Making a Joyful Noise

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. ---Psalm 100.

I love to sing, I mean I really LOVE to sing, unfortunately I am not very good at it.  I know this because the two people in my life who said they loved me the most told me I was not good.   Well, not so much not good but really, really awful.  My mother didn't like to sit next to me in church because of my "inability to find one key and stay in it."   She said she thought maybe it was because my grandmother Quinn had sung "Fly Away You Old Turkey Buzzard" to me one too many times.  My ex-husband begged me not to sing to our child but I did anyway.  She can carry a tune so I think she's reasonably undamaged.

I sing in the car, the shower, around the house. I play the autoharp and sing in the living room, just me and the cat. When I taught I sang to my class.  I know the words to thousands of songs and if I don't--well, I'll make them up.  It astounds me that others don't enjoy my songs---the music inside of me is so beautiful,how can it not be when it comes out?  I learned a long time ago though that it must come out, holding it in leads to resentment and I think might contribute to having excessive gas.


This leads me back to Psalm 100.  It says make a joyful noise--not a beautiful sound, not a melodious song, a harmonious presentation, but a joyful NOISE.  "Come before his presence with singing"; please note it does not say singing on key.  The Lord has given me many gifts, my singing voice is not one of them.  But He did give me A voice to make a joyful noise and I do so with gladness.


When I was a child my grandparents took my cousin Sheryl and me to an all night sing at some little church in their community.  I remember that Sheryl and I got up and sang a duet and my grandfather was very proud of us, took a lot of nerve I guess, we probably were not more than nine or ten.  The following is a poem I wrote based on my memory of that hot summer night, 50 or so years ago.

ALL NIGHT SING

                                                       We sing shaped notes,

                                                        the piano stringing us along.

                                                        Cardboard fans stir the fevered heat

                                                        that rises from the congregation

                                                        overcome by the smell of those

                                                        washed in the blood of the Lamb.

                                                       Wrinkled cottons, sagging crinolines,

                                                        hair sweat-stuck to foreheads,

                                                        with our all upon the altar laid,

                                                        we sing until faith soaks through

                                                        our Sunday best on Saturday night.