The Tent Of Meeting.

Many years ago, the powers that be, at my place of worship decided to knock down the place of worship, I’d been going to for about twenty years, my kids grew up going there every Sunday, it was like our second home. There were weddings, funerals, crafts events, great meals buffet there, Mother’s and Toddlers, Alpha Courses, meals for the elderly, yearly Christmas meeting for people who were disabled or who have learning difficulties, Weight Watchers, hog roasts outside, this also involved ice-cream van and bouncy castle, Remembrance Sunday service, the Youth met there each week, Easter and Christmas was when the place of worship was the fullest, in fact Christmas was SO popular they had to start selling tickets for seats at 50p a pop, with the proceeding going to charity, there was cinema evenings there shown on the large screen, water baptism event in the huge built in pool, there were quiz nights, nights of all night prayer, Men’s’ Breakfasts, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day events there, The Band and the Singers were second to none, every nationality you could imagine was there and from babies to one hundred, people travelled from near and far to attend, it was a hive of true community activity and much, much more, and the powers that be, went and knocked the building down!

As I watched the beautiful building been knocked down, counselling should have been offered to me and many others, my kids were in shock, many people were upset, it seemed like half voted with their feet and left. Other stuff happened too, it felt like I was in a sinking ship. We all then met up in another place, even further than where the place of worship was and we stayed there for some years, and then had to move on again to another place, only this time it was miles and miles from my home, before at the original place when it was deep snow I walked it, and pushed the pram, but now that would be completely impossible.

Then one day, the powers that be, they had a stupid idea. They wanted us all to meet up at the original site, at the place where they knocked down the fabulous building, for a Sunday Service. At first, I wasn’t going, but I would be off work and as a habit I’ve always gone to a Sunday service in the morning, but I did have a mini battle in my head should I go or not? Most of the time before the date I wasn’t going I had lots of things I’d rather be going than there! Shopping was one of them. It was the height of Summer it was very, very hot, bottles of iced cold water were promised and lots of large fans would be there, it would be held in a huge marquee, just how stupid did that sound, couldn’t they see that? I was more than annoyed I was boarding on angry! I decided to go, but my heart I was leaving at home! I was not going to be involved in anything, was just going to sit on a seat and say nothing. I’d show em.

But on the Sunday morning that we were all going to meet in the marquee, I was at home and having my Quite Time, I thought of the lovely place that is was before, people intervened and ruined it all, it was truly a happy place, with lots of fond memories, a song came into my head, it’s a song we used to sing there before and I sang it quietly as I sat on my sofa:-

  THIS IS HOLY GROUND
WE'RE STANDING ON HOLY GROUND
FOR THE LORD IS HERE
AND WHERE HE IS, IS HOLY
THIS IS HOLY GROUND
WE'RE STANDING ON HOLY GROUND
FOR THE LORD IS HERE
AND WHERE HE IS, IS HOLY

THESE ARE HOLY HANDS
WE'RE LIFTING OUR HOLY HANDS
FOR THE LORD IS HERE
AND WHERE HE IS, IS HOLY

WE ARE STANDING ON HOLY GROUND
AND I KNOW THAT THERE ARE ANGELS ALL AROUND
LET US PRAISE JESUS NOW
WE ARE STANDING IN HIS PRESENCE
ON HOLY GROUND

I thought, it would be amazing if they were to sing this song too, but very unlikely as we sang hundreds of songs there and this was quite an old song. I wasn’t going with an open mind, it was well and truly closed, I didn’t want to hear about future plans there or any other nonsense, I hadn’t even planned on smiling, I was just going to be neutral, indifferent, it was just going to be a very long ninety minutes there, then go to Tesco for my reduced dinner and home, to enjoy the rest of my day off  by watching Catherine Cookson or Colombo.

They’d said the new building would cost millions to build, well they weren’t ever going to get a single penny from me! I’d still pay my tithes and offerings but not a penny would I give towards the building fund, no way!

I wondered who else would be there, would there be a few, or many or a lot. Of course I smiled as we met in the car park, and smiled at we entered the very hot marquee, we were all shown to the vary large container that was full of ice and bottles of water, I went and got one, it was certainly welcomed to drink and to cool me down, as the huge fans struggled to do much, but obviously made a difference or we would have all fainted.

I’d planned to sit at the back, which isn’t my usual place to sit, just like I did at school with maths, that was the only subject that I sat at the back for, I wasn’t was interested and didn’t care, but I changed my mind and sat on the front row like I always did since we moved.

Everyone was dressed lovely for the weather, in light clothing and all seemed happy enough, I did smile but it was fake, there was no point going there with a long face, I could put up with ninety minutes of this, then I had the rest of the day to enjoy myself.

The band, musicians, singers was greatly reduced, to like down to 10%, there was no screen to look at, for the songs but we were all given leaflets to look at. The meeting was so, so, nothing special, then the Vicar said, “We will all now go outside on the land to pray and sing our final song, ‘This is Holy Ground’,” I did raise my eyebrows, but thought, not a coincidence really, for the odds of that particular song for us to sing would I suppose make sense.

We all made our way outside from the back of the marquee, onto the land. My first impression was it was now covered in weeds, barren and desolated, most of the people stayed just by the entrance of the marquee, a tiny group went off to another part of the land staying on the same side, not far from the corner of the marquee, say about twenty feet away, and it was clear to me they were praying with their heads bowed and arms raised. I decided I didn’t want to stay with the group and walked far away to the opposite side of the marquee and as I slowly walked away from them all I filmed on my mobile the horrible ground, in a way I was mocking and having a bit of fun, as the song was sung by the others, I wasn’t singing.

It might have been Holy Ground before but it certainly wasn’t now, I kept my filming down on the ground, as I walked further and further away to the other side from everyone, only one other person was also in the opposite corner to where I was, lovely Louisa, but where I was I was completely alone with my mocking video of the event, filming the pathetic ground with the song in the background.

When I’d had enough of my fun, from the other end of the land, still opposite to everyone else who was at the marquee. I stopped filming and looked up and straight ahead of me, I just could not believe what I saw just above the marquee, from one end of the marquee from left to right, not too small and not too big was a cross in the perfect form of a cloud! So, it was a horizontal line with a vertical much smaller line going through it near the other end! I was gobsmacked to say the least.

That was last thing I expected, I started to film again as the song still carried on by the others, and I took pictures. The faithful, believing ones were there standing next to the marquee, while I the unbelieving one was shown something spectacular.

Well I say spectacular, but my second thoughts were, “This is a start G-d but it’s gonna take more than this to convince me that, all of this is from You, with a perfectly good building been knocked down, us moving around to other buildings, the marquee today and the millions it will take to build a bigger and better building for the Community, I’m gonna need more than a huge cross shaped cloud in the sky!”

I knew from past experience that G-d, sometimes directed me, either by dreams or words from a song, or by other means, including the Bible, so I would wait for other confirmations to follow.

But as the days went on, I realized how silly I sounded, and gradually this very stubborn, tough, stiff-necked, person that I am, felt humbled, honoured and extremely fortunate. I didn’t need any more proof; I was now a believer. In time I called the marquee, The Tent of Meeting as mentioned in the Bible in the book of Exodus, chapter thirty-three. for G-d met me there, on Holy Ground.

So, did that now also mean I’d give to the building fund?