In His Grip of Grace

During Sunday school our mixed group of pre-teens would sit at tables completing the lessons from the workbooks they gave us. We used Bibles to look up verses and always needed someone to help us find the right page for the teacher’s reading. I got to know kids from different schools during Sunday school – some of those friendships have lasted over 60 years. We grew up together, went through “communicants” class together, learning the creeds and catechisms, went through what seemed like grueling questioning by the elders, given our own RSV Bibles, and stood before the congregation together when we became communicant members. That “rite of passage” for us kids was the culmination of a whole year’s worth of work, and we felt like we had really made it.

I do not want to proceed any further without describing the church dress code. All the women in the church, including elementary-aged girls, wore hats and gloves. Little pillbox hats with netting that came down over the forehead, sometimes covering the eyes, was the style in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Short white gloves were worn by young girls, and it seemed the older you were, the further up the wrists and arms the gloves went. Shirt-waist dresses that buttoned down the front, skirts or jumpers with blouses/sweaters, and two-piece skirt suits were the fashion for church. Never, never, never were slacks worn to church by girls or women. Pocketbooks were small clutch types or with short handles that usually matched in color with the shoes that were worn. Shoes were flat with small or no heels and pointy-toed. Men and boys alike wore suits with white shirts and ties. Only young boys wore pants and shirts without a jacket. As I look back, it seemed to be the Easter parade every Sunday.

After becoming a communicant member of the church when I was in 8th grade, I do not recall feeling any different than I did before going through the studying and quizzing. I did, however, learn the importance of serving others, which I did as the pianist for the children’s choir and a singer in the youth choir. On Sunday evenings, I would tag along to church with my older brother as he attended the Senior High youth group and I the Junior High group. Even though we had the associate pastor who was a rather rigid man, always wearing a suit, as our group leader, the relationships that all of us kids developed with each other served as an inauguration into what I would later come to know as an adult as the “church family”.

Out of my love of music came a keen interest in learning how to play the piano. I expressed that desire to my parents emphatically and in 1956, from the proceeds of a savings bond that was issued to me from my Grandmother, a piano was purchased and given to me as a Christmas gift. How that was accomplished by my family without me knowing was quite ingenious. My older brother and mother hid it in plain sight under a white sheet decorated to look like a ski slope with small trees and people skiing that stretched from the corner of the ceiling down the staircase wall to the floor in the entry room of our home. The piano was under the ski slope and for the entire pre-Christmas season I thought it was just a huge Christmas decoration. Then on Christmas morning, after all of us had opened the presents that were under the tree, Mother and Dad gathered us in the foyer and revealed the beautiful blonde Story and Clark piano that had been hidden under the ski slope. I was so extremely excited, I sat down and started playing “Heart and Soul” that my girlfriend had taught me on her piano. I began lessons shortly thereafter, which lasted well into my teen-age years.

Serving others through music was a passion for me at an early age, hence the accompanying for the children’s choir, singing in various choral groups, and playing percussion as a teenager. Then later in my life it was singing and directing adult choirs at churches I attended. It would prove to be the foundation for my love of harmony, rhythm and praising the Lord in song.

We attended church services most Sundays, went to Sunday school and I participated in Christmas and Easter pageants. Fellowship dinners – ah yes, the famous pot-luck dinners. It is almost cliché, isn’t it? But you know it was so much fun, bringing one dish of food and getting to choose from oh so many others. I honestly believe it was through those dinners that I learned to eat a variety of different foods and really enjoyed them. It was the height of the “era of casseroles” – everything from macaroni and cheese to tuna casseroles – it was casserole heaven. And the dessert table was divine – every kind of sweet you could think of – pies, cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and homemade fudge. Mother always told us just to take one serving because everyone else needed to have dessert too.

Sometimes I would attend Sunday evening church service with my girlfriend and her family. She went to a Methodist Church, and I remember one time she and I were there listening to the sermon and something was said by the preacher that struck us both as hysterically funny. We looked at each other knowing full well that we COULD NOT LAUGH in church, and immediately put our heads down and started silently laughing. The more we tried to be as quiet as possible, the longer we would laugh, and when her mother put her hand over in front of us to calm us down, we laughed even harder. We giggled silently, our shoulders bouncing up and down for what seemed like most of the sermon. I was laughing so hard; my stomach was aching.