"Next Stop...Babylon"
I'm pretty sure that's what the train conductor said tonight on the F train from Brooklyn. Not for nothing, but WHY do they let people make announcements who cannot or will not pronounce English commonly? Notice, I'm not saying pronounce it "correctly" because I have no judgement on how a person speaks. But if they are supposed to be communicating to me personally--especially if it's a service I am paying for, then I'm getting ripped off! I can bet you real money that the subway Union is protecting that guy's right to babble, blurble, mumble, and pig-latin his way through the train stops and door-close warnings. I swear, if I was ever to get hurt because I misunderstood what he or she was uttering out of that speaker, I would sell my car to afford a lawyer good enough to sue the fillings out of their mouths.

Yes I would.

I mean, later on, I go into a bakery to get me some, and I ask the fellow behind the counter what flavor the red-filled rughluch (sp?) was. (Usually rasperberry, I know, but this IS New York. It could have been strawberry, cherry, or for all I knew, pomergranate.) So this guy 1) Looks at me as if I was speaking a foreign language, 2) Turns away from me and answers the phone without so much as a by-your-leave, then 3) Makes me repeat myself, slowly, when he so deigns to come back to find out why I was still standing there a minute later.

Well, yes, to him I was speaking a foreign language, but, excuse me, I was not in his country, okay? Foreign is in the eye of the citizen. (Hey, don't hate. I was born here, that's all. So why should I need to know a different language in my own country in order to get a freaking decent answer from a store clerk?) I must say, I behaved well, after I initially gave him a three second stare when he finally got back to me. The stare was my way of saying, "You need to get better at this thing we like to call 'Service' ". Subsequently, treating him decently was my way of showing him how it's done. Think he got it? I may find out later because these pastries are da bomb, and I will most likely be back.

Now, let's rewind. On that F train, a guy got on in Brooklyn who made me think that I was living my last days on Earth.

Digression; I can't think of a good way to segue into this so I'll just say it now. You know how I regard singing. It's divinely inspired. I've done and gone to great lengths for music. Me trying out for my former co-worker's house band is not "The Big Thing" for me and music. When I went to Missouri, I did so partially because it presented a chance to sing in the school choir. That choir was maybe a dozen and a half churchkids who had a guarantee of touring and recording each year if they made it in. This I knew before I went out there. It was a major draw for me. Yes I wanted to be a servant of God, and yes, I wanted to preach, but ohhhhhhhh. How I wanted to sing.

I had been listening to Christian music since 1980, when I first went to church. The previously-mentioned girl whom I loved, who married the organist instead of me, was the one who introduced me to Integrity's Hosanna. In most modern evangelical churches, the songs from their production company has become standard choral hymns. Back in the eighties, when I learned how they went to different huge, HUGE churches around the country and used volunteers from the community to form a mega-choir for recording, I once took a vacation to watch them do the process. On the next vacation, I got into the volunteer choir. (This was for the one Lenny LeBlanc did lead worship on, called "Pure Heart"). A few years later, I went to Missouri, fully expecting to get into that small school choir, tour around, and cut a CD and realize what had then been a decade-long dream.

But I couldn't hold or hit all the notes. Whether the choir director wanted to put the school's first black student (in 25 years) into his choir, or definitely did not want that, I did nothing to help the idea along. I wasn't good enough.

(Sidebar to the sidebar; An alternative to getting in the choir was going along in a five or six student-sized ministry band and cobbling songs together and trying to sound as good as the school's main performers. Of course, we didn't. We were not good enough to get in the choir, and we were half to a third as large as they were. Many of our performances were inspired, but many were also just sad.) I just wasn't a good singer.

Nowadays, as previously mentioned, I think I am.

So this afternoon I'm listening and watching the 5x Grammy Award winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir tearin' it up and I'm in la-la land, getting my worship on. When I was back in the school's little alternative singing band, I attempted to sing the male lead to a song called "Giving My Best" which the Brooklyn Tab had done a while back. Tonight, and every time I go, I saw the guy who originally did it on the second row of the choir and I wonder why he hasn't sung another lead since then, and I note that he still looks the same as when I saw him perform the song years and years ago when they went to Hawthorne, NJ for a quickie concert (yes, before I attempted it a few years later and more than a thousand miles away, across the Mississippi). And in my last days, in the bigger, older church choir during my master's program, we sang many Brooklyn Tabernacle pieces. (And in this we sang, well, okay, THEY sang by notes--I fudged the notes. I'd hit them right, but after I heard the trained voices around me. I can't sight-read music, but those folks surely could. And they sang Brooklyn Tab stuff by the notes, whcih is hilarious because Carol Cymbala, the director and composer of many if not all of the Brooklyn Tab music doesn't read or write musical notes. At least, that was the last I heard it. She's all by ear. Someone transcribed her music into notes and a thousand miles away, we tried scholarly duplicating what the original BTChoir was just singin' and feelin').

Then out steps a woman from the choir to testify. It was a nice, placid, informative testimony. Nothing hair-raising. No occassion to stand to the feet, point to the platform, and shout, "Tell it sistah! Tell the truth and shame the devil!!" And in the testimony, she includes what is was like to audition for the Choir.

Now you know that was what I was thinking of, and what I'm usually always thinking of as I watch them perform. I've either got tears or stars in my eyes, depending on whether I'm praising or watching.

Through her testimony, I got a very real impression of what it would be like to audition for the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. What it will be like. THAT will be "The Big Thing" in music for me.

Okay, Digression over. Pastor Cymbala had ended the concert with a change of plans, whereas he was going to speak on one thing, but then he felt led (by God, you see--as most evangelical preachers take their inspiration directly from On High, as opposed to a lesson planner. Or so they claim.) to speak instead about how we should all be prepared to clean up our lives to meet God because Jesus Is Coming Back, for those of you who haven't heard of this phenomenon. (I just found the previously linked site from a Google search, so don't hold me responsible for whatever other nutty links you find on their page.)

(I sure am parenthesizing a lot tonight!)

Well, the Brooklyn Tab is a huge, huge church. I am moving closer to the front, the earlier I arrive, so soon I'll make it to the front for some good old-fashioned prayer. But not today. So as I left, I was keenly aware that I hadn't taken the pastor's invite to come and Get Ready For The Lord's Return.

Partially this is because I want to believe that I'm already ready. I have greyed in my faith, for sure. My urgency and nigh-fanatical commitment is not there as it used to be. Many religious goals I set when I first went to Missouri crashed and burned. My only way out was to secularize my Calling with getting a counseling degree, because I'd have starved to death trying to make a living with their unaccredited Bachelor's in Biblical Literature. That goatskin was only good to preach in their couple of dozen churches around the midwest, and by the time of that graduation, I no longer believed what they believed. So today "I Is A Lisinsed Kownsiler" and a Christian clinging on to the believe that Jesus is doing most if not all of the work of my salvation, not me. I'm climbing back to my Purpose, but I've spent so much time, so many years, planning how It Was Going To Be that now I'm gun-shy. My plans failed, so I'm not willing to make too many more. In fact, I'm told I should let God make the plans, and I just follow. I haven't quite learned how that's supposed to work. I just know that the former way didn't.

So no sooner than I get down on the subway platform, the F train comes whooshing into the station. On I go. And then this tall, gaunt tan guy with troubled eyes and a worried face comes into the car from elsewhere wearing a backpack. While we are all getting seated, he's pacing. He wasn't looking for a subway map, because it was just opposite me and he had passed it. He rode the length of a tunnel to one stop by standing before one set of doors. Then he shifted to another set during the next tunnel. And back again during the third. And my sadistic, torturous mind begins in on me. I literally saw him suddenly announcing the following (in a clearly-articulated, escalated I'm-Homeless-And-I-Need-Some-Money tone of voice), "I'm really sorry I have to do this, ladies and gentlemen, but please know that your deaths will go to serve a greater cause!" just before he triggers the explosives in his backpack. I swear to you, my heart was racing and I was scouting out places to dive for cover on the train to minimize the exposure to the fireblast that would come blossoming from his body. Although, I must say, I didn't know how I would survive the ruined train car breaking apart along the tracks at 90 mph.

And I was thinking this because I had not responded to the altar call at church. I was thinking, "Pastor Cymbala was told by God that there was going to be another terrible NYC tragedy, and here I am at the next ground zero, disobedient, having squandered my chance to get to Heaven!"

So I closed my eyes and prayed, and waited, and the man got off a few stops later.

And then the train conductor squawled, "Next Stop, Babylon."

What a day.

Me at 3/28/2004 10:34:00 PM

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