Other Worlds to Sing In

Sometimes one comes across a story that worms its way through the layers of flotsam and jetsam of daily life and fastens onto the part of self where treasures are kept.
This is one of that kind.
As is too often the case, its author is unknown.
But it deserves an audience just the same.

                                                                 ~~~

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood.  I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall.  The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box.  I was too little to reach the telephone but used to listen with fascination when my mother talked to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was Information Please, and there was nothing she did not know.  Information Please could supply anybody’s number as well as the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor.  Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer.  The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason for crying because there was no one home to give sympathy.  I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway – and the telephone!  Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing.  Climbing up I unhooked the receiver and held it to my year.  “Information Please” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

 A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear:  “Information.”

 “I hurt my finger…”  I wailed into the phone.  The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.
“Nobody’s home but me,” I blubbered.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No,” I replied.  “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”
“Can you open your icebox?” she asked.  I said I could.  “Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger.”

After that I called Information Please for everything.  I asked her for help with geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was.  She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.

And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died.  I called Information Please and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child.  But I was unconsoled.   Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage?

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.”  Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone: “Information Please.”
“Information,” said the now familiar voice.
“How do you spell fix?” I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest.  Then when I was nine years old, we moved across the country to Boston.  I missed my friend very much.  Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table.

As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me.  Often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

                                                                    */*

A few years later on my way to college, my plane put down in Seattle.  I had about half an hour or so between planes, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now.  Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please.”

Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well, “Information.”  I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying, “Could you tell me please how to spell fix?”

There was a long pause.  Then came the soft-spoken answer, “I guess that your finger must’ve healed by now.”
I laughed, “So it’s really still you,” I said.  “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time.”
I wonder,” she said, “if you know how much your calls meant to me.  I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.”
I told her how often I had thought of her over the years, and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.
“Please do.  Just ask for Sally.”

                                                                      */*
Just three months later I was back in Seattle.  A different voice answered Information, and I asked for Sally.

“Are you a friend?”
“Yes, a very old friend.”
“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you.  Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick.  She died five weeks ago.” 

But before she could hang up she said, “Wait a minute.  Did you say your name was Paul?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Sally left a message for you.  She wrote it down.  Here it is.  I’ll read it: ‘Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in.  He’ll know what I mean.’”

I thanked her and hung up. 
I did know what Sally meant.

At Home

The nice thing about leaving home and moving far away is to go back now and again.
We’ve done that often over the years, mostly because we left so many dear family people behind.
On Sundays we would usually attend the family’s church. But one year we chose to go back the church of my youth.

The occasion was an especially festive one.

No, not because a “son of the church” had returned; in fact, many didn’t know me anymore.
The festivity centered on the organist: the congregation was celebrating her 50 years of service to the Lord and the church through music.
For this special occasion, the congregation had invited the organist’s son as guest minister.
This son, along with two other sons, also provided the special music through stirring vocal harmony.
And the mother?
She was the organist, of course, accompanying the special music and the congregational singing as I remembered her doing nearly every Sunday when I was in my teens.

 But there were changes too.

The organ had been moved from the left to the right of the pulpit.
I pondered the symbolic significance of that for a while but became distracted by the ceiling fans.
They must’ve been newly installed for I noticed many eyes raised heavenward watching the blades lazily swinging against the warm summer air.
More conspicuous, though, was the absence of the consistorial parade, in which the minister would enter first, with the elders immediately behind.
Before ascending the pulpit, the minister would stop, turn to the nearest elder (the vice-president, no doubt), and shake hands, after which the throng of elders, followed by the deacons would parade to the best seats in the house – center section, four rows from the front.
It had always been a solemn ritual, no doubt symbolic too, and I think I missed it just a little.

 So many memories come back when you’ve been away.

And we’d been away for a long time.
That Sunday morning it was good to think back on many things:
on all those ushering Sundays long ago –
and good to note that some of my “old customers” were still ushered to the same seats;
on many a young people’s meeting in the church basement –
and good to recognize around me some friends from those early faith-forming years;
on that Sunday morning several decades ago when the Spirit compelled one young adult to profess his faith in God’s Son –
and good to express that faith in worship now among many of the same people who had witnessed that public profession then.

People change and therefore churches change.

That is as it should be.
In this church of my youth, once tagged as the most conservative in town, there were now family hymnals next to the Psalter in the pew racks.
And the guest minister for the evening was to be none other than the son of a local sister church who was now counted among the more liberal voices of the denomination.

But some things should not and did not change.

The benches were filled with young and old.
The singing was wholehearted and spirited.
The attention seemed sincere.
The atmosphere was friendly.
And the worship was genuine.
That’s how I remembered it, and it felt good to be back again.
After more than thirty years I could still feel at home.

 When years hence, my children revisit the church where they grew up, my hope and prayer is that they too will still be able to “feel at home.”