Autumn 2001 was a humbling season, to say the least.
Not to forget the feelings of shock, horror, and righteous anger, but
of all reactions to September's tragedies that sense of being humbled
has lingered with me.
Such a powerful lesson in national and individual
vulnerability should remind us how precious and finite life is, and
just how quickly that gift can be surrendered back to the Author of
all life.
In my search for some understanding of, and respite
from, the intimate mysteries of life and death evoked by September 11,
like 19th century Protestant hymn translator Catherine Winkworth, I
sought solace reading hymn lyrics as devotional poetry.
Strangely, I found little of what I was looking
for in our denominational hymnal. Not to fault The Presbyterian Hymnal,
but I had not previously noticed its hymns seem to deal entirely with
the short period of our temporal life: little lessons about sacraments
and church holidays, exhortation to discipleship, stewardship, trust
and love of God, and service to our fellow man. "Our helper He
amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing," according to Luther's
famed "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
What about that infinitely longer period after
we shuffle off those Mortal ills? I wondered.
While wholly unqualified to judge our theological
emphasis, I found myself opening other religious songbooks and rediscovering
less modern songs of praise and comfort, whose melodies had long lay
hidden within certain childhood memories. Scanning them, I could almost
taste the bologna and mayonnaise on white bread sandwiches I used to
eat while my sitter tuned in country Gospel shows on drifting AM radio
stations, or noontime Gospel shows on TV stations in Nashville or Evansville.
Sometimes it would be a professional quartet --
guys who could happily sing, "They nailed my Savior to the tree,"
while the piano player grinned and pounded out a bouncy tune. Other
times, it was the even more ancient Southern Harmony tradition, sung
by mournful, unpolished singers from poor Kentucky coal mining communities
marked by a single, unpainted clapboard store at a juncture of dirt
and gravel roads.
I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent reading verses
and remembering the sounds of songs from books to whence many of these
homegrown Gospel groups gleaned their repertoire. I still recall quartets
like the Imperials and the Stamps, and family ensembles such as the
Singing Speer Family on noon-hour TV segments 40 years, and more, ago.
Their religious outlook, and thus their music, was happy.
Humming my way through old James D. Vaughan-published
praise songbooks I was soon awash with warm nostalgia for those happy,
uncomplicated songs about a saving God and Savior.
Prominent were paeans to a heaven as home. "Our
Heavenly Home," "I'll Fly Away Home," "I'm Going
Up Home Some Day," "We're Going Home Some Morning," Each
Day I'm Nearer Home," and the especially popular "I Feel Like
Traveling On" are but a few.
The events of September 11 and consequently inescapable
news coverage, I'm embarrassed to confess, had me glancing up at the
sky every time a suddenly rare airplane passed overhead. It's easy to
get jumpy about where the next anthrax letter might turn up. Happy,
catchy songs about a big ol' friendly anthropomorphic heavenly home
a'waiting' way over yonder are a welcome distraction from all that.
Now, it doesn't take seminary education to know
Southern Gospel music cometh not from the modern Reformed tradition.
It comes from the ‘sanctified' revivalist sects that split and splintered
off Methodist and Presbyterian churches right and left nearly 100 years
ago. That doesn't mean we can't appreciate it for what it is.
Presbyterians -- Scotch-Irish, Korean, Sudanese,
African American and Latino: whomever -- are true to Christ in many
outstanding works of mission. We stand with the downcast in issues of
social and economic justice. We seek the truth. I'm honored to do my
small share.
In my newly humbled state of mind, I'm also thankful
for simple messages. The Reformed and the sanctified don't seem totally
incompatible messages in some of those old songs, for instance:
While I'm here I want to labor every
day and hour
Going at the Spirit's bidding with grace and power,
Till my day is over and the Lord calls me.
Let me give my best in service with love so free
A home is waiting, just over there,
A land of promise that's free from care;
Jesus on the golden strand,
There's a home for me in glory land.
Pardon the hillbilly in me, but I love those lyrics.
A home in glory land is hardly the linchpin of the Gospel message, but
I'm not ashamed to take comfort, after such horror as we have witnessed,
in the hope that life in this world is not as good as it gets for believers.
Surely the times influence where our emphasis will lie, after all.
Roy Acuff often sang this on the Grand Ole Opry:
"Some glad morning when this life is o'er, I'll fly away."
To a place where God's love and mercy doesn't get lost in the shuffle;
where the lamb can lay down with the lion; where hate-filled, medieval-minded
madmen cannot bring tallest buildings of that world crashing down atop
a nation's innocence.
