noir imp
bible study
Sitting in church on Sunday mornings, stuck in a dress and a pair of tights I couldn’t wait to get out of, one of the only ways my mama could keep me (mostly) still and quiet was to hand me a hymnal and let me read. Our hymn books were blue, or maybe a bluish-grey, with a darker blue along their spines. They said HYMNAL in gold letters on the front cover, and the songs on the inside pages (they were like poems I didn’t understand) were arranged in chronological order by publication date. “They invented church way back then?” I asked. “Even before then,” my mama told me, and certainly she added “Shhh” at the end. “How Great Thou Art” prompted me to ask if God made paintings. One glad morning when this life is o’er I’ll fly away went along with funerals, mostly, and I figured that death couldn’t be so bad if there was flying involved. We sang blessed assurance Jesus is mine o what a foretaste of glory divine at my grandpa’s funeral. He used to sing “Froggy Went A-Courtin'” to me when I was very little. That wasn’t a hymn.
Over the years, as my life has become increasingly hymnal-free, I’ve forgotten many of these things. And all it takes is seeing a photograph of red books lined up in the backs of church pews for all of it to come flooding back.
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