Key ’73 was the Christian Revivalist Fishing to Save Souls Movement that caught me. I was not at all interested in becoming a Christian. In fact, I saw Christianity as “Elmer Gantry“ism. To me, as a stanch feminist, it was a hideous liaison. I despised the crass lack of intelligence they seemed to espouse.
At the time, I was deep into Eastern Mysticism and loved their sensitivities and thoughtfulness.
But what I needed was a power button to God.
University mixed all sorts of seekers. In my art classes was a woman I painted with who I respected. We painted together and saw her work with integrity and meaning. After getting to know her for many months, I saw her coming towards me one afternoon and I saw a light ‘on’ in her. I hadn’t seen that in her before. To my psychic intuitive vision, it was a LIGHT clearly lit in the center of her being.
After asking her what’s going and what happened, she shared that she gave her life to Jesus. I was stumped. The contrast of the Jesus Movement producing that light in her, a modern woman with intelligence and depth, simply shocked me.
I loved seeing what it did in her. In subsequent months, I preferred her company to anyone else’s. The changes she was undergoing were warmhearted and endearing. She softened and sweetened. Those are irresistible changes.
And then the tug on my heart started. I felt compelled, not by curiosity but the attraction of desire, to be not only in her company but in the fellowship of souls she enjoyed. I didn’t know these other persons much; they were not artists so we had natural boundaries. However, when they prayed, and then prayed about and for me, I felt a warmth of affection coming over me like a hugging blankie. I felt touched. None of the Eastern meditations ever brought me this childlike comfort.
Then, alone in my room in January 1973, I prayed and asked God who was the name for me to know. And in a flood in my room after I felt the word “Jesus” come to me, I wept. The energy in my room was of bright light and even better, was intense love. I felt overwhelmed. To the point that I asked that energy to reduce in intensity so I would function again. And it did.
From then on, I took on the Elmer Gantry style Christianity. I learned what was good about it and learned what was false. I learned that the God energy that came to me at that time was not afraid of me nor of my disagreements of the present style of born-again Christianity. I was free to speak up.