Robert Coover - The Brunist Day of Wrath

If nothing else, just as the growing worldwide power of the Christian faith is living proof of its undeniable truth (God Himself moving through human thought), so do all these apocalyptic expectations — even when seeming failures — participate in mankind’s abiding, divinely inspired quest for truth and salvation, for oneness with God and His universe, and so are therefore true in some deeper, perhaps ahistorical — there is no history in eternity — sense. In eternity, as Dar ren likes to say, seeking is finding. The nobility of this inquiry into last things is best shown by those who have pursued it: all the great political and religious leaders through the centuries to the present day, the wise men, the holy men, the artists and the scholars, even the finest scientists who have tried and are trying to grasp the world’s doom in their own limited ways. Christopher Columbus, who discovered what many hold to be the New Jerusalem, also authored a Book of Prophecies and predicted the impending Apocalypse, and Martin Luther, Cotton Mather, John Wesley, and Joseph Smith all envisioned specific end dates. Henry Adams did. It has to be assumed that the spirit of God spoke through them. As, they hope and believe, He is now speaking through those here tonight.

As the sky darkens, the baptismal lamps and flashlights come out, and those who have not yet done so, and many who have, now repent of their sins and pass through the signature Brunist ritual of baptism by light. Clara Collins uses a battered miner’s lamp, said to be that of her first husband Ely, given to her at the time of his memorial service, but the flashlight made famous by the Prophet Giovanni Bruno, or one very much like it, is also used and by many preferred. The ancient issue of “sprinkling” versus “total immersion” arises with advocates for each, depending on the previous Christian denomination of the Follower, and there are some who, against Sister Clara’s firmly expressed wishes, insist on being completely bathed in light, free of all garments (clothing casts shadows!), including the young musicians from Florida, who draw others, many squealing small children among them, into their immersive group baptism near the big bonfire. They sing “I’ll Fly Away,” and “There’s a Light upon the Mountain,” and some who surround them, in their holy fervor, forget they are naked, and some don’t. “Let the Holy Ghost come in!” they are singing. Darren finds their heretical behavior disgusting, but Billy Don strips off to his sunglasses and joins them, as does pale, scrawny, wild-eyed Colin Meredith, his mother unable to hold him back as he flings himself ecstatically into their midst, crying out: “Oh Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! I love you!”

All of which infuriates Abner Baxter and his followers, Abner shielding his wide-eyed daughter from the sight and demanding that this sinful abomination cease immediately. Clara agrees (never mind the argument that this is how the Rapture will happen when they fly to Heaven leaving all behind, including of course their clothing) and, in the firm and commanding way she has, asks everyone to please put their clothes back on, the baptism ceremony is concluded. Reverend Hiram Clegg, though he had been singing along with them, arm in arm, joins her in her appeal, speaking directly to the young people in his fatherly fashion and helping them to find their scattered clothing. Reverend Baxter of course has his own rituals of baptism by light, which saying of the Prophet he interprets as baptism by fire, as first announced by John the Baptist—“I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire! ”—and as experienced by Christ’s disciples at Pentecost when they were lapped by tongues of fire as the Holy Spirit descended upon them, but though pain is not excluded from these rites, nakedness — or any other form of frivolous personal exhibitionism, including excessive gaiety — certainly is.

Clara, aware of the feverish expectations of many tonight and sharing their desires but not their convictions (she cannot explain this entirely, but perhaps Ely’s calm sorrowful distance much of the day has been part of it), and consequently fearful of too great a disappointment at the end of the day’s last hour, has wanted to finish on a cheering note, so she has delayed the official camp dedication and tabernacle announcement until later in the evening. The rising passions, however, and the risk of further disputes (altogether too much is being said about opening the Wilderness Camp freely to all believers; she knows this cannot happen though she has not yet thought how to stop it) compel her to get on with the ceremony now. Darren and Billy Don — with fourteen little white crosses, much smaller and whiter than those that support the lawnchair bier — set about mysteriously decorating the hillside, encircling the main meeting tent near the top of the hill. Then lighted candles are passed about and all are called upon to follow their Evangelical Leader as she parades them from cross to cross as if on a via dolorosa, as many of those present take it to be, singing and praying fervently at each station, led by the various preachers and ecstatics among them. There are so many little crosses, this takes a good time. Meanwhile Ben and Wayne light the kerosene lanterns in the meeting tent, setting it aglow like a beacon, calling all toward it. The tent is too small for this vast crowd of Followers, but Wayne has moved the tent-meeting microphones to the podium inside the tent with speakers outside to reach the overflow, as they have so often done on their missionary travels, and the side flaps of the tent are opened. After the Florida youngsters, their earlier excessive zeal forgiven, lead everyone in singing “Asleep in Jesus” and “The Ninety and Nine” and the melodious “Jesus Is Coming”— “Jesus is coming! The dead shall arise! Loved ones shall meet in a joyful surprise! Caught up together to Him in the skies! Jesus is coming again! ”—Brother Hiram Clegg is asked to give the invocation, and at Clara’s personal request, to say a few words to soothe, in his silvery tongue, the anxieties of the Followers and to prepare them, as it were, should the day pass without the hoped-for Rapture. Also, it will take a while as it always does with Brother Hiram, and perhaps it will allow Mr. John P. Suggs time to return.

“And I heard a great voice out of Heaven,” cries Brother Hiram, his amplified voice carrying out past the tent and past the Mount into the night beyond, “saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain! Oh my brothers! Oh my sisters! No more death, neither sorrow, nor crying! No more pain!”

When he is finished, Clara will officially declare the International Brunist Headquarters and Wilderness Camp Meeting Ground open and present the architectural plans of what they are now calling the Brunist Coming of Light Tabernacle Church, sometimes the Brunist Tabernacle of Light, explaining that twelve of the little crosses they have just visited represent the actual twelve corners of the planned church which is in the shape of a cross, sitting on a large encompassing circle carved out of the top of the hill, thus imitating the cross-in-the-circle stitched on all their tunics and viewable as such when seen from on high (God will know who is here!). The other two crosses stitch the longer space between the arms and foot of the cross, the dimensions of which are seven units each for the arms and head, twelve units for the post, totaling thirty-three, the life in years of Christ and of their Prophet — which explains why she insisted on erecting the meeting tent just where it is, at the very altar of the tabernacle-to-be. She will then make the exciting announcement, which has floated up and down the hillside all day as rumor, that an extraordinarily generous gift from an anonymous donor has made it possible to get started immediately, so that the church will be built well before the seventh anniversary of the Day of Redemption, when all prophecies may well be fulfilled. The donor, she will be careful to point out, has specified that the gift is to be used for the new tabernacle and not for any other purpose, else they shall not receive it.