Prophets, pentecostals and paintings
My brother Rob and I at Marymere Falls near Port Angeles
One nice thing about winter rains is that one’s lengthy writing projects get done. First, my travel story on the fossil beds in eastern Oregon got splashed across the entire front page of the Dec. 6 Washington Post travel section. Then my Jan. 12 story on infighting among Pentecostal “prophets” broke all readership records for the relatively new ReligionUnplugged site. It has gotten 83,000+ hits to date; their most popular post ever.
Then my piece for National Geographic on the latest trends among young Pentecostal serpent handlers came out Feb. 1. That’s been in the works since June but several complications delayed publication. It’s my first story for the magazine. I am trying to find new markets all the time, since I plan to quit substitute teaching at the end of this year. I subbed a half day today (Feb. 5) as special ed kids are in person in the district where I sub. Veeka should be home by late spring, after which it will be too difficult to manage her schedule in the mornings plus accept sub assignments. I’m getting a bit old for it as well. Hate to bring that up, but I’m at a place where I need to choose a Medicare plan in the next month or so, if that gives you a hint of my next birthday.
Anyway, I’ve also realized that I’ve been covering the serpent handlers for 9 ½ years now and it may be time to move on. I no longer live in that part of the country where I can drop by churches that practice this sort of thing. I do still get calls from European journalists who always want to swoop in and spend a day with the serpent handlers and waltz off with a story and photos. I tell them it’s not like that; this is a culture you have to get to know over a long period of time. They always promise me they’ll feature my remarks in their articles or fly out to interview me and they never do. I do wonder why people feel they have to lie or try to manipulate me to get sources that I worked for years to get.
Sunset on Cannon Beach in January
I continue to write weekly for getreligion.org (have been doing so almost six years) and I’m working on another piece about the “prophets” for Politico. It all started when I began noticing just after the election on the immense amount of spiritual backing Trump was getting from tons of pentecostals and charismatics who were saying that God was ordaining his victory. His pastor, Paula White (who I had profiled for the Post three years ago) was leading the charge down in Florida with her nightly prayer meetings “declaring” Trump’s victory. You may have seen the video of her prayer-chant calling down angels from Africa?
Student bakers at the culinary academy
There was a ton of other prophets out there ranging from the famous ones (Pat Robertson) to the unknown-but-wacky ones like the pink-haired Kat Kerr, a Florida woman who claims she’s visited heaven multiple times. I know these folks sound like fringe to the political specialists but pentecostalism is the world’s fastest-growing form of Christianity and these “prophets” were providing the spiritual backbone to Trump et al refusing to concede.
My first story on these folks for ReligionUnplugged came out Nov. 16, plus I was covering the issue for getreligion.org, and getting lots of interest there. After the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, a few of these prophets began repenting and I was gratified to see other journalists start to cover these folks like I’d been urging them to for years. It helped that those “prophets” -- who were breaking away from the dozens still holding out for a Trump victory -- were getting death threats and huge amounts of online attacks from other Christians. That got the attention of the secular media, for sure.
In the past few days, I’ve been interviewing more of them for this new piece I am working on and learning how tough it is to control a movement where there are no leaders, only dozens of informal networks. I have lost more than a few friends over this and things got so poisonous at my church – where I was the lone person opposing Trump and the “prophets” -- I left at the end of the year. I’d been planning to leave anyway as things had been bad for a long time, but the church’s unabashed support of false prophets was the final straw. I’d only told two people, quietly, that I was leaving, but word got out and within a day or two of the new year, I’d been dumped from the church’s private Facebook page. Other folks who’ve left are still allowed on there but someone wanted to make sure the door didn’t hit me on my way out.
The Edenwild Inn just before sunset
I also made a decision during this dreary winter that I would get outdoors more if I could, so in early December, I headed over to Lopez island in Puget Sound. Blessed with gorgeous views of the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges, Lopez island has generous coves and bays that one can explore for days. I found a good deal at the Edenwild, a boutique hotel whose summer rates are quite high. But off season, the rates are cut in half. And I happened to be there during a spate of good weather.
I did lots of hikes, beginning with a short walk on the Shark Reef trail on the southwestern side of the island. One walks through boggy woods full of cypress trees, with moss hanging from their boughs - to a small bonzai-like forest clinging to the rocks and great views of the Olympics. San Juan, the next island over, is only a short boat ride away. Then I discovered Watmough Bay, a tiny, enclosed horseshoe-shaped cove with high cliffs and a killer view of Mt. Baker to the east. I filled up for lunch at the Southend Market, which had nice big vegetarian sandwiches and snacks. I did glimpse Sperry Peninsula, a tiny island off Lopez – reached only by a narrow causeway – that is the home of Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. He bought it a decade for $13.5 million. There seems to be plenty of folks on the island who work there. Other than farming, tourism, education or construction, there’s not a whole lot of other ways to make a living on Lopez.
Christmas lights in Lopez island’s business district
The last time I’d been to Lopez was during high school (either 1972 or 73) when I spent a week bicycling around Puget Sound with a church group and we camped out at the state park. Unfortunately the park was closed for the season and I didn’t remember anything about the island from 40-some years back.
Christmas was very quiet for me. Veeka was not allowed to come home and my mother didn’t feel like traveling, so I was happy to go stay with my brother Rob and sister-in-law Jan for three days in Sequim. The highlight was definitely Rob’s and my hike to Marymere Falls near Crescent Lake, which was unexpectedly snowy. Even so, the day before Christmas, the locals were pretty bored, so there were lots of folks on the trail. I also just enjoyed being with Jan and Rob and especially not having to cook for myself for 3 days. I could have spent Christmas with Veeka, but I was having to compete with multiple other families, so I saw her a few days earlier. It was our first Christmas apart. Because of the insane rules governing state facilities, parents are not allowed inside because of Covid (although we are tested before we even see the kids) so we must meet with them outside. Yep, in 42-degree weather and raining, we shiver by a heat lamp that a staffer kindly brought.
Veeka and I shivering outside of her cottage. Because of Covid, we meet in 40-degree weather outdoors.
I have been furious about this situation for months in that the powers-that-be knew it would be horrible meeting outside in the cold with our kids but they did nothing to prepare. We were told to meet at picnic tables while the wind blew at us. I called my state rep, contacted various media and eventually, Crosscut ran a wonderful piece describing this hell. To this day, I have to wear several layers when I visit Veeka plus a mask. I try to choose non-rainy days but it’s been miserable.
In early January, I got the benefit of that conference for travel writers that I’d attended last October in Bend. One idea I’d come up with writing up a Christian culinary school in the posh Oregon coastal town of Cannon Beach. That week, they were making bread products, so I drove about 5 hours to the place and spent a day shadowing the students and their guest professor, a cook from the Silverton area, who was teaching them the basics of kneading dough and the making of bagels, pie crusts and rye loaves. I’m no cooking expert, so it was quite fascinating to listen in on that and an early morning lecture that was beamed in from Paris where yet another lecturer talked about French cheeses.
Miska Salemann’s Nativity scene
The first two days I was there, it was pretty rainy; despite that, I hiked around Ecola State Park’s Clatsop Loop trail, getting quite muddy in the process. After that, I visited the new art gallery being opened up by Miska Salemann, who I’d bumped into at her home near me in Falls City. Veeka and I happened to run across an art show she was giving in this gorgeous home and we bought a painting that hangs in Veeka’s room near her bed. Miska has since relocated to Oregon, where, she assures me, there’s a lot more art buyers. Cannon Beach seems to be the Carmel of the Pacific Northwest; having been to Carmel, I think Cannon Beach has a little ways to go. I will say the prices in the local restaurants are probably close to what you’d pay in Carmel and Miska tells me that local housing is pretty pricey too. Miska has these cool paintings of the Virgin Mary that combine Orthodox and Catholic elements. I wish they could be used for Christmas stamps, as they are so colorful.
After saying good-bye to the bakers, I had a rare sunny January day, which I used to hike the Elk Meadow trail in Oswald West State Park to Devil’s Cauldron, a hole under a coastal cliff where the seawater flows in and out with the waves. Doesn’t look like a place where I’d want to go swimming, but it’s lovely to look at. Further to the south in Newport, there’s something called the Devil’s Punchbowl, which is similar; a circular rock formation that waves go in and out of. Rough place, the Oregon coast.
