The Boy Born Dead by David Ring

Author:David Ring [Ring, David with John Driver and David Wideman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO018000, REL012040
ISBN: 9781493400577
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

14

April 17, 1970

In our little church, a group of strangers were gathered around Ring that night, sheltering him with their hands and prayers. It was something I thought I would never see, yet it changed the course of his days.

It also changed the course of mine.

I walked toward them, as my dad had motioned for me to do, yet I felt as if I were still asleep and dreaming. It was hard to believe that only a couple of nights before I had followed Ring out to the interstate off-ramp. He had been so resistant for so long, and honestly, I wasn’t sure that this was an indicator of any changes.

I was only about fifteen feet away from the group of people praying around Ring, but it took me quite some time to get to him. I had to maneuver through the crowd like a salmon swimming upstream. Everyone’s eyes were closed, and they were praying so intently that I really hated to disturb them. But I had to get to the middle. I needed to be a part of this moment.

I was struck by the genuineness of the people from our church. Most of those who showed up on a weeknight revival were older folks. Lots of white hair, a few canes here and there. We often had a lot of kids from the football and basketball teams and from school show up at our youth group on Thursday nights; only a fraction of them would ever get up early on a Sunday to come to a church like ours. Or anyone’s, I suppose.

I did not dislike the older people in our church, but neither did I call up Brother Melvin on a weekly basis to go grab a soda down at Begg’s. I didn’t wish any of them any harm, yet now I realized I was part of a generation gap.

I think I had even let resentment toward them find safe harbor in some parts of my mind. Again, it was not malicious. If anything it was barely conscious. I didn’t notice it until I had to gently push my way through that crowd of older people praying for my friend Ring. They had always seemed so obstinate. So distant. Not only uninterested in us younger people but also annoyed by our very presence.

Our hair was always too long. Our music was always too loud. Our clothes were always too casual. As a preacher’s kid, I was strictly taught to be kind to everyone, to say, “Yessir” and “No, ma’am.” To hold the door open and smile. To keep my room clean because we never knew when a patron of the parsonage might show up for an uninvited “visit”—that is, to inspect said parsonage.

Even though we had a very good church situation, I had still witnessed my parents dealing with the stress of this job. These people. The one person who decided to critique the theological soundness of Dad’s message. The phone call reminding my mother that she had forgotten to send food to someone sick.

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