The Preacher

This past weekend, we attended our annual church retreat in the North Carolina mountains. It is a wonderful opportunity to gather with all the other members of the congregation in a social setting and reknit some of those bonds that soften away when you attend different services, are on different committees, are involved in different missions. The mountains are usually gorgeous but especially this time of the year with cold nights, crisp mornings and warm afternoons. The trees usually are just beginning to turn and of course there is always apple picking to be done.

We had a bunch of kids with us this time in addition to our own and so we took both cars up. Sunday afternoon, we headed back to Atlanta with my eldest, Price, in the car with me. As I usually do on long drives, I cast around on the radio dial down in the 88 - 91.0 range to try and find an NPR station, hoping for news or Car Talk or Garrison Keillor. I don't know if it is true country wide but in the Southeast and Midwest, that is where you are usually able to find NPR. Making interesting neighbors, though, 88 - 91.0 also seems to be where you usually find the religious/pentacostal type broadcasts as well.

Being a Sunday in the mountains, we had plenty of choices of preachers and could find no NPR. Flipping through each station, listening for a minute or two and then moving on, we kept finding yet one more person berating, declaring and condemning. Not quite my preferred listening on a long drive.

Then, of a sudden, we came across such a distinct presentation that we were immediately gripped. I never caught the preacher's name and the broadcasting seemed to be in the hands of enthusiastic but inexperienced hands; the ends of a segment would be cut short, new sections opened without introduction etc.

What was so gripping was this preacher's distinctive speech. Real mountain vernacular. Very staccato delivery. Some of the rote cliches and standard speechifying but really much more genuine than that. It was of a type but so distinct. While some of his points I might disagree with, in the main we were in synch but it was his speech patterns and mode of delivery that really captivated me.

Such rich language and expression as well. We listened until he was, regrettably cut off as they transitioned to another, more mundane preacher. Only towards the end did I think to whip out my pocket commonplace and have Price note down a couple of the preacher's phrases. The one that especially caught my attention and made me laugh was his characterization of some person's thinking and faulty conclusions:

Your brain done took a vacation and left yo' head.