Music to Get Ready for Church—and Life—By

When I was a boy growing up in the little house on Memorial Drive in Barnesville, Georgia in the 1960s, my parents and I got ready for church with Southern gospel music emanating from the nineteen-inch black and white television set.

We’d listen to two programs that an Atlanta station sent our way.

The first show was the Gospel Singing Caravan, which featured the LeFevre family. Boomershine Pontiac in Atlanta sponsored it. The second program was the Gospel Singing Jubilee, hosted by the Florida Boys.

Both programs featured other popular Southern Gospel groups of the time.

Fast forward half a century (which is pretty much what I’ve done). These days, as my Good Wife and I are getting ready to go to church on Sunday mornings, we listen to the Southern Gospel station on Pandora. It doesn’t play the quartets my parents and I listened to in my growing-up years. Instead, it mainly plays country artists singing gospel songs.

On a recent Sunday, we heard two classic songs by two classic artists back-to-back.

The first was Peace in the Valley by George Jones. As you may know, Jones is the greatest country singer of all time. He sings with a tear in his voice. He could sing Pop Goes the Weasel and break your heart.

So as George sings the opening words of Peace in the Valley–“Oh well, I'm tired and so weary, but I must go alone, 'til the Lord comes and calls, calls me away”–you can hear him suffering. But you can hear the hope in the chorus:

There will be peace in the valley for me, some day.

There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord I pray.

There'll be no sadness, no sorrow, no troubles I see.

There will be peace, peace in the valley for me some day.

The second song was Merle Haggard’s version of  Just a Closer Walk with Thee. Merle had a reputation as a tough guy, but he sounds vulnerable as he pleads,

I am weak but Thou art strong.

Jesus keep me from all wrong.

I'll be satisfied as long

as I walk, let me walk close to Thee.

Just a closer walk with Thee.

Grant it Jesus is my plea.

Daily walking close to Thee;

let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

Hearing those two great hymns back-to-back set me to thinking about the fact that until we reach the peaceful valley, we must live in this less-than-peaceful world. Until we reach the state in which we’ll know “no sadness, no sorrow, no troubles,” we deal with sadness, sorrow, and troubles.

While we’re here, we Christians want to walk closer and closer with Jesus. We have committed our lives to following him, and we know that he will lead us in the ways we should go.

On one hand, walking with Jesus can give us greater personal peace. It can give us the greatest peace we can have before we get to heaven.

On the other hand, walking with Jesus leads us to confront the world’s lack of peace. As a Christian, I cannot be satisfied with having ever-greater peace for myself. I cannot be at peace while so many people know no peace. I cannot be content not to suffer or to have help in my struggles. I want as many people as possible to be lifted out of their suffering or to have support in their struggles.

A half century of walking with Jesus, and hopefully of steadily drawing closer and closer to him as we walk, has taught me that being his follower means caring more about others than I do myself, of putting other people’s needs ahead of mine, of standing with those who are struggling with the hard realities of life, and of embracing those whom society tries to push out to the margins.

I’m grateful to George and Merle for helping me think about the important truths that their songs announce, and for giving me the opportunity to push on toward truths that lie behind the songs.

Until we reach peace in the valley, our walk with Jesus should lead us beyond satisfaction with personal peace and on to a quest to bring greater peace to as many people as possible.

Necessary Vocations

I recently read a 1955 novel by Leigh Brackett entitled The Long Tomorrow. It’s set a couple of generations after a nuclear war has devastated Earth’s cities. The new Constitution of postwar America forbids the building of cities. People live only in small towns and rural areas.

A major crisis in the book revolves around the desire of a man to build one more warehouse than he’s allowed by law. The limit he wants to violate is in place to keep a city from developing. Things don’t go well for him.

Because the war had little effect on the simple lifestyle of Mennonites, many people have adopted their ways, leading to New Mennonites being the dominant religious and social force in America.

Much of the story’s tension comes from the postwar society’s anti-science and anti-technology stance. It is an understandable position, given that scientific progress, especially in nuclear science, contributed to the mass destruction experienced in the not-too-distant past.

As the novel’s plot develops, we find that some technology still exists. Unbeknownst to most people, some people are secretly still working on nuclear power, allegedly for good purposes. Len, the young man who is the protagonist of the story, struggles mightily between the simple ways of his raising in a New Mennonite community and the possibilities of resumed technological progress.

I won’t give away the resolution, such as it is, in case you decide to read the book, which I recommend you do.

Reading The Long Tomorrow got me to thinking about what might happen after an apocalyptic event such as a nuclear war. It also got me to thinking about the skills that would most help civilization survive in the aftermath of such an event.

Some of us remember the 1983 television film The Day After. It’s about a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. A few years ago—I think it was on the thirtieth anniversary of the film’s first airing in 2013—I heard a discussion about it. One person said that while the film dealt only with the immediate aftermath of the war, she’d like someone to make a sequel about its extended aftermath. How, she wondered, would civilization survive and recover? She pointed out that people with practical skills would be very important in such a world.

Lately I’ve seen many people on social media promoting the value of vocational education. I agree that people should be encouraged to follow the educational and career paths that suit their gifts and interests. Besides, we need people who know how to do practical things. We need welders, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, carpenters, and more. I mean, try to get along without them and see how far you get. As someone who doesn’t have such skills, I admire those who do.

But we also need the people who study science, mathematics, technology, and engineering. The advances they bring about have done, do, and will do much good. It is also true that such advances can be used in negative ways that bring about destruction, as happened in the novel The Long Tomorrow and in the film The Day After. That’s why scientists should also study ethics.

We also need the musicians and the writers. We need the philosophers and the poets.

We need those who can dream the future and those who can build it.

We need for all of us to find and do our part.