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Rise Again

By Bryan Langdoc
MCM ’06

July 14, 2005

I had not anticipated meeting a Native American in Mississippi. I knew the South only as a place where tensions between black and white were historic, and this was what I expected to encounter. So where did Ray fit in the equation? The easy answer is that a greater tension exists along socio-economic lines, a divide that is not easily defined by the color of one’s skin. Ray is poor. And Ray possesses at least one life-consuming addiction. And there are many here just like Ray, of all ethnicities. They are poor. They are addicted. And they are homeless.

Bryan and Maureen Knudsen Langdoc smile for the camera at Alta Woods UMC in Jackson, MS.
When I survey the crowd at “Gravy and Grace,” Alta Woods United Methodist’s 9 a.m. service for the down and out, I often wonder how each life story will end. That is where I met Ray for the first time. He was under the influence of alcohol, but he came testifying to the power of a mighty God who brought him to the church’s door that particular morning. Pastor Chris taught me that day how the Spirit of God and the spirit of Jack Daniels can sometimes be hard to differentiate.

Once everyone has had their fill of biscuits and gravy, the service always begins with a time of singing. Ray had a request that morning. He wanted to sing “Rise Again.” We granted that request, and I observed Ray intently while we sang. Tears filled my eyes as I watched him raise his hand in the air and sing with all his might:

    “Go ahead…Laugh at me where you stand. Go ahead and say it isn’t me, the day will come when you will see. ‘Cause I’ll rise again. Ain’t no power on earth can tie me down. Yes, I’ll rise again. Death can’t keep me in the ground.”

I never wanted that song to end. In my mind, Ray was experiencing freedom while he sang. He found hope for those few minutes, knowing that his present state did not have to be the end of the story.

I saw Ray again a few days later. I spotted him walking through a parking lot, taking long swigs from whatever was in his brown paper bag. I was in my car and just drove right on by. I wondered how this community could help Ray to experience the transformed life offered by Christ. He could have such a powerful testimony. What a witness he could be to the others.

Or should I instead focus on the testimony that he does bear? Here is a man enslaved by addiction, but forgiven; a man out of control, but able to make it to church some Sunday mornings at 9 a.m., ready to sing about the day when “no power on earth can tie him down.”

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