Make a Joyful Noise

I always sang melody. Because it's all about me and not about the music, not about the choir. Now in my middle years the melody has drifted away somewhere – out of reach of my grasping fingers. I'm trying to sing alto, fumbling for that counter note - the one that's not there in my head.

My first choir practice I try to hear that note under the insistence that is melody. I'm listening, catching it some of the time. And then, I was a teenager sitting on that second row in the choir at Brookford Baptist Church. In my ear I could hear Mrs. Holsclaw (who always wanted us to make a big deal of the "s" sound at the ends of words). And there was my grandmother – as natural an alto as you ever heard. She gave that gift to my aunt Emily, who shares it with my Dad at the nursing home on Sundays. I heard them all right there and for a while the noise I made was actually music. I found that note and the sound was so sweet that it almost made me cry.

Mamaw & Emily

The Invitation

It is a ritual I remember well
from those bad old Baptist days…
The pastor is wrung dry
from bearing his heart to the people.
And now he stands, head bowed
while we sing all six verses – twice:
“Just as I am, without one plea
but that thy blood was shed for me…”

When I was young, there was
comfort
in that place of confession.
That walk up the aisle.
That cleansing.
Sins exhaled to a waiting ear.

Today I wonder what
I would confess if
I were to take that walk
toward the praying man.

Perhaps that the dress I’m wearing
costs more than my weekly pledge.

Or maybe, that this narrow place
feels seductively safe
but is no longer my home.