THOSE THINGS THAT HOLD US TOGETHER [W, 5-2-18]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter…

THOSE THINGS THAT HOLD US TOGETHER                   [W, 5-2-18]

Helen and I went to The Hoagy Carmichael Room at The Archives for Traditional Music, for a concert by Ruth and the Stones, five women graduate students studying traditional roots music in the Dept. of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at IU. They named themselves for Dr. Ruth Stone, their professor and mentor. They are scholars, not professional performance musicians, and their amateurism showed, in endearing ways. They made valiant attempts to play the cello and mandolin and guitar as they sang, and were mostly successful. They had nice voices, that blended into pleasant harmonies.

What I remember, though, was an original song by Adah: Blue Skies are Holding Me Together. It has a lovely melody, and additional lyrics, but that line caught me and held me: blue skies are holding me together.

I began to think about the things that hold me together. Blue skies are certainly in the list. Folk songs hold me together, too. So do… well, I’ll let you make your own list. It’s a delightful thing to do, to make a list of the things that hold you together.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

You can hear Blue Skies are Holding Me Together for yourself. Just search for Ruth and the Stones on YouTube.

A CIW BONUS:

The Minister of Visitation in one of the churches I pastored was Max White. Occasionally he gave the pastoral prayer during Sunday morning worship. He always included, “Bless those of us assembled here.”

I always got a special thrill when I heard him pray that. I knew it meant “we individuals who have come here to be one body,” but I also heard it as “we who are being put together here, being brought back from the fragmentation we have experienced in the world this week to be made whole.”