The message light was blinking on the answering machine as I walked in from teaching my morning class in creativity. I pressed the button and heard her voice singing... in an accent that sounded like my south Georgia home... "I am Thine, Oh Lord, I have heard Thy voice and it told Thy love to me; But I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn to Thee. Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord to the cross where Thou hast died; Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord, to Thy precious bleeding side".I sang along with Mary Etta, tears flowing as I heard our voices lift the tune and words of that old hymn. It is so sweet to have a friend who loves the same old hymns and remembers the words and the tune. It is doubly sweet to hear them sung with the sounds of my southern childhood in the words.
I have always been fascinated with the accents that reflect the particularities of our origins. My mother’s voice sounded different from everyone else. Her soft, Virginia Tidewater drawl with its definitive "ou" sound in "house" and "about"set her apart from everyone else in our little town. Where she came from was in her voice. I remember as a child trying to acquire her accent because I loved the sound of it so much. My dad had the flatter, middle Georgia accent... not as southern sounding as my mother. Thomasville, Georgia, a small town near us, had a very different drawl peculiar only to Thomasville natives. My friend Mike Amsden sounded like the midwesterner she was... her father was a transplant who worked at the paper mill with my daddy. Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Carolina mountains, Georgia...all the places I have lived have had their own sounds in the voices of those who grew up there... each accent reflecting the answer to the perennial southern question... Where are your people from?
I wonder... do the years of trying to rise in the arms of faith sound in the accent of my voice... can you hear my love for the One who first loved me as I speak to you... did the early years of loving community in Clyattville Baptist Church give a distinctive flavor to my voice...have the gains and losses of my sixty years of living left their mark as my voice rises in song... can you tell where my people come from by the sound of my faith voice.
I pray that I may speak with the accent of Love and Light... the sound of Jesus’ voice echoing in my voice as I speak... I want you to know who I belong to... where I come from... where I am going. And. I treasure the different accents I hear along the way as we all travel through this world going home to God. The homeplaces are different but the journey is the same. Thanks be to God for all the particular and peculiar voices in this faith called Christianity...
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