An Unabashed Love Letter

I believe that if I were sent to the moon, or some such isolated place, and had only two or three books I could take with me, one would be my hymnal.

The hymnal has been my friend for a long, long time.  As a wee lass, long before I could corral my attention span through a sermon, I occupied my mind by looking for hymns I knew, humming them to myself.  Before starting piano lessons, I determined how to sing other hymns through a crude ‘shape note’ method, although I’d never heard of such.  With my brief attempt at piano plunking (which is about as far as it got, as I neither inherited my grandmother’s ability to play by ear or found the discipline as a seventh grader to practice), I could at least sound out a C note, and that bit of knowledge opened up more tunes.

The hymnal also opened my curiosity to why and when we did what we did in services every Sunday.  There’s the order, there are the topics, here’s the Psalms, here are the seasons.  My kid-ears tingled to see Wesley’s Directions for Singing which included “Sing lustily….” Really?  In a church book?  Ah, we temper such with modesty, no bawling or drawling, and above all, we sing with an eye to God.  Comical quaintness, but an insight into the 1760s.  I’m sure I drove the pastoral staff bonkers with my questions and accountabilities.

The proof that I’m Wesleyan, however, is that while the tunes hooked me, I absorbed the lyrics like a sponge.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, the hymnal echoed and still resonate a theology of God’s grace, comfort, mercy and promise, far beyond words or emotions.  The truth is abides in the core of my soul, between the texts and notations, with no intentional learning.

A whole new world opened up to me with a simple class in seminary—Music for the M.Div.  Our professor taught us the details that are abundant in the hymnal—cross-references, scripture references, tune choices, reading meters when musically ignorant.  Who would have guessed there could be so much creativity and depth in the back of church pew racks?

I encourage all of you to join us in McWhirter Hall the Sundays of June during the Sunday School hour to learn more about this gem of a book we hold weekly, perhaps more than the Bible itself.  Our Christian Formation Intern, Jonathan Carle, filled with vim and vigor of Vanderbilt’s Divinity School with a deep well of musical talent already, will lead us in this adventure.  It’s a treasure.  And that’s not just the view from my desk—but from my heart.

Grace and joy,

Julie