50 to 1

I always look forward to an enlightening new essay from Christine Rosen, like this one from The New Atlantis. And now she has a book - a memoir of her growing-up days at a fundamentalist school in central Florida. I'm sure it's fascinating, and I intend to read the book. But the important thing to note here is that when I was in the eighth grade (Rosen was a mere third grader at the time), her fundamentalist middle school basketball team beat my fundamentalist middle school basketball team 50-1. I kid you not. Maybe it was all that clean, Keswick-movement living. Our fundies were great backsliders/repenters, and probably that hurt us. Anyway, it was one of the worst, most embarrassing days of my life. Late in the game, one of our players shot a free throw that sailed clear over the backboard and somehow managed to pass between two support beams which were, at most, a quater inch wider than the ball - a feat we attempted to replicate at every middle school, J.V., and Varsity practice through my senior year, without success.

Anyway, here's an exerpt from the book:

"The minister faces my mother while he speaks, his right arm occasionally waving the air above her head as if clearing away some lingering spiritual miasma. The assistant minister stands just behind her, murmuring and nodding, his hands clasped in front of him. "I command you, Satan, come out of this woman! Lord Jesus, I beseech you! By the mercy of God, heal her today!" She falls backwards, shuddering — her arms crooked at the elbow as if she is pushing a heavy object off her chest — into the waiting arms of the assistant minister, whose own arms had suddenly formed a perfect cradle to receive her. She twitches several times as she goes down, until she is, finally, prone on the stage, her arms now resting by her sides and her face a rictus of surrender. She is, in that split second, the object of the entire congregation's focused attention. She has been slain by the Holy Spirit. It all takes less than three minutes.

Eventually she makes her way off the platform and back to her seat. We hear a sermon, sing a few more songs, and pray, my mother giving her thanks to God for healing her — "Thank you for this miracle, Lord Jesus" — and then the service is over. As we file out of the church and into the hot afternoon sun, she announces "I won't need these again!" and ostentatiously tosses her prescription glasses into the trash can. I've never seen her so full, almost beaming, with certainty and happiness.

Later that day, as she drove Cathy and me back home to our Dad, I stare out the window, in a state of mild terror, as we hurtle along, the image of her lying on that church platform, utterly still, in my mind. My mother did not notice my fear. Instead, she replays over and over again the drama of how God had healed her. "Can you believe it girls? I used to have to wear glasses all the time, but now God has healed me! It's a miracle! Praise Jesus! Come on girls, say it with me—Praise Jesus!" We answer politely, all the while noticing that the car is weaving dangerously into oncoming lanes of traffic, glancing off curbs, and occasionally thwack-thwack thwacking the emergency lane ridges on the shoulder of the road. She can't see, I thought. But she believed she could."