Up on the mountain, it is a shorter reach to touch God

Up on the mountain, it is a shorter reach to touch God

And La Follette (La-Fall-It), Tennessee is a mountain town, the Tabernacle Church of God a mountain church.

Tabernacle Church of God

If you haven’t been, Appalachia is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Tall green peaks surround you; old mountain music plays on the radio. Step out of your car and you aren’t in materialistic mainstream society anymore. This is truly a world apart.

The church is tiny, perched high on a peak above the town. One wrong step off the back porch and you go down the mountain the hard way.

The church is nondescript, the typical pews and church carpeting. The backdrop of the stage is a hand-painted depiction of Noah’s ark, showing the boat and people clinging to rocks, lost in the flood.

Detail of Altar Painting

You can tell someone painted it with love, much better than any mass produced vinyl sign. Underneath the painting are the snakes. You can hear the rattlers shaking out their outrage every time someone closes the door with a bang.

Rattle snake for worship

The pastor, Andrew Hamblin, is boyish and outgoing. I was barely out of my car before he came out to shake my hand.

“Aren’t you scared? Those people are so extreme!” I heard that over and over from the few people I told I was coming to a “snake handling” church. But here in this church, door closed to the outside world, no one discouraged or frightened me. I was hugged, patted, and welcomed.

It is hard to live here, hard to scratch a living out of these hills. The people are used to being insulted—called knuckle draggers, hillbillies, ignorant.

What I saw was kindness, people who love the Lord, and their way of life. When so many strangers have betrayed them, they welcomed me, a stranger, with open arms.

The service started with music, drums, and guitars. The room was on the bare side. The tattooed, pierced and camera wielding visitors contrasting with clean-faced young members in patched blue jean skirts and waist length hair.

I settled into my mostly empty pew, ready to get this done, patting myself on the back for finding a snake handling church when Steve Fuller couldn’t. I wanted to pull out my mental checklist—snake-handling-check, fire-handling-check.

We sang for a while, Brother Andrew wailing on the bass guitar.

Brother Andrew on the guitar

A few people picked up glass coke bottles stuffed with rag wicking, lit them and held the flame to their face or hands.

Fire Bottles

But the snakes stayed in the box. I left disappointed. I prayed for snakes. Didn’t God know I needed to go home? Didn’t God know I had important things to do?

Saturday morning dawned, and I was at loose ends. My plan was to go to church, see this snake handling thing, sleep late, then drive the six hours home. No snakes on Friday night but I was here, the commitment was made and I was going to see this thing through, even though it meant driving over the mountain through the night to get home to my commitments on Sunday.

The mountains called to me. It was misty, the fog rising in wispy fingers above the trees. The old-timers say there is magic when there is smoke on the mountain.

I drove to Cumberland Gap National Park, where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia meet. This area is traditionally the heart of Appalachian culture. And if the joining of those three states is the heart, the Cumberland Gap is the artery that carried my ancestors through these mountains and farther into the flatter lands of Middle Tennessee.

I went to commune with the mountain, where my mother once told me was the only place she could see God’s hand at work.

I went to my commune with my God, an artist, whose masterpiece was writ large, spread as far as the eye could see.

Cumberland Gap

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At the appointed time, I went back to the mountain church and I can barely use words to describe what happened next. . .

~ by guideguardanddirectus on May 8, 2013.