Make a Joyful Noise

I guess you could say I come from a bit of a musical background.  You COULD say it, and it would be true - far and wide and deep.  Singing runs in my bones, in my genes and throughout my life.   Our family - all 8 of us - all sang...and when we sing together, the voices blend beautifully.  We would sing for church - we would break into song while going down the road on vacation - and whenever we're together, there is some sort of singing involved.  I remember lining up with my brothers and sisters in the living room as little kids in Canada and singing along with Sons of the Pioneers and The Blackwood Brothers Albums. It goes back further - I even had an uncle who was the Director of Music at a big church in Arkansas and even recorded a record. We would sing along with him, as well.

For me, personally, I've been singing and performing as long as I can remember.  In church, in school, as part of concert choirs and specialty groups in both high school and college.  I sang with The Las Vegas Ambassadors while in High School (We grew up there - it was kind of an Up With People group that sang for conventions in Vegas), I was on a vocal scholarship in college. I've done Concerts in the Park, sung at weddings and funerals, led worship at our church.  You get the point - LOTS of music in my life. It is part of who I am.

Now, I am telling you this not to toot my own horn - but to make it clear that I'm VERY musically inclined.  And the reason is, that I want to tell you about some of the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

The building used to be used as a Summer Camp for orphans.  There is a big open room with benches and plastic chairs set in a circle.  Ceiling fans stir the air a bit, and until recently, there weren't enough lights to be able to see what you were reading.  Two of the walls are covered with a painted mural -  not any religious scene, but actually of the building itself and the valley it sits in. Colorful, vibrant - like a children's Sunday School class, maybe.  No one is dressed in typical Sunday finery. They don't own any.

There are no screens at the front of the church with the words on them, no hymnals to look at, only well used folders with about 50 pages of photocopied words of songs in them in 3 languages. Many of them, songs we learned as children.  They are trying to learn English and this is a great way to do it.   The page numbers are written on a white board up on the side wall of the building. Or maybe they aren't.  Someone's name is written beside it - not a music director, not even necessarily an adult.  That person calls out a page number, which may or may not be up on the board, and someone starts singing.  It normally takes the first 2 lines or so for most everyone to get on the same note in the same key, kind of like pouring the voices into a funnel until we're all headed the same direction - and then, sometimes, the stronger voices just move it to the key they are singing in.  There is no piano or guitar or even recorded music to keep them all in tune.

Sometimes the songs end up being quite high - or quite low, and we stumble through them in each language.  Spanish, English and Guna - normally every verse and chorus in each language.  Good voices, bad voices - some in time with the music, some not - and many of them still not on the same note the rest of us are on, but singing with all they've got, anyway.

I know I gave you a glimpse of this in an earlier blog, but as we have gotten to know the people and have been in several services, it has become more precious all the time.  Little families with very little income.  A grandmother who recently lost her grandson by a brutal stabbing.  Mothers and fathers with children who don't necessarily know where the next meal is coming from, not because they are lazy, but because they have small booths of items for sale at the Mercado and business is slow this time of year...who live in houses smaller than the size of my bathroom in Mexico.  A father and son who bathe in a stream and walk miles just to get there.

Mostly new believers, not hardened by the way we think church is "supposed" to be.  No bulletins.  Not just the elders reading the scriptures or praying.  Not just the deacons setting up the chairs.  Just a big family, working together - without job titles - without committees - getting it done.   I can't help but think this is what the New Testament church was probably like.

And then, at the end of the service, someone calls out another page number.  Not as part of the loosely planned service, but just because she wants to sing it. She's a little Guna woman, dressed in traditional garb, a fairly new Christian who has taught herself to read, so that she can read the Bible.  She always sings with fervor whether she knows the song or not. "When the Roll is called Up Yonder" is her choice.  We stand as we sing a verse and chorus in our own language. But then, after we've all sung - English, Spanish and Guna - we stand together as one and sing the chorus, each in our own native tongue.

"When the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, when the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there."

And as tears escape from my eyes for the sheer sweetness of it, I know THAT is the most beautiful music I've ever heard.  I can't help but think God is smiling as He hears it, too.

The heart of worship....