“He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.”
Psalms 126:6 (ESV)
Scripture to meditate upon: Psalms 126:6
It’s getting into the “holiday” season, with Thanksgiving coming next week followed by the whole Christmas thingy. The church I am a member of just started the choir practice for the Christmas service performance. There’s a couple local radio stations that have begun the EOY seasonal music selections and I “discovered” SiriusXM has a Trans Siberian Orchestra channel, so I guess my music choices are being moved off their (more) normal path.
I like music. In the past, having the lowest voice in the churches I went to, it was pretty much understood that I’d be carrying more than my share of the harmony involved in group singing. As a result (or perhaps a cause…hard to remember which came first) I have always been attracted to 4-part harmony and listening to (but not actively participating, sadly…there was not a large enough group in my area to commit to such a practice) both barbershop quartet and gospel quartet music.
The local Christian radio station in my area does a 6 hour “Quartet Time” broadcast on Saturday mornings from 6 AM to noon. As I was out and about last week in the proper time, the radio was on and I was belting out the tunes as I drove down the road (with the windows closed…both because it’s nearly winter time here in central [state redacted] and to prevent causing harm to those around me that might have overheard my singing!). I was basically on autopilot (with the singing, NOT the driving…while controlling your vehicle gets easier after the second million miles of over-the-road action, it’s NEVER going to be truly automatic, so well over half my attention was NOT on the radio) when I was brought up short mid-way through the second (or maybe third) verse. I recognized the song from some of my earliest church days in the late 70’s (and ongoing through at least the next 2 decades). I actually started to think about the words (maybe, no…most likely) for the first time.
The song was “Bringing In The Sheaves” by Knowles Shaw, written in 1874. The word in question was “sheaves”. I’m not a farmer, nor the son of a farmer…or grandson a few times removed. In fact, apart from some VERY minor gardening, I’ve never been involved in the production of foodstuffs in my life. Neither was anyone else that I knew. The part of the state I live in IS a source of crops of various kinds including the wheat most likely mentioned in both the listed verse and the song in question. But, the processing is done with heavy machinery rather than by hand, and the image that’s created in the song is of going out to collect the harvest and bringing it in by hand, in bundles (since that’s what a sheaf is). The modern harvesting machinery around here strips the grain from the stalk and stores it in a hopper, then discharges everything else behind it where it eventually is collected into bales (I HAVE moved a few of those in my days). To handle (or even see) actual sheaves? Nope. Never. (Full disclosure: I guess I have to admit to having SEEN an occasional one is some “harvest” display, but I suspect it’s an item that you can buy already gathered and bundled…the ones available on Amazon for $10 and up seem too small to be what would have been processed in the song, so I’m not counting them….)
I am reasonably sure that there are a few tiny pockets of people in America where they still harvest by hand and bring it in (also by hand), so there must be SOMEONE that can relate to the song. Just not in my area. And so, as the song ended on the radio, my mind continued along the distracted path it took to bring that song out of the archaic terms of a century and a half ago and how it might be sung today. The chorus would go something like this: [AHEM…]
Just doesn’t have quite the same impact…
Phred the Elder
DC3 Redwood Itinerant Heretic
post 93 of n
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