March 11, 2022 (Lent Week 1)

 

  
 

The photo is of my cousin Kerri at the player piano, 
but that posture was very familiar to all of us

 

 

Anyone who know me, knows that I am constantly singing.  My grandfather bought a Willis player piano the year my Dad was born (1926).  Along with the piano, came an extensive collection of piano rolls featuring the greatest hits of the early 1920’s.  I grew up singing the classics of ‘I’m Looking Over A Four Leafed Clover’, ‘Side by Side’, and ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas’, and many, many more.  It is a great repertoire when one’s vocation is to provide programming for seniors who grew up in that era.

 

One of the hardest parts of COVID for me, from the very beginning, was the direction that there was no singing at the care home, where I work.  As we all know, humming while adequate, just isn’t the same.

 

I have chosen the version of Psalm 95 that would be found in the ‘red book’, the Book of Common Prayer.  One of the loveliest things (are there lovely things?) about the pandemic is the return to the service of Morning Prayer. 

 

Psalm 95  Venite, exultemus

O COME, let us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation.

2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and shew ourselves glad in him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is a great God: and a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are all the corners of the earth: and the strength of the hills is his also.

5 The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands prepared the dry land.

6 O come, let us worship and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.

 

In the many churches in my childhood, Holy Communion was once a month.  Morning Prayer was the other 3 weeks, and having been a chorister since I was in Grade 3, I was very familiar with the singing from the Psalter (the book of music that accompanies the canticles and psalms).  Saying Psalm 95 now either online or in person, causes me to stumble, because the words are newer, different.  But I realize that this whole world is newer and different.

So when it says, ‘O COME, let us sing unto the Lord: let us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation’, I grumpily respond, ‘I’m only allowed to hum!’  But then I remember, ‘For the Lord is a great God: and a great King above all gods.’ 

 

And when it says ‘Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving: and shew ourselves glad in him with psalms.’ I grumpily respond, ‘The church doors have been closed, only so many people can come, we have to mask, and stay away from each other!’  But then I am reminded that I can ‘worship and fall down: and kneel before the Lord our Maker’ in the comfort of my home, (sometimes in my pyjamas, shh).  And I can sing as loud as I want, too.

 

So this Lent (where I am trying to give up being frustrated with myself and others), I am going to be grateful for:

 

Our Great God

Our Great King

His hands that are in the all the corners of the earth

The strength of the hills that are His

The sea that is His.

His hands that prepare the dry land.

Our Lord our God.

And that I am a person in his pasture

… and a sheep of his hand.

 

And when I can, I am going to sing a song, kneel and worship, practice thanksgiving, show gladness, and worship whenever and wherever I am.

 

- Sylvia Besplug

 

 


 

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