There's a bittersweet quality when the Rev. Charlotte Main recites this verse at the Ethelaine Chapel's Sunday evening service on November 30.
It turns out that hardly more than two have gathered in the rustic church at 4317 State Line. After months of forced exile -- four days earlier, the building was cleared again for worship; the mold-plagued church had been closed because of health concerns -- Charlotte is happy to return to the charming if barely habitable structure.
Charlotte's audience comprises only her husband, the Rev. Henry Main, and one congregant, a transcendently good-natured 78-year-old named Oneitha.
"I guess we should have called more people," Charlotte says, punctuating the comment with a smile that seems at first to suggest irrepressible optimism. Later, it becomes clear that her frequent displays of mirth are a way to prevent a tearful surrender. Running the spiritualist church has been such an ordeal -- putting up not only with a declining congregation but also with the indignity of having to meet for several months in a Denny's restaurant -- that Charlotte seems nearly on the verge of collapse. But she won't stop making the three-hour round-trip commute from the Mains' lakeside home in Linn Valley, Kansas, even in the winter, when unplowed snow adds treacherous topography to already iffy gravel roads. Not if there's a chance to reach even a single soul.
"Even when it was just Henry and I, we held service anyway," she recalls. "We sang songs, gave messages and put the prayers and positive energy into the ethers. The fact that no body showed up doesn't mean we didn't have the spirit there with us."
For years, Charlotte was guaranteed at least one more participant: piano player Fern Moreland, whose rhyming readings channeled from her Native American spirit guide Great White Feather made her the spirit world's version of the rappin' granny. Moreland left the chapel earlier this year after suffering a back injury, so the Mains have started improvising, using various gospel compilations to make mix tapes. Tonight, though, technical difficulties abound.
First, Charlotte struggles to summon sound from the boombox; after a few minutes, she discovers that the device remains unplugged. Once activated, it blares talk-radio banter at top volume, and Charlotte fidgets furiously to silence the blather.
After several unsuccessful attempts to locate the song that correlates with the hymn number she has announced, Charlotte settles for calling out song numbers on the fly when she recognizes the melodies. Oneitha serenely flips between pages. Then, knowing most of the selections by heart, she closes her eyes tightly and claps her hands as she sings.
A laying-on-of-hands healing follows, during which Henry murmurs almost imperceptibly while performing a series of motions that, to the recipient, feels like a combination of a delicate pat-down, a tentative massage and a human lint-rolling. Charlotte reads a mammoth prayer list, one that she started ten years ago, when she assumed the pastor position. Names are added but never removed, so everyone who has in any way been involved with the chapel appears, as do concepts such as "world peace" and "the growth of our church." A song plays in the background to complete the sensory overload, though it's not the one Charlotte has announced.
Henry's lecture focuses on "I Know Who Holds Tomorrow," one of the evening's many hymns, and it's easy to see how the Mains draw inspiration from these lyrics: Every step is getting brighter/As the golden stairs I climb/Every burden getting lighter/Every cloud is silver-lined/There the sun is always shining/There no tear will dim my eyes.
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