"The Hymn Sing"

My family enjoys going to "Hymn Sings", so we all got in our van and headed
for Arbela, MO., where the October event was to be held.
The church in Arbela is small but you can't miss it.  The directions are simple:
You make a right turn beside the well that is in the middle of the street.
I was tempted to get out and pump a little water just to see if
the well still worked but we didn't want to be late.

When we pulled into the parking lot,  I noticed a sign above the church door
that said "Arbela Baptist Church, 1888."  As I was stepping out of the van,
I thought of an earlier time when ladies would have been stepping from buggies
adorned in their Sunday best, wearing pretty bonnets.
I could almost visualize children tumbling out of the back of wagons
and hurrying off to their Sunday School classes.

I entered the front door of the church and in the foyer there were
old fashioned coat hooks, and I wondered if they had been there
since the church was built.  As I turned and walked on into the sanctuary,
I felt I had stepped right into the past.  Everything was probably much the same
as it had always been.  There were no padded pews or plush carpets.
I saw old hymnbooks in their holders on the back of the pews
along with hand-held fans with advertising on the back.
I hadn't seen those since I was a little girl.

I took a seat in a pew next to Grandpa who was in rare form this night.
I sat between him and my husband which was probably a mistake.
My husband and I had been asked to sing so on one side of me,
my husband kept whispering about changing something in the
song we were singing.  On the other side of me,
Grandpa kept complaining about
how noisy it was (his new hearing aid was acting up again) and this
was all before the program even began.  Between the two of them,
I was thinking to myself, "Is there no balm in Gilead?"
Then all at once,  Grandpa turned to me and said,
"There sure are a lot of fat girls here tonight."
 At that point I just about lost it!  I was covering my face with my hands,
trying to stifle the laughter as I was hoping nobody else had heard him.
I wondered if Grandpa thought that I was one of the "fat girls".
Grandpa can be a character.  It's not because he's 84,
he has always been a character!

The Boleys were there and they have 4 little stair step children...
the oldest looked about six years old.  The oldest 2 children recited
long passages of scripture  they had memorized, and their father played
piano and accordion.  He ended the hymn sing with a couple of old favorites:
"I Saw The Light" and "I'll Fly Away".
Afterward, there were refreshments to enjoy along with
wonderful Christian fellowship.

Although, every hymn sing is somewhat the same, this night was different.
This time Sarah sang.  Her sister slipped a tape in the tape recorder
and Sarah sang her favorite song as her parents stood on either side of her.
Sarah concentrated on every word as she sang.  You could tell that she had
practiced over and over and had memorized every word.  At one point,
she sang the words, "Heaven is watching you" and she looked up
and I think perhaps she did see heaven because I know God was listening.
We were all listening.  I looked around and everyone was very quiet
and some lips moved with hers, as if to help in some way.  You see,
Sarah is a special child of God and although her voice may never be heard
in an opera, she sang her heart out for all of us as she sang to her Father in heaven.

Yes, it was different tonight... even the prayer time was unusual.
Normally, before the prayer is given, individuals in the congregation
simply call out the names of people in need.  No explanation or specific information
is given because God knows those things.  The names are simply spoken out loud
in the presence of God.  After the names are spoken,
there is a time of silence and then someone leads in prayer.

This time it was different.  There were many names but there were new names
that I hadn't heard at hymn sings.  The names were spoken loud and strong
with a profound silence between each one:

I heard the name... "Soldiers"
I heard the name... "George W. Bush"
I heard the name... "America"

By
Pamela R. Blaine
(c) October, 2001