resolve in her eyes as we had told her to "Be a good girl.  Stay right here while we’re inside.  We’ll come see you in a little bit, OK girl.  Be a good girl!  Get all those monsters!"  Her favorite call to arms.  Her mantra.  Her mission!

            I can imagine, however - that not unlike the lad Isaac - she did not fully understand or appreciate what was soon to transpire.  She must have been anxious, and would have felt that since she had given her life and loyalty freely up to this point, that she had an inborn right to participate in any family discussions.  And if there was some secretive Masonic meeting going on, did not she need to be there, to put in her two-cents worth?  Somewhere I imagine, oh  along about the second verse of the invitation hymn, Isabella forced open the bottom of the latched cyclone fence gate;  just enough to squeeze her square shoulders and extremely strong beagle-esque torso  - through the gate and onto the playing field.  (Or perhaps an angelic being un-loosed the latch. One can never overlook such possibilities at such a time.)  So in three- quarter trot time -  in good rhythm with the meter of the invitation song.  ...Tinkle -Tinkle..  Isabella would have made her first move.  
       Upon inspecting the double-doors leading into the sanctuary and finding them closed and unattended, she would have crouched in the gardenia bushes along the walkway to await her Macedonian call.

 "Come feast upon thu-u word of God and drink ever-lasting li-ife

  Heear the in-vita-tion  for whooo-soever will …

  Praise Gaaad  -  for full salva-tion  For who  - so - ever  will.”

            Ice would have most likely paused and admired the strong vibrant voice of Gary Rigny, the genial song leader, and one of El Jefe’s deer hunting buddies:  the two on them sharing a honey-hole in Fayette County owned by Mr. Cathey Standridge,  a well known local business man and character. (Standridge was reared in the lower Mississippi delta but had become well acclimated and accepted as local by all the yocals in west Tennessee.)   Standridge knew everybody in three counties, because he owned the prosperous GMC truck dealership near Cairo and he was generous to a fault.  Standridge, (whose ancestors had helped to establish the first Disciples Congregation in Mississippi at Thyatira) wasn’t a deacon, because he was working on his second marriage; and as such was disqualified from office; but everybody loved him, and he carried on the duties and enjoyed the status of deacon, without the actual wearing of the title.

Well, wouldn’t you know it!  As rarely yet occasionally happens: someone "responded to the gospel call" and "came forward" to receive water baptism for the remission of sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  One of deacon Parrish’s snot-nosed brats -  (I’m sure at the insistence of his Momma the congregation’s ranking snoot)  -  had stepped up and "responded to the invitation"; a cause of great rejoicing for some and equally a cause to get restless for others  -  because the service would now be longer and we wouldn’t be able to beat the Baptists to the Piccadilly.  And you could forget about hitting the buffet at Ryan’s Steak House - the danger being too great of becoming stampeded by van loads of the wildebeest COGIC faithful. - (Church of God in Christ: with world headquarters and ranking bishops holding court in the belly of the great Bluff City)   Ravenously migrating out of the Sudan;  be-decked on the first day of the Week in their finery and plumage - much of it bought on lay-away from Bert’s Men’s Store or Catherine’s Stout Shops in Memphis.  A generous-hearted and gregarious albeit it dangerous upwelling of brotherly and sisterly love  - and fried foods.  Working it  Two plates per visit over in hot foods.  Feeding as fellowship is the one mantra that most all brands of Christianity share.
 "... and give us this day our daily fried chicken."

Meanwhile back to the front pew of the church house; and returning our attention to the Parrish brat's baptism at hand:  First there was the waiting - while the neophyte respondant laboriously filled out his response card:  Explaining his reason for walking into the aisle and for coming down front to occupy the hallowed front seats. (where nobody ever sits, except for those waiting to "wait on" the Lord's Table or one who had only  - like just now - responded to the "invitation" compunctually offered after each sermon. 
Secondly after minister South had read the "statement" of the respondent, there was the confession of faith in the presence of witnesses, and the avowal of the applicant's heart-felt repentance for sins.  And because Jesus had said it in red letters, and because it was easy to understand  - and besides a five- part plan of salvation beats a four- part plan hands down  -  it was time for the baptism.

 Following the joyful singing of two or three uplifting songs, the sin-encumbered child of man would partake in the sacrament which would transform him from vile sinner into a "babe in Christ" also and thereby joining him to the congregation.  Meanwhile preacher South was stepping into his waders: while the elder Britton and the beaming dad, Deacon Parrish were helping the penitent brat change into the stiff and  over sized Egyptian cotton baptismal garments - blanched Borax white and spotless as the Pascal lamb.

And so, by then, I’m sure Isabella was wondering, had we abandoned her? Were we eating potluck dinner without her?  Were we secretly plotting to send her to a canine convent?   Did they have pot roast at that pot luck dinner?  What song is that being sung inside there? Who is that song-leader with the nice baritone?  Did they serve pot roast at that convent?

          While Isabella was crouched in hiding, and possibly engaged in prayer - in anticipation of her next move - the Parrish brat would have been gliding underwater backwards -  forty-five degrees of face up -  all the way under -  a folded hand-kerchief and preacher South’s cupped hands preventing his drowning in the sacrament.    Magically suspended in glorious life-giving sustenance  - somewhere between innocence and eternity - and following a brief  "just-for-sure" pause at the apex of the dip. Brought up-and-out of the water to ever-more walk in newness of life. 

          So by then, Ice would have been waiting and wondering  - and soon enough she would have been panting  - when suddenly that "Abra Kadabra" charm she had tried earlier must have kicked in; and the big double-doors opened.  (Quite like the prison doors in Phillipi.)  Out stepped the beloved brother Broady Hunnisucker, (senior greeter and lead lady hugger) and Mr. Standridge, thusly providing Ice the breach into the castle fortifications she had sought.  Isabella the Expectant must have nosed her way into the carpeted foyer.  She would have followed  the strangely modulated voice of a stranger -  ignoring the hallway to the classrooms  -  only to discover a second set of double-doors, this time standing tantalizingly open in front of her.

      During the singing of the closing hymn, as was the custom,  Hunnisucker and Standridge would always attend to Mrs. Louis Van Sickle - helping her with her wheel chair as she would be the first to leave assembly -  to be picked up out front under the canopy by deacon Osby Riley the volunteer driver of the church van.   As preparedness-meets-opportunity presented itself in a fleeting conflux Ice deftly and alertly sneaked in-between the opened doors  ...Tinkle –Tinkle ..  tripping the light  fantastic  -  right  on  into the foyer -  which was by now deserted  -  because Hunnisucker and Standridge were busy escorting Mrs. Louise and wouldn't have been in position to take any notice as a good-looking short–legged  lady in black   …Tinkle – Tinkle …  entered the vestibule of Forrest Hills Church.

          No sentry to block her progress, nor attendant at the receptionist’s desk, she listened respectfully in the beginning,  as Deacon Knox Riley embarked upon the closing prayer.   It was a formula prayer so predictable as to be almost a chant you could say along with the rosary -  if in fact, you had one - or believed in any such nonsense.

   "Our DearHeavnly Father…Thank you soo much….beauuutiful day…opportunity to  come together in yuur name …Tinkle -Tinkle…  DeerHeavnly Father …thanks yew for …”

My heart stopped dead in its tracks, and I looked over to Mamacita to find her riveted back on me and squeezing my wrist were were sharing  a simultaneous "OH SHIT!" reaction on our synchronously-shocked faces.  There could be no doubt for us -  as to the source of this out-of- place percussion instrument in the church's "a capella"-only sanctuary.

             "Be with the sick, the afflicted….those for whom it is our duty to pray…please give an extra measure your grace..."…Tinkle – Tinkle … “to those in special need at this time…”Deacon Riley, droned along at the lower microphone, (the one used only for communion service or  announcements asnd for the closing prayer on Sunday night).

           "Be with the hands of those who care for sick and afflicted "...Tinkle – Tinkle…

  

We could hear it -  Tinkle by tantalizing-Tinkle -  as the un-imaginable was playing itself  before our bowed heads - as were were locked in tracing her progress - as Isabella patrolled all the way down the right side of the three- aisled sanctuary -  the conservatives’ side; those stiffs who sit always want to sit on the on the right wing, and upon the very ends of each row. right where the stained glass windows permit a reverent …Tinkle –Tinkle…  glow in the right light.  Singing fervently and mostly with good pitch and harmony - eyes closed and locked in memories of glorious tent-revival better days  -  these right-siders were the bedrock of the Church.  (Of course these were the very families that had once been the most outspoken against the stained glass windows when the church was being build"  as too iconographic and worldly;  but who had since grown to like them all right I guess.)   …Tinkle -Tinkle…

Deacon Riley now hits the half way mark on his check list "    ... may we always listen with open hearts  to the gospel message, so boldly proclaimed" … 'learn something we can apply to our every-day lives…." …Tinkle -Tinkle…

          Isabella would have appreciated the warm glow emitting from the stained glass windows, but the angle was too steep for her to get a really good look - so low as she is to the floor with her short legs - and so she didn’t slow down much to admire them.  She followed … Tinkle - Tinkle… –  the Beagle part of her nose which ended up leading her right on down into to the vacant "amen corner" of the rather stiffeling sanctuary.

“…not only the physical but the spiritual blessings " …."DearHeavnly Father… forgive us for our sins;   both, those of o-mission and those of co-mission ... as we forgive those ..."

  Ice noticed a tiny narrow doorway along the back wall of the amen corner, which had been left partially open.  And her sharp ears she could have detected the muted muffle of hushed voices and with her keen sense of smell she would have detected a strong chemical offering and something that wafted of good Egyptian cotton.   And so she naturally enough she would have …Tinkle – Tinkle … approached the inner sanctum of the tiny baptismal dressing area -  cautiously sniffing the rarefied air.  It was vacant:  a cave-like half room leading  out to a tiny indoor lake which cascaded into a pastel mural of the river Jordan, and "over there" on the other bank loomed another tiny enclave  -  yet this one busy with the action of clothes being changed and a new life being put on.   She may have even sensed the masculine aura of a certain "New Man" taking over - somewhere in the direction of newborn Parrish babe in Christ.

 “If a sinner’s in the way we will stop and pick him up.”

 “If a sinner’s in the way we will stop and pick him up.”

 “If a sinner’s in the way we will stop and pick him up.”

    …  And we won’t tag along behind.  

Isabella, as was surely witnessed in dripping detail by the completely sinless and spotless Parrish boy;  placed her front paws precariously onto the top step of the baptistery and partook a quick drink of the sin-laden water.   Shaking her neck three or four vigorous times… Tinkle –Tinkle -Tinkle… she then, unceremoniously  -  backed out of the inner-sanctum and smoothed  into the aisles.  This time it was 'exit stage right' -  up two steps and across the podium;  with it’s higher pulpit for preaching and song leading at Sunday services.  She proceeded with her stroll  directly passing  - a twinkling dark shadow  - behind Deacon Riley who trudging through his petition  and prayerfully locked in  - was looking down to his notes for assistance.

"Please Lord bless our bedridden sister Jewel Ledbetter"  "...and comfort our dear Widow Wilcox upon the loss of her dear hus-band and our beloved bro-ther Jess....Comfort her as only you know how."  “… Give her an extra measure of your blessing."

           Isabella as I can well imagine was by now, bored with the lack of charisma of the whole affair. She trotted past the first six or seven left-bank church pews …Tinkle-Tinkle… past two rows full of the hard-scrabbled, but well-respected-because-they-were-wealthy  Dycus family - and ultimately past a pair of anonymous long-haired teen boys, who hadn't closed their eyes in prayer and who at once became like Stephen and Phillip, early witnesses and evangelists.  Purposely she rounded the corner …Tinkle -Tinkle… toward the vestibule, warily avoiding the flatulent Elder Twitchell, a decrepit old saint with hairy Hobbit ears and poor hearing.  Even with her keen senses she could not locate any of her family, who were land-locked in the center pews, screened by the Baldwin sisters on one side and on the other by Elder and ranking congregational cougar Betty Barton - the second- best- looking woman at Forrest Hills. (second-best that is behind Mamacita)    After a moments of fruitless sniffing, she abandoned the search in favor of some exploration of the grounds.  Besides there were far too many cheap after-shaves  and ladies’ knock-off perfumes in play to suite any decent sense of decorum.

         Meanwhile back at the lower microphone… Deacon Knox Riley had at last, run out of euphemisms and was reduced to thanking God…Tinkle-Tinkle … for preachers, teachers, and song leaders, and asking him to …Tinkle -Tinkle … bess the elders in performance of and like Solomon, the wise administration of their appointed duties. 
 

At this point, Mamacita and I were about to convulsively crack ribs and wet britches!  And of course by this time a half dozen or more of the regular YAC Shack teens sitting in the other corner behind us, and then Rigby  -  who stands in the back opposite the preacher after the singing of the closing hymn  - was on to the gig and then  in the twinkling of eye  -  we along with the entire back half of the congregation  of 207 souls - were communally sharing  in a four part can’t-keep-a-lid-on-it,  quasi-congregational gagging choke-chortle in prevention of gut-busting laughter.  A new type of outpouring upon the Lord's Day was about to erupt into enrapture and pure delight.  Never before, had there been so much joy and positive energy, associated with the Forrest Hills congregation.

  "…put into application in our daily lives"… The good message heard proclaimed today" …        "Let  us be, not only hearers of the word, but doers also, heavenly father .....

           

Like pumping too much air into a bicycle inner tube … just waiting for it to go BANG!

Isabella, meanwhile, still unsuccessful in locating by sight nor smell either Mamacita or El Jefe among the attendance of 147 or so, and not particularly impressed with the prayer of Deacon Riley, and having a low threshold for boredom, decided to continue her exploration of the grounds.  Perhaps she could pinpoint the location of that potluck.

  …Tinkle -Tinkle… Isabella trudged toward the familiarity of the vestibule - flanking the more liberal yet-simple minded regulars - and  ignoring the stained glass windows which were more muted because it was the darker side of the auditorium .   She scurried along,  bypassing the left wing simpletons;  who didn’t much care  either way about stained glass,  taking a quiet stroll …Tinkle-Tinkle… out into the foyer to be, this-time greeted by  a bemused Hunnisucker and Standridge:  who true to form - and what with Isabella being a good-looking bitch and still with her figure and all - hugged her and welcomed her to Forrest Hills and asked her wouldn’t she prefer to go outside and pee behind the azaleas.  Ice slipped deftly through Standridge’s wide stance and trotted proudly out the double- doors, and emerged into her very own "newness of life".

  Knox Riley meanwhile and mercifully had finally arrived at the part in the prayer, where he says the magic incantation that brings the assembly toward dismissal.

  "… next appointed time… guide, guard, and direct … Jesus' name we pray … Amen"

 Deacon Riley then - when upon his heart-felt "Amen" bringing to close a well-executed formula prayer - seemingly the entire congregation at Forrest Hills erupted into uproarious laughter and raucous conversation - was flabbergsted and distraught over the rancor. The good deacon was to the point of tears, until song-leader Rigney explained to him what had transpired with the strolling dog, and told him he had said a nice prayer, patting him on the back.

I remembered long afterwards; upon reflection, that Ice had been exceptionally thirsty that afternoon.  She drank an entire bowl of water - bound as she was, like Samson by her green climbing rope, clipped into a water faucet behind Bailey’s Café - while El Jefe enjoyed a pork tenderloin sandwich and iced tea inside the busy cafe.  I had never known her to consume so much in one sitting.

          And so, from that day forward our family had this fantastic, larger-than-life true adventure story to tell:  an epic worthy of a Cecil B Demil film - replete with religious and historic overtones. brimming with mystery and humor, and chocked full of symbolic significance.  A story I would embellish and re-tell con mucho gusto, whenever we got to drinking wine with the neighbors or at family gatherings.   It was an epic adventure allegory -  about  one amazing first day of the week.  About Isabella and the great "going-forward"  and about how she had  answered her gospel call;  not only by "responding to the invitation", but going so far as to initiate the unprecedented ritual of the drinking of the sin-laden water.  We kidded ourselves; about how we were all sure we would see Isabella in Heaven because she was now a sanctified dog: full of spirit and truth:  She had stood blameless in the river Jordan and had been brave enough to taste the wages of sin -  and she had emerged a willful scapegoatdog - proven worthy and willing to be made cast-off and despised  in communal banishment and  laden down heavy with the sins of the congregation.

  I suppose upon reflection, that most likely the baptismal water had a strong chlorine taste which she would have found disagreeable to her sensitive pallet - or maybe it was the genuine desire to get the taste of the sin-water of her mouth.   She feigned confusion about it all when asked about it later - exiting the scene of the deposition as soon as she found opening.

As we were to learn a year or so later, while visiting with our frined Sister Lynette of Forrest Hills during Christmas holidays; that the legacy of Ice and the great "going forward" had assumed a life of its own back in Memphis.  Once the Parrish brat had changed back into his church clothes, he related his first sanctified vision - witnessed while drying his hair following his immersion -  of seeing a short-legged black dog lapping the water in the baptismal.  (His original witness being that he had seen a black winged creature, most likely a cherubim, come down out of heaven and drink of the dirty sin- laden water and then vanish, like Elijah; received back into heaven above.)   Preacher South  even affirmed hearing a twinkling sound, but saw nothing - as he was occupied with the hanging up of his hip waders - but  he could swear he thought he heard a lapping sound and the tinkling, but could see nothing.   Only that the baptismal waters seemed to have been again agitated.

           The saints at Forrest Hills seemed captivated, nothing like this had ever happened in memory.   The newborn brat was taking pleasure at being the center of attention, him being the middle-born brat in the Parish household, and was apparently milking the story for all it’s worth.  Isabella had become, not only a new convert in the eyes of the faithful, but soon  assumed the status reserved for Guy N. Woodson or one of the great pioneers of the Restoration Movement.  She stood as a symbol of the power of elect over evil n spiritual warfare -  and had like High Plains Drifter, simply gone away un-announced, a surrogate scape-goat; banished on account of the collective sins of the congregation. 

Since those of the true faith handed down from the fathers don’t much acknowledge the intercession of the saints - nor believe in the modern day manifestations of the spirit like the Pentecostals - there was at first a fair amount of doubt and reticence among many at Forrest Hills Church.   But here was something you could latch onto, and besides wasn’t there that example in the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement where it specifically mentions the scapegoat being sent off into the desert - an expiation bearing away the sins of the Israelites.

There was a Biblical precedent for every element in this supernatural thriller. There was book, chapter and verse.   How could even Elder Britton, who himself kept a pet squirrel, deny the power of the Holy Ghost in such a matter.  That the testimony of Hunnisucker and Standridge soon laid the mystery to rest - and the scapegoat was unmasked as Ice; the mixed breed labrador belonging to the Barkley bunch and gone off-leash.   The fact that scripture and logic had beaten down ignorance and superstition, however, didn’t do much to damper the fires of enthusiasm about this singular event.  The legend was soon as firmly in place as Acts 2:38, and in fact the middle brat had even begun to begin to manifest all the graces of co-operative - teen who in fact displayed all twelve of the Boy Scout Beatitudes;  Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and of -course, Reverent.  Never before had anybody in the congregation seen such a change in a new convert. 
 

          The old man had been washed away in un-deniable regeneration.  That the scapegoatdog was no longer among the flock, but had been - like Phillip toward the Ethiopian eunuch moved by the spirit, gave even more credence to the general mysteriousness of her legacy at Forrest Hills.  For some of the weak-minded babes in Christ,  this had been a miraculous appearing, a new sign for a new generation:  A people with itching ears, incredulous minds, and too easily detracted from the straight path;  by the cares, the temptations,  and the possessions of this passing age.  The victorious Isabella had now appropriately enough, gone onward, a true Christian soldier, to foreign mission fields where she could manifest her spiritual fruits to the lost souls of a dying generation.  With her damp front paws, and the smell of chlorine on her breath.

"Onward Christian soldiers...marching as to war
With the cross of Jesus going on before."


by Jerry Buckley

Copyright © 2010 Jerry Buckley / The Gospel Chariot