My Father's Hymn Book

Whenever one door closes, another one opens. Or something like that. Tonight I want to take another look at those closed doors we've rushed to forget.

When I was young I sat next to my father in church. Pinned between him and the arm of the pew, I was in the perfect position to A) not antagonize my sisters and B) receive a purposeful elbow if my behavior was out of line. I remember much about sitting in my God-ordained assigned seat each Sunday morning (and many Sunday nights): the unforgiving wood bench supporting me; the small communion cup holes I aimlessly ran my fingers through; the little loose divot at the bottom of the pew in front of us within subtle reach of my shoe; and certainly the hilarity and guilty pleasure I found in the occasional head nod, snore, and snap back to attention of Dad under the duress of a week's worth of farming fatigue.

I also remember the hymn books. Whether we were sitting (sitting for the 2nd hymn was a Dutch Reformed service standby) or standing, my father and I often shared a hymn book between us. No matter what had gone on during the week, or even during the Sunday morning preparation for church, we stood side by side with that hymnal between us 4-5 times every service. To share a hymn book meant that we stood together: close enough for our arms to touch, close enough to hear every flawed note, close enough to breath the same air. There are few other situations in my youth that I remember requiring that level of proximity.

I miss those old hymn books. For many churches, they have gone by the wayside in the name of progress, replaced with giant screens with lyrics projected. The more tech savvy churches, my own included, will even place vibrant backgrounds of pictures of the glory of creation to enhance the mood and the worship experience. There is nothing inherently wrong about that; it's efficient and effective, it allows for a constant stream of new music to be introduced to the congregation, and there is no cost for physical objects taking up physical space.

With progress, though, we've left something behind. We are no longer asked to share a hymn book, meaning we are no longer asked to share that space. While we do share a screen, there is nothing tangible between husband and wife, between parent and child. Before, if there happened to be any conflict, hymn book holders had to bury their anger, or at least put it on hold, in the name of praising God. Whatever fight may have occurred that morning or that week, it was not big enough to embolden enough pride to refuse to sing a hymn. Closeness, at least for a time, was restored. Or shared joy carried into the service became intensified in that space with a widened smile, a warm expression, or the simple pleasure of reveling in being together and on the same page in one more concrete way. Perhaps even more simply, it provided a rare opportunity for sons like me to hear a loved one's voice.

A friend of mine was talking about his record collection the other day. I asked him what the appeal was. Why, with the ease of an iPod, with the clarity of digital music, would he bother? "When it comes down to it," he said, "when you're hanging out with a bunch of people playing music, having records leads to conversation. There's something to handle. Something to share. Something to pass around that leads to debate. You're not going to do that with an iPod."

He's right. The same is true of the letter. Last year I made it a priority to write 25 letters over the course of the year. I received several back. They are not as convenient, as cost-effective, or as timely as email. But receiving that physical letter from a friend in the mail was an experience all in itself. It was a piece of paper that he had touched and that I was holding, full of paragraphs that I read with priority, not randomly punctuated haphazard sentences I fit in between pauses in other conversations, while waiting in line, or in between tweets.

I want my Sunday paper spread out on my dining room table, a different section in each individual's hands. I don't want it on my tablet. I want to share a meal, not hang out on Facetime. I want to teach and conference with my students, not point them to YouTube instructors. And I want to smell paper and ink and scribble in the margins and dog-ear pages and let a book rest in my hands like an old friend; that is greatly to be preferred over using my finger to highlight on my Kindle app and type out a note that no one will read in 30 years when they come across my literary collection.

Am I slow to embrace progress and change? Guilty. I still have a TracPhone as my only mobile device. And a land line. I only recently began texting. I have no idea what a DVR or TiVo even look like. There is still an analogue TV in our house that we use. I first opened an iTunes account this year. And I want my hymn books back.

They won't come back, of course. Progress says they can't. And that's fine. But that does mean that we must purposefully plan new and different ways to share the kind of space that my father and I shared many years ago. Because every minute spent there still means something unspeakable to me. And I want my daughters, who have long ago outgrown being rocked to sleep in my arms, to remember long into their adulthood how they shared that kind of space with me.