One of my favorite things to do during this holy season is to rise before the sun, grab my headphones and iPod, and sit in the glow of the lights listening to my favorite holiday songs. Magic. I’ve long loved researching the stories behind many of the old carols and hymns. It reminds me of how timeless deep devotion, wonder, humility and awe is. Doesn’t matter when it was created. We recognize it right away.
In this age of growing AI, I find myself returning to times before such help would dare to create instant moments of awe. To a time when only the most human, ordinary, everyday world could, suddenly, startle us with a beauty that could last a lifetime. Here was one such time.
One summer in the early 70s, I was visiting my grandmother in a small rural town in the deep south. One of the things we did every Sunday was to get up early, iron our finest clothes, curl our hair and make our way to the old one-room community church. It stood on the main road in town, had plain wooden double doors in the front, and three windows along each side. Each window had that familiar steeple shape. There was no air conditioning so the ladies would bring their fans and gently wave the humid air around as the minister preached. Men would wear their best short-sleeved shirts.
And, of course, like all the other regulars, we had “our” special pew. All the pews were made of simple wood and could be a bit rickety when you sat down. Up front there was a padded kneeling bench and a railing where we’d take Communion. And hanging on the wall was one of those well-known pictures of Jesus, the one where he has long dark hair and he’s gazing upward. There wasn’t an organ but, rather, an old piano someone had donated. Some of the keys didn’t play and others would stick off and on so, when the piano player would fall behind a bit, well, we’d just all sing a little louder.
Sometimes there’d be a choir made up of maybe six to eight folks. Nothing more than pure willingness was required to join, which was good because most couldn’t carry a tune too well. One dear woman, Miss Mammie Lee, liked to stand up front and sing the loudest. She was always the last to end as her lone voice would ring in the silence after the music had stopped. When I was very young, I’d have to squeeze my belly tight and hold my breath so as to not burst out laughing!
Oh, but it’d be a lifetime before I could close my eyes and remember the slightly slivered feel of the rickety pew, hear the just barely-off piano keys, and hear those choir voices only, this time, needing to breathe in deep to hold the memories close. It’s been especially poignant remembering Miss Mammie Lee with her imposing, unrestrained and undiluted voice ringing out.
It stirs something so true in me remembering how each time, with dutiful smiles of appreciation, we’d receive her most imperfect sounds again and again. Over the years it’s seemed to me that just by being who she was and doing what she did, she taught us all something about what was really important.
Something about how perfection is no match for authenticity. How, when it comes to true worship, our humble, not-quite-in-sync self is quite enough. And mostly, how we never know when we have the willingness, the courage, to show up and offer ourselves simply as we are, how we just might touch others in ways we could never imagine.
For fun, I asked ChatGPT to describe a small country church in the deep south about 75 years ago. It offered up a totally believable, quite beautiful actually, description. Funny thing though, it couldn’t describe the feel of the wobbly pews or how all those fans caused a stir in the humid air. It didn’t mention sticking, or just not working, piano keys and certainly nothing about a makeshift choir. Result? A perfect, lovely, one-dimensional depiction. Soon forgotten. With no human foibles or anomalies, there was nothing capable of carving deep into that place where the soul never forgets.
I know in these days of mega churches, organs, big professional choirs and live music, such a memory of an old country church may feel quite antiquated. True. Still, I’d give all the world for just one more Sunday — to sit on the rickety seat-worn pew, to sing along with those sticky piano keys and, most of all, to hear Miss Mammie Lee’s voice ring out once again.
And, if I could, I’d take ChatGPT along to learn a thing or two.