Alex Preston - The Revelations

And all manner of things

Shall be well.’

When the music ended, David put down his guitar and stepped into the beam of light that fell upon the altar. The four musicians left on the stage — now in darkness — turned to watch him. The priest pressed his hands together and unleashed his vivid smile. The rain was still falling. Marcus saw that one of the twins’ candles had gone out. He watched her light it from her sister’s flame. The silence continued. Then David’s voice, low and full of power:

‘Welcome. This is a very special night. Each Course has its own character, its own concerns, its own life. This group has grown to be very special to me. Not only is it the first Course to be looked after by our new Course leaders, but I also feel a great sense of holiness among you, a great urge to be close to God. This service will help some of you make that leap. Let us be quiet for a moment. Let us allow silence to work its magic around us, let us dwell with God in that awesome silence that was everywhere before He said Let there be light .’

Marcus worried at the strap of his guitar. Threads were coming loose, the leather buckle was cracked and peeling. He looked out into the bent heads of the congregation, downward-turned faces illuminated by the candles they held in their laps. He watched Maki tuck a black ribbon of hair behind her ear to stop it from catching in the flame. After the prayers, there was another long silence and the wind moaned above the sound of the rain. The priest began to talk again, walking down the aisle and facing the Course members as he spoke. Fixing each of them in turn with his bright, pale eyes.

‘Don’t be afraid of letting yourself go. We are brought up to believe that losing control of ourselves is wrong; but only by letting go of yourself will you find yourself. Turn towards the child in you, the innocent in you. Jesus said: I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Let us remember what it was like to have the hope, the optimism of children. Help us, we who are blind like the beggar in Jericho, gain our sight. Help us Lord to open up our hearts to you, to step aside from the sinful, corrupt people we are and move towards the people we wish to be. Let us open our arms to you, Lord.’

David placed his hands on Philip’s shoulders and turned him to face the aisle.

‘Philip, I see good in you. Open yourself up to the Lord. Will you, Philip?’

Philip looked at Maki beside him, then over towards Lee on the stage. ‘I will,’ he mumbled.

‘Alice, Ele.’ He took each of the twins by the hand and raised their arms into the air. They held their candles towards him and the priest’s face glowed. ‘You are the Lord’s children now. He loves you with a great love. Will you follow Him?’

‘We will,’ the twins replied.

David walked back down the aisle and stood facing the altar for a moment, then turned to face the members again, speaking very quickly, his head nodding as he spoke.

‘Let the Holy Spirit into your hearts, lose yourself in the love of Jesus, fall into His arms and let Him take the weight of your sins, your heartache.’

Lee, still in darkness, started to play the same series of slowly descending chords as the night before, and Abby, her voice clear and powerful, sang alone.

‘I must become God,

And God must become me,

So that we can share

The same “I” eternally.’

David stood trapped in the beam of light that fell upon the altar. His white shirt shone as he held his arms up to the roof, turned his head upwards and opened his mouth to sing. The light around him increased again until Marcus found it hard to look at the priest. David began to shake in the light, his thin body stretched out, his long fingers reaching up to the sky. He started to chant, again inserting his words rhythmically into the interstices of Abby’s song.

‘Weilala, shanti, shanti, leilala.’

The music grew louder. Marcus and Mouse began to play, the drums and bass picking up the rhythms of the priest’s song. The light came up on the stage and Marcus blinked out over the audience. The Course members in the congregation started singing along with Abby. All eyes were trained on the priest. The sound was beautiful, a language that hid its meaning behind the words, that danced and swooped and shone around them.

Sally shuffled past Philip and out into the aisle. She held up her hands towards her husband and began to speak in tongues, her eyes tightly shut, her head shaking violently from side to side as she moved in time to the music. The words — like the priest’s — seemed ripped from an ancient world, the chanting of a forgotten race. Marcus watched the Earl behind the lighting desk train the spot down the aisle. Mouse was the next to be seized by the Spirit. He yelped and squealed, called out in a high voice as he crashed his cymbals and rolled the snare. Abby fell down on her knees. She tried to keep singing the words of the song but, possessed, strange phrases fell from her lips. She twitched like a compass needle and held her hands up to the sky, shaking them in trembling ecstasy.

The twins were the first of the new members to let themselves go. The girls blew out their candles and made their way out into the aisle to join Sally. Ele took her sister by the hand, held it upwards and began to scream. Alice lifted her own voice alongside that of her twin. Slowly their words came through, the screaming softened into the beauty of the tongues. Sally wrapped her arms around them and hugged them to her chest as they laughed and chanted.

Marcus had never spoken in tongues. He had not been able to give himself up to the Spirit during the first Retreat, and ever since he had found the whole process rather embarrassing. As he played his guitar he yodelled every so often, trying to copy David’s voice as closely as possible. He would have liked to be able to abandon himself the way Abby did, rolling on the floor at his feet, a grin of utter exultation on her face, but he knew he would never be able to embrace this central part of the Course. Marcus was surprised that Lee hadn’t joined in yet. She was usually one of the first to go, said that she felt as if she was falling into a warm nothingness when the tongues got hold of her. Marcus looked over at her and saw that she was hitting the chords automatically, her shoulders slumped, none of the usual intensity that surrounded her when she was playing.

Neil moved into the aisle, walking with his head held up as if in challenge to his own shyness. He sank to his knees and lifted his trembling arms, fixing his eyes intently on David, who was still stretching skywards. Neil began to keen gently, his cheek pressed to his shoulder as he cried. The girls from Marcus’s group chanted as one, leaning heavily against their braying boyfriends, weak from the Spirit. By the end only Philip, Maki and Mrs Millman stood unaffected in the congregation. Even the Earl let out a brief series of grunts and barks.

With a nod to Marcus and Mouse, Lee stopped playing. The Earl, startled from his reverie, brought the lights down so that the priest was held in a golden glow; the rest were in darkness. Abby continued to call out for a while longer, there was the sound of the voices slowly abating, the occasional yelp from Mouse or Neil. The storm raged outside, but its tone was altered. Marcus thought that the deluge seemed somehow tamed by the power of what he had witnessed in the little chapel. As the lights came slowly up, Neil stood, head bowed, in the centre of the aisle. Marcus reached down to help Abby to her feet. The twins pressed themselves against Sally’s chest, shoulders heaving. The priest’s wife hugged them closely to her, whispering quietly in their small, pointed ears. Then David spoke, his eyes turned seriously upon the congregation.