Hymn Society-- Day One

This has been a great day! Starting out later than I'd hoped for St. Olaf College, getting caught in a humdinger of a traffic jam just south of Northfield; too late for supper; but the Hymn Festival tonight made it a great day!!! Lots of singing, lots of listening to the St. Olaf Chorale and its beautiful pure sound; lots of saying "hi" to people I have never met, and a gang load of Community of Christers from Independence; and singing...did I mention singing? Many hymns I knew---We say God the Sculptor of the Mountains which I had never sung before but is in The Faith We Sing I think. A reading of the creation story from Genesis 1, with Djembe drum and creation sounds from the organ in the background that wasn't too over the top; getting settled in the dorm room...not too bad a dorm room...at least it's air conditioned unlike the gorgeous chapel.

I took pictures along the way---giant windmills in northern Iowa, a lovely rest stop in southern Iowa, a picture of the sunset outside my third floor dorm room. I hope tomorrow to either find or borrow a cord in order to upload them.

We sang Shall We Gather At The River at the hymn festival tonight and sure enough, Lucille Cox appeared in spirit at my shoulder. I half expected the international flags that line the nave on both sides of the chapel, to wave a bit with the spirit of her presence. There were reflections given around and among the hymns, and after we sang this old hymn, the narrator said that often times people think of the question that is the title of this hymn to be rather a demanding, prodding sort of question---rather like when a liturgist or worship leader says "shall we pray"; however as the narrator went on to say, it is really an invitation to ride in the currents of God's love and grace. Instead of a prodding hymn, it is a promise-giving hymn. We sang this hymn at my mother's funeral---it was one of her favorites, I think, because she had experienced lots of loss in her life but still lived the promise. I know I have shared sometime over the years here about her losses--her father killed in a mining accident when she was 14; her first husband, a mine inspector, killed in a freak accident in another mine; her second husband dying before her; her oldest daughter brutally murdered. And yet, what I remember most, was her resourcefulness, her creativity on not much money, always wanting to learn and read and always sewing of course. And I remember, along with my brother, playing "Name that Hymn" with her after supper, plunking out notes on our old upright piano and she usually could guess it on less than seven notes. And so her youngest daughter who loves the hymns of the church, the texts which take us on wings of holy bearing through those thin places where earth meets heaven, tonight she stood and sang, as the organist modulated up on every verse of the hymn, and she felt the wind at her shoulder and the promise in the text and the joy of singing of her faith to our Lord.