Sometimes You’ve Just Got to Laugh

I always enjoy hearing stories of other’s experiences … and none have been funnier than those at the expense of the dead. Sounds pretty harsh, right? But it happens. Let me explain.

My dear, dear friend and musical cohort David Loudermilk called me this morning on his way to work. My last blog in which I wrote of playing for the Men’s Bible Class had struck a humorous chord in him and he wanted to share. We all have stories … especially David. He can weave them like nobody’s business, and he always, always, always leaves me laughing. This morning David related how he was playing for a funeral at the First Baptist Church in Perry a number of years ago, and as the grieving family began processing in, he quickly turned to the page in the hymnal: “Like a River Glorious.” It’s a wonderful piece for just such a time. In fact, it’s the processional hymn my sister-in-law chose for her husband and my brother’s funeral service. And, yes, David was at the piano for that one, too. 

Anyway, David told me he turned to the hymn, thinking he knew the page number, and began boldly playing only to realize, much too late, he had turned to the wrong page and was now belting out on the organ, “Set My Soul Afire.” (Oh, my. I just laughed out loud again as I typed that.) Now if you don’t see the humor in that, just think about it a minute. Let it sink it. You will get it. Some faster than others.

I have certainly had my foibles at the keyboard. It wasn’t too long ago that I began the final congregational hymn during a funeral service and realized as I played the introduction that I didn’t have the last page of the song. As one who doesn’t play by ear, I knew that without Divine intervention I was the one sunk. I must admit that I prayed like never before while playing that first page, that I might miraculously develop the “gifting of ear,” but the Lord just didn’t see fit to do that for me that day. So at the end of the first verse and chorus, which I completely and devastatingly and humiliatingly bombed, I held up my “give me just a second” finger to the presiding pastor so I could retrieve the music from the hymnal sitting on the floor to my left. He obviously didn’t know sign language, and as I was bending over, he panicked and quickly said, “Let us pray.” All he knew is that I slumped off the bench. My brother who was in the sound booth in the balcony also thought I had had a stroke and was on his way down before I could raise back up. Yes, I was embarrassed, but when all was said and done, all I could do was laugh about it with my brother and the pastor. However I did gain some wisdom. You can bet I check to make sure I have ALL of my music before I sit down to play.

Every musician has his or her stories. I reminded David this morning of how a husband asked me to play “Send in the Clowns” as his wife was being wheeled out of the church to her final resting place. And I did. Ironically, I played for that husband’s funeral, too, but he had asked me for “How Great Thou Art” for himself. He had always told me that if he didn’t sit up and say, “Amen!” when I concluded that I would know he was for sure dead. I was a little nervous about that one as I just wasn’t real sure as to what to expect when I hit that last note.

But the best story and surely the funniest I have ever heard was from a friend and worship leader named Guy Priest who was to sing for a funeral for a man in his congregation. When he asked the grieving wife what she wanted him to sing, she responded, “Jingle Bells.” 

“Jingle Bells?” he asked.

“Yes, Jingle Bells.”

One more time. “Jingle Bells.”

“Yes, Jingle Bells. It was his favorite song.”

And so Guy prepared “Jingle Bells.” The morning of the funeral he stood before those who had gathered in the sanctuary and in the most funeral-like way, sang a stirring and emotional rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

“Dashing through the snow…

In a once horse opened sleigh…

O’er the fields we go…

Laughing all the way…”

Well by the time he got to the chorus and was crooning, “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…” he noticed that the widow was just weeping. And he thought, “Wow, this is really getting to her.” And so he continued in his soft, soothing voice, “Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse opened sleigh.”

And he quietly sat down.

After the funeral, Guy approached the widow, and with great tears in her eyes, she said, “I didn’t mean ‘Jingle Bells.’ I meant ‘When They Ring Those Golden Bells.’”

Of course, we all laughed hysterically at the story. It just doesn’t get any better … nor worse … than that. Guy proceeded to share that several years later he was telling that story in a church in another state, and a woman came up to him and said, “I just want you to know that I was at that funeral and it was NOT funny.” 

Oh, ma’am. I so disagree. That was hilarious.

Dear readers, there are times when only serious behavior and a respect for the grieving or dying is the only appropriate response or action. But when my brother and later my daddy got toward the end of their lives and things really were hard, my other brothers and I said we were going to laugh when we could. And we did. And we did not and do not apologize for it. Seeing the humor in hard and difficult situations often became our salvation. And we are so grateful.

I believe the gift of laughter, not at the expense of another, but because of the joy that really does abide in us, though so deep and buried at times, is a true gift from our Heavenly Father. There really are funny things that happen at times that the only appropriate response should be to laugh about it. He is a God Who laughs. Why else would He tell us laughter really does a spirit, soul and body good if He didn’t want us to laugh in the places that need medicine? (See Proverbs 17:22.) So when it’s the right thing to do, let’s laugh. Let’s find healing.

If I have been irreverent, then please forgive me. But if I have given you some freedom to laugh, then do it from the belly. And remember to give thanks.

Just an ordinary, grace-filled moment.

Oh, and thanks, David, for the call this morning. You and your antics are always medicine to my soul. Bless you, sweet friend.

To Mr. Francis Nunn: Thank You

As I sit here in front of my screen and keypad, it is an early Sunday morning. Shortly, I will be packing my blue and white bag with music and heading to church where I will find my place sitting on the bench at a beautiful Steinway grand piano that at one time belonged to my mother’s childhood friend, Billie Davis Sexton, and the one on which she practiced as a child. It’s where you will find me most any Sunday morning. And I am grateful. But my story doesn’t begin here.

At the beginning of my third year in grade school, Mom and Dad sent me to Mrs. Jean Gossett out on Lake Joy Road. [I had already taken a year of piano from Mrs. Bedingfield who taught lessons in a little room/closet next to the stage in the Tucker Elementary lunchroom. I would forego recess twice a week and go to her instead.] Mrs. Gossett was a public school teacher who taught lessons in her home in the afternoons. She was also the organist at the Perry Methodist Church, AND she raised German Shepherds of which I was terribly afraid. Beth Davis Roper also took lessons, and because most families only had one car, our mothers would take turns driving us each week. Beth and I would alternately wait while the other took her lesson. Of course, the “waiting” was in the den with multiple German Shepherds staring at me through the sliding glass doors. (Did I mention my fear?) But as far as I knew, my musical abilities really progressed. I was playing Beethoven in no time. 

Mr. Francis Nunn was the beloved music director at the Methodist Church for decades. I still attribute the singing congregation at PUMC to his abilities and leadership so many decades ago. He not only led, he taught us how to love singing and to sing joyfully. I vividly recall how he would stand before the congregation beating the open hymn book with the back of his hand keeping rhythm while we sang. Oh, how that man loved to sing. Mr. Francis was also the song leader for the Men’s Bible Class which was made up of all the elderly men in the congregation. For decades, the class was broadcast live on WPGA, the local radio station. Yes, LIVE. Every Sunday morning at 10:00.

On one of those mornings when I was in the FOURTH grade, Mr. Francis came up to my Sunday School class and said he needed me; they had no pianist that morning. It never dawned on me to tell him no, so off I went to the basement under the sanctuary where the Men’s Bible Class met. However, before making his way to me, Mr. Francis did stop at my daddy’s class to make sure it was okay with him if he asked me. Daddy said yes then ran down to the kitchen in the church fellowship hall and called Mom who was staying home with the twins and told her to turn on the radio because, “Nancy is playing for the Men’s Bible Class!” Then Daddy raced out to his car and turned on his radio so he could listen, while Mom listened from home, to hear his daughter play.

When I got down to the Men’s Bible Class, Mr. Francis asked me to choose the hymns. After all, I was only ten years old. I picked out The Star-Spangled Banner and The Awakening Chorus, the two most difficult songs to sing, and probably play, in the Cokesbury hymnal. Who knew? All I knew is that I loved playing them. He said the National Anthem was a no-go and suggested I select something else, which I did, though we did attempt The Awakening Chorus to everyone’s horror and embarrassment, I’m sure. I was told that Mr. Wendell Whipple who was leading the class on the radio was so disturbed by the whole scenario, he completely ruined the Lord’s Prayer, leaving out entire phrases. And my great-uncle Bernie (Vernon Tuggle), president of the Bank of Perry, who bought me my first piano and who had already suffered one heart attack, was so upset and nervous, he had to pop two nitroglycerin pills.

Me? I was as happy as a lark in a tree on a Spring morning. I had found my niche. My love. Even my calling, so to speak. Mr. Francis began having me accompany the sanctuary choir and even play for church services when needed. And here I am 55 years later, continuing that first call to “come play.” 

I really do love what I get to do, but I still get stunned by it. I tell people all the time I am convinced that somehow God purifies the air waves and changes the notes to something holy. As Johann Sebastian Bach said, “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” I couldn’t agree more. But I am also so very grateful to be a part of the equation.

But so was Mr. Francis. His life still sings each morning as I play for he is the one who saw me, believed in me, gave me opportunity. So thank you, Mr. Francis. God used you mightily in my life to shape me, to direct me, to stir a passion in me, and to fulfill God’s purpose in me. I will be eternally grateful. And one day, on that Awakening Chorus day, I will tell you so.

Until then, I will keep this before me on the piano each week:

I play my piano with the love of God.

God, be with me now as I call notes into being.

May they make real my work of love.

May they join the work of creation,

Called from nothing,

Uttered over chaos,

Bringing order.

Esther De Waal  (adapted)

Let it be.