Monday Morning Music Ministry

2-3-13

It seems that every innovation and new device that jumps out at us from aisles at electronic departments is, yes, wondrous and miraculous (until next year’s Consumer Electronics Show convinces us how outdated and useless they are) but all seem to share a few aspects. Yes, they tend to be smaller than the toys they replace; and, yes, they usually are more expensive than their predecessors. But I am thinking of something else.

New phones, new computers, new bells, new whistles, every i-thing that comes down the pike all tend to isolate us more and more. “Personal” is the common adjective in the descriptions, if not the brands. We can talk faster, do extra things, command more, multi-task… ultimately hunched over, closer and closer to the screen of each new device. At almost every restaurant I visit these days, I see a family of four or five who are all absorbed by their phones, smart or otherwise. They communicate only to place their orders and, perhaps, offer a belch or two. Otherwise, dinner is the screen and whatever.

Curious. We communicate more, but socialize less – ultimately, communicate less in the traditional and, I believe, worthwhile sense.

The “Friends” mania is analogous: similarly confusing and seemingly self-contradictory. Facebook now opens my home page with a question up top: “How are you doing, Rick?” It is relatively obnoxious to me, because I have a sneaking suspicion the question is insincere. If it is Jeff Zuckerberg himself who invites the response, I seriously doubt that he would much care either way how I answered. (For the record, I am tempted to reply, “How am I doing WHAT?”)

And Facebook Friends largely are an odd species to me. People I knew before Facebook was spawned, well, they ARE friends. But I constantly get “friend requests” from people I never heard of, which could be flattering except that I have heard that some people assemble numbers of Friends like Chicago politicians assemble voting rolls: neither acquaintanceship nor even pulses matter. Now there is a company that markets an application that informs us when somebody DE-friends us. Neologisms atop irrelevancies.

Somewhere, someplace, someone is writing a research report on an American culture that has become so desperately lonely that society finds comfort in manufacturing friendships that are immune from human contact; people obsessed with maintaining such artificial interaction; and a form of paranoia that fears the suspension of such counterfeit “relationships.”

Like a king, I may live in a palace so tall, With great riches to call my own.
But I don’t know a thing in this whole wide world That’s worse than being alone.

We are not merely being seduced by the novelty of toys, I think; nor engaging in faux-communication that will pass after a season. Given the chance, contemporary Americans deal with relationships in a new manner that, in fact, suits us just fine: somewhere between wary and disdainful of human contact. The New Normal is the Old Abnormal.

Sooner or later solitude, whether voluntary or forced, will catch up with our souls. We are not meant to fly solo. Before that time comes, our culture will cripple itself and interrupt the dynamic emotional flow that once characterized the American spirit. And eventually we will discover that it is not about the difference between being, say, a social animal and an introvert. Nothing so superficial.

Some time we, as individuals and as a culture, will confront the difference between being alone and being lonely. Even in the midst of multitudes.

Once I stood in the night with my head bowed low, In a darkness as black as the sea.
My heart was afraid and I cried, Oh Lord, don’t hide Your face from me.

The coldest emotion we can ever experience is the sense of loneliness, of no one nearby – no one to understand, no one to listen, no one to care. But to BE alone? That is a state of mind as much as physicality. You can have memories and books and music – things that are prized comforts – but they take you only so far. Then you have family and friends; they can be the most precious , and irreplaceable, blessings imaginable. The only thing better is the knowledge, and the perceived presence, of God by your side.

I learned something about the value of friends some years ago, and I will bring it forward, re-cast to recent events, because the lesson is the same. And it is one I need to remind myself of, every so often; too often. Through tough times, friends will call, friends will write, friends will pray, friends will send cards, friends will visit, friends will even communicate on those new little e- and i-devices. So another friend, a skeptic, once taunted me – “You talk about Jesus all time, how He helps you here, and ministers to you there. But listen to yourself – all your comfort has been coming from friends, not your Jesus!”

And my reply – as all our realizations and replies should be – “That IS Jesus bringing me comfort. My friends are just His messengers.”

There is a place where we may overcome loneliness, a place where no one stands alone. Let us all find it, and all realize it, and all embrace it.

Hold my hand all the way, every hour, every day, From here to the great unknown!
Take my hand, let me stand, Where no one stands alone.

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The poetic lines above are verses from the classic gospel song by Mosie Lister, full of profound meaning, lessons for us all in troubled times; and an emotional tune with majestic chord structures and modulation. Performed here by the Gaither Homecoming Friends – yes, “friends”! The composer is in the audience, introduced at the end of the song.

Click: Where No One Stands Alone

A bit of a personal story, prompted by the video to Click, below.

A number of years ago I was working on a book, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. A friend offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for research and writing one summer. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena TX, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages to chart the location of Assembly of God churches for all the weeks ahead, intent on visiting as many as I could. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing — coincidence? — I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town FOUR HOURS AWAY where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. Yet I was treated like family as if they had known me three decades. It was the Sunday before July 4th, and a fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for the Fourth where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

On the Fourth I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll still fight anyone who doesn’t claim low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ the best) There was visitin,’ after all; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again — smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared the porch of their house. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, later in the summer, opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too; of course in some churches, in some parts of America, you’re just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to — you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

(By the way, not only am I not from East Texas, although it is sort like home now; but I was born in New York City, so you might appreciate just how different, and not merely special, that day was for me.)

Here is a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling — the fellowship — of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” There were cameras at this Gaither get-together, but it took this city boy back to that Fourth of JU-lye, finding himself amongst a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

Click:  The Sweetest Song I Know