“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Anonymous
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“Lifelong member of the church of Christ, serving as song leader most of those years.”
I wrote that last week. One of many notes on one of many yellow tablets cluttering my desk. While struggling for a reasonable resemblance of a forward for my book. I’ve resolved to finish it soon; the forward or the book. Maybe both.
And yes, it was on my list of resolutions for this year and the year before.
A revered mentor once offered as how writing something in longhand commits it to memory. He bought more yellow tablets than anyone I knew. And amazed many with his astounding feats of recall in conversations.
The same practice also works well for soul searching. Remembering years of church singing is one thing. But writing about it was like, “Wow! That’s a long time for someone not to notice that I can’t sing.”
Most church of Christ congregations reply only on a cappella singing in worship service. No pianos, no organs, no recorded background music. Guitars, drums, harmonicas — nada. However, my adolescent friends and I at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant used to sit on the back seat and hum a lot. We were always in trouble for something.
Saving theology another time, the purpose for mentioning it in this missive is simply background for the way life is when you were raised in a church of Christ family. Like most of my generation of cousins on Mom’s side. Because Mom and her siblings were reared the same way. Which leads to the story about my cousin Leigh who grew up in the small Panhandle Texas community of Kress, population 596 — salute!
In Kress, you could easily walk anywhere in town then. Probably still can. The town’s one grocery store, the farm supply, the Phillips 66 service station, and even Lawson’s Café were in walking distance. Most drove on Sundays, though. Everybody gathered at Lawson’s after church.
As the story goes at family reunions, Leigh was in grade school when she attended the Kress Baptist vacation Bible school with her friends. The first morning, singing songs about Bible characters got underway in Baptist tradition. Kiddos singing with the piano while reading words from books. One verse in, Leigh stopped singing and folded her arms. “Why did you stop singing,” the Bible school volunteer asked? “Can you not read all of the words?”
“I can read the words just fine,” she countered defensively. “But I can’t hear the song over that piano.”
I still remember the first time I heard congregational singing as a young song leader. Part of Bible training for young men in leadership roles. Singing, teaching, praying. But the hymns I’d heard growing up resonated differently when I first stood and faced the singers looking back at me.
Luckily, I survived that first song on a Sunday night. And when the last note of “Blessed Assurance” fell silent, I returned to my seat relieved, expecting someone to say, “Well, that one can’t sing.”
But no one objected. So, I learned the basics of 3/4 and 4/4 time. Shaped notes and four-part harmony. I attended singing schools; traveling teachers who visited churches to teach singing. And learned from the old timers about hymns called 7-11 songs. Seven words sung 11 times.
I was even around for the pitch pipe controversy. Disagreements over whether the use of a pitch-pipe for exact notes was scriptural. Saw it escalate once to the point of two brethren arguing over it before they settled down and agreed to disagree; still being friendly with one another. A rare occurrence in congregational differences itself. I don’t think either changed their mind. They were just no longer enemies as Sweet Hour of Prayer resonated through the church house.
The guy who didn’t want to give up his pitch pipe continued to nonchalantly slip it out of his pocket, though. Blow one quiet note, and then quickly pretend he didn’t do it. The other one simply ignored him.
A lifetime of witnessing debates in doctrine has brought me to believe that whatever the controversy of the day, if we all just focus on God’s word and His will, we can usually be thankful in the end.
I hope everyone enjoyed a Happy Thanksgiving this week. And I pray each of us paused long enough to count our blessings realizing that our gratitude can make what we have feel like just enough.
I’m thankful that I might actually finish my book project soon. And I am grateful for the opportunity to still lead singing in God’s house every week.
But maybe most of all, I’m thankful no one has noticed that I still can’t sing.
—Leon Aldridge
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
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