Sing it loud. Sing it proud!

 

I sometimes think I should have titled my blog "The Guilty Gaper" because that is exactly what I am. I am old enough now to claim it. I think Norman Rockwell painted this thinking of me.

 I love to sing. When I was a little girl, my mother thought I went up to my piano teacher's house (Mrs. Ina Harrison who played with Chautauqua. Her husband owned a pharmacy downtown.) to learn to play the piano. I learned one piece a year, but got her to play for me to sing the rest of the lesson. That was my joy. Then I would sing those songs to the trees in my front yard from the balcony of our home, pretending I was singing on the stage of an opera. 

On Sunday mornings before my mother took me to church at the old Presbyterian church downtown,  But first, I would climb to the top of the slide and sing made up songs of praise to God. My father and mother encouraged my singing. Back then there were booklets you could purchase at the IGA with the words of the songs on the radio. When we would travel, Daddy, who hated the radio, would turn it on for me to sing along. Mother's favorite was "When You Walk Through A Storm."

When I listened to Miss Essie Mae Smitherman sing "The Star Spangled Banner" at the football games where I stood on the field as an unexpected cheerleader, I aspired to become a teacher at Dothan High School and maybe one day do the same. There was something thrilling there in the dark watching the flag raise over the stadium hearing her clear, beautiful voice and our wonderful Dothan High School band play. 

I have many happy memories of singing. I sang "The Little Drummer Boy" at First Baptist and watched my little son, Drew, walk down the aisle with his little drum. My heart swelled and the words were hard to come as I watched God's gift to me walk down that aisle.

I sang "The Old Rugged Cross" at my grandmother's funeral. My grandfather, Pat Gillis, had sat listening to the Gospel Hour on the radio the Saturday before his death. He heard the words of that song and said to my grandmother who sat rocking her six month old baby next to him, "When I die, I want them to sing that song." The next weekend, the ropes broke on the truck in front of him as he was on his way to TR Miller Mill Company in Brewton, Alabama and he was crushed. That song meant something to the precious woman who raised my mother and her four siblings alone all those years that followed. As she died in the hospital, she lifted a hand, looked beyond those gathered beside her, and said, "Pat?" 

I sang "The King is Coming" at Joe's cousin Dick Moseley's funeral. 

My dear friend, Agatha Bennett in Panama City, requested that I sing "The Lord's Prayer" at her funeral. She was Presbyterian but the funeral was held at the Baptist Church because it was bigger and she and Julian were much loved and respected. The pianist of the church and I practiced a bit before the service. I do not think the others who sang, or spoke, really knew her and their delivery was staid and mechanical, But I knew her and I knew her faith. The song and the music gelled and it created a praise moment that still sings in my heart. One I knew she would have loved. Hands raised in praise and a true moment of worship occurred. But not everyone received it well to my consternation. 

And then, after attending church one Sunday with my father so he would not have to sit alone, the pastor's wife walked past me and said, "You sure sing loud." Yes, the Norman Rockwell picture reminds me of me singing in church. And yes, there have been times when small children turned to look. But, with her words, every doubt, every weakness, every inhibition I ever experienced returned. I must say her words took me back to Sunday school at that church when no one wanted to sit beside me. Until I was 12, my mother took me to the Presbyterian Church. Then Daddy decided we would all attend church in the denomination he had grown up in. I was a chubby little girl, the last to be picked for any sport. Truly a late bloomer. Two of the boys in that Sunday school class had been the boys who said to me one day in Junior High, "You are so fat, how do you get down that hall." Such wit. Both were chubby themselves. A mean bunch of children who considered themselves the elect. One died long ago. Someone said of AIDS.  And the other is going blind, I hear. And I guess the girls in that church thought fat was contagious. 

Lauren Daigle's song, You Say, expresses it best...

I keep fighting voices in my mind that say I'm not enough

Every single lie that tells me I will never measure up

Am I more than just the sum of every high and every low

Remind me once again just who I am because I need to know

Ooh-oh

You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing

You say I am strong when I think I am weak

And you say I am held when I am falling short

And when I don't belong, oh You say I am Yours

And I believe (I)

Oh, I believe (I)

What You say of me (I)

I believe

But, God gave me a mother who won a battle ribbon for her participation at the Battle of the Bulge. She told me to tell them "You don't buy my groceries, so don't worry about it!" Not a great comeback, but good enough for me. Much better than tears. She was the oldest of those children my grandmother raised after my grandfather died. She went to work keeping the books for a dime store and helped her mother as early as possible. Her gumption and big heart led her to sign up for the Army after borrowing money for nursing school and graduating. 

I found out later that some girls' mothers forbade them from being my friends. They called my mother coarse and vulgar. I called my mother loving, courageous and a wonderful example of stepping out of her comfort zone to do what she felt God called her to do. And yes, she could curse like a soldier and loved a good joke. She had an infectious laugh and people from all over town would call her to tell her the latest joke they heard. Yet, she washed my mouth out with soap if a curse word escaped. 

Mother once saved a horse destined for the glue factory and set him to work on our farm. When you rode that horse, he went hell for leather and you had to run him into a fence to stop him. Sometimes I think that is how I do things. I write and tell it true. I sing and I sing with every feeling I experience. That horse died when his heart burst while herding cattle. Not such a bad end. Dying while doing what you love. 

I loved my Joe and love my children and grandchildren with every fibre of my being. As someone once said, "You are only as happy as your unhappiest child."

I remember how hurtful children (and their parents) can be. And so now, when my precious gifted granddaughter tells me that her hands shook and she could barely speak in a spelling bee or that they had a singing contest and everyone ran away before she could begin singing, I get her to sing this Lauren Daigle song for me and tell her...What you have is a gift from God. Those who try to rob you of your gift are not speaking from God's heart. We know from where their crippling words of doubt and destruction come. I get taken back to those early painful years and remember. And I tell her the lessons my mother taught me. 

Sing it loud and sing it proud. Sing it from your heart and articulate every word so that people will hear the words and not just the music. Music speaks to our very soul.

I think of the arrogance of that woman who meant to shut me up and I want to ask her if she has ever heard of the church of Laodicea.