Heaven In Their Heart

The church I grew up in was known as “a holiness church.” We didn’t handle snakes, speak in tongues, or cast out many demons—but we had our own brand of odd.

There was a lady who requested prayer on Wednesday nights for soap opera characters, going into great detail about the trouble they were facing. There was the man who brought his guitar to church and sat on the front row, hoping to be asked to play a special number. He was better than the rejects of “American Idol” ever thought about being. We had a Sunday school superintendent who thought we could improve Sunday school attendance by hosting a chitlin’ fry following church. (If you don’t know what part of the animal you’d be eating, don’t ask.)

We tended to believe that boundaries fenced us in and helped us stay holy amidst the wiles of the world. We avoided movie theaters, dance halls, bars, smoking parlors, and carnivals. We tried to keep our distance from makeup, Sunday newspapers, alcohol, and even the person we were dating. We believed in being odd, in a holy sort of way.

We’ve gotten over most of the rule-centered, boundaried holiness now. We go to movies and carnivals. Some of us drink and dance. Most of us read the Sunday paper, wear makeup, and have no qualms about public displays of affection. Our ancestors would not be proud.

Singing About Heaven

I was driving home from Alabama several weeks ago and was bored. I scanned the radio and came across a Sunday night service broadcast. I thought I had been warped back to the 60s. In my mind’s eye, the service I was listening to had about 37 people present. They had not been corrupted by instruments and were singing a cappella. They were still using a hymnal. I knew because they announced the page number.

A man with a very loud voice (who was too close to the lone microphone) was leading the singing. The alto, tenor, and bass parts were represented. The tenor flatted out a long time before he hit the high note. The bass couldn’t get down in the valley anymore. The alto warbled badly. It sounded like a musical tug-o-war at a hog-killing. They were singing a song I had not heard in years. I had to go back four hymnals to find it:

There waits for me a glad tomorrow,
Where gates of pearl swing open wide,
And when I’ve passed this vale of sorrow,
I’ll dwell upon the other side.

Some day beyond the reach of mortal ken,
Some day God only knows just where and when
The wheels of mortal life shall all stand still
And I shall go to dwell on Zion’s hill.”

—”Zion’s Hill,” by James Allen Crutchfield, 1929

Here they were, people as stuck in the past as they could stay, singing about going somewhere tomorrow.

Odd folk on the radio with heaven in their heart.

And in that moment, I loved them. And I loved all those odd folk who had pursued a sacred life as best they could.

Life seems to happen between the odd places we’ve been and the new places we’re going. It takes both to make a great story.