Parallel Praise
(excerpt from In Della Belle's Wink. It's 1960, and two groups meet at night in separate Southern fields to worship and give praise to God. One is a Black congregation whose church was torched by the KKK; the other is the KKK itself.)

Beloved/Brethren
We've gathered here tonight/We've gathered here tonight
In this tent/ In this pasture
On sanctified ground/On sacred ground
To praise God/To thank God
To renew and strengthen our love for Him / To consecrate and affirm His love for us
We praise Him for our health/We thank Him for his health
And the blessings He has given us/And the blessings we have by birth
Father/Father
We thank You for the Light/We thank You for making us white
The knowledge that You gave us Your only Son/And knowledge that You sent us a white son
Jesus Christ/Jesus Christ
For through Him is the only way/With Him we can make our way
To everlasting life/To an easier life
Beyond this life in which we live/Within this life in which we live
We thank You for His Blood/We thank You for the blood
That makes us clean/That makes us white
The Blood that will lead us to/The blood that will lead us to
Absolution/A solution
From the land of these niggers/To this land of these niggers
The niggers that torch our homes/The niggers that take our jobs
The niggers that rape our women/The niggers that rape our precious white women
The niggers who think they're right/The niggers who think they're white
But aren't/But could never be
The niggers who say they're the chosen ones/The niggers who wish they were chosen
But do more ill than the devil/But do more ill than the devil
They burn a cross, Heavenly Father/We burn this cross, Heavenly Father
But we don't look to that cross/We look to this cross
As the covenant You made with us/As the covenant made by us
We look to an Empty Cross/We look to a fiery cross
The sign of our Risen Savior/The sign of our savior
Whose Blood fills our hearts/Whose blood adorn our gowns
We look to this Cross/We look to our cross
For the answer/For an answer
Look to the Cross, Beloved/Look at the cross, brethren
And rejoice/ And remember
That's all the payment you'll ever need/That's all the payment you need
For He is the Answer/For the answer
To all of our woes/To all these Negroes
Now join hands/Now join hands
And help me sing/And let's sing
As we shut our eyes/As we divert our eyes
And look for the Cross/Toward our cross
Now let's sing/Now let's sing
Amazing Grace/Old Rugged Cross
Amazing Grace/On a hill far away
How sweet the sound/Stood an old rugged cross
That saved a wretch like me/The emblem of suff'ring and shame
I once was lost/And I love that ol' cross
But now am found/Where the dearest and best
Was blind, but now I see/ For a world of lost sinners was slain


And so the two groups worshiped
Loudly and joyously
Unconcerned with being overheard
By mortal enemies

The Church was rapt in self-induced epiphanies
Reaching for Jacob's ladder
Floating and flailing and flagellating themselves
With hugs and scriptures
Beating drums and tambourines and hymnals
Tapping their feet, rocking their bodies
Even with eyes seared shut with sweat
They looked to a portrait of a man
With a curly, wooly afro
Swarthy skin and beard:
They looked to Jesus

The Ghosts were caught up in the bestial throes
Of anger and self-loathing and self-hating
And behaved as conquering Romans
They drank beer, they shot guns into the air
They yelled as the banshees they so loathed
They cut jigs
They sang witty lynch songs with bluesy tones
They played the harmonica and banjo
They chewed and spat tobacco

The Church's gathering came to a close/The Ghosts' gathering came to a close
Parallel Praise complete
But the night for both groups
Was just beginning...