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Chapter 1 Seeking Understanding "You Got to Be in It to Feel It" "I wish I could just expose this so greatly to you that your heart and mind would set on fire. But if you know not this .. :' Elder W. Lawrence Richardson pauses, momentarily grasping for words. How does one convey the ecstasy of rapture to one whose soul isyet unsaved? How does one describe an experience whose depths render all descriptions inadequate? The elder tries again, this time addressing process rather than feeling. "It comes quick and it goes quick." Another pause. Our conversation is stretching into its second hour, as Elder Richardson patiently shares understandings granted him by God and confirmed by personal experience. The evening's talk, like many before it, presses into the night. He, a Primitive Baptist elder and a singer of deep intensity, sits on one side of a small kitchen table. I, a folklorist seeking understanding of a power often witnessed and sometimes felt, sit on the other. Only the muted sound of the cassette's turning wheels breaks the evening's silence. I sit expectantly, respecting the pause, waiting. Suddenly, a cry of "Hallelujah!" explodes from Elder Richardson's lips, transforming his countenance from earnestness to undeniable joy. "Something hit me right then! Sure enough! I ain't kidding you!" The phrases tumble forth with infectious exhilaration, pressing one after another through a widening smile. «Yeah! Something hit me just that quick!" There's no need to ask what that "something" was. If the preceding words hadn't made it clear,the overall conversation certainly had. In those fewfleeting moments, Elder Richardson had experienced the emotional transport of transcendence. "It don't stay with you;' Elder Richardson continues, his words still buoyed by excitement. "And you can't keep it long. It'll hit you here, and it just-something feelfunny, go all to the sole of your foot! It'll make you want to-Hallelujah!" Once again his eyesturn toward heaven and his voice rises in praise. "Sure enough!" Now the laugh that has been building in his throat cascades forth, a blissful laugh born of beatitude rather than humor. «Amen!Now, this is what I'm talking about. Otherwords, you got to be in it to feel it. And if you're not in it, you just sit there and you look." Elder Richardson pauses, briefly fixing his eyeson mine. Watching me watching him. I still say nothing. «But when you are in it;' he continues, «God is never absent. When you are in the Spirit, and serving the Spirit, then God's going to let you know that you have been heard by Him:' His heightened tone and jubilant smile suggest that the rush of joy has yet to subside. «Amen! I wouldn't have a religion that I couldn't feel sometimes!"! Sitting in that darkened room, I listen with anticipation and awe. What moves me is not Elder Richardson's words- I've heard similar words in many services and conversations. Nor is it the seemingly spontaneous touch of the Spirit-I've often witnessed the touch in talks with sanctified believers and have heard enough testimonies to know that the Spirit heeds no boundaries of place or occasion. What moves me is the transformative power of the holy touch, a power felt both physically (the «feeling" that penetrates from head to foot) and emotionally (the rapturous infusion of joy). More important than its impact in either of these realms, however, is the Spirit's power to move the soul,to touch that mysterious wellspring that grants being its experiential essence. The saints of the African American sanctified community say that soul is the domain not of body or mind, but of spirit.And when the Spirit touches spirit, the soul rejoices in an epiphany of truth and knowledge. Speaking of soul, Spirit, and experience draws talk into a realm rarely explored by academic inquiry. Yetthese are the topics that dominate conversation among those who call themselves «saints;' believers who have professed Christ as their personal savior, been saved by His holy power, and now walk the «set apart" path of sanctification. To ignore these matters is to deny the saints' experiential world, and thus to craft a portrait that speaks more to academic understandings than to the lived reality of believers. When I began this inquiry, I knew little of this reality. Like others exploring the expressive world of African American believers, I viewed testimonies...

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