GodReflection: Songs That Sustain

My lungs were still tainted with Delivery Room air when my parents carried me into the white stucco building of our local church for the first time. If not at home or in school most likely one could find me on a varnished worship bench at our church.

On the back of those light-colored pews (now, ‘pew’ isn’t a word I use every day in the 21st Century) there were strategically spaced racks for the church hymnals. For most of my eighteen childhood years we sang from the light-brown Christian Hymns Number Two.

I’ve not seen a copy for more than fifty years. A few weeks ago, I ordered a copy from Amazon. Only in my adult contemplative years have I come to realize the role this little brown hymnal still plays in my life.

Two men of God glued its pages to my soul. The first was Theron Jay a gifted tenor. Theron, thirty-three years my senior was born with the beat of music in his heart and a strong melodious tenor voice.

The valedictorian of his class, he made a living first with his skilled trowel as a stucco mason, then as he manufactured cement blocks for construction. For me, his day job was secondary.                     Primarily, he led our church in song.

Theron taught the four hundred fifty-two songs from our brown hymnal to our church. He imprinted most of them in my memory. In retrospect that makes him one of my greatest teachers.

Multiple times each week he shared his love for the Holy through song and as a little boy’s friend. Funny, he was always ‘Theron’—not ‘Mr. Jay’ nor the church usage of ‘Brother Jay.’

Unlike Theron, I never met Lloyd Otis “L.O.” Sanderson. He was born to musical parents and taught to sing and play the family’s seven instruments. His mother taught him to sight read notes by the age of five.

Over his lifetime he wrote hundreds of songs and hymns and among other works, eventually edited and published the songbook Christian Hymns Number Two. L.O. Sanderson, like others from lecterns, through podcasts and with the written page, was my teacher.

His hymnal flavors my walk on earth to this day. The first and final songs of the book were written by brother Sanderson, and taught to me by Theron Jay. They serve as bookends of faith.

As the preface to the songbook, the old writer penned the words and wrote the music for A Song A Beautiful Song. I can still hear Theron’s voice as he scribed L.O. Sanderson’s words on my heart.

I would like to think when I’m nearer life’s brink, that I’ve written some song that will live. And living impart, some help to some heart, And strength to the traveler give.

I would like to feel when the last time I kneel by my bed-side to say my last prayer, that ever a long my life was a song, whose music my heart set with care.

I would like to know when from earth I must go, that the Christ was the theme of my songs. In life or in hymn, the praise gave I him, to whom all the glory belongs.

And then only then can I welcome the end, of the pathway I’ve followed so long; And leave behind, by truth refined, A Song A Beautiful Song.

Four hundred fifty-two songs later, Brother Sanderson ends the hymnal with a prayer—a song of request written to his God—Take Me Home Father, Take Me Home. Just like the first song, the melodious tenor voice of the stucco mason, still rings the music and the word through my soul.

When the sun of my life has gone down, and the shadows have denser grown; when there’s ought to remind of a failing mind, take me home Father, take me home.

When my form is inclined and I yield to the thorns of the flesh I’ve known; and this temple of clay only in the way, take me home Father, take me home.

When the ones I have loved pass away; when I’m left in the world alone; and there’s none who can see any good for me, take me home Father take me home.

Take me home Father—take me home! Leave me not in the world to roam! When I’m useless below, I would rather go—take me home Father, take me home.

Between the two songs of the brown songbook, the other four hundred fifty hymns parade through my thoughts at key moments.

At any time of the day or night, God’s Spirit uses L.O. Sanderson’s compilation of songs from King David to Martin Luther to point my soul toward the Holy.

Words and notes from gifted poets and musicians across multiple centuries call out between the book’s brown covers to aid my walk across life.

I would love to hear your story. What can you identify that helps you walk closer to the Holy?

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells

A GodReflection: Raised Between Two Songs

Gary@GreatCities.org

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