God Lives in the Pipe Organ

Lately I've been reading a couple of blogs written by members of the Church of Christ. I don't know much about Churchachristers except instrumental music in their worship services is a big no-no. They can sing beautiful four-part harmony, but the devil apparently lives in the pi-anny and the pipe organ.

I grew up in the Methodist church ("a heathen Methodist" for any CofC readers) and was fortunate enough to sing along every Sunday with a grand old High Church pipe organ. It has two manuals, eleven ranks, and was built by the Reuter Organ Company of Lawrence, Kansas in 1947. It is a glorious beast of an organ, filling the wall behind the choir loft with a gazillion pipes.

When I was little bitty, I thought God lived in the pipe organ. After all, the pipe organ produced the loudest sound I had ever heard in my young life and I figured God's voice had to be pretty loud, so there He was.

Daddy assured me that God did NOT live in the pipe organ down at the Methodist church. "God lives in Heaven honey. Don't you remember? We say it every Sunday, 'Our Father, who art in Heaven..' " I was pretty sure he was yanking my chain on that one, because my father was right there in front of me and most assuredly was not in Heaven. But I was only three years old, what did I know?

So I get a little older and learn to read. Oh, I get it now.

Now gray-haired and bi-focaled, I'm realizing my childish wisdom was not that far off the mark. When I go back home and the pipe organ winds up into an old standard, I get all teary-eyed and choked with emotion. I usually can't sing the first verse of the song. I am once again reassured that God does indeed live in the pipe organ. The notes are His voice and it's a language that can only be heard with the heart, not the ears.

When the organ is at full bellow with all the stops out on Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", I want to stand up on the pew, close my eyes, throw back my head and fling my arms open wide. I want to take it all in with every fiber of my body and let it wash over me, granting me and all who will listen total and complete absolution. There on a bright Easter morning with the sunshine streaming in through the stained glass windows, God will be speaking.

I think the Churchachristers are missing out.