And I Will Sing

Corona-time.  Too much has changed too fast. Some of the changes are minor inconveniences and some of them, well, some are harder to take than others. It's natural to feel unsettled, anxious, sad, irritable. And it's important to recognize and acknowledge those feelings.

This is a lament.  I'm reading a book called Textual Warfare & the Making of Methodism, and the author talks at length about the function and effects of Charles Wesley's hymns and John's editing and publication of them in early Methodism. I know. I see your eyes glazing over, but it's pretty interesting stuff if you're a Metho-nerd like me.

Those first Methodists sang "lustily" and were caught up spiritually, physically, and emotionally in an experience which in some ways came to define them. I love that.

I can picture them gathered together in somebody's yard, telling the story of God's grace and love in words and tunes that became their own.

I can see in my mind's eye the faces of parents who have lost a child to smallpox, mourning as they sing of and to a suffering Savior.

I imagine the intensity of a sinner's struggle between worldly desires and the joy of repentance being played out in verse upon verse.

I've felt that way, too, or at least something similar. I bet you have, too.

And I totally get that we won't be able to sing together for a while once we are finally able to physically gather, and I know we'll adjust somehow, but doesn't that almost literally hurt your very heart to think of not raising our voices together in song? Doesn't worship almost seem incomplete somehow? It hurts. I'm sad about it, even though I understand.

I know it won't be forever, but that doesn't mean it stings any less right now. Think of the various times the Spirit has moved within your soul as you sang! Remember the exquisite joy of harmonies twisting together in a braid of praise to God? Can you recall the perfect marriage of tune and lyrics that expresses your love for Christ in sounds pure enough to make the angels weep?

So. I think I'm going to sit with this grief for a little while

    and acknowledge that the feeling of loss is painful and real.

             And then I will open my hymnal, and I will sing.