Can I get an Amen?

I realized that the interview questions made blogging much easier over the past week. Because I didn't have to think about what to write about, just what to write. And that was pretty great. And I had some great ideas over the past week about other things to write about, but most of them have escaped my increasing sieve-like brain. So? A random story from the weekend.

Friday night, when my parents were visiting, we were coming back from dinner and heard a loud noise, like a voice amplified on a loudspeaker. At first we thought it was a car radio about a block east, but the more we listened, the more we didn't know what it was. We went inside the house and still heard it, and Craig, who hadn't gone to dinner, said it had been going on for about an hour. My dad and I looked at each other and hit the door, with the intention of finding the source of this noise. Craig and Susie joined us, leaving my mom home with Alex.

So we start driving east and north, still thinking what we're hearing is only a block or two away. Still not there, but getting louder. We continue east, and the noise gets louder and louder, especially near one of about 40 Baptist churches in the surrounding area. We hear "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!" coming through the loudspeaker, so we begin to think there's a revival going on in the back of the church. We also notice there are two voices, one male and one female. Dad steers the car around the corner, thinking we're going to see a tent or something in the back of this church. Nope. But it's getting louder as we head north.

And then we see it. A house. A front yard. A lectern. Folding chairs set up in rows in the yard. About thirty chairs, but only three or four are occupied. A man at the podium and a woman sitting next to him, both with microphones. Preaching the word at 9 p.m. on a Friday night.

Keep in mind that where we live is pretty much an island of middle-class inside an economically-depressed part of town. It doesn't take long for the neighborhood to change. And we had quickly left the middle-class oasis and were fully in the 'hood. So there's tons of foot traffic and people sitting on porches and loitering and so on. And as people walk by the loud, poorly-attended impromptu revival, they don't even slow down or look or anything.

Awesome.

But maybe even more awesome is that Susie and I looked at each other and said, in unison, "I'm so blogging this!"