By this time I was also friends with two other people Ron introduced me to, Bill LeClaire, a local musician who was a day laborer and a little rough in manners but friendly and a good Christian, and also Jim Coleman, who was much older and was from clear across the country.
I began to attend various church meetings and events, mostly with Ron but also increasingly with Bill. Bill, however, hated my hair but as far as I saw it, it wasn’t evil, it was just a color. And why wouldn’t he just leave me alone? I did not accept any word of correction on this matter, especially from someone like Bill!
As for my overall punk image, I was comfortable and I really had stopped ‘sinning’—I didn’t have a girlfriend or drink or do drugs or steal any more, and I even removed some of the punk symbols from my clothes, but there was nothing wrong with purple hair in and of itself, and also earrings. It’s not listed as a sin anywhere, and I was reading the Bible a lot by then and I actually found two verses that strengthened my stubborn attitude.
One verse was from Leviticus, that if your servant wants to be your bond slave for life then pierce his ear with an awl and he will be your life-long slave. I would tell people who challenged me that I wore earrings because I was now Christ’s bond-slave.
OK, that’s weird but there is nothing about having purple hair in the Bible! Repent! It’s from the Pit of Hell! If Christians didn’t like something in New Hampshire they would often say it was from the Pit of Hell! Everything they didn’t like was always from the Pit of Hell!! Especially my purple hair!
“No!” I would argue, “It’s scriptural! It’s in the Bible!”
“Having purple hair is NOT in the Bible! It’s from the Pit of Hell!”
“Yes, it’s in the Bible!” And I would quote Song of Solomon 7:5, “The hair of your head is like purple.”(NKJV)
You can probably tell I was going to become a lawyer.
And I visited Bill a few times who was working on starting up a Coffee House as a place to witness and play music; it was a Christian outreach tactic back then—this was of course LONG before Starbucks so a coffeehouse was exotic and it was going to be called The Agape Open Doorway. I helped him paint and get it ready and some friends would come over to pray and sing and things before he officially opened.
One time I totally embarrassed myself there. Bill had a dream for me, he told me he saw me covered in black and white checkers and being twisted and contorted in pain. He said he heard someone quote the Bible verse about being ‘double-minded’ and this meant I was not following the Lord with a pure heart or something, being mixed with the world and sin or something. I just stopped listening when I thought he was talking about my purple hair and earrings and how I dressed and things like that. None of that mattered I said, God looks at my heart not my hair.
Later they prayed for a lady and she had been divorced and was asking the Lord for a new relationship and they closed their eyes and prayed for her and then started saying nice things to her that she was so happy to hear. I didn’t understand they were listening to God speak to them and were actually prophesying. So one guy said, God has a new man chosen for you. Oh, thank you! Jesus! And someone else said God was going to make up for everything that was lost. Amen, thank you Lord!! And I assumed they just were saying nice things to her that she was so thankful for. I don’t know! No one explained it to me, and I just wanted to say nice things too!
So I added something I just made up off the top of my head … but instead of ‘thank you Lord!’ or ‘Amen! Hallelujah!” there was just an uncomfortable silence and the lady just stared at the floor, her eyes darting up to Bill and the other guy awkwardly. Well, they knew I was like a few months old in the Lord and had no idea what was going on, still wearing baby diapers—thankfully they didn’t stone me!
Hearing God’s Voice for the First Time
So I had only been a Christian for a few months and I began to read the Bible as much as I could. I started praying for things and God started answering my prayers so quickly. I asked for a MIDI guitar and found one just a few days later—what an unusual thing. Then I needed a job as well and prayed and found one in the mall at a New Age crystal cart right away, selling rings and stones and such. It was such an irony. All day long I just sat and minded the store and especially during the slow morning hours all I did was just read the Bible. I wore a little beanie type hat that I sewed for myself to hide my hair so I wouldn’t scare the customers away—but proudly took it off as soon as my shift was over. But one day, sitting there I actually heard God speak to me. It was the first time I ever heard God speak and knew it was actually God speaking to me. I heard a voice like it was in my head, or someone speaking in my ear and I knew it wasn’t my imagination, my own inner voice or another human person. I heard the voice tell me to get a new version of the Bible.
I really knew it was God speaking, especially after I told a few people, but then the thought occurred to me that there were actually different versions of the Bible!? What were the differences? Which one was the best? I went to a Christian bookstore in Concord, our capital city, and started to ask a lot of hard questions. The son of the owner suggested if I really wanted a solid version to get a Rotherham, the Emphasized version. It had to be specially ordered and it took a few weeks to get in, but the author was a scholar of both Hebrew and Greek and translated the Bible without trying to interpret it. Oh, he also added a special syntax into the text to show grammar stresses and other information contained in written Hebrew and Greek but not in written English and so lost to modern readers. It seemed like exactly what I wanted. I ordered one and when it came in I read it cover to cover several times. It was my main study Bible for many years. One funny thing I found out soon, that despite it being such an obscure version that almost no one had even heard of, there was one person we knew who actually had one as his primary Bible! Ron’s dad!
Jim’s Miracles: Patience and Love
Anyway me and Bill didn’t get along so well, and by now Ron was fed up with my attitude too and was barely speaking to me at all.
But I also spent a lot of time with Jim who was the glue keeping everything together. People think the big miracles are healing and deliverance but you also need to see clearly that love and patience can be even more miraculous and even more powerful, especially to people who are so broken like I was at that time. I wouldn’t spend my time with Jim because of the occasional miracles or supernatural stories, I spent time with him simply because he was kind to me.
Jim was working as a garbage man; he was divorced as well, as his wife would not tolerate him becoming a Christian. I think she had a new lover and there was a property dispute but he felt the Lord tell him not to fight or argue but to just walk away and he lost everything. He was from Washington State, (or Warshington as he would say it) and he heard the Lord say to move to New Hampshire—the exact opposite side of the country!
But when I met him, he was the most joyful person I had ever known. He was also CONSTANTLY evangelizing. He even prayed for me one time when I got poison ivy, a very bad rash actually, and he prayed for me and the itching stopped instantly! The blisters began healing immediately and it was a real miracle. He prayed for me and I was instantly healed of poison ivy!
He told me he prayed for a man one time on a bus with a leg that was four inches too short and it grew right out into his hand as he was holding his leg!
He and Bill used to argue about my wild hairstyle but Jim had a different take. He said it was the best way to meet people and start talking about Jesus because every younger person who saw me ran over to see why my hair was bright purple. Was I in a band? Am I famous? And Jim would begin to share the gospel or pray for them or something. He also told Bill I just wasn’t ready to change and to be patient. I had only been saved a few months after all … but God knew I did need to change and also that I needed a gentle nudge to get things moving.
You’ve Got Mail
So I moved in with Jim for a few months and maybe I was dragging my heels embracing God’s freedom for me. In fact, I had decided I would keep my purple hair until I was 60 years old at least—but it turns out God had a slightly different plan for my life.
So one night I remember we all got together in my car and it was Bill and me and I think Ron was there too, but Bill asked what we were going to do that night!? Oh wait, he said, I know a guy who is prophetic and he used to have meetings at his home on Wednesday nights. Bill hadn’t been there in many, many years but he said, “I think I can still find his place!”
Well, we drove from the city right out into the dark forests, back roads and unlit intersections, no gas stations, fewer and fewer shops or houses and even fewer street signs, a turn here, a turn there, until he finally said, ‘This is it!’ He turned down another unmarked dirt road, then another and we finally pulled up at the edge of a large pond! There were a few cars parked in the driveway of a small house and there was loud folk music coming from the house lit with a cozy orange-yellow glow.
We walked in late because the service had already started and some people were deep in prayer with their eyes closed and others were dancing to the guitar music. That was only one of my first impressions, the second immediate impression I had was the tangible presence of God.
To say the presence of God was strong would be misleading—it was SO STRONG it felt like you were walking into a FIRE—not a painful fire, a comforting one. It was not just that you might have goose bumps, or your eyelids might flutter if you closed them, it was like standing in an atmosphere of manifested Light and Joy.
There was an Irish flavor to their music—one girl often played accordion—and they first played fast ‘praise’ music for about 30 minutes and even danced to the simple folk songs they played very enthusiastically—This Little Light Of Mine, May The Circle Be Unbroken, Do Lord, Do Remember Me—as well as several songs they wrote themselves, many with lyrics taken from the Psalms. And then they would play about 30 minutes of slow ‘worship’ music and the presence of God fell like a heavy warm blanket. Then they prayed to close the worship set and maybe it lasted a long time but it simply felt timeless, like time no longer mattered in that atmosphere.
When people finally opened their eyes and saw me sitting there one had to hold back her gasp! Was I a murderer? she feared! I had a big leather jacket, that hair!, and so many earrings. Someone else later told me she almost shouted, laughing out-loud when she saw me, bright purple Mohawk and all—I looked so ridiculous to her! These were rural farmers’ wives, simple people, good people and they closed their eyes to worship God and opened them and a full blown Mohawked, bright-purple-hair-sticking straight up-looking kid was sitting right next to them—yeah we laughed about that … afterward. A long time afterward.
But I didn’t know any of that at the time, all I knew was that I was captivated by the presence of God. It was the first time I felt anything like that. After the music was over and some friendly talking, the pastor shared from the Bible in a short message, and then they began to pray for people.
If anyone wanted prayer or a word from the Lord they said, they were asked to sit in the chair in the middle of the room and they liked to call it ‘reading someone’s mail,’ like they would read your mail without opening the envelopes! And basically they would let the Lord tell them a personal prophecy, a personal vision and to reveal personal details they didn’t know naturally about the people they prayed for. So if someone had a real problem or needed a real word from God they were told NOT TO TELL ANYONE what it was they wanted, but just to let the Holy Spirit tell them Himself—that way they knew it was a word from the Lord and not something they had made up.
Just for example, a person would sit down and laying their hands on their shoulders or head, after just a few moments … “OK, I see an old red pickup truck in the driveway of a small one-story house, two bushes in front, the mailbox has a broken handle. There is a dog … blackish brown, old dog, likes to sleep under the bush closest to the garage. The door has a sign on it that says, Welcome Home, and I see you inside the house holding your head in your hands because you can’t pay the mortgage and it’s very late and you think you are going to lose your house, but the Lord says, ‘No, I will provide for you and you will not lose your house but stay there many years and you will discover me as your Lord and I will be your Savior and you shall be called by my Name and when you call on my Name I will rescue you,’ saith the Lord; ‘and this will be a sign unto you, tomorrow at 4 pm you will get a phone call from the bank and they will say there has been an error and your account is not past due, not past due, but over-paid, paid too much already, they billed you too much and you paid already what you think you are late on, and this is an easy thing for the Lord to do for you but it is to show you he cares for you and is Lord over all human endeavors. God will provide, you will not lose your house. At 4 pm they will call you. Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Amen.’”
That was a typical prayer on a typical Wednesday at the Buckman’s house. Yes, quite typical.
So this night they asked us if anyone wanted prayer. And both me and Bill said, YES! But I think Bill kind of pushed me forward—by all means Paul said, right? So I sat down and the pastor laid hands on me and said, “You should go with what God gave you. Be yourself.” He was talking about my hair and my punk style. I didn’t appreciate that. I had some problems I wanted help answering, college direction, career advice, and not advice about the color of my hair! I remember feeling God’s presence so strongly and feeling so alive and refreshed I wanted to come back the next week, and we did. But before that … I had a crisis.
No Pain, No Gain
I think it was the next day and I woke up in intense pain.
Nothing would alleviate it. I was bent over and could not function because of the pain but it was not just like a normal headache or muscle ache, it was both combined. Me and Bill were out looking for odd jobs but I couldn’t drive, so Bill drove my car and I mostly just laid in the back seat of the car bent over in pain. He drove around, spoke to a few people here and there and since Jim was working on his garbage collection route, I just had to endure the suffering.
The pain was intense but like I said, it was weird. First there was a headache but not a normal one—it was in a straight line across the front of my forehead. Second there was a pain in my arms and chest but it was also in a straight line, not like I pulled a muscle or lifted something heavy and strained myself, it was a pain that went in a straight line across from one arm, by my bicep but then crossed the empty space between my arm and chest and continued right across my chest very painfully, again skipping the empty space between my chest and my other arm, and then across my other bicep! I could not understand where it was coming from but it was nearly unbearable.
Once or twice Bill pulled over and prayed for me and the pain subsided for a little while but it eventually came back. I needed real help. Bill decided we needed to see someone who was strong in deliverance and I was in no mood to argue. We went to a new church that looked like a warehouse. It was a ‘contemporary’ style I never experienced before and I didn’t really like it and worse they played soft music using chimes and probably nice lyrics but it was almost like elevator music, weak and without passion. The preacher was a lady with a Southern accent, not a New Englander obviously in speech or mannerisms. She gave a sermon I could not follow since I was in such pain, but the pain did tend to settle down as the service was going on and finally afterwards she allowed us to go out back to her office and talk.
I could not sit up straight and Bill did most of the talking, asking her if she would pray for me.
But to my surprise she simply said, “No.”
How or why would you NOT pray for someone? That and Bill’s surprise caught my attention!
“I see so many demons on him: confusion, pride … There’s no reason to pray for him, the demons will all just come right back.” … She was not only talking about my choice to wear my hair and earrings in that style but my general overall attitude. She started telling Bill I was not serious to follow the Lord but was worldly, sinful, stubborn, arrogant … It’s probably all true I thought, only this time I was ready to listen.
I took a deep breath. I needed to stop trying to play the part of a punk rocker and just put it away and stop resisting the Holy Spirit’s leading to change. I was reacting to the people’s hard attitudes against me in forcing me to conform, not willing to look past their own bad attitudes to acknowledge that their advice was right, even if their own attitudes, mannerisms or reasoning were maybe wrong, harsh or unkind.
I sat up in my seat. I took off my beanie hat, and began to take out my earrings. For some reason the pain was subsiding and she looked at me and said with compassion, “OK, I’ll pray for you. I can see you are ready to change.” She simply laid her hands on me and prayed, I don’t remember what, but very matter-of-factly … no explosions. No fireworks. And that was it. And it was time to go home.
I didn’t feel any demons come out, I didn’t get hit with lightning bolts or vomit a black gooey mass or anything dramatic at all. Like I said, she finished praying and we just went home. But on the way home Bill had something he wanted to say.
Christ IN you
He pulled over down a long, dark driveway and gave me a long lecture. He told me about the crucifixion that Jesus had to endure to purchase my freedom—the cost to him of my redemption and salvation. He explained the nails, the crown, the whipping, pulling his beard off, and so much pain he went through to buy my freedom, a sacrifice I was not honoring by clinging so stubbornly to the worldly image I had made for myself. But wow! When Bill was telling me this his face started to shine like someone was shining a light onto it. I kept looking around to see if someone had a flashlight or if car headlights were shining onto his face but no, it was just trees and darkness all around us. But to look at his face it was radiant, glowing, and not only shining but it looked like the image or likeness of Jesus’ face was being projected onto Bill’s face! I mean it looked just like someone was shining a movie projector of Jesus’ face onto Bill’s and Jesus’ face was superimposed on top of his. I didn’t say anything about it until later but yes, I saw Jesus’ face, it looked a lot like the paintings you see of him actually.
Meet the New You
The next day I went out and bought hair dye—brown not purple—but I didn’t have time to use it that day because we were busy. The third day when I woke up the pain was beginning to come back and I rushed—I mean I RAN into the bathroom and started to color my hair back to brown as fast as I could, just squirting that dye onto my hair and rubbing it in with bare hands, no gloves or apron or anything but as soon as I did something amazing did happen—something like scales fell off my eyes!
I knew that verse from Acts when Paul got saved, well when Saul got saved before he was called Paul, but that exact same thing happened to me. It was like something was blinding me and it fell off—I could literally feel something sliding down my face, falling off my eyes, and that’s when I realized I was not who I thought I was.
All this time I had convinced myself that I was a punk, that was my identity; that’s who I was. My purple hair was such an important part of my self-image I was convinced it was my true identity and so I was going to keep it until old age, but really when something exactly like scales fell off my eyes and suddenly I saw clearly, I then knew that being a punk was not my true self.
I had a false self-image that I had created and in an instant it was removed and I was suddenly set free from a bondage that I didn’t even know I had! The pain was gone and I was now aware that I really was a new creation. I had a new identity, a true one. Not one I made for myself. Before I had been saying I was a non-conformist, but that also became something I was conforming to. But now I was free, free to be ME, this was a me who God in his divine plan made in the image of He. God blessed me by showing me a ME I never knew was me, one I never knew I could be. But now I was truly free, truly free just to be … me. It is in fact for freedom that Jesus has set us free.
“A Chain Across my Head and Chest”
What shocked me the most was a few months later and finding a poem I had written in high school. I was going through my old things, just cleaning out more junk I left in my parents’ house and I found this old poem I wrote before I got properly ‘saved’ and there was a line that jumped off the page that gave me CHILLS!
It said I was being held captive “with a chain across my head and chest” … My mouth fell open! That was EXACTLY what I felt! The headache was in a straight LINE across my head, but more bizarrely was the pain across my arms and chest. Like I said, it went across my arm, across the empty space, over to my chest in a straight line, and then across my chest, past the empty space again, and then across my other arm! It was EXACTLY like it was a chain, an invisible one but a very real and painful one just the same, and it was holding me in bondage!
Did I actually write that? I didn’t remember doing it. But that was exactly the pain I felt! But there it was in black and white! Proof—painful, scary proof. I predicted the crisis I would have one or two years before it happened. Amazing! How did I know that before it happened? I had no idea at the time I was doing anything other than writing poems! Can you prophesy and not even know it? Can you write poems that have prophecies and still be completely unaware of it? I guess so! There’s one example right there!
