Godless by Dan Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

between $50 and $100 per meeting, sometimes nothing at all. It was easy to book Sunday meetings; it was difficult to keep busy the rest of the week.
     
    In 1976, when my wife was pregnant with our third child, we rented a small house in Pomona, and she decided to stay home from the extended trips, tending to the family, joining me mainly when I ministered in the Southern California area. When that house was carted away in 1977 to make room for a Mormon temple, we moved to a house in Ontario, California.
     
    Our ministry was a mix of music and message. We sang duets and solos, and I preached the gospel, varying the message to relate to each audience as I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit. It was all bible-based, stressing the importance of obedience to God and the joy of possessing a personal relationship with Jesus, and of course, the need to be a faithful servant who is ready and waiting for Christ’s return. We were sincere. I indeed felt that I was talking with God and that Jesus was my Lord and friend. During service, people would often come down to the altar to confess their sins and accept Jesus as their savior. It seemed so right to be doing something so powerful. My work and music was constantly affirmed by the testimony of others and by the testimony of the Spirit, or what I thought and sincerely believed was the Spirit giving witness to my heart and mind. I had no doubts that it was all real.
     
    In the summer of 1975, during our first cross-country tour, we heard from our contacts in Canton, Ohio, that the week of meetings had been cancelled. I told them we had no choice but to pass through Ohio since our itinerary took us further east the following weeks. If nothing else we would have to sit out the days. When we got to Ohio I managed to book a couple of small last-minute meetings, but otherwise we just sat around in these people’s nice home watching the clock tick. A framed sign next to the clock said simply, “Do the next thing.” That motto has stayed with me to this day, a very useful bit of obvious advice. Not able to sit still, I went down to the basement piano and wrote a musical for children based on an idea that my wife had when she directed a Sunday School Christmas program with puppets the year before. I figured maybe we could use the musical if we ever went back into local church work.
     
    That fall, back in southern California, I did some transcription for a friend who wrote children’s songs and I played part of my new musical for her. She liked it and told me that she had heard that Manna Music, the respected gospel publisher, was looking for a new children’s musical for Christmas, and she gave them a call. Carl Farrer invited me in to play it, so I drove to Burbank with my penciled manuscript and a prayer.
     
    I was a little nervous when I sat down at the piano at Manna Music. As I was halfway through the introduction to the first song, Carl grabbed my arm and said, “Stop. Don’t play any more.” He took a deep breath and said, “I can tell you right now that we will publish this musical.”
     
    “But you haven’t heard anything,” I said.
     
    “I’ve heard enough to promise that even though [owner of the company] Hal Spencer hasn’t heard this yet, he will love it, and this will be a hit for us.” I was stunned. “Now go ahead. Let’s hear the whole thing.” Carl was the first person to hear it all the way through, and ever since that quiet morning with just the two of us at the piano, he and I have been close friends. We have drifted apart, of course, since my deconversion to atheism in the 1980s—different circles—but we have never lost that connection, and talk on the phone from time to time. In November 2007 I visited the 80-something Carl at his home in Austin, Texas, and it was as if no time had passed. Some friendships are truly transcendent.
     
    I came back to Manna Music a couple days later and played the musical for Hal Spencer and other staff. They all