Dolly Parton’s grandfather inspired her entire life in numerous ways. He was a wandering preacher who also played music. In many parts of Appalachia, preaching and music and religion and happiness and the Good Book all go together. Dolly was a gorgeous flowering of all that.

Their kind of religion is not the bad kind of religion. It is not even the judgmental kind.

It is the life-giving kind, the happy singing kind, the joyful kind, the everything-will-be-okay-including-DEATH-ITSELF kind.

In this kind of religion, anyone who suffers in any way at all is seen as holy instantaneously (more holy than they already were), and as someone we should all LOOK UP TO, not pity. Even children. ESPECIALLY CHILDREN.

There is little pity in this kind of religion.

What there is here is LOVE. Just love. Only love. All love. And love is the only thing there is. Even when it doesn’t LOOK (or feel) like it at all. You don’t even have to believe in God.

The best preaching never happens in churches, as Dolly’s grandfather knew very well.

It happens on the streets, on the sidewalks, in the parks, in the mountains, in the cities, or anywhere just one person suddenly feels the Holy Ghost inside and decides to connect with another “just one” person who also feels the Holy Ghost within themselves. These are epiphanies, moments, flashes of sunlight from behind the dark clouds, not constant things; but they leave an afterglow.

You can be gay, you can be trans, you can be black, white or green, you can be any color or creed under the sun or above it, you can be anything you want to be and already are.

The best preaching is informal, brief, fast, sudden, spontaneous, and OFTEN WORDLESS.

It often happens in less than a single second, with a single glance of the eyes. And then you pass on by. You always pass on by.

All it takes is two willing people who will remember one another even though they don’t even know each other’s names.

Dale Williams Barrigar (images by DWB)