WHY THE DUMB KID SPOKE [Sat, 12-30-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--WHY THE DUMB KID SPOKE [Sat, 12-30-23]

 

I have written before of my first four years in school, in Indianapolis, when my main approach was trying not to be noticed. Lucretia Mott # 3 was an experimental school. Education profs used us to test out new theories. Teachers did not give us grades; they wrote notes to our parents. Mine always said, “Can’t read, can’t write, can’t spell, can’t talk.” I was so afraid of making a mistake, and being humiliated by doing so, that I’d rather not try. I was a dumb kid.

 

I disproved a lot of educational theories. One such, of which I generally approve, is that kids will respond positively to attention. I did not want attention. More attention meant more opportunity to show my deficiencies.

 

So the question arose, as I was thinking about being in a play, Why the Chimes Rang, at East Park Methodist Church, when I was in 4^th grade, why I was not the same way in church as I was in school. The two buildings were only a block apart. But my reactions in them were entirely different. Yes, I was still reticent in church, but if the pastor or Mrs. Darringer, my Sunday School teacher, asked me to do something, I did it.

 

I can only surmise now. I’m looking at that era through more than 80 years of misty memories. But I think it is mostly because no one at church was going to write a note to my parents evaluating me. My folks did not go to church, so no one would even make a comment to them about me in person. Church belonged to me. There I was not afraid to try. [1]

 

The Sunday School women got the idea that we should do Why the Chimes Rang [from the short story by Raymond Alden] as a Christmas program. I still remember standing in front of the big sanctuary Christmas tree, as William B. Lewis and I performed that two-man play, about the church with the most-beautiful chimes that no one had heard for many years, and no one knew why they never rang.

 

The play was probably done as a showcase for Willim B. Lewis. [Yes, that’s how everyone, including he, himself, referred to him…always.] He was the darling of the church, literally “the fair-haired boy.” Our only teen boy, about 16, valued as only a teen boy in a church can be. I think they wanted to show him off—and probably encourage him to become a preacher—by having him act the role of the wise, older brother who misses the Christmas eve service to do an act of kindness to an old lady. He is helped along by his little brother, who slips his older brother’s offering into the Christmas eve collection, causing the chimes to ring.

 

I remember it as being about an older and a younger shepherd, but that is probably because William B. Lewis and I wore shepherd garb--bath robes.

 

When it came time for the chimes to ring, William B. Lewis didn’t know his lines. I, a nine-year old, basically had to do both parts, speaking mine and prompting William B. Lewis for his. I could do it, because I was in a place where I could not be wrong. That was why the dumb boy spoke. “…his praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues employ.” [2]

 

John Robert McFarland

1] My older sister, Mary V, went to church. In fact, we were in the same confirmation class. I never got criticism from her. She was always on my side, always had my back. I was afraid of her only when she threatened me, for no good reason, with physical mayhem, but that was an entirely different kind of fear. It was also manageable; I was a faster runner.

2] “O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” Charles Wesley. Hymnary.org says it is published in 1,719 hymnals.