Just a Crumpled Note

  I remember my days of old. I was a young frilly dress girl running up the steps to enter “Kingdom come, My will be done.”  Oh! Yes! There was our welcoming friend, the back pew.  Hello! Rest sludgy feet.  Slip off miry shoes and put on Christ-like “free at last” sandals.  We’d sit down and get prepared for divine veils to cover golden chandeliers and elder chairs.  Come, Holy Spirit. Guide vast choir and pastoral teaching.  I’d wiggle a little here and there.  I’d pat and fix my pleated dress.  My bow was as big as the podium with the resting bible.  It was sleeping, ready to be awaken by shepherd hands.  Bibles in the back of the pews were also ready to “rise and shine” along with hymnals.  Music notes were ready to float over “bench boats”.  Singing voices were ready to burst! Ping! Chime! against the stained glass windows.  The flock was corralled and ready to drink from the everlasting trough.    

“Amazing Grace”, “How Great Thou Art”, and “Old Rugged Cross” filtered and flittered like spiritual butterflies through the sanctuary.  Sanctification made its presentation upon the melody of the white robed choir.  These songs are all known by many church-goers.  They are our buddies, our friendly quartet. Welcome! Come marry the tune.  These hymns along with many others are brackets on the door to my past.  The peaceful harmonies fell upon my warm shoulders casting me with familiarity.  “Amazing Grace”, how sweet your precious memory you left me.  The memory of sitting with my attentive family, listening to God’s word with admiration.  It seems as if today, the hymns we once sung unto God are just Post-it notes on the wall of the past.  The notes read, “Goodbye! Newness has taken over.”  Modern mingles its way into the crowd and yells, “There’s a hymn note!”  Contemporary in return cites, “Hymns are no more. Just crumple it and throw it away.   

Ah!  The new age filled with enticement.  To pull Millennials in like a pulley, songs are whipped up and plastered on screens.  It seems that novelty songs are written to over-write old hymns or to mix with the unique words.  They are scratched and whittled out of churches today.  We are pleasing the young and forgetting our elders.  The older generation once sang in unison “In the Garden”.  We need to honor and respect patriarchs of the church.  If hymns drive out the younger generation, then they’re not truly committed.  You’re either for God or against Him.  This might sound harsh, but then we’re not truly listening to the message.  I’m not suggesting new songs be burned, but to make sure veterans and rookies are balanced.  Smooth out the crumpled forgotten psalm notes and let them grace the choirs’ voices once more.    

Let’s take that native walk again with Jesus through the dewy roses.  Let’s stroll over creeks of “I Surrender All” and hike over bridges of “It is Well With my Soul”.  Oh, what a simple, lovely time when these tunes were keyed from the deep bellow organ.  Simplicity creates in us a child-like heart.  A child of God is easy…just surrender all.  We don’t have to splash in edifying waters…just roll with the calmness of the baptizing stream.  Hymns were smooth like a Smoky Mountain river, but bustled fervor for God in the heart of hearts.  It’s purifying to go back to toddler roots.  Those roots being “Washed in the Blood”.  Simplified hearts leave more room for Jesus.

The pioneers who wrote hymns “made a way, where there is no way”.  These god-fearing souls were masons, brick and mortaring the way for future song-writers. Pilgrims crafted and arranged melodies to soothe our bosom of Abraham.  We have forgotten them!  We have crumpled and thrown away holy treble clefs and “d-minored” notes.  Hymns have been minored out of the church community.  Music sheets are buried and dusted over.  Is it hard to honor the men that have written our spiritual lineage?  Why can we not utter these organic songs?  Is there something to fear about quiet chapel times?  Do we get over-excited about trying to catch feelings or catch the Holy Spirit when He already resonates? 

Take time to “smell the hymns”.  Stop over-exaggerating and “Be still and know he is God.”  Sometimes we need to tenderly soul-search.  Search amongst blissful beats.  Hymns’ soft harmonies cover chaos like a culvert.  Don’t demand passion from new, but worship in spirit and truth.  So, let’s un-crumple and post hymn notes back in the church and “Sing Unto Him a New Song”.