"How do you listen to a church sermon?" asked Jake Wally of Bristol, Tennessee. It was an innocent question coming out of Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting.
Carla Boynton squinted, like she'd heard something not quite right had come out of somebody's mouth. And Lisa Bitters removed a pack of chewing gum from her pocket, unwrapped a stick and stuck it into her mouth and said "What do you mean?"
"How do you listen to a dry sermon like that one?" Jake said. "I nearly didn't make it. It was like crossing the Mohave desert without a drop to drink."
"The spring rain technique works for me," said Ken Pallows. "I let the minister's voice pour over me like a spring rain you got caught in. If I see a puddle, I jump it or step over it. I feel cool, clean. I don't try and keep dry. I let the storm blow down on me, through me. It will send a wind through my bones that renews my energy and my soul."
"It can keep you interested, listening for the drops to fall, and wondering who is getting wet in the congregation."
"I recommend keeping still as a rock," Luke Sparrid said. He spoke up. You could always count on Luke to speak his mind. "And I don't mean stiff. I mean still. Rocks listen and learn. Absorb the things around them. Take in the beauty of their surroundings, you know. Be like a rock on a riverbank. Waiting for the fish to jump."
"Sometimes in church I can't pay attention. I get distracted by the tiniest things, said Larry Jenkins. "I know when the preacher starts his sermon a fellow in my head will yell out "play ball! or "what's for lunch?" And if he don't I hear a train whistle, or fish jumping at the lake or Elvis Presley singing in one of his movies. I hear a girl friend I ain't seen in twenty years say, "How you doing, you good looking man, you sweet thing."
"And they's other phenomenon that occur. Your necktie starts to flap. Stand up and twirl. And the wind ain't even blowing. That necktie knows it's in church, knows when to get excited. So it flaps and wiggles the way neckties do in Sunday Worship. Them neckties have nothing better to do."
"Your handkerchief wiggles, jumps out of your coat pocket. I hate that. Your wrist watch starts to tick tock louder and louder, until you can't hear the sermon. And then your stomach growls like a grizzly bear. You feel an unseen hand reach inside you and you feel so sleepy. Your eyes heavy. You drop off. You gone."
"It ain't easy, said Grannie Waylan. "Sometimes I go deaf in church. It happens. I try hard as I can to listen. But I can't make sense of what I hear. The sermon is all birdsong and flapping clothes on a clothesline. I want to hear every word. I want them words to touch me, change me. I want so much to uplifted by the Gospel. And I'm sorry as I can be that I didn't replace my battery in my hearing aide and promise it will never happen again."
"Sometimes I get to meditating," said Billy Ridding. "I am filled with contentment. I'm all spirit. I let go. My mind gets to swimming. Don't know if it's doing the backstroke, the breaststroke or the crawl. I hear the sermon all right. But the words are fuzzy. I take to cracking them words like nuts and removing their shells. Good eating. Then I can listen."
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