Reverend Cutlip
The Reverend Aaron Cutlip is a fisherman for souls. He can feel it when he snags them and feel it when he loses them, knows how to set the hook and play them, how to reel them in slowly. He feels great joy with he lands one for good. He had his own church once, with a good solid congregation, and that had its satisfactions. But the politics of small town life, the constant exhortation for funds, the backsliding and backstabbing began to vex him and the lure of the hunt, the excitement of casting the Holy Word into the wild sea of sinners and hauling souls out of the deep was too strong. He’s been running the revivals throughout southern Alabama and Mississippi for five years now, week-long celebrations of song and spirit, bringing the fire of truth and the thunder of his God-given voice to the hinterlands. It isn’t only the big cities where wickedness dwells- poor country people get up to their own share of devilment, they need to be snapped back to the path of righteousness now and then, they hunger for the body-wrenching exaltation that can only come when the Spirit is high. Music is part of it, and the choir will get them warmed up, start the Spirit moving, but he’s the one that has to work it deep, the one in charge of the rhythm. The tent is part of it too, out of the familiar four church walls, surrounded by the black night- he’s learned from the carnival pitchmen selling their Indian tonics, learned even from the profane blues shouters on the street corner who can build a crowd and work it for a hatful of change. Reverend Cutlip has been given a gift and he knows it, he revels in the opportunity to win folks over for Jesus. There is no job more important in the world than to be a soldier in the army of the Lord. If you have to coax, you coax, if you have to bully, you bully- the bait doesn’t matter as long as you hook them and bring them in. Because time is running short, people act like there’s no tomorrow when the Judgement Day could be on us in an instant. And when it happens, when that day of glory and terror arrives, Aaron Cutlip will be able to step up proud and say “Lord, just look how many I brought you!”
