Come Off It,
Mike!
Life is not merely being alive, but being
well.
Martial
"Don't tell me, Mike! You got yourself into all those religions, and now you're living in a hippie commune and you try to give me Jesus. Come off it!"
"This is different, Sandy. You've got to believe me. Jesus Christ is the Lord and you've got to accept Him. Don't you see? This is for real."
"I don't want to hear it. You sound crazy; in fact, you're nuttier than you were before. I don't want you coming around bothering me or the kids anymore."
"Sandy," Michael tried again, "you don't understand."
"I understand all right. I was raised a Methodist and have been one all my life. I know more about it than you'll ever know, and it's just not interesting to me."
"Let me just share this with you from the Word — "
"No! I've bought too much from you already. You've always got something new on the string, and usually you've managed to drag me into it. Have you forgotten that you got me a mantra that was supposed to be in alignment with my soul's vibrations?"
"That was before—"
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"Don't talk to me about it. It's great for you, that's fine."
Sandra's ire was up. She was in her last semester at Long Beach State, doing student teaching and working for her credentials. The night Michael arrived, she was struggling with a term paper on Keats's poetry and getting ready for a quiz on Hamlet. And here he arrived with this new thing, this Jesus thing.
But now Michael was weeping, and as always Sandra was touched. "Come here," she said. "Let's talk about it." But her ex-husband's effort to win her to his views got nowhere. As he drove disconsolately back to Costa Mesa in his recently repaired car, he vowed that as she had been the chief victim of his disarray, Sandra would now become the centerpiece of his intercessory life. His prayer was not that she would return to him, but that God would touch her life as He had touched his, and that she and the children would soon belong to Christ.
"Dear God, save my family!"
Michael had stopped smoking and drinking and had become a Bible-reading, churchgoing Christian. He took a new interest in his academic courses. At college he became more intimate with Henry Cutrona and his friends. Together they would sit on the steps outside the classroom buildings and read the Bible; cool, hip Michael was now one of those who carried his Bible around the campus.
The church board at Calvary Chapel, conscious that many of the rootless young people who flocked to their services were homeless and destitute, rented a two-story house on Newport Avenue. Pastor Chuck Smith announced at a Wednesday evening prayer meeting that this house would be used as living quarters for Christians, and he introduced Edward Smith as the new elder in charge. After the service, Michael was one of the young
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men who approached Smith and told him he was looking for a roof over his head.
"I want a place where I can grow in the Lord," Michael said. Smith assured him he would be welcome at the "Christian commune," as the house came to be known. A few days later, Michael showed up at the house in his '48 Buick woody, which was crammed with his records and everything else he possessed, including Arnold. Smith had rounded up a crew to clean out the place, which had been used for pot parties and was in a mess. But Michael asked them to keep an eye on his car and took Arnold and went off and enjoyed himself. He came back a week later when the place was clean and said he was now ready to move in.
The change of address was not without significance. He was leaving the Students for a Democratic Society for "Mansion Messiah," which was the new name Edward Smith gave to the commune. Sandra drove by one day to take a look at the place and saw some young girls carrying in their suitcases. She thought, Uh huh. I've been through this before with him. This is just Michael's lifestyle, but he has put another name on it. She was sure it was some kind of hippie, free-sex arrangement.
As for Michael, he continued to be zealous in his efforts to evangelize Sandra. To her he seemed as intense and up-in-another world about it as he had been about everything else. He hammered away at her on the telephone and asked her to dinner repeatedly until finally she accepted and went to Mansion Messiah. She was surprised at the appearance of the people — they were all so nice looking and spoke so softly. And she was curious. She went back a few times, and even though she was skeptical about Michael's new religion, she couldn't deny that he was looking much better.
This man, who had tried everything and whom no
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amount of love or dedication on Sandra's part could change one iota, was beginning to get well. She was astounded. She kept reminding him how he had taken her into the Eastern religions; and when she did, he simply wept. But when she learned that he had sold the woody and given the money to the commune, she informed him that she thought his money could better have gone to the support of his kids.
At first Michael continued to experience LSD flashes, and migraine headaches were plaguing him daily. But shortly after moving into Mansion Messiah he attended a Saturday evening men's prayer meeting at Calvary Chapel and heard a young man who was suffering from seizures ask for prayer. Later in the evening the young man stated publicly that God had healed him. Michael sat thinking, My case isn't nearly as extreme as his. I just have a psychological condition, but how I wish I could be normal again! I know now I never will be.
At that moment it seemed that the Lord said to him, "I can heal you." Michael's reaction was to stand and address Pastor Chuck Smith (who hardly knew him) and the elders of the church, who had just been praying with the other young man. Briefly Michael related the story of his descent into the drug culture, the horrible trip, the explosion, the feeling that the left side of his face was missing, the ensuing psychotherapy, the continuing acid flashes and headaches, the uncertainty as to whether he was alive or dead. He then requested prayer and was told to be seated. Pastor Chuck proceeded to anoint him with oil. The elders, all businessmen and "establishment types," gathered around and listened as their pastor read from the fifth chapter of James: "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the
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Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven."
Michael sat with his eyes closed as one of the men laid a hand on his head. He felt a warm, gentle touch, like a mild electrical charge that went from the left side of his head to the right; and in an instant he knew that his mind was back, that he was normal. A verse came to him: "God has not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7). He fell out of the chair on his face and began weeping. He had resigned himself to the idea that he would be mentally crippled for the rest of his life, and yet now he had the assurance that he was well. He thanked God and glorified His name, finding it almost too good to be believable. His sense of the love of God was overwhelming. And in the ecstasy of that moment, the thought came to him that others could be healed, too; that people, knowing what had happened to him, would ask God to heal their sons and daughters; that others in a condition as hopeless as his would take heart, pray to God, and be made whole.
