It’s been a few weeks since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, and a few days since his memorial, which was a landmark television event in itself. Yes, many folks of high standards and lofty ideals spoke in eloquent tones, delivered soaring soliloquies on the life of a young patriot taken too soon. It was somber for the most part, but like any television production, it utilized technology to connect with the audience.
My wife, Momo, and I shed a few tears, moved by the words spoken by government officials that professed their Christianity to the world, and didn’t hold back. Near the end, when Charlie’s widow, Erika Kirk, spoke with humility and eloquence, I knew she had been chosen to lead a new revival of young men and women to Christianity and conservatism. She will lead them to reclaim our country as envisioned by the founding fathers.
Then, in a flashback, uninvited moments I often have as I grow older, I envisioned it as something entirely different. In crystal-clear black and white, it evoked the memory of an old-time 1950s Texas Christian revival I attended as a young child, held in a weathered circus tent in a field of drought-stricken grass near Santa Anna High School. Unlike the sturdy Baptist Church in town, there were no pews or wooden floors; only hard wooden folding chairs and a foot-trampled, grassy floor, harboring insects that crawled up my legs and delivered vicious bites. I yelped, and my mother smacked me on the back of my tiny, crew-cut-wearing head. “Be respectful,” she sternly whispered, “God is using the preacher as his lightning bolt.” No matter how hot the weather and the misery caused by pestilence, I obeyed. Pretending to listen to the droning sermon, half asleep from the heat and boredom, I would rather have been anywhere but that tent. My grandparents sat behind us, their hands holding heavy black Bibles that would leave a mark when connected to an insulant child’s behind. I could feel the searing stare of my grandmother’s laser eyes on the back of my neck. I looked straight ahead in fear, knowing that if my chin dipped half an inch or I wavered sideways, a bump from the good book would remind me why I was there. I was six years old and a reluctant, ignorant, bordering on a Christian at best. I yearned in silence to follow my older cousins; they were washed in the blood of the Lamb, bathed in the Holy Spirit, and had been dipped like spring sheep in a trough of holy water. I was just a young kid with no spiritual compass to guide me. It took some time, too slow to my mother’s liking, but I eventually came to Jesus in my own terms. Making me kiss the casketed, heavily perfumed body of my dead great-grandmother set me back a few years, from trauma alone. But God did find me, and I found him. It wasn’t the lightning bolt jolt from above, but a slow and gentle process that fitted my preciousness.
The memorial service in Arizona was similar, but in a larger way. Thousands gathered in air-conditioned comfort, with cold drinks and hot dogs served to feed the masses. Clean restrooms, paved parking, and ushers were on hand to help you find your seat. Believers and those seeking to become believers gathered to pay respects to a young man who will likely become the unofficially appointed sainted leader of the next Jesus Revolution, similar to the one started by Pastor Greg Laurie in the early 1970s in California. Take away the stadium, put the masses in a tent with no air conditioning, a grass floor, a rural setting, and a grieving, electrifying widow instead of a hellfire and brimstone preacher delivering the word of God, and you have today’s equivalent of an old-time tent revival. And, it’s about time.
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I have strikingly similar memories of the ‘tabernacles’ my family visited during annual Campmeetings. May the Awakening spread and take root!
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Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona was a phenomenal ceremony. It inspired the masses nationwide to talk about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It was a Godly event where the speakers, the commentators, and the crowd were inspired to talk freely about their faith in Jesus all because of one man-Charlie Kirk.
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Yes, Nancy, it was quite the event, maybe one for the ages to never be seen again, at least until the Rapture.
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interesting; we’ll see what develops —
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A well-written post, Phil. I had a full vision of you as a young lad at those revival meetings.
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Thanks, Terry. It was my first and last one. After that, it was vacation Bible school at the Baptist Church, where I met the young boy, Reverend Sweet.
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My recollections of childhood religious gatherings are faint. Catholics called them “retreats”. A special priest whose job it was to conduct the retreat scheduled his event to be a week-long affair—every night, beginning on Monday at 7:00 p.m. and ending on Friday with a benediction service. My mother had enrolled me into the altar boy cadre, and I usually spent the evenings assisting the Padre, whose job it was to preach. I was bored, but I had to be there or I’d face the wrath of Mom. The only solace was that I was not alone; many of my friends were also in attendance. However bored I was, the preaching must have taken hold of my inner workings, because I am still going to Mass and saying my prayers.
My own kids are nowhere close to being as Catholic as I was raised to be, and I often wonder if I had been as strict with them as my parents were with me, if they wouldn’t have grown up as real Catholics.
The world needs more religion.
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Joe, I attended only one tent revival and then it was back to the Baptist church with the hard pews and Hell just below my feet. Most of my cousins were as scared of religion as I was, but we all eventually came around out of fear, or becoming a believer, which back then, was a thin line to walk. My wife is a recovering Catholic and still has the ruler scars on her hands compliments of the nuns at her school.
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Making me kiss the casketed, heavily perfumed body of my dead great-grandmother set me back a few years, from trauma alone. But God did find me, and I found him.
Yes, and all these years later I still remember the cold, waxy feel of her forehead and the fearsome way her fingers clutched her rosary beads. No one can convince me it didn’t take a toll. What a dreadful thing for a small child to be forced to do.
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I was told that back then, meaning the 1950s, this was acceptable. I guess if I had cared one hoot for the old bag, it might have been different, but she was the essence of the old Battle Axe. My relatives were professional mourners and could wail and roll around on the floor with the best of them. They even attended funerals of people they didn’t know, just to keep in practice. Yeah, I was traumatized, and still am a bit when it come to services.
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When I was very young, a few wakes were held in the parlor of our house. Needless to say, it was impossible getting to sleep those nights. For weeks after the wakes, I had trouble passing by the parlor without seeing a dead body on a dais is the middle of the room.
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My relatives did the same thing, and like yours, used the dining room. I always thought the covered front porch of the farm house was more suitable. When my mothers aunt Beulah’s Chihuahua died, she laid him out on the dining room table for the family to pay their respects, even the cat gave him a sniff knowing that he was once again the ruler of the roost. Country folk are just different.
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Wonderful post Phil. Many people now are looking at God, even former Democrats when they discovered who they were sharing their tent with.
I was really lucky that my parents didn’t make me go to the casket. I always stayed back as far as possible and they were OK with that. I’m just now feeling more normal again and I went to church this morning and did a devotional on this subject… and how I do have some hope but it’s a long road.
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Man, oh man, Max, the road seems longer now. Back then, no one seemed to know the other persons political stripe, or didn’t care that much. Now-a-days it destroys families and friendships. I told Momo to not book me for my own service, use a cardboard cut-out or a rent a dummy. Our sermon this morning touched on Charlie Kirk and the evil that is around us, then it went into the boring mode and Momo kept poking me. We did play in the worship band so that was exhilarating.
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Well that is part of the reason why they lost the election and lost 2.1 million voters that unregistered from that party between 2020-2024 and the republicans picked up 2.4 million….and cities are saying that the amount registering republican is triple of what it usually is…they found out how ghoulish a lot of them can act….so the moderates and the ones with common sense are abandoning ship finally.
The leftists wear their politics on their sleeves…back when I grew up we never knew what our teachers were or whatever.
Yea when I gave my devotional about it…no one had a problem with it…but it’s hard to argue with facts.
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Max, I’m 76 years old and have seen things in the last few months that I can’t un-see. My sister, a flaming liberal wokie, hasn’t spoken to me in a year, nor has her daughter, so I guess I’m family poison. I’ve said this many times, and meant it, even when trying to keep my tongue in my sagging cheeks, the most dangerous and deranged people in this country are the college-educated liberal female under the age of thirty, and that includes educators. My pastor and most of our congregation believe the same thing, so I can’t be off my nut as bad as Momo says I am. I appreciate your honesty and homespun humor. I’m sending you the link to our worship music today. It was one of the better sets we’ve played. I’m the older guy on the right, playing the Epi acoustic, and Momo is the older lady singing on the far left, by the drum enclosure.
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Luckily I haven’t had that in my family yet. My cousin is a liberal but we agreed not to talk politics….so that has worked out. When he has brought it up…I ask him…do you really want to do this? He usually doesnt lol.
That is crazy that they won’t talk to you. I just don’t get it. I never care what politics someone is in…or who their favorite band or sports team is…why does it even matter?
Looking forward to it Phil! Thank you!
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there is nothing worse that attending a lukewarm Revival meeting —
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