How is it that Philadelphia’s most sought-after suburb community could be without a single place of worship? Are there none called to be apostles and pastors? Will God not lift up his faithful servant to establish a church in Cauliflower Garden, Pennsylvania?




LIBRETTO


CHARACTERS

Johannes Golden: a semi-retired evangelist




THE BIRTHDAY BROADCAST

Cameras are ready to roll for a special two-hour show to celebrate Johannes Golden’s 85th birthday


Let’s Just Praise the Lord
Let’s Just Praise the Lord
Open up your Bibles
With the Holy Spirit you’re liable
to have a spiritual breakthrough today!


Johannes Golden:

I have thought and I have thunk,
For a million years,
And I still don’t know what to tell you.

Are we free? Why should it be so hard to discard?
There are still bats in my belfry,
And squirrels in my britches.

What word of life can I give?
The Second Great Reformation.
The Johannes Golden Crusades.
Cauliflower Garden Community Church.
And the support group that met in my living room.
I try to unravel it.
It always comes back to you.
Oh nameless few.
Burdened people, looking for rest.
I numbered among you.
I was invisible once too.

Before the call back to Egypt.
And the queer debate, watched two billion times.
Evangelicalism in American was a pressure cooker,
Just waiting to have the top blown off.
Bless the boy who thought to record and post it.
That poor pastor thought I’d be an easy opponent.
I thought so too.
But God told me to speak, so I opened my mouth and spoke.
Wonderful words of life poured forth.
Most had forgotten the true power of religion.





THE BESTSELLER BROADCAST

Cameras are ready to roll for a special two-hour show to promote Johannes Golden’s new book: Affirmations for the Pilgrim. Johannes will read excerpts with accompaniment on the Cauliflower Garden Community Church Pipe Organ.


Let’s Just Praise the Lord
Let’s Just Praise the Lord
Open up your Bibles
With the Holy Spirit you’re liable
to have a spiritual breakthrough today!


Johannes Golden:

I am a child of God. We are all children of God.
I am made in the Image of God. We are all made in the Image of God.
I see thee transfigured.

Like Abraham, I have left the home of my ancestors.
Who are my brothers and my sisters? My fathers and my mothers?
I have fled the city of destruction, where the blind lead the blind.

Let not the Giant Despair of Doubting Castle cut short my days.
I look to the hills, to the God above theism
The God above god is my salvation.
I cry out to the abyss!
Oh heavenly abyss!!!!
My prayers are a struggle for alignment.
I seek out the lonely places, I am silent in the presence of my enemies.
My good works are known only in the secret place.

I worship in spirit and in truth!
My body is a temple, my mind transformed, no longer conformed to the basic pattern.

Submit yourselves to one another in love.
He who has two fish, give one to your neighbor.
And who has a hundred fish, give ninety-nine to the neighborhood.
To each a gift is given for the edification of the many.

The self cut off from the world is an empty shell, a mere possibility.
Man can affirm himself only if he affirms the being in which he finds himself.
The true escape is to say “No Exit” and take despair upon oneself.
But in the Courage to Be as an Individual, he is not consumed by the collective or the immutable childhood experience.

They have called you a backslider.
That is false. You are a climber.

For many sunsets and many sunrises, I have walked a long, hard road.
So too shall they. And so too shall thy word be a lamp unto their feet.
It is well with my soul.

For new wine, a new wineskin.