~~~
In
1958, I went to summer camp for the first—and only—time at Forest Home in the
San Bernardino Mountains. I went with my three best friends: Peggy Boone, Joyce
Thomas, and Cassie Parker. My mother was told I had “won” a scholarship, but I
always secretly suspected one or more of my friends’ parents had paid my way.
Each
night, the campers gathered around the campfire in the outdoor amphitheater to
sing Christian camp songs. Usually the last one sung was “How Great Thou Art.”
When I was there, we sat on logs arranged around the fire pit. Today, the area
boasts concrete walkways and seats.
I
will never forget the sound of the song echoing off the other side of the
valley. It had become the theme song of the camp in 1954 when Dr. J. Edwin Orr, from
Fuller Theological Seminary, introduced it at the start of a conference, and it
was sung each day. It soon became the most popular hymn in the country. And it
remained a part of the camp for many years.
O Lord
my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made.
I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Chorus:
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
When
through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze,
Chorus
And when
I think, that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in.
That on a Cross, my burdens gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.
Chorus
When
Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!"
Chorus
The second verse always conjures up images of camp, the
mountains, the music, and my friends.
I lost track of all of them for quite a few years. Then, in
2012 after we retired, we planned a month-long cross-country road trip. A week before
we left, I was able to connect with Peggy’s brother and sister-in-law on Facebook.
They gave me her contact information. I called her immediately and made
arrangements to visit. We took a detour though Deming, New Mexico in order to
spend a day with her. It felt as though we picked up right where we’d left off.
She was the same and so was our friendship.
We continued to exchange email and track each other on
Facebook. I had hoped to see her the following summer when she was to come to
California for her nephew’s wedding. Unfortunately, she wasn’t well enough to
make the trip. She passed away several months later, but I felt enormous gratitude
to have been able to spend one last day with her.
I couldn’t locate Cassie, either. I finally contacted her
sister, Cindy, who was just a year older and often joined us for activities.
Cindy told me that Cassie was being treated for cancer, but she would give her
sister my contact information. I never heard from Cass. She died about a year
later, but I took some comfort in the knowledge she knew I was thinking about
her.
Joyce and I are friends on Facebook. Her mother spent a
couple of years in a retirement home near me and close to Joyce’s brother,
Jerry. I visited Mrs. Thomas there a couple of times. I tried to get together
with Joyce whenever she came to California, but we were never able to connect.
Joyce’s mom died a couple of years ago, but fortunately, the two of us have remained
in touch.
~~~
About twenty years ago, a fine gentleman named Don Miller,
who was at the time a tenor in our church choir, told a story about flying alone
in his jet plane high enough to see the curvature of the earth.
Don Miller
As a young man, Don had been a professional singer, at one
time substituting for an ailing Perry Como. Right after high school, he sang
with Pinky Tomiln’s swing band at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.
Because of Don’s experience as a pilot and willingness to
step into the unknown, he flew the acceptance tests for the first pressure suits
to be worn by fighter pilots. The suit had been tested in the laboratory but
never under real-life conditions. So, Don wore the suit to see if a pilot could
successfully work in it. Don’s flew an F-104, which he took to the 70,000 ft.
level. At that altitude, he could see the curvature of the bright earth, the
dark sky, and the vast universe of stars and planets. As a singer, his only
response was to sing:
“O Lord
my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made...”
That Sunday morning, he told the story and sang the song
again, a cappella, just as he had in his long-ago cockpit. No one who heard him
could have remained unmoved.
~~~
My mother spent the last six years of her life in a nursing
home, fading away from us as senile dementia stole her memory. In the last year
or so, she had stopped talking. We went to see her in the hospital every Sunday
after church. We fed her lunch as she was no longer able to do so for herself.
Me, Mom, and my cousin, Margaret, about two months
before Mom died
After lunch, we wheeled her into the large living
space/reception area, where a baby grand piano stood in one corner. I sat down
and began to play her favorite old hymns. Although she had lost the ability to
speak, I’d watch her mouth the words to each song as I played it. They were
buried deep in her memory banks, and she brought them out whenever she heard
the familiar melodies. Others—patients and staff—often arrived to listen to the
impromptu “concerts.” Many sang along.
Usually, the last song I played was “How Great Thou Art.” As
Mom mouthed the words, she often began to cry. One day, a caregiver asked if
she was all right. I explained that the song was one of Mom’s favorites and had
been my grandmother’s favorite, as well. Something in that particular song
reached a deep place in Mom and connected, even if for only a short time.
Today whenever I hear it, all of these images and more
return.
Do you have a song with multiple memory connections?
