SINGING WITH THE CIRCUIT RIDER

 4287

My wife was with our daughter in Massachusetts, as she was facing surgery at the time. And shortly after my wife flew out, the State of Florida was confronted with another hurricane.

I had planned to "hang loose" in my home in central Florida, as I had done with the previous six hurricanes in the last quarter century. However, when the television weatherman informed his Tampa Bay area audience that the storm had reached CAT 5 status and 180 mph winds while still a couple hundred miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, it seemed to me the Creator of storms was prompting me to "get outta Dodge."

My God-daughter, one of my former university students, and her husband, an Army chaplain, invited me to drive up to L.A. (Lower Alabama) in order to enjoy their company, and to avoid the effects of Hurricane Milton. I didn't need to be asked twice.

It goes without saying that I enjoyed my visit immensely. I love this couple and their precious children dearly.

While I was there it was decided that we would drive over to a pioneer village which, as you have probably presumed, included a General Store, miscellaneous old homes and buildings, various craftswomen weaving cloth, bottling honey, teaching children to make rudimentary dolls from corn husks, etc.

At one point we made our pilgrimage to what appeared to be some semblance of a church. Upon entering the edifice, we discovered a sixty something year old parson dressed in "Johnny Cash" black. He wore a matching wide-brimmed hat atop his cranium, and a cross around his neck. A guitar was attached to his neck by way of a wide leather strap.

"Parson Roberts" began to share his extensive knowledge of the Christian circuit riders. What they wore. Where they went. To whom they went to. The sort of sermons they preached. And what they sang.

Having reached the end of his, no doubt, memorized monologue, the good preacher asked,

"Does anyone have a favorite selection? I will try to sing it."

To which I responded,

"How about the Old Rugged Cross."

The good preacher seemed to think this was a good thing. And thus, he immediately began singing. And I could just not help myself.

I began singing the first verse in unison with him.

"On a hill faraway stood an old rugged cross

the emblem of suffering and shame..."

And "to put myself out there" just isn't generally my forte. But it just felt right, and it just felt comfortable. And I was not a bit anxious.

"And I love that old cross where the dearest and best

for a world of lost sinners was slain."

Somewhere between the first couple of lines of the song and the next couple of lines, I realized that my God-daughter Jaci was videoing us. And I was glad for it since I 'save' videos of family life, our travels, etc. on a storage device to be passed down to my children.

We proceeded to sing three verses of that old hymn. And as we sang, I found I missed an occasional word, as I hadn't sung that song in church, or otherwise for multiplied years.

As the circuit riding preacher man and I sang the last line of the hymn, and acknowledged one another, I stood from my pew, and we prepared to walk out of the old church.

And as we stepped out into the sunlight, I smiled, and experienced a quiet satisfaction that the same old Gospel message was going forth here in this little pioneer village in Alabama, as it has done in hundreds of thousands of localities throughout the earth over the course of two thousand years.

by Bill McDonald, PhD