Wilbanks - When I spoke in tongues: a memoir of faith and its loss

For my family

I dont believe in God, but I miss Him.

JULIAN BARNES

PART I

Chapter 1

I moved to Washington at the end of May and by June the humidity snapped shut over the city like a lid. In the mornings steam rose off the sidewalk in long columns, leaving puddles of condensation on the concrete. I had a bright-red Schwinn Classic Cruiser with coaster brakes, and it only took a few minutes of pedaling in that wet heat before my head started pulsing. When I drew a breath, it was as if I was taking in the whole of that citythe rank smell of mulch packed around the flowerbeds, the stench of orange gingko fruit splattered on the sidewalks, the burnt sweetness of restaurant trash piled high in back alleys.

I was twenty-two that summer, freshly graduated from college with a degree in literature, searching for my people. Washington, DC, was just an hours drive from the rural Maryland town where I grew up, but with the traffic and crowded sidewalks, it felt like another world. I couldnt wait to join the throngs of smartly dressed men and women who packed into the subways every morning, and so I spent most of my time holed up at a coffee shop, emailing my resume out to anyone who might be interested.

After a few months, I fell in with a group of activists who congregated a few tables over. They organized weekly protests at the White House and spoke at city council meetings, and afterward theyd meet at Ghana Cafe, a hole in the wall halfway up the hill on Eighteenth Street. One Thursday night over plantains and Star beer, a white woman with tiny, perfect dreadlocks invited me to a meeting in a church basement a few blocks over on Columbia Road. She said they were banding together to fight poverty, homelessness, and inequality, and that sounded good to me.

Of the thirty of us who ended up in that church basement a few nights later, half were religious and the other half were practically minded agnostics who put up with the crucifixes and stained glass because the churches had the meeting space and staff to drive the work forward. So when a balding minister stood in the middle of the room and cleared his throat, asking if wed join hands for a brief prayer, we all squeezed our eyes closed obediently. He gave a harmless, ecumenical sort of prayer, thanking God, the meetings cosponsors, and the real estate kingpin who had pledged a thousand dollars to get the coalition going. When the minister gave thanks for the storm that had given us a days reprieve from the heat we all nodded vigorously, and one woman shouted amen.

As the ministers prayer rolled to a close I clasped the bony fingers of the white-haired woman next to me and thought about dinner. But just then a small female voice cut through the ministers baritone. When he paused, that voice became louder and more fervent. I opened my eyes and recognized a Nigerian woman named Beatrice who I had seen at various food drives and fundraisers. She spoke in a raspy West African cadence blended with clipped British tones, and her words were so thick I had to listen closely to find the English. At times she seemed to be speaking in tongues.

I had picked up bits of Beatrices story. I knew she was from Nigeria, a country I could pin to a continent but couldnt find on a map. I also knew the vague details of the one great heartbreak of Beatrices life, a somewhat confusing story shed tell anyone whod listen. She had many sons, and most were insolent and lazy, but the youngest one lit up her life. Just before her family left Nigeria, the authorities tested their blood and found that this one good son had a different blood type than the rest of the family. It came out that this boy somehow wasnt her son at all, and that meant when she and her husband and her children came to the United States, that boy had to stay behind.

When Beatrice settled into the grooves of her prayer, she shook her head back and forth in what could have either been praise or fury. Jehovah! Blessed Jesus! Savior-Lord! King of Kings! The reds and blues of the stained-glass windows saturated her face as she called out her quarrels with the world. Her back had gone out on her, and her husband had disappeared in a way a man could never disappear in Nigeriahe drove someone to New York City one day and never came back. The woman at the bank called Beatrice daily, threatening to take her house. Her remaining sons had abandoned her for fast-talking girls and nights out with men she didnt know. Beatrice thumped her ribcage with an open palm and just when the minister cleared his throat and inhaled sharply, her tone shifted. She cried out to God again, calling him Father. She told God she loved him, she told Jesus she loved him, and she told the Holy Ghost she loved him.

She said, I am your servant. She wailed, Take me into yourself, God! Use me for your will. Wear me like clothes. And then suddenly she went silent, tucking her head and folding her legs demurely. Only a minute or two had passed since she first spoke, and from her posture just then, youd have thought she never said a word.

While Beatrice prayed, I sat ramrod straight in my chair with a half-smile glued to my face, not trusting myself with the slightest movement. I must have been squeezing the hand of the white-haired woman next to me, because at some point she broke my hold with a dirty look and kneaded the blood back into her fingers. I ignored her and kept my eyes on the minister. In moments of intense emotion, a red flush would bloom over my face and neck, and I was afraid if I so much as glanced in Beatrices direction, shed see she had lit a charge under me. Shed know we came from the same people.

Many of the other people in that room called themselves Christians, but they did not believeas Beatrice didthat the Holy Ghost was a physical presence that could be summoned down from heaven by praying at a great volume. They didnt think of evil as a dark, smoky spirit that could sneak into a person when they turned their back to God, or that bad spirits could be battered out of a person with shouts and oils and fervent prayers. These people were acolytes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa. They wore muted colors, drove sensible ten-year-old cars, and adopted rice-and-bean diets during Lent. They voted for Democrats and believed wholeheartedly in the generically evil forces of poverty and oppression and addiction. If they worshipped God, they left their bodies out of it. They didnt expect the Holy Ghost to open up their hearts or heads and climb inside.

But the God that Beatrice prayed to had been my God once. He was the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He was a God known for meddling in the world, rolling his sleeves up and plunging in wrists-deep, unleashing earthquakes and hurricanes to show his displeasure and rewarding his followers with long lives, health, and great riches. That God had allowed the Egyptians to grasp at the hems of the Israelites robes before releasing the Red Sea at its hinges and washing them away. He helped a boy kill a giant with a slingshot. When his people begged him for a Messiah, a warrior-king who would storm the enemys gates and rescue his people from oppression, he gave them a baby. That child grew into a man who hung out with a motley crew of tax collectors and prostitutes. Who spoke in slippery stories and never once took up a sword. Who rode to his throne on a donkey and accepted a crown of thorns without as much as a whimper of resistance. Who died on a cross like a common thief before coming to life again. And, in doing so, who healed the world.