Piddledon Farm 10

Harry stood in front of the microphone at the front of the tent. He closed his eyes and began to pray.
"Let your Spirit fall like rain," he said.
"Amen," said someone in the crowd.
"Let your Spirit fall like rain on us."
"Yes," said someone else.
"Let your Spirit fall like rain on us, not on the people out there, it won't do them any good. Let your Spirit fall like rain on your church, we're the ones who need it. Let your Holy Spirit pour down like rain on this church, mightily and heavily, all weekend. Amen."
"Amen," they all said very loudly.

Harry sat down. Pastor Paul stood in front of the microphone. He put his Bible on the lectern and began to preach.
"Do not love the world or anything that is in the world," he read. "'If anybody loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world.' The devil told Adam and Eve to take the forbidden fruit, the fruit that God had told them not to eat. He didn't tell them that the fruit would destroy them, that it would spiritually cut them off from God, and that it would kill them. Some of you have tasted of a forbidden fruit. Tobacco. My father died last week at the age of 60, murdered by cigarettes, murdered by taking of that forbidden fruit. On the stage we have a black bin, the sin bin, in which people put all the things that they want to get rid of that are sinful, that hold back their spiritual life and seperate them from God. Some of you have already put your cigarettes in it. Those of you who have not, a quarter of you are going to end up like him, killed by smoking related diseases, dying before your time. I am so angry about cigarettes, I am so angry with sin." Paul kicked the sin bin. It flew through the air and hit an old lady on the head. Paul was shocked. He left his Bible and ran down from the stage. "Margaret," he asked, "are you all right?"
"Yes, Paul," she said, "yes Paul, I'm fine." Paul picked up the sin bin and carried it back on to the stage.

A hymn appeared on the overhead projector screen. The congregation began to sing.
"Healing rain is coming down, it's coming nearer to this old town.
Rich and poor, weak and strong -
It's bringing mercy, it won't be long, it won't be long.
Healing rain, it comes with fire;
So let it fall and take us higher.
Healing rain, I'm not afraid
To be washed in heaven's rain." At that moment it began to rain. It didn't just rain a little, it began to pour. Even over the volume of the singing, the sound of the rain could be heard battering against the tent. The singing continued. "Healing rain is falling down, healing rain is falling down, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid."

Keith and Kevin had absconded from the event and gone to the pub. They sat together drinking pints of lager.
"I'd sooner be here than in that tent on the farm," said Keith.
"Me, too," said Kevin. "Pastor Paul preaching his twenty seventh sermon on the laws of Leviticus. All those hymns with pop musicy tunes." A man decided to join them.
"Are you from Piddledon Farm?" he asked.
"Yes," said Keith. The man took out his card.
"I'm from the Mail on Sunday," he said. "Simon Ravenhouse. I'm doing an article on Piddledon Farm. Do you mind if I sit beside you?"
"No, not at all," said Kevin. Simon sat down and set his tiny MP3 player to record. It looked like a black pen but was a little bit thicker. He put it on the table.
"Tell me about life on the farm," said Simon.
"Our leaders are very cruel to us," said Keith.
"In what way are they cruel?"
"So bad tempered," said Keith. "Andy loses his rag, all the time, about everything. Do you mind not coming into the house at this hour, do you mind not sitting there, saying this, doing that?"
"The leaders are domineering," said Simon.
"I would say so," said Kevin. "They wouldn't be happy if they knew that we were here, having a drink. Can't a man have a drink? They don't like me making passes at the girls, either."
"No woman is safe," said Keith. "Tell him what you did with your mobile phone, Kevin."
"I used to walk around asking all the girls for their mobile phone numbers. I wanted everybody's mobile phone number so we could keep in touch and pray for eachother. I also asked when their birthdays were. We needed to know when everybody's birthday was so that the whole church could send them a card. What I did then is I would phone someone a few days before her birthday and ask, can I take you out on your birthday? When Andy found out, he told me not to. I told him there was nothing wrong with it, I wanted a girlfriend, I was just getting one in an organised manner. If you wanted a job you'd apply to a lot of places, wouldn't you? We had a bit of an argument. Paul eventually came to see me. He told me if I didn't stop giving girls telephone calls I would be asked to leave the house. I asked if I could send them text messages instead. He told me I should forget about my obsession with women and concentrate on God."

"What about money?" asked Simon. "Who handles finances?"
"We put all our money into a common pot," said Keith.
"Yes," said Kevin. "Paul has all our money. I told him I wanted some money to buy a CD. That's how I got the money to come to the pub."
"Would you like another drink?" asked Simon.
"Yes," said Kevin. Simon went to the bar and returned with two pints of lager.
"So all of your money is controlled by Paul Dennis, is it?"
"Yes," said Keith. "We have given him all our worldly goods."
"I gave him £50,000," said Kevin.
"What would happen if you wanted to leave?" asked Simon.
"You're not supposed to leave," said Kevin. "You make a lifelong vow to live in the community. I have made a lifelong vow, Keith hasn't done it yet."
"So Keith, if you make the lifelong vow to live in the community, would you be allowed to break it?"
"I wouldn't be expected to break it," said Keith.
"No, you wouldn't be expected to," said Kevin. "I know people who have done, but we'd rather they didn't. You shouldn't make a lifetime vow if you don't want to keep it. You should take a long time to think about it."
"Would they try to stop you?"
"I think they'd try to change your mind," said Kevin.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Andy gave you a little bit of friendly persuasion," said Keith.
"Friendly persuasion?"
"He can be friendly if someone is deeply distressed," said Kevin. "I think he'd want to know why, what was wrong with it? I think I'd tell him that I wanted to go to the pub more often and wanted to have a television."
"And what would he say to that?"
"He'd probably tell you that you should forget about alcohol and television, keep drinking of the Holy Spirit and reading the Bible instead," said Keith. "I tell you one thing that would make Kevin leave. If he met a woman who didn't want to live on the farm."
"Ooh, in my dreams! A nice Christian girl from another church who didn't want to live on the farm. But I like the women who live on the farm. I've got a cute picture of them all sitting on the settee." He took out his mobile phone and showed the photograph to Simon. "I love them all. They're my little sisters."
"Do they make you work long hours?"
"I'll say they make us work long hours," said Keith. "Up at four o' clock in the morning to milk the cows, surrounded by electric lights and barbed wire."
"Do children work on the farm?"
"Yes," said Kevin. "In the school holidays the children will be there as well."
"At four o' clock in the morning?"
"Yes, they work the same shifts as the rest of us," said Kevin. "They sleep a lot during the day, mind you."

"Would you like another drink?" asked Simon, seeing that their glasses were nearly empty.
"Yes," said Keith. Simon went to the bar and returned with two more pints of lager.
"Keith," asked Simon, "what exactly is brainwashing?"
"Ask Kevin, he's the one who went to university."
"Kevin," asked Simon, "what would you do if you wanted to brainwash someone?"
"It depends exactly what you mean by brainwashing. You certainly can't program somebody like a computer, not completely. You can only put them under pressure to believe things they don't really want to believe and to do things that they don't really want to do. If you wanted to brainwash someone you would keep them a long way from their family and friends, make sure they only had certain selected people around them, make sure they never watched television and carefully control the kind of books they read and music they listened to. Don't allow them to think for themselves, just keep telling everybody what you think. You can control what people do every hour of the day and be a bit of a bully, argumentative, boss them around. And never let them answer back, never let them tell you that you're wrong. Deprive them of food and sleep. Tired people don't argue. Put prozac in the coffee. Put ritalin in the soup. That would make people easily controllable."
"Is that what they do to you on Piddledon Farm?"
"Oh no," Kevin laughed. "I know that Andy's bad, but I wouldn't say he was that bad. I was speaking hypothetically."

Paul was standing on stage at the front of the tent. "One of our brothers had a really terrifying experience this weekend," he said. "But God brought him through it, and he became a Christian. I've asked Steve to come up here and give his testimony." Steve walked up to the microphone.
"I had a massive argument with my wife on Friday night," he said. "She took off her wedding ring and threw it on the carpet. I got into the car and just wanted to drive away, I didn't know where. I drove hundreds of miles. In the middle of the night, I decided I was going to drive the car over the cliffs. I never did because I crashed into the minibus, and it brought me here. Here I am, wonderfully saved. Now I belong to Jesus." Steve sat down in his seat again. Paul returned to the microphone.
"Well, that's a tremendous story," he said. "I think we should sing something that would encourage this mood of celebration. Hymn number 342, 'When the Spirit of the Lord is Within My Heart.'" The words appeared on the screen. The congregation began to sing.
"When the Spirit of the Lord is within my heart, I will sing as David sang.
When the Spirit of the Lord is within my heart, I will sing as David sang.
I will sing, I will sing, I will sing as David sang,
I will sing, I will sing, I will sing as David sang.

When the Spirit of the Lord is within my heart, I will dance as David danced.
When the Spirit of the Lord is within my heart, I will dance as David danced.
I will dance, I will dance, I will dance as David danced,
I will dance, I will dance, I will dance as David danced." Paul began to dance, rather energetically, just on the edge of the stage. He fell off the stage and fell several feet onto the carpet that covered the grass in the tent below. He picked himself up, examined himself to make sure he wasn't injured, climbed on to the stage again and continued dancing.