March 17, 1999
DOWN HOME:
Well, hello, Dolly; your bulwark never faileth
___Sometimes you can't even teach a young dog new tricks.
___More precisely, sometimes you can't teach little children an old, old song.
___Not that I didn't try.
___During my most recent tour of duty in extended session--intrepid-volunteer-staffed childcare during "big church" time on Sunday morning--I tried to teach a roomful of 3-year-olds to sing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."
___Martin Luther,the great Protestant reformer, penned "A Mighty Fortress" in 1529. Its stirring strains sent like-spirited saints' souls soaring. Its tune, heisted from a German beer-drinking ballad, lifted Christendom to new levels of faith, above the shackles of law.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___"A Mighty Fortress" has been a high-church hit for going on five centuries. And I love it.
___So, I decided to be a music evangelist during extended session. Sure, I could've taught the kids a simple praise chorus, which is much easier to learn. But they'll be exposed to roughly 2.7 million praise choruses over the next 80 years or so.
___Today's kids need to be acquainted with the classic canon of the faith. It was my duty to expose the youngsters placed under my one-hour charge.
___A might-y for-tress is our God,
___A bul-wark nev-er fail-ing;
___I sang loudly. I sang boldly.
___Our help-er he, a-mid the flood
___Of mor-tal ills pre-vail-ing.
___The children looked at me as if I just dropped in from Mars. They had loved it when I cut out pieces of construction paper, licked them and stuck them to my forehead, like Indian feathers. They got a kick out of it when I sat on the floor and rolled the ball. But they couldn't stand my stirring rendition of "A Mighty Fortress is Our God."
___"Well, maybe these kids just aren't musically literate," I reasoned. "They just don't like great music."
___Then Dorothy, who's "almost 4," piped up with a spunky version of "Hello, Dolly."
___Hello, Dolly! Well, Hello, Dolly!
___It's so nice to have you back where you belong!
___Dorothy has a great voice for a preschooler. The other children stopped what they were doing to listen.
___You're lookin' swell, Dolly!
___I can tell, Dolly ... Yada, yada, yada.
___The child sang practically the whole song. And the other kids would've given her a standing ovation if they knew the first thing about standing ovations.
___So much for great hymnody. Broadway trumps the Reformation, at least for 3-year-olds. But whether or not they learn Christian hymn classics, I hope these children one day experience the reality of my favorite hymn:
___... God's truth a-bid-eth still,
___His king-dom is for-ev-er.
___Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!