WAKING UP TO A SONG [Sun, 3-29-20]

Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Len Kirkpatrick recently posted four lines from a hymn on Facebook. I know a lot of hymns, and it seemed like I should recognize them, but they were elusive. They sounded, though, like they came from a “bloody” hymn, so I guessed Wm. Cowper’s “There is a fountain filled with blood.” Len said I was right.

As we “talked” about it, he said that because of his raising, he wakes up each morning with a hymn on his mind. He was raised in Africa, mostly Rwanda, the child of missionary parents.

It’s a great thing, to wake up in the morning with a song all ready for you.

I usually wake up to a song, too, but it’s not likely to be a “bloody” hymn. That’s what they called hymns like Cowper’s when I was in seminary. “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

“Modern people [1960s] don’t want to hear that sort of thing,” our profs said. “Who wants to have a blood flood poured over them?”

They convinced me. In my fifty years of choosing hymns for public worship, I’m sure I never chose “Fountain,” or any other “bloody” hymn, even once.

Part of that was my seminary education, part of it was my theology—which generally accepted substitutionary atonement but didn’t think blood images were helpful--and part of it was my own squeamishness—I don’t much like dealing with blood, mine or anybody else’s.

I’m not as bad as Helen’s Uncle Fred. When he was a schoolboy, he fainted even at the word “blood.” That happened in class one day. It was a small school, with no nurse, so as usual, his older sister, Georgia Heltzel, who became Georgia Karr, Helen’s mother, was called to deal with him, as she always was when one of her younger brothers acted out. She had just gotten him revived when the principal showed up, incredulous. “Fred, don’t tell me you faint just because of the word blood?” Bonk! There went Fred again. Then poor Georgia—and teen age girls are mortified at everything, especially things their little brothers do—was mad not only at Fred but the principal, too.

But it’s neat to wake up with a song in your heart. I suggest getting one ready as you go to bed. Choose a good one and sing it over--to yourself if you don’t want to bother others in the household with it--and it will probably be there for you in the morning. If you’re not a church hymn person, you can choose what I call a secular hymn—Over the Rainbow, Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, You Light Up My Life, Wind Beneath My Wings, etc.

Be careful about what you watch on TV before you go to bed, though. I watched Ken Burns’ country music documentary last night and woke up this morning to “Hey, Good Lookin’.”

John Robert McFarland