Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: MUSIC (04/02/20)
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TITLE: Honor and Privilege | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Borga
04/09/20 -
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Mrs. Goodwin, the song leader at our church, had asked us to perform a duet the following Sunday. Kathy, twelve years old, had been longing for this chance for half of her lifetime and she fairly skipped across the field in front of me. I was going on eleven years and even I knew we hadn’t been picked because of any great talent. Our attendance rarely topped seventy-five even on Easter Sunday and that was counting babies and boys whose voices were still changing. But Mom insisted that it was an honor and privilege to sing for the Lord anyway, so there was no backing out.
This was the first time we’d been invited inside Mrs. Goodwin’s house. At church, she always wore elegant, close-fitting suits over her grasshopper-thin frame and topped them off with a mink scarf complete with head, tail, and feet. She was the most fashionable person I’d ever met. What curious wonders might be lurking inside her home?
To my surprise, today she wore a flowered housedress similar to what my mother wore. Bobbie-pinned curls peeked from beneath the scarf she had wrapped around her head. Her sun-drenched kitchen with its squares of green linoleum and the white painted cupboards looked surprisingly similar to our own. She led us into the wallpapered living room where a dark upright piano sat squeezed between an armchair and a desk.
She handed us hymnals and we stood beside her at the piano.
“Please turn to page fifty-eight and listen carefully,” she instructed. After a brief prelude she sang in a thin, reedy voice:
“This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
The music of the spheres.”
“I didn’t know spears made music,” I blurted without thinking.
Her fingers halted in mid-air and she turned to stare.
“Not spears. Ssss-FEERs!” She twirled her fingers in a circular motion. “Ssss-FEEEERs,” she repeated before continuing through the first stanza.
Kathy shot me a fierce glare that seemed to say, “Don’t ruin this for me.”
But Mrs. Goodwin didn’t appear to be annoyed by my ignorance. Instead, she swiveled her stool until she faced us.
“In ancient times,” she explained, “people believed that the planets and stars made music as they revolved around the universe, thus the term ‘music of the spheres’. Scientists poo-pooed the theory.” She gently patted the black leather-bound Bible that sat atop the piano. “But did you know that the book of Job speaks of when the morning stars sang together? In the Psalms, the sun, moon, and stars are commanded to praise the Lord.”
She turned her gaze to the window where a mass of daffodils glowed in golden splendor and a crabapple tree was bursting with rosy-pink blossoms. Her face softened as she smiled at us.
“Girls, all of creation was made to praise the Creator--- the heavens, the earth, and all creatures on the earth. The whole world belongs to Him. Listen attentively, and you will hear God’s voice in His creation.”
Sunday came, and Kathy and I, donned in our prettiest dresses, waited on the hard wooden pew for the pastor to finish the announcements. The window was open to let in the fresh springtime air; the trill of birdsong outside set me to thinking about what Mrs. Goodwin had told us about all of creation being made to praise God.
When our time came, Mrs. Goodwin introduced us with a nod of utmost confidence. After all, she had drilled us all week long and taught us when to pause and when to breathe. She had cemented the words into our minds so that we didn’t need the hymnal.
Mom and Dad sat proudly in the front row. I whispered a little prayer and the butterflies in my tummy floated away.
Our youthful voices blended in perfect harmony; the sweet melody rippled through the room and filled it with lightness. I could imagine newborn lambs bleating, thunder rolling, and waves crashing, all praising their Maker along with me. My heart overflowed with joy. What an honor and privilege it was to sing for the Lord!
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Fiction
“This Is My Father’s World” by Maltbie D. Babcock - public domain
See Job 38:4-7 and Psalm 148:3-6
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