The Greater Glory
Greater Metropolitan Roopville has been blessed by more than its share of an impressive compliment of songsters. There isn’t a Sunday you can’t drive through town and listen to their voices lift in praise. The First Baptists are renowned for their harmony and sheer number: THE Butterswings of Wett Lake Drive have their own pew there and there is always a sprinkling of Hassendoodles in the congregation. The Methodists possess excellent diction and proper timing, thanks to the fact that Ronnie Filch (brother of Ned Filch of the Ersatz Farmer’s Market) the choir director was also the high school choir director. The Church of God is small but mighty and one of their choir members always sings the National Anthem before the school ball games. She can do that because she is Iris Telley, wife of the Mayor of our fair metropolis. The Ever-Ready for the Rapture Holiness Church choir boasted a soprano who could soar into the stratosphere on her notes. The African Methodist Church can be found simply by looking for the cars parked along the side of a given street and following them to the modest building, nestled among some trees. Judge Butler, Jim Diminy and I used to each drive by on Sunday afternoons after Mass to admire the picture-perfect outfits and matching elaborate hats of the AMC ladies. It was like admiring Easter eggs all year long.
One summer Mayor Slim Telley and the town council got the bright idea there should be a community revival. The idea was to foster better relations between the churches and in dong so, foster a closer-knit community. They figured all the ministers could take turns preaching and every night all the choirs would join together and lead the amassed congregation in standard hymns everyone knew. This is Greater Metropolitan Roopville, where religious talk still takes place among government officials and nobody gets up in arms over it. No one wants a Hassendoodle to bless them out and tell them they are going to hell for bringing up that church-and-state business.
This noble plan of sharing did not last for long when the choirs got wind of the plans. They were proud of their OWN sound and did not think they should have to share their Glorious Sound with anyone else. So Mayor Slim Telley used his Great Compromiser talents to proclaim that each night a different church would “host” the revival, which would be held at the high school baseball diamond. Each night a church would have their choir sing and its preacher preach, a sort of week-long ecumenical smorgasbord. No sooner did the story hit the Greater Metropolitan Roopville Shout, it became a contest: whose choir was best; who had the best arrangements, the best robes, the best harmony, the best enunciation? Whose preacher could save the most souls?
Of course these things were never actually mentioned except in the Sunday schools, the town grocery stores, the post office lobby, the Hog Liver Road Feed and Seed, the First County Bank of Roopville, the playgrounds, the Dairy Eats and in various hair parlors, front rooms and kitchens throughout Greater Metropolitan Roopville.
A certain member of the Our Lady of Perpetual Motion Catholic Church followed the proceedings with interest. Father Paul was not asked to participate, which was a shame because he had a kickass choir to back him up, but after all he was one of those Catholics, “and you know those people always seem to need some sort of exorcism.” Judge Butler, Jim Diminy and the entire Fable family decided we would attend and represent the county Mackrel Snappers. The African Methodist Church was going to take part, but their community center was hit by a grease fire and they were too busy repairing the structure, but they wished everyone well. We did not realize it but their community center was bigger than their church proper, tucked back further into the trees as it is. You could not see it from the road. If you drove back there to it, it was like arriving at the Hartsfield Airport Park-n-Fly lot.
The official word from the pages of the Greater Metropolitan Roopville Shout was that the first community revival was a success with the Baptist, the Methodist, the Church of God and the Ever-Ready for the Rapture Holiness churches taking part. The unofficial word on the street was, the Methodists had the best technical sound, the Baptists had the best attendance and the Ever-Ready for Rapture Holiness preacher was so effective he saved Barney Jasper the Fix-It Man.
The next summer, they got ready for the next community revival a little more aggressively. The Baptist and Methodist churches are separated by two blocks from each other along the same street, and otherwise lazy summer evenings were filled with the sounds of two warhorses whinnying for battle. The preachers polished up their best sermons, and sort of made run-throughs on Sundays. Their congregations let them know when they were on target. The Hassendoodles obligingly gave their preacher helpful notes to “punch up” his sermons, and Iris Telley got the Ladies’ Circle to make all-new choir robes for the Church of God choir, now known as the God Squad.
The second revival was just as lively and successful as the first, although the African Methodist church decided not to take part because they felt the focus was not where it should rightly be, on the Lord. But one cannot deny the intense interest of Greater Metropolitan Roopville and people turned out in droves, so much so that they had to truck in portable bleachers from the city of Clem, the Pearl of the Tri-Pasture Area. The score: the Baptists won the Choir-Off as well as the attendance, but the Methodists won Barney. Apparently whatever scared him into repentance did not last long and he fell back into his old sinful ways. In a way that did not speak well for the Ever Ready for the Rapture Holiness Church’s track record but they took the defection very well, saying perhaps Barney was meant to be a Methodist anyway.
The third year was all-out competition; none of that for-the-good-of-the-community veneer. By now everyone knew the score and bragging rights for the rest of the year was at stake. When all the shouting was done the score was: the Baptist Choir won the Choir Off, the Methodists in a surprise move won the Attendance, and the Baptists won Barney Jasper the Fix-It Man. Barney was not comfortable with the Methodist’s stand on drinking and apparently he did not care whether he danced or not.
The fourth year approached with the swiftness of a cat fleeing a grasping toddler’s hands. The Annual Choir-Off, as it was now openly called, brought in people not only from the city of Clem, the Pearl of the Tri-Pasture Area, but also Luckless Whitestown and Temple, the Town With One Stop Sign. The Our Lady of Perpetual Motion church choir always waited until they were out of the Lord’s House before checking the Choir-Off odds in the Holy Moly School of Catechism office. Even Father Paul put in a fiver for the Methodists to sweep it all.
The Methodists were going for a syncopated choral arrangement for their pieces; the Church of God was simply trying out the experience of harmony; and the Ever Ready for the Rapture Holiness choir was trying to keep their lead soprano’s ego in check. She had been asked to sing on a local morning cable television show and she was sensational. The Baptists were trying out some arrangements with secular appeal, and it was not met happily by the other ‘competitors’. So much for singing traditional hymns everyone knew! “I reckon we’ll all have to listen to Joy FM if we want to sing along,” Ned Filch complained, but Junior Butterswing said it was all sour grapes. The preachers polished up their sermons, trying not to think of it as a competition but as in the past years, getting drawn into it just the same.
Then at the last minute, the African Methodst Church announced it, too, would be represented at the Community Revival. The AMC minister said that he was just going to give a normal Sunday sermon and the only difference was, it would be delivered on a Thursday night. He said it with such ease and simplicity it immediately put the other churches on their guard. Competition was in the air, no matter what the AMC minister claimed.
The first night, Monday, saw the Church of God choir and minister. Although their pianist could not make it due to a matronly dust-up among the Ladies Who Wear Funny Hats Club, the God Squad choir sang a capella. Since they had been working on harmony, it sounded as if they planned it that way all along. “A real miracle,” one church member dryly put it. The preacher gave a fine sermon, and the night was over. Everyone could go home and find out what really happened when the Church of God pianist discovered Mrs. Viola Hassendoodle a clench with the pianist’s fiancé over at the VFW Hall. According to Miss Viola and the Hassendoodles, it was all a tempest in a teapot and the pianist just got the nerves and blamed their dear Viola. Junior Butterswing swallowed his sweet tea down the wrong pipe when he heard that and coughed for a good twenty minutes.
Tuesday, the Ever Ready for the Rapture HolinessChurch put on their program. Fire and brimstone issued forth from their reverend, and Barney was quaking in his thick brogan shoes. The choir sang well, but the lead soprano was so keyed up that the higher she sang, the sharper her notes until by the last hymn she sounded little more than a screech and four notes higher than written on the score. I blush to admit I do not recall what their preacher said because my ears were ringing.
Wednesday night, the Methodists got up to sing and all of Ronnie Filch’s histrionics and the practice all summer paid off. The syncopation was sharp, the elocution crisp, and man o man, the audience said, could you beat that! It was proving to be a horse race after all! The new Methodist minister was a kind quiet man and put forth a kind quiet sermon. Well he’s new, everyone said; he just doesn’t know What's What. Although everyone had a warm fuzzy feeling when they went home that night, it was a safe bet that Barney would not be returning to the Methodist camp any time soon.
Thursday, the AMC choir took the stage with their minister and began an hour of a blend of preaching and song the likes of which Greater Metropolitan Roopville never experienced en masse before. The preacher was animated, pacing back and forth across the stage, exhorting the assembled in walking the paths of righteousness and answer the call of the angels~! The music began to play even before he finished, and he skillfully dovedtailed his words into the songs the choir roared out from time to time. There was swaying. There were hands clapping. There were voices dancing like bright jewels in the light, and no sooner was one song over than he seamlessly dove back into his sermon which led back into another song, until the end when there was such a hallelujah, every pine tree in the surrounding countryside shook with the explosion of applause.
There was no denying it was a night to remember, and try as they might the next night, the Baptists could not top it. Their secular-sounding pop music spirituals just could not capture the raw power, grace and flow of the night before, and the preacher was no pacer and did no dovetailing. He was a stand, extol, and mop-the-florid-sweaty-brow kind of man. The Baptists did a masterful job, but in the end we all knew that the African Methodist Church won it all. Father Paul pointed out that someone swept the competition and it was a Methodist church so technically he won! He donated the pot to the Little Sisters of Mercy.
This past summer, the AMC declined a return to the revival to defend their title. It was too competitive, they said; the Lord doesn’t need a half-time show, He needs a full-time commitment. The comment was enough to shame the ministers into throwing in the towel and that was the last of the Community Revival. The churches went back to hosting their own individual revivals as always, and the world continued to turn just as always.
Barney Jasper the Fix It-Man can be seen every Sunday outside the African Methodist Church house, sitting on the riding mower he drives around town since Sheriff Stacy took away his driver’s license for the good of all. Barney is too shy to go inside even though he was repeatedly invited by the members. He likes the open air, the beautiful songs, and the heartening words.
The simplicity of it all.
One summer Mayor Slim Telley and the town council got the bright idea there should be a community revival. The idea was to foster better relations between the churches and in dong so, foster a closer-knit community. They figured all the ministers could take turns preaching and every night all the choirs would join together and lead the amassed congregation in standard hymns everyone knew. This is Greater Metropolitan Roopville, where religious talk still takes place among government officials and nobody gets up in arms over it. No one wants a Hassendoodle to bless them out and tell them they are going to hell for bringing up that church-and-state business.
This noble plan of sharing did not last for long when the choirs got wind of the plans. They were proud of their OWN sound and did not think they should have to share their Glorious Sound with anyone else. So Mayor Slim Telley used his Great Compromiser talents to proclaim that each night a different church would “host” the revival, which would be held at the high school baseball diamond. Each night a church would have their choir sing and its preacher preach, a sort of week-long ecumenical smorgasbord. No sooner did the story hit the Greater Metropolitan Roopville Shout, it became a contest: whose choir was best; who had the best arrangements, the best robes, the best harmony, the best enunciation? Whose preacher could save the most souls?
Of course these things were never actually mentioned except in the Sunday schools, the town grocery stores, the post office lobby, the Hog Liver Road Feed and Seed, the First County Bank of Roopville, the playgrounds, the Dairy Eats and in various hair parlors, front rooms and kitchens throughout Greater Metropolitan Roopville.
A certain member of the Our Lady of Perpetual Motion Catholic Church followed the proceedings with interest. Father Paul was not asked to participate, which was a shame because he had a kickass choir to back him up, but after all he was one of those Catholics, “and you know those people always seem to need some sort of exorcism.” Judge Butler, Jim Diminy and the entire Fable family decided we would attend and represent the county Mackrel Snappers. The African Methodist Church was going to take part, but their community center was hit by a grease fire and they were too busy repairing the structure, but they wished everyone well. We did not realize it but their community center was bigger than their church proper, tucked back further into the trees as it is. You could not see it from the road. If you drove back there to it, it was like arriving at the Hartsfield Airport Park-n-Fly lot.
The official word from the pages of the Greater Metropolitan Roopville Shout was that the first community revival was a success with the Baptist, the Methodist, the Church of God and the Ever-Ready for the Rapture Holiness churches taking part. The unofficial word on the street was, the Methodists had the best technical sound, the Baptists had the best attendance and the Ever-Ready for Rapture Holiness preacher was so effective he saved Barney Jasper the Fix-It Man.
The next summer, they got ready for the next community revival a little more aggressively. The Baptist and Methodist churches are separated by two blocks from each other along the same street, and otherwise lazy summer evenings were filled with the sounds of two warhorses whinnying for battle. The preachers polished up their best sermons, and sort of made run-throughs on Sundays. Their congregations let them know when they were on target. The Hassendoodles obligingly gave their preacher helpful notes to “punch up” his sermons, and Iris Telley got the Ladies’ Circle to make all-new choir robes for the Church of God choir, now known as the God Squad.
The second revival was just as lively and successful as the first, although the African Methodist church decided not to take part because they felt the focus was not where it should rightly be, on the Lord. But one cannot deny the intense interest of Greater Metropolitan Roopville and people turned out in droves, so much so that they had to truck in portable bleachers from the city of Clem, the Pearl of the Tri-Pasture Area. The score: the Baptists won the Choir-Off as well as the attendance, but the Methodists won Barney. Apparently whatever scared him into repentance did not last long and he fell back into his old sinful ways. In a way that did not speak well for the Ever Ready for the Rapture Holiness Church’s track record but they took the defection very well, saying perhaps Barney was meant to be a Methodist anyway.
The third year was all-out competition; none of that for-the-good-of-the-community veneer. By now everyone knew the score and bragging rights for the rest of the year was at stake. When all the shouting was done the score was: the Baptist Choir won the Choir Off, the Methodists in a surprise move won the Attendance, and the Baptists won Barney Jasper the Fix-It Man. Barney was not comfortable with the Methodist’s stand on drinking and apparently he did not care whether he danced or not.
The fourth year approached with the swiftness of a cat fleeing a grasping toddler’s hands. The Annual Choir-Off, as it was now openly called, brought in people not only from the city of Clem, the Pearl of the Tri-Pasture Area, but also Luckless Whitestown and Temple, the Town With One Stop Sign. The Our Lady of Perpetual Motion church choir always waited until they were out of the Lord’s House before checking the Choir-Off odds in the Holy Moly School of Catechism office. Even Father Paul put in a fiver for the Methodists to sweep it all.
The Methodists were going for a syncopated choral arrangement for their pieces; the Church of God was simply trying out the experience of harmony; and the Ever Ready for the Rapture Holiness choir was trying to keep their lead soprano’s ego in check. She had been asked to sing on a local morning cable television show and she was sensational. The Baptists were trying out some arrangements with secular appeal, and it was not met happily by the other ‘competitors’. So much for singing traditional hymns everyone knew! “I reckon we’ll all have to listen to Joy FM if we want to sing along,” Ned Filch complained, but Junior Butterswing said it was all sour grapes. The preachers polished up their sermons, trying not to think of it as a competition but as in the past years, getting drawn into it just the same.
Then at the last minute, the African Methodst Church announced it, too, would be represented at the Community Revival. The AMC minister said that he was just going to give a normal Sunday sermon and the only difference was, it would be delivered on a Thursday night. He said it with such ease and simplicity it immediately put the other churches on their guard. Competition was in the air, no matter what the AMC minister claimed.
The first night, Monday, saw the Church of God choir and minister. Although their pianist could not make it due to a matronly dust-up among the Ladies Who Wear Funny Hats Club, the God Squad choir sang a capella. Since they had been working on harmony, it sounded as if they planned it that way all along. “A real miracle,” one church member dryly put it. The preacher gave a fine sermon, and the night was over. Everyone could go home and find out what really happened when the Church of God pianist discovered Mrs. Viola Hassendoodle a clench with the pianist’s fiancé over at the VFW Hall. According to Miss Viola and the Hassendoodles, it was all a tempest in a teapot and the pianist just got the nerves and blamed their dear Viola. Junior Butterswing swallowed his sweet tea down the wrong pipe when he heard that and coughed for a good twenty minutes.
Tuesday, the Ever Ready for the Rapture HolinessChurch put on their program. Fire and brimstone issued forth from their reverend, and Barney was quaking in his thick brogan shoes. The choir sang well, but the lead soprano was so keyed up that the higher she sang, the sharper her notes until by the last hymn she sounded little more than a screech and four notes higher than written on the score. I blush to admit I do not recall what their preacher said because my ears were ringing.
Wednesday night, the Methodists got up to sing and all of Ronnie Filch’s histrionics and the practice all summer paid off. The syncopation was sharp, the elocution crisp, and man o man, the audience said, could you beat that! It was proving to be a horse race after all! The new Methodist minister was a kind quiet man and put forth a kind quiet sermon. Well he’s new, everyone said; he just doesn’t know What's What. Although everyone had a warm fuzzy feeling when they went home that night, it was a safe bet that Barney would not be returning to the Methodist camp any time soon.
Thursday, the AMC choir took the stage with their minister and began an hour of a blend of preaching and song the likes of which Greater Metropolitan Roopville never experienced en masse before. The preacher was animated, pacing back and forth across the stage, exhorting the assembled in walking the paths of righteousness and answer the call of the angels~! The music began to play even before he finished, and he skillfully dovedtailed his words into the songs the choir roared out from time to time. There was swaying. There were hands clapping. There were voices dancing like bright jewels in the light, and no sooner was one song over than he seamlessly dove back into his sermon which led back into another song, until the end when there was such a hallelujah, every pine tree in the surrounding countryside shook with the explosion of applause.
There was no denying it was a night to remember, and try as they might the next night, the Baptists could not top it. Their secular-sounding pop music spirituals just could not capture the raw power, grace and flow of the night before, and the preacher was no pacer and did no dovetailing. He was a stand, extol, and mop-the-florid-sweaty-brow kind of man. The Baptists did a masterful job, but in the end we all knew that the African Methodist Church won it all. Father Paul pointed out that someone swept the competition and it was a Methodist church so technically he won! He donated the pot to the Little Sisters of Mercy.
This past summer, the AMC declined a return to the revival to defend their title. It was too competitive, they said; the Lord doesn’t need a half-time show, He needs a full-time commitment. The comment was enough to shame the ministers into throwing in the towel and that was the last of the Community Revival. The churches went back to hosting their own individual revivals as always, and the world continued to turn just as always.
Barney Jasper the Fix It-Man can be seen every Sunday outside the African Methodist Church house, sitting on the riding mower he drives around town since Sheriff Stacy took away his driver’s license for the good of all. Barney is too shy to go inside even though he was repeatedly invited by the members. He likes the open air, the beautiful songs, and the heartening words.
The simplicity of it all.