Sweet Harmony

We sat around the supper table last night listening to a tape of old time gospel sung by Amble Wolf and his children Deweese, Stacy and Jasper, our Cherokee friends. They would sing one verse in English and one verse in Cherokee. Old time gospel music reminds me of Bach Inventions. The melody begins simply in the verse but cuts loose on the chorus. The voice parts weave in and out with variations on the melody, playing bass against tenor and alto and soprano. Amble has been gone for 13 years now but his deep bass lead lives on in the hearts of his children and now in my heart, too.
At Deweese’s home Saturday night, we gathered around the piano (just tuned for our visit) and sang those old gospel songs again. There were songs I knew and songs I had never heard. When we began to sing we were feeling our way on the parts but we began to get the Spirit and sing from our hearts. We came to one song and I asked Stacey what tempo to use. She said "Right lively". And so we were.
All God’s chillun...At my table sat Tina who believes in God and Ernest Ainslee in that order, Vince who believes in God and hard work, mama who was raised Virginia Baptist and now worships in a Presbyterian church, Michael, Dianne and I who are UCC, all of us white but with such different paths. Tina was raised by her grandparents in Avery County, left by her mother and never reclaimed. Vince grew up in Ohio, one of 13 children who were farmed out to relatives when their parents died. Mama grew up on a farm in Virginia, a part of a close extended family. Dianne grew up in north Florida with a painful childhood. Michael was the youngest son of a Baptist preacher in Birmingham, Alabama. I grew up on the farm, a part of a family with love and anger. And there we sat...friends, heart companions and differences are a source of amusement not judgement.
Saturday night we sang and our differences made music. Deweese who was kicked out of school in the ninth grade... Stacy who works in a program that is doing immersion teaching of the Cherokee language to the children and makes wonderful potato salad... Jasper who sings tenor and wore a wild lime green outfit... Walt, our fearless leader with the southern accent and soft heart concealed by no nonsense exterior... Mary Lynn, our mama, best cook in the world and non-stop teacher...Catherine, creative soul, full of laughter... Andy, kind hearted and gentle spirit. The others opened the door and listened as they watched football and the children. Our differences of color, background, lives, religious experience, education melted away as we sang.
That is harmony of the best kind. I hope God heard and smiled at us as we sang and missed notes and laughed and loved each other. The memory that lives in my heart now of that evening will sustain me as I live through relationships with other differences. The basics are the same regardless of the variations in our souls. Jesus said it best when he was asked what the greatest commandment was... to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. Amen.