The Sweet Bye Bye

To put the dichotomies of my life in high relief, during Gay Pride Week I was asked to be the full time music leader at My Very Pentecostal Church. I said yes. Then I ran straight off to a booty call in the next hamlet over. No sense selling out to one side or the other too completely, I figure. The winds of change, they blow at the oddest moments. It seems unwise to be too tethered to either option when they do.

There is a wonderful family at the church that includes a little girl, named Sarah, who has Down Syndrome. Sarah's family sits across the aisle from me within my dwindling peripheral vision. I have on many occasions glanced across the aisle to see her grandmother trying, in vain, to coax her into clapping in rhythm to the music. Her aunt is a gifted musician and a wonderful lady, to boot. It's easy to clap in rhythm, play like a virtuoso and sing like an angel when you have the gift and the training. In my years, I have noticed that all three don't add to up to an ounce of true worship. My pappy taught me that.

Sarah's feet never stop moving. She claps on nonexistent beats to songs she hears but will likely never comprehend. "Victory in Jesus" means little to her, I imagine. But she claps and sways and belts out suspect lyrics with a gusto rarely seen in more self-conscious, pious grownups. When I need a reminder of what it really looks like to lose yourself in the moment, I glance at Sarah, accept the stinging rebuke she represents, and re-focus my attention heavenward in hopes that I might achieve what comes so effortlessly to her.

Sarah's family and I often meet at the Dairy Queen in town after church. She has a cheeseburger which she ritually pounds flat for easier consumption. It made so much sense to me the first time I saw it, that I pounded my own down as a show of solidarity. Ice cream cones pose a challenge beyond Sarah's ability to reason. She is delightful to watch as she happily chases stream after stream of wilting ice cream down first one side and then the other in a dizzying game of Ice Cream Tag.

It has been written many times over that children with Down Syndrome, in particular, are welcoming, loving, happy people who have much to teach the rest of us about unconditional acceptance. Knowing this, I was still taken aback when Sarah approached me in the church parking lot on Sunday with a request for the next service. She'd like us to sing "Sweet Bye Bye". I knew immediately that she referred to "In The Sweet By and By". But I liked her rendering of the title so much more.

It didn't take me long to connect the dots in my mind between her own condition which typically shortens a lifespan significantly = and my own. I wrote down the request and put it at the top of the list of what the congregation would sing the next Sunday. On Wednesday night, she caught me in the parking lot before the service and said that she wanted to sing "Sweet Bye Bye" that very night. I don't have any involvement in the Wednesday night service, but her gifted aunt and her grandmother noted, "She wants to sing it with you...tonight."

My people make a big deal out of hearing from God. Mockery comes easily when Oral Roberts has claimed that God would off him for want of several million dollars. Lesser known instances emphasize the point when you travel in these circles. I know that I've never heard the Burning Bush Audible Voice of God. But I also know that I've frequently been the second-hand recipient of a message from The Big Guy on any number of occasions.

God spoke to me this week through a little girl with Down Syndrome. We sat on the step of the podium Wednesday night - each with our own microphone - and we sang "In The Sweet By and By". Sarah sang the lyrics that poured out of her heart without regard to what was printed on the page. I stuck to what was written. And I sang an inferior song. That lesser song moved me as I sat shoulder to shoulder with my spiritual superior:

"We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blest.
And our spirits shall sorrow no more.
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

In the Sweet By and By,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.
In the Sweet By and By,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore."

My mortality drapes over my shoulders like a comfortable shawl that I forget I'm wearing. A little girl unwittingly altered my perspective with a song and a speech impediment. The Sweet Bye Bye, indeed.

Very, very sweet.