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| "The End of the Road" - Pablo Picasso |
Tune: FINLANDIA (Sibelius)
Most of you know that I am the artistic director for a non-profit for the preservation and enjoyment of southern congregational song. [If not, see our web page.] The title of our show is “Heaven’s Front Porch,” a sort of tongue-in-cheek visit to a place on the south side of heaven where shaped-note singers gather to sing their favorite Stamps-Baxter songs when they tire of the other music of the celestial choir.
Like a lot of notions about life on the other side of Jordan, this is a made-up vision of what we might expect when we enter the pearly gates and walk the streets of gold in that city that is built foursquare… on our way to the mansion just over the hilltop. So many of these images have been created through the song repertoire of believers throughout time; my guess is that the greatest offenders were probably from the southern United States.
In his book “Entertaining Judgment: The Afterlife in Popular Imagination,” Baylor University English professor Greg Garrett has delved into the imagined conceptions we have created over the years… and they are legion! However, whatever else we may have concocted, we would all agree that the promised afterlife is all about being forever in the presence of the Lord. “Face to face with Christ my Savior,” according to another hymn.
For now, erase from your mind all those images – imagined or otherwise – and center your attention on that simple profundity: you are going to spend eternity in the presence of Christ. That should bring a smile to your face and a warmth to your soul. That should make your day!
To conclude this week-long delving into “Be Still, My Soul,” I will use these lines from the final stanza describing that which awaits those who endure to the end of the road:
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
sorrow forgot,
love’s purest joys restored…
when change and tears are past,
all safe and bless-ed we shall meet at last.
May all our souls find true, abiding stillness. Amen.
Hear the Exultate Singers Rendering of This Hymn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snGEoVfUGuQ
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