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My father also holds tent revivals in Croftville, Hovland, Tofte, and other places along the north shore; some of the churches no bigger than an ice-fishing house and just as cozy, with a woodstove and a hot plate, a few rows of pews with holders on the back for hymnals and Bibles, some lace tatting at the windows for curtains made by the old ladies. Sometimes we go as far inland as Isabella. Biwabik. Other towns whose names have been forgotten. A long line in the mass of the forgotten. All hoping they don't run us out. You see my father had a vision some time back at the church: one Sunday morning he saw the church was failing, was remiss in not getting Jesus' word out to people. Side-stepping the gospel message: Are you saved by the blood of the Lamb? That to him was the central core. The glacial plate of unbelief had to move off the north country.
We have a camper we park behind the church. Sometimes we hit the state parks where my father preaches over his loudspeaker to the campers. Sometimes I want to jump off Gooseberry Falls.
Precious one I have dreamed of you out where the moon stays over Superior unless the clouds come there are exceptions my love surely you know you are my sweet one let's dance in the dark not tell anyone who are they to know most of all my father let us skip that ship hold me tonight as a light to your body it's what I was made for baby be mine.
That was Juna. We barely got her out of there in time. All she wants is a BOYFRIEND more than life itself she'll jump from the lighthouse on Split Rock Point or whatever cliff she can find if not into the lake to drown forever she'll marry the waves that's Juna who received fish bait for a brain at birth. Only the Holy Ghost keeps her alive. I hear my father's prayers until they are red as the Masabi Range; that raw ore in Minnesota that ships take away. IT IS ALL and everyday my prayer O LORD that you keep my daughters pure; let the boys look elsewhere with their desires. My father will not allow it, will not let his daughters give themselves until they are wives. My father the dreamer.
His taste for sugar keeps him pinned to Juna for her pies. When a boy came around for her, my father beat him away with the word of the Lord. What a swift rod: heavy as January ice.
In church we make up names for our boyfriends: St. Lars, St. Bill, St. Jake, St. Cordelio for Agoba.
Nearly everyone is Catholic, but that doesn't stop Philip, my father, who holds out for the gospel without a denominational banner. Christ alone is our fortress. It is Philip's revelation. We are along for the ride. But we have to pull our weight, so to speak. We prophesy, which women are allowed to do in church. Not preach, though Agie would be good at it. But we are charismatic Christians. Filled with the Holy-Filled-One, filled with Holiness of the Holy Ghost. Once I had a vision of the aborted babies crying out like honeybees buzzing the hive of the unwanted. I was sick for days afterwards saying Holy Holy how can we do that knowing the soul has wings that cries forever for its life.
It's a grim note, those birds with open beaks in the heat. We have it sometimes here along the shore. HEAT. Spell that for me PLEASE, Cordelio says, I've forgotten.
Sometimes I'm given a hundred visions a day. It's like dreams passing, partial ones not given full life. It's those baby parts like milagros on the altar before God. Those birds flying above the shore in the sky. Sanctus. Sanctus. Sanctoose.
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