April 30thChoose Glad Songs, Maybe Write One
- by Doug Schulz
My mother-in-law - who died this Valentines Day – had a delightful high-ranging soprano voice. Singing hymns and gospel tunes, she radiated faith and joy everywhere – in church, at prayer times before family meals in any of her eight children’s homes, in our car on a country drive (destination, “Happy Meal”), in the confines of her care-home wing during final months.
Psalm 118:14-17 captures for me the legacy of the strong woman who received me into her family circle half a century ago, and consistently modeled the spiritual confession and practice of these verses that celebrate her understanding of salvation with “glad songs of victory.”
I enjoy all sorts of music, sacred and secular - distinctions some people make. My wife’s mother certainly did. Back in the folksy 70s, I’d hoped to have a friend perform John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy” at our wedding. That didn’t pass Mom’s valuation of a “glad song” message. [Or was it the twanging guitar? Isn’t a wedding to be a worship service demanding all things appear and sound echt fromm und recht – perfectly decent and proper?]
That was so long ago. Her last years were marked by profound memory loss. Yet, if on my visits I began voicing the first line of a familiar hymn or chorus, she’d launch into the tune, eyes aglow with pleasure and purpose. Her pitch was perfect. My barely-better-than-monotone couldn’t tarnish it!
I was among local family members who sat with Mom in the final days. On the next-to-last night, I kept vigil alone. She lay stiffly on her back. At points, I intoned softly some hymn favorites as I leaned over that barely breathing, withered body to appreciate a face beloved that I wouldn’t behold much longer. Did her brow quiver in recognition – maybe rejoicing – at my weedy but heartfelt renderings of “Never fear, only trust and obey” or “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine”?
It was a precious watch-night, alongside the earnest evangelical woman whose love had endured my more ‘liberal’ (aundasch) spiritual contemplations shared – all had become endeared within those blue-sky eyes. Moved to honour fifty years of loyal, loving friendship, I sketched into my pocket journal a few thoughts for a poem.
In childhood and adolescence, my mother-in-law was scarred by deep anxiety, suffering the disturbances of political oppression, disappearance of loved ones, terrors of war and trauma of refugee life. I wanted to pen a piece that perceived a hope beyond mere sunshine – a source for convictions to be lived boldly though ‘woes of this world’ may persist across generations. Centuries. Where do we find healing within our broken human story? Or is it ever beyond us?
I finished the poem on her 93rd birthday, two days after her death. Focused on faith she and I had ‘harmonized’, I glimpsed the gift of what endures the last passing of sunrise and sunset.
Here it is. A song lyric, actually.
The Infinite Thing [for Anna Klassen Goossen]
If only the best songs we sing
about the tides of the sea
or the stars that reach forevermore,
could hold you and hold me for Eternity.
Love is the infinite thing,
beauty deeper than grief can mar,
healing our heart beyond the unfair.
It’s the light of the world
where you and I are
learning to believe,
believing when we sing
that love is the infinite thing.
I’m surely a sinner and saint.
Between the good and the bad
is the power to choose the greater way.
You lead me, you teach me to understand …
Chorus: That love is the infinite thing…
Bridge: I’d hold sorrow far away, but wisdom sometimes is sad.
You’d say any prayer to save the world; it takes more than the words we have.
Two things are as old as time: Heartbreak, and hearts that rhyme
while singing of the infinite thing. We sing for a love beyond Time.
Come close to this window again;
we’ll breath the air, read the sky.
It’s a sunshine grace, here touching hands,
believing, receiving, the song of life.
Chorus: Oh, love is the infinite thing…
If only I had some music in me to make a truly tuneful song, and an improved voice to sing it. One glad and glorious day, perhaps?
-Doug Schulz is a retired MCEC pastor