"Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus" revisited.

Medic 530, not as classic as Jim White's beat-up Impala, but it gets me in the same places!

       Last weekend I was assigned to the Ferriday, LA station for my Paramedic job. Ferriday was one of the major settings of Jim White's documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. I thought I could revisit some of the sites and see what I could find.
       The first noticeable thing was the poverty. Ferriday was already decaying in 2003, but it has only worsened in the 10 years since. The only thing relatively new was the huge Pentecostal Church on the main drag coming into town. I couldn't find the old one. But that wasn't where I wanted to go, to me that's the right-eyed Jesus. That's where the faithful go. I wanted the Jesus of the street corners and barrooms. There would be no haunting country music, just the chattering of the dispatcher and the occasional window-rattling bass coming from a passing car.
     

Intersection of US 65 and US 84

      I stood by the intersection of the 2 main roads, near where the mayor stood, and just looked around and listened. I saw gas stations, a KFC, a grocery store and a town that was overwhelmingly African-American. I wondered what it would have been like 200 years ago, when the area was predominantly plantations. What would have the religious makeup be? Since it's so close to South Louisiana would Catholicism reign? Did Pentecostal circuit riders come from Alexandria to preach to the slaves? Just across the river in Natchez, there is a large Baptist community, would that have been predominant? Did any of the elements of that worship make it to today's congregations here? Do the current inhabitants, that may feel enslaved by poverty, see Jesus the same way?

         Since I was on duty, I figured it would not have been good to go to a bar and start asking around about thoughts on religion. I didn't get to run across any backsliding Pentecostal preachers. Looking at that ambulance, I also wondered-Do people in their time of illness or dying see Jesus in the same way regardless of race? Does Jesus as that time become a Harry Potter looking kid in a blue uniform from Vidalia who is going to save them from death? In "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" a chariot comes down to carry them to heaven. Does a believer, actively dying, see the chariot? even if it's Orange and White with four wheels and a siren?

In my revisiting of the documentary, I had hoped to find the places depicted in the film, but I couldn't. For me, it sent me almost on an introspection of religion and race, coupled with death and dying. Maybe someone will read this and run with it....