Name Your Hymn

 The link for this week's live-streamed service is here.

                                                             

                            Summer Hours

It seems like yesterday

That school let out that day.

And summer stretched an endless dream

In which to romp and play.

It seems like only yesterday

We swam and built a raft 

And tracked each other through the woods

With Indian skill and craft

Where have they gone, those summer hours?

They've simply flown away

And now they’re just a memory

For the school bell rings today.

 

by Colleen Bianchi

It feels as though we have crash-landed into the Fall term at full speed. Many years we get a few days of September before the Labour Day weekend. Those few days of the new month ease us into the knowledge that summer has ended and we are headed back to school, work and regular routine. No such warning in 2023. Rev. Irwin was in the pulpit on Sunday morning, Session meets this Wednesday and the choir rehearses this Thursday evening. Whew!

We were recently given a book for our library called How Sweet the Sound - The power and Promise of 30 Beloved Hymns. In the introduction the author, Laura L. Smith, recounts how a familiar hymn transported her away from her present circumstances and back to her childhood church, standing beside her mother, wearing her Sunday dress and holding the hymnbook between them. For a moment, the author could hear her mother's voice singing the words. "How," she asks, "can just a few notes of a hymn do that?"

I expect many of us have had similar experiences. This Sunday we began worship with Holy, Holy, Holy. I didn't need the hymnbook. In my childhood church, every service began with that hymn. Like the author mentioned above, the words and music took me back. I could feel the smooth wood of our shaped, oak pews, smell the lemon furniture polish, and see the jewel-tones of the sun shining through the stained glass. 

Music evokes memory in powerful ways. It also embeds words in our subconscious. Since many of our hymns teach our creed (listen to Sunday's sermon on-line) they are a great way to keep the tenets of our faith before us. An ear-worm may be annoying, but having hymns of praise and faith and consolation entrenched in the memory banks is a good thing.

Our congregation loves to sing and we each cherish particular hymns. Now that we're starting a new term, parishioners are invited to request their favourites from time to time. Look on the bulletin board in the narthex for a sign up sheet. Not every choice will fit every worship theme, but every choice will fit some worship theme, so don't be shy. Even if your dearest hymn is not in our Book of Praise, we'll find a way to include it on a Sunday morning.

Welcome September. Welcome the new term. Welcome to SPPC.