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Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

COLUMN MAY 11, 2008

“HOW SWEET THE SOUND.

I remember the day my mother led the church singing. It was awful-
and it was beautiful. Awful because she had a screechy singing
voice, like Edith Bunker on TV’s ‘All in the Family’. Beautiful because
she had the compassion to lead the singing knowing she could not
sing.

The scene was a little country church, possibly Prospect or Bethel of
Bony Bluff. The occasion was a man’s funeral attended by only a
dozen or so mourners. I was the only child there.

In my memory, the service was short. Probably just a prayer, an
obituary, a brief eulogy, and a short sermon.

The minister probably reminded us that human life is like grass--in
time it withers; that human glory is like a flower--in time it fades.
Then he probably expressed confidence, or hope, that the deceased
was a child of God and would therefore endure forever.

The short sermon ended and the minister asked us to stand and
sing a closing hymn. He announced that the deceased had made a
deathbed request for ‘Amazing Grace’ to be sung at his funeral.

The minister then asked that someone in our small congregation
begin the song. He explained that he was not a song leader and had
been unable to provide one.

“Will someone please lead us?” he asked. Nobody made a sound.
“Anyone at all,” he said. Nobody moved. “Someone just help us get
started,” he pleaded. Everybody remained still and quiet.

There was a kind of doom in the air. We were facing a small crisis.
Nobody was going to start the singing. Outside, the birds may have
been singing but, inside, the minister heard only the sound he
dreaded most: silence.

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