A Common Prayer

18Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion, the chapter "Regional Religion: A Case Study of Tradition in Southern Appalachia" (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 221-243. 19Albanese, p. 234. Elizabeth R. Hooker, Religion in the Highlands : Native Churches and Missionary Enterprises in theAppalachianArea (New York: Home Missions Council, 1933). 211935 Religious Survey, Box 5, Series VII, 11-5: Avery County, North Carolina, Survey of Ministers. Southern Appalachian Archives, Special Collections, Hutchins Library, Berea College, Berea, Kentucky. 22«'jf j Were Beginning Again': A Reflective Symposium by Seven Rural Ministers of the Mountains," Mountain Life & Work, 23/1 (Spring 1947), 6-10, 30. David E. Whisnant in Modernizing the Mountaineer: People, Power, and Planning in Appalachia (Boone, North Carolina: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1980) devotes "Parti: The Missionary Background" to a single chapter entitled, "Workers in God's Grand Division : The Council of the Southern Mountains," pp. 3-39. ^JeffTodd Titon, Powerhousefor God: Sacred Speech, Chant, andSonginanAppalachianBaptist Church, American Folklore Recordings (Chapel Hill,North Carolina: UniversityofNorthCarolina Press, 1982). Two-record set with an extensive booklet featuring Sherfey's church. ^Charles K. Wolfe, ed., Children of the Heav'nly King: Religious Expression in the CentralBlueRidge (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1981), AFC L69-L70. Two-record set with an extensive booklet featuring a broad range of religious expression (gospel singing, hymnlining , conversion narratives, prayer and preaching , baptisms, revival meetings, black and white churches). See pp. 20-25 of the booklet for Elder Millard Pruitt and the Laurel Glenn Regular Baptist Church. "National Geographic Society, American Mountain People (Washington, D.C.: Special Publications Division, National Geographic Society, 1973). Preacher Dan Gibson is featured on pp. 86-87. 26MaTy Lee Daugherty, "Serpent-Handling as Sacrament," Theology Today, 33/3 (October 1976), 232-243; "Saga of the Serpent-Handlers: An Oral History with Historical, Religious, Theological, Musical, and Linguistic Interpretations ." Unpublished manuscript, 700 pages. Includes three half-hour videotapes of baptisms, a funeral service, and a typical worship service at Brother Joe Turner's "Jesus Church" and other serpent-handling churches nearby. 27"Ada Jacobs" is a pseudonym. The author is currently compiling a comprehensive annotated bibliography on Appalachian mountain religion. Any readers who know of source materials for this bibliography, especially primary source materials such as those mentioned in the article, are asked to contact Deborah c/o Appalachian Heritage. A Common Prayer I want Jesus but not too holy, untouchable, bleeding over altars, rolling large stones from tombs. I want Him entirely visible, verbal, supple in straight-backed chairs, talking to Mother in dreams, His presence rising in steam from pots in her kitchen. I want Jesus to bend like a willow before her in perfectly windless air, to turn His cheek one more time as a solemn reminder. I want His hot white light ablaze to brighten her growing darkness, warm that lifelong chill, light her Final Way. —Phyllis Price 48 ...