Friday, October 31, 2014

On troubles. . .



The world breaks everyone and afterward 

many are stronger at the broken places.

                        Earnest Hemingway
                        "Farewell to Arms"

Sunday, October 26, 2014

The Cokesbury Hymnal

I saw an old familiar hymnal in our Methodist Church office the other day.  The secretary told me that
she had located the book for my old friend, Shelby, who lives in Florida.   I was delighted to pick it up to mail to her because I recall a long ago conversation between the two of us.

Shelby attended a rural church in southeastern Kansas at the same time I attended Shiloh Methodist
Church in central Missouri.   Unbeknownst to each other, we were both novice pianists for our
congregations and like me, she always selected number 124 in the Cokesbury Hymnal, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", the easiest hymn in the book to play.

Many of the favorites of our congregation are seldom heard today.  I can get nostalgic whenever I hear "The Church in the Wildwood".   The view from every window at Shiloh was trees and fields.  So many memories associated with the old-time hymns.