Everything Old is New Again

Hymns--boy, talk about old. Some of the ones we know are centuries old, literally, and growing up in the church of my youth I was resigned to the weekly plowing through of these songs. I liked listening to my mom sing. She had a light and airy voice, but it was in tune, and I enjoyed standing beside her at hymn time in church, and strove to sing like she did. My dad tells me that his mother, who died when he was twelve, so I never met her, used to sing hymns all day long as she worked doing laundry or baking or whatever. I would have liked to have heard that, and some day I will, but there was a time when I couldn't understand why anyone would voluntarily sing hymns. They were dry, ancient, obligatory things--good for studying music theory with, but that was about it.

They also made good piano-lesson fodder. I had two piano teachers, one in my elementary years and one during junior and senior high school, and they were both fine Christian ladies. That meant that (once I had acquired the necessary skills) hymnals were fair game for lesson books. So I learned to play a lot of hymns. Do you know what that entails? It means that you play them every day, over and over and over. And that can get pretty mind-numbing, because it's actually the kinesthetic memory in your fingers that is doing the learning, not your "thinking" center. So I had a lot of time to think. What I chose to do (being the rabid reader that I am) was to read the verses of the hymns as I practiced. You know, a lot of people can sing one verse of a lot of hymns, but after the endless repetitions of the years of my youth, I could sing a LOT of verses from memory of an awful lot of hymns. And Christmas carols. Oh my yes; I still know many many verses of the Christmas carols, and I'm a formidable person to have along if you're caroling because I can keep going indefinitely.

Rabbit trail number one--It shocked me the first time I attended a Christmas-season service at an Episcopalian church. I thought I knew a lot of verses to carols. But the Episcopalian hymnal has at least twice as many verses as anyone else ever knew existed for each carol. These people were inexhaustible soldiers of hymn-singing. It was amazing.

Rabbit trail number two--As you may have guessed, although I was intimately familiar with the hymnal, I can't say I got any enjoyment out of it. There was one exception. There is a hymn in the Methodist hymnal written by John T. Grape. I can't even tell you what it's called, but I got a really unreasonable amount of happiness out of knowing that there was a hymn written by a guy named Grape. It's a dreadful hymn to sing, and goes up into the stratosphere at one point where very few people go with any kind of grace. Our church had a soprano who sailed on up there with glee, but she shouldn't have. Screechy would be a nice way of putting it. I remember her at one point saying that singing was the gift that God had given her, and she was happy to exercise it in His service for as long as she could. I would think "Oh please no, don't bother, really", but I never said this out loud. This is the one solitary example of tact from my entire misbegotten youth, and I'm very proud of it.

Why am I telling you this? Because of something I discovered. Once I got into a church that really taught the Bible, chapter by chapter every week of the year, something odd happened. After a few months of this extensive Bible-learning, I went back to my home town and visited my old church with my parents. Much to my astonishment, those moldy, dreary old hymns were suddenly packed full of meaning. I nearly wept (and sometimes I do) singing those songs written by people from years past who had obviously had a spiritual life rich with knowledge, and experience of God and His grace. What a difference! There wasn't anything wrong with the hymns, there had been something wrong with me! Once I really knew the God of which they had written, hymns became beloved things. I have a couple of wonderful CDs full of hymns that I listen to on purpose in the car as I drive to work. A good way to alleviate the miseries of a long commute, let me tell you.

One last rabbit trail--Since I was a violin major in college, I always played in the orchestra that accompanied the singing of Handel's The Messiah. It didn't matter that I was also in one of the choirs and had rehearsed my brains out singing it; since violin was my major area of study that's where I had to be--in the orchestra pit. It had long been a heart's desire of mine to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. Seriously, how full of meaning can you get? That's the epitome of Christian choral music. After I had graduated, a friend of mine in a more traditional church than mine invited me to come sing the Hallelujah Chorus with his church choir. Oh, that was so exciting. Finally, at last, I was going to get to express my joy vocally--the end of many years of yearning. So the great and sunny morning finally arrived, and I stood there in Eddie's church choir and the music swelled up and I opened my mouth--and burst into tears. I was so overwhelmed by the experience that I never managed to get out a single note.

But Hallelujah anyway.

Love, Spud.