Music is a tool for ministry, at least for me. I am a music minister in a local church and have been for over thirty years. I also participate in music ministry that is an extension of the local church.
My extended ministry is through the Mississippi Singing Churchmen. This is a statewide men's choir whose membership consists of music ministers from across the state. It has been my privilege to be a part of this group for more than twenty-one years.
This organization meets periodically throughout the year to rehearse, sing, minister and fellowship. There are times in the course of rehearsals or concerts our group can be enveloped by a phenomena. It happens when very familiar selections are being sung. Our director makes us aware of it by announcing, “you guys are in auto pilot”.
I think for the most part my parents adored the “auto pilot switch”. Our family had some simple yet meaningful rituals. Some of these rituals were annual. Each October when the fair was in town, my father would take us. We would go on Tuesday afternoon as soon as we got home from school. Why? It was his day off and I think my mother despised the fair.
Like most, Christmas eve had its rituals. In the afternoon we would visit extended family on my mother’s side and would ride to look at Christmas decorations after dark. We would also spend MUCH ENERGY trying to go to sleep.
My extended ministry is through the Mississippi Singing Churchmen. This is a statewide men's choir whose membership consists of music ministers from across the state. It has been my privilege to be a part of this group for more than twenty-one years.
This organization meets periodically throughout the year to rehearse, sing, minister and fellowship. There are times in the course of rehearsals or concerts our group can be enveloped by a phenomena. It happens when very familiar selections are being sung. Our director makes us aware of it by announcing, “you guys are in auto pilot”.
I think for the most part my parents adored the “auto pilot switch”. Our family had some simple yet meaningful rituals. Some of these rituals were annual. Each October when the fair was in town, my father would take us. We would go on Tuesday afternoon as soon as we got home from school. Why? It was his day off and I think my mother despised the fair.
Like most, Christmas eve had its rituals. In the afternoon we would visit extended family on my mother’s side and would ride to look at Christmas decorations after dark. We would also spend MUCH ENERGY trying to go to sleep.
My father was much about ritual. He seldom varied from his wake-up time. He was usually up at 4am, drinking coffee and armed with HIS pertinent reading material. I’m not convinced my mother was as attached to this routine. but she was usually not far behind him in the activities that heralded the new day.
Sunday morning...Sunday mornings were a ritual unto themselves. We did attend church as children. Our parents did not attend with us until we were a little older. Church was an important part of the life of our family, but the focus of this memory is not church. It was the activities before church.
Pancakes...pancakes were an important part of Sunday mornings. Sunday morning breakfast might also include grits, scrambled or poached eggs and bacon or sausage. Breakfast was a memorable Sunday morning ritual, but it isn’t what stands out the most. What stands out the most about Sunday morning? Music!!
Again, my father had some “very clear” rituals and Sunday morning music was one of them. I wonder to this day if we would remember how to chew and swallow our food if the Sunday morning music had not been playing.
I cannot recall an “established order”. There may not have been one. However, the same “players” were always present. Each Sunday morning we could count on the likes of Patsy Cline and Floyd Cramer to join us for breakfast.
We were in “auto pilot” as the Sunday morning music played. “We knew every part by heart”. We could find the key before the next song began to play on the old LPs. “In the misty moonlight, by the flickering firelight”, Jim Reeves would serenade each Sunday.
The television was also part of the Sunday morning music repertoire.. My father would turn on the television at the appointed time and we would hear:
Jubilee, Jubilee, you’re invited to this happy Jubilee
Jubilee, Jubilee, you’re invited to this happy Jubilee
Why her? Was it the music? It really was quit simple...her hair. My mother’s routine had her at the hairdresser two days a week. Saturday was “wash and set”. Tuesday was for a “tease”. The occasional “perm” always led to a residential exodus until the “perm odor” had subsided. My mother had “BIG HAIR”. My mother was no match in the hair department to “Mama Beehive”.
Certainly ours is not the only family to tag Sister Vestal Goodman as “Mama Beehive”. It is for us a moniker that recalls a picture of “large hair”. It is also a moniker that recalls a wealth of routine that is now a crystallized heritage.
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