Detroit Story      1975

 

One winter I left the island to visit a young friend in Detroit. 
He had recently become a Christian while  staying at my hostel
on Cape Breton. 
I knew he had a tough road ahead of him. 
I wanted to see how he was doing and help him
find a church to attend. 
I was always ambivalent about that sort of thing. 
I hated to see someone like this young man make
a good start in his spiritual life and then get sidelined
in a dead church. 
Time and time again, once a church got hold of a new convert,
they would promptly ‘educate’ the life right out of them. 
Still, most people would need the support of a body of believers. 
It just helped to show them how to negotiate the scene. 

My young friend and I planned to go shopping for a church

to attend on Sunday morning. 

But this was Saturday night and we headed out for a long walk 

to catch up on things.  We walked for miles it seemed.

We eventually found ourselves in the downtown area. 

By that time the sun was going down and it was getting

colder by the minute.

We looked for a diner or coffee shop, but everything

was closing and the downtown was quickly emptying

of people.   It was too late to turn back and too late to go forward. 

Eventually we noticed an open door with a brightly lit interior. 

We ducked in hoping to warm up a bit and rest before the long walk home.  Once inside, we were fascinated by the architectural details. 

It was a stately old building in a crumbling inner city. 

We wandered around admiring the old staircase, the ornate tiles

and the marble wall panels. 

We were in an old Masonic temple from the look of things. 

We headed up the staircase to see what the mezzanine

and the balcony held. 

We had been chattering away happily up to that point, 

but when we got to the top and surveyed the auditorium below,

we quickly lowered our voices. 

Down below us we saw a few elderly black folk carrying Bibles

under their arms. 

Apparently the lodge had been turned into a church and we had intruded on their service. 

We sat down out of sight and tried to be inconspicuous. 

The few people gathered were thinly dispersed around the huge auditorium. 

Perhaps a dozen or so parishioners scattered 2 by 2, mostly older, mostly women. 

They bowed their heads and prayed quietly or spoke in low tones

while they waited for the service to start. 

2 or 3 more people joined them and their prayer service began. 

Not a very impressive crowd.  They prayed silently for a brief time. 

They prayed informally, each tending to their own concerns.  

Their voices, quiet at first, began to be audible to us. 

Their voices gradually became more animated. 

Then one woman stood alone and began to pray in tongues. 

I wondered what my young friend would think. 

We had never talked about anything like that. 

I had little experience of it myself.  

Soon another worshipper stood and prayed in tongues. 

And then another...and another. 

Before long there was an embarrassing cacophony of sounds. 

Then one of the women lifted her voice above the others as she began to sing in tongues.

I had never heard anything like that before. 

It was an eerie tongue and an eerie melody. 

The others began to do the same tongues-singing. 

We had never seen a church service like this.

The sound was confusing as they all sang different

 languages and songs. 

Their voices became louder now, more emphatic. 

I was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say to my friend. 

It was so strange...hard on the ears.

 

In the next instant, the most astonishing thing happened. 

All of their voices quite suddenly flowed and fell together 

into the same glorious melody. 

And then in the next moment, those few voices were joined

by hundreds of other voices. ..angelic voices.

The music we heard was indescribably beautiful.  

There is no music on earth that compares.

It lifted us to our feet. We stood frozen, with hair standing on end, transported into an ethereal realm. 

Tears streamed down our faces.  We couldn’t speak. 

Our eyes alone confirmed to each other that we were hearing the same unearthly performance.  

The hall was filled with voices singing in majestic tones.

The sound of the voices rose and fell together for some time. 

We were transfixed, weeping for the beauty and power of it.  

 

And then... just as suddenly as they began...

the voices rose and fell together one last time...

and then they stopped as one. 

The hall throbbed with what can only be described

as Glory. 

A few moments of silence followed. 

Then without fanfare or remark, people quietly gathered

their things, put on their coats and left for home.