Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Jemima L. Yeggs, a.k.a. Stinker.  Pink Lady Apple Yeggs, my landlady and my auntie, wants to read about how younger people, especially couples respond to what the Bible says.  And she wants to know how God is at work at Lily the Pink.

Author’s Note:  This is not a Sunday School class report.  This came to me in a dream.  I awoke in the middle of the night thinking this was a good story, and possibly only the second time that I can remember dreaming about my fictional characters.  I went back to sleep and continued the dream.  Oddly, the moral of this story is topical in our present unrest.

Emmett asked me to referee a cat fight.  That is the way he put it.  I felt that I should try to mediate so that the physical aspect of the fight never happened.  I was not in the mood to referee.  And I was concerned that music connected with our Sunday school class had three young ladies ready to start punching, biting, and kicking.

Who are the three?  Carla, Menzie, and Arabella.

Carla should be mature enough to avoid a fight.  She was a freshman in college, but she has not been a Christian for that long.  Then Menzie was the professional singer.  She should be helping the others, not fighting about it.  And Arabella was our lovable Fireball.  She said things before her brain was in gear.  So, was she the one that lit the match?  Did she say something that she would deny that she said?

When the five of us got together, all three girls started talking at the same time.  I held up a hand.  “One at a time.”

Carla moaned, “It was supposed to be my solo.  I was going to sing O Holy Night when we went out for caroling.  And we won’t have all the instruments so we were going to do it a capella.  Arabella calls it Acapulco.”  Arabella growled.  Carla stared her down. “I really wanted to show that I could sing, but then when we started, everything got messed up and it sounded horrible.  I figured that Menzie being the professional could fix it.”

Menzie said, “I may get pay to sing, but I sing jazz.  If I get a note off a little, I am improvising.  But I have near perfect pitch, and I know I hit the right notes.  The other two were off, but they would not admit it.”

Arabella said, “I may be the youngest here, but I am not going to get insulted and pushed around.  I was right.”

I said, “I have heard each of you practicing by yourselves.  You all sound good.  Carla seems to enjoy singing to the waterfall.  Arabella has been singing to her sick goat.  It was nice that Jim Kaiser and Catherine ver Waarloosd set up a little pen between the turkeys and the rabbits for a goat quarantine area.  But Arabella had a great place to sing.  Menzie sings to Sammie mostly.  So, what happened when you mixed the voices together?”

Again they all talked at once.  My arm was getting tired lifting it so that I would only hear one voice.  “Please, let Emmett explain.  He composed the arrangement.  He would know why it did not sound right.”

Emmett said, “I do not want anyone hitting me, but all three of you were off.  You were off in tempo, pitch, and does anyone here know what a rest is?”

Arabella asked, “Where is Mr. Dictionary when you need him?”

Emmett groaned, “Exactly!  A rest is a musical notation that tells you not to sing, but all three of you sang through your rests.  When you are given a rest you need to be quiet.  And if I can get some quiet right now, I can tell you what each of you did wrong!”

And for the first time since I showed up, all three young ladies were in unison, “YOU cannot tell ME to shut up!”  The words in all caps were not just louder, they extended them for a few beats, in perfect unison.

I raised my hand again.  “Okay, Emmett can’t, but I will.  Emmett, what did each do wrong?  I already said that what I heard sounded fine.”

Emmett sighed.  He looked like he had just finished a fight with a heavyweight.  “Let’s start with tempo.  Carla is the soloist.  The other two should feed off her, but her tempo was a little low.  She would have a hard time holding the notes that are near her limit of range.  Arabella in true Arabella fashion was coming in too soon, partly due to being at a faster tempo, but also not resting when required.”  Arabella argued that it was her brother’s stupid arrangement that was at fault.  That got them all three teaming together against the only boy in the meeting.  I raised my hand again.

Emmett continued, “And Menzie was getting lost, coming in a beat late on occasion.  Menzie knows what a rest is.  At the club, that’s when the band plays an instrumental solo for a while, but she was waiting too long.  But the only one hitting the right notes, albeit at the wrong time, was Menzie.  Carla was a little flat.  I am thinking she naturally went to a lower key for better comfort with the high notes.  I could transpose, but then she can really hit the true high notes.  She just needs the confidence.  I think because my sister, Arabella, wants to prove she can hit even higher notes, she was sharp.”

Arabella puffed out her chest, “See there!  My brother called me sharp!”

Carla muttered, “Little white trash, think you can get protected by your brother.  And I see what you are thinking!  You call me the ‘N’ word and two of us are going to gang up on you!”

Menzie said, “Who are you calling black?  I’m an octoroon!”

Carla asked, “What on earth is an octoroon?  Is that like a buffoon?  Or a baboon?”

Menzie got angry.  “I have one black great grandmother, and she was not all black.  And the other seven are white, Scottish to be exact.  I am more Scottish than Daddy.”

Carla said, “But Daddy is not your birth Daddy.”

Menzie gritted her teeth, “Don’t talk about my birth father like that.  He died in the war.”

I interrupted, “Please, you three.  Calm down!  Emmett, what else?  Arabella was off key by being too high.  Carla was too low.  Menzie was on key, but since she is supposed to be the professional, she should have adjusted to harmonize.  They came in at the wrong time and they held their notes for too long.  But is that not what practice is for?  We are nowhere near the holidays yet.”

Emmett said, “These three friends, all Christian friends, started arguing and it seemed like the hair pulling would start so I asked you to come by.  This caroling thing was your idea.”

Carla looked at the floor.  “And I am on edge a bit.  I apologize.  One of the stops is with my in-laws.  They all say the right things, but I know they think that Brenton could have done better.  I wanted so much to prove that I am something more than a softball player that can play first base and a golfer.  I was a walk-on at golf, and I made the college team.  My grades were top ten percent.  I almost made top ten.  So, I have the grades.  I am an athlete.  I had to show my in-laws that I was good at something else.  Please, Emmett, help me.  Teach me.”

Emmett said, “Mike is going to have his tubulum.  We thought we could have it on the back of a delivery truck.  But I think all you need to do is to have a pitch pipe.  If you hit the first note right, and then Menzie and Belle harmonize with that note rather than trying to be better than what they are supposed to be, then that works out.  I can do some conducting to keep the tempo right.  When you get nervous, and as it seems, Carla has good reason for nerves, but with nerves, you speed up.  And learn what rests are.  Tap your foot if you have to, but the rests are so that Carla’s voice stands out on its own in places.  Now, can we start practice now and forget all the harsh words that have been said?”

They all agreed.

But I saw something here.  All the unrest today.  How much of that is us thinking we are right, and the other person is wrong?  How much of the hate could be resolved by examining ourselves first?  Then, knowing that we are not perfect, we can calmly listen.

With music, it only takes a pitch pipe to tell you that you are off key.  It only takes a metronome to say that your tempo is right or wrong, but with safe places being afforded to you so that you never hear a discouraging word, as the song goes, you can reinforce your wrong thinking and never know that you are wrong.  C.S. Lewis said that when everyone is chasing after progress and going in the wrong direction, the first one to turn around is the most progressive.  But with having a safe place, you could have hundreds or thousands falling off a cliff because no one told them they were on the wrong path.  Why tell them?  Saying that they are wrong is injurious to them.

But what if the path they are on is deadly?  Telling them that they should turn around is what love does.  That is not injurious in my book.

But here, three friends all thought they were right.  They sounded wonderful when they practiced alone.  But when they first practiced together, their own ears said something was wrong.  They emerged from their safe place to discover that they were wrong, but then in the process of that discovery, they nearly lost two wonderful friendships.

I am looking forward to Carla’s performance.  I feel it in my bones that she is going to do a good job.

Credits

The “discouraging word” comes from no discouraging word in the song, Home on the Range.

“But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you’ve taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”

• C. S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity (first portion of Mere Christianity)

This was a dream, and I awoke with the burning desire to write it down before my memory faded and imagination could change something in the dream.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.