Singing is Good
The Sunday School youngsters, still so young that even making legible letters was a challenge, had been asked to create bookmarks out of blank rectangles of thin cardboard, and I was the lucky recipient of one of those bookmarks. I could only imagine the fortitude it took our little students to buckle down and tend to the chore, leaning into the project with both arms on the table, tongues probably sticking out, and sighing when the awkwardly shaped letters didn’t quite fit the space as expected. The crayoned-yellow smiling sunshine made a bright background on my bookmark, highlighting three simple but oh-so-profound words, “Singing is Good.” I tucked my new treasure into my hymnal, the one I used for every choir rehearsal and every church service for years.
Sadly, when I hung up my robe and tucked my hymnal into the bookcase before I left the choir room for the last time a few years ago (thanks to some profound hearing loss that prevented my continued success as a member of Chancel Choir), I lost my precious bookmark, but the impact those three simple words had on recognizing one of my life’s priorities remains.
John Wesley left us a list called Directions for Singing. I never noticed it until recently, and when I did, I laughed out loud! What?! Don't we all know how to sing? Apparently not! Well, maybe we know how to sing in the shower, but Preacher Wesley had definite ideas about appropriate singing in church. The list is on page vii in The United Methodist Hymnal. I suspect you have passed it by many times, as I have.
When singing in church, this is the John Wesley protocol from Selected Hymns, 1761 (language as it was written in 1761):
1) Learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards, learn as many as you please.
2) Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can.
3) Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find a blessing.
4) Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength.
5) Sing modestly. Do not bawl so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, that you may not destroy the harmony; but strive to unite your voices together so as to make one clear melodious sound.
6) Sing in time. Whatever time is sung be sure to keep with it. Do not run before nor stay behind it; but attend close to the leading voices and move therewith as exactly as you can; and take care not to sing too slow. This drawling way naturally steals on all who are lazy; and it is high time to drive it out from us, and sing all our tunes just as quick as we did at first.
7) Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye on God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself or any other creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.
Remembering that Charles Wesley, the younger brother of John, penned 6,500 hymns and the two brothers were the itinerant preachers who are the accepted founders of Methodism, I suspect they knew a thing or two about singing.
I’d like to continue this musical musing in subsequent submissions to The Messenger. Let’s visit “Amazing Grace,” John Newton, and John and Charles Wesley next time, because, after all, “Singing is Good.”
- Karen Matheson