Let me state for the record that if you are American and religious I may be about to offend you.
Sorry.
It’s been lovely having you. Thank you so much for bearing with me. Some of you may have been fooled into thinking I was a model of thoughtful tolerance and insightful wisdom, at least when it came to my children but actually, no. It turns out I am the worst kind of old fashioned prim-faced British snob, and worse than that, I am an ageing red-diaper-baby-hippie snob.
There is no worse kind.
You may or may not know that around these parts Kindergarten has the terrible affliction of only lasting until 12.15 which means that Five is completely bored all afternoon and needs to have at least a few organised activities to stop me her from going doolally-pop. She’s doing marine biology (fiddling about with fish and sand) on a Thursday and I try to organise a playdate once a week, but she had been asking and asking about taking music lessons which does slightly gall me given that I AM A MUSICIAN FFS and we’re not exactly short on instruments/influence/attempts to get her to try things at home.
However I do take the point that it is not quite the same as doing your own musical thing outside the family, so it was with some pleasure that I discovered that her teacher’s husband, who is a very popular music teacher in the local primary schools, had started a kids’ choir at a local church and was looking for children to join. There is a holly bush surrounded by ivy we walk past on the way to school and Five serenades it with a chorus of “The Holly and the Ivy” every single morning. The choir sounded just the ticket – perfectly delightful and I had misty-eyed visions of Five singing ‘Away in a Manger’ at Christmas and me dabbing my eyes proudly with a hanky when she got chosen to be Mary in the nativity play…
Scrrreeeee !!!!! *needle across vinyl*
Sorry about that. Back to reality.
The first week, unfortunately, Mr. K, the choirmaster was called out to jury duty so the children were left with the preacher and his guitar and a few elderly church volunteers who read them a bible story, told them a terrifying tale of someone having a coronary, needing the paramedics, ambulances, ER, death etc. but it was okay because God was there (Five to me, later: Really? It was okay? Or just slightly better than if He hadn’t been there? ). Then the preacher taught them a song about Jesus.
It wasn’t a hymn.
It was a song that went:
Ramalamalong we’re gunna sing a SONG ’bout JESUS! /Sing it Sister Susie, gunna SEND ol’ SATAN away (Bye bye!)
I was horrified. This was NOT what I wanted.
I suppose that some part of me hoped to step back in time to a Barbara Pym novel where a handsome but distracted vicar would be dispensing social niceties over comforting cups of tea while his wife arranged flowers, some noble ladies in floral dresses and hats organised jumble sales and the curate smoked a pipe and had a bicycle clip permanently affixed to one leg along with his confirmed asexual bachelorhood. Meanwhile our precious tots would be singing traditional hymns and carols and not understanding any of the words, just like WE did.
This, though, had more than a whiff of the hellfire and brimstone about it and was positively evangelical in its approach. I was tempted to retrieve Five immediately but she was smiling and holding hands with a girl next to her she knew from school so I hung back and waited. Perhaps it would be different the following week when Mr. K came back from jury duty..
The next week, which was today, I took her back. She was terribly eager to go. They played games and ,more importantly, got juiceboxes and goldfish crackers at snack time so pretty much nothing short of the passing over of the Angel of Death was going to keep her away. Mr. K, thankfully, was there. I was banking on there being a significant reduction in death-stories and if not any traditional hymns, some more secular music. In the intervening time I had heard quite a bit about Mr. K and his style – he is a huge 80’s music fan so the kids get to learn a lot of his boyhood favourites. Fine with me. I’ll take Devo over RamalamaSatan any day of the week.
The children lined up ready to sing and the church ladies came bustling forward and told them that they were all going to say a prayer, but they were going to hear the same prayer from three different versions of the Bible. Wouldn’t that be FUN!?
*deathly (but it was okay because God was there) silence*
A comfy looking lady in a polyester pantsuit circa 1974 told the children
“Here is a prayer from the King James’ Bible
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
That means whatever you do to other people make sure you’d want them to do it to you! That’s all! But instead of telling you in that fancy pants silly Shakespeare language I just toldja in plain ol’ English which is much better and easier to understand!
I bridled at this. I know she means well, and I take it that The King James’ Bible is written in Early Modern English but that doesn’t mean that it’s better to start dumbing them down and spoonfeeding them soundbites from the Bible as told to televangelists instead because Shakespeare is a silly fancypants. I, personally would far prefer it if Five had no fcuking idea what was going on, skip straight to the music, please.
Me, I’m like Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I only liked church for the songs and if they chucked a bit of K.J.poetry at us along the way, so much the better.
Fortunately Mr. K took over at this point and started singing with the children.
He was fantastic.
The first song was a gospel number and he had all of these little kids, most of whom hadn’t even heard it before, grooving away and singing counterpoint to one another. I instantly forgave him for not doing “Praise My Soul the King of Heaven” (a personal favourite). Two was grooving and clapping along in delight so they even had an audience.
Now not everybody’s 80’s music is the same and, particularly in the US, I spend a lot of time cringing when I hear the oldies stations playing terrible music from that decade because I it was pants and I hated it even back then. Occasionally, though, a track will have grown on me unsuspectingly in the intervening years and Mr.K had selected just one of these for the kids to sing. Or maybe I still don’t really like it but hearing thirty 5-7 year olds belt it out was so incredibly hilarious that I have revised my opinion.
Remember Journey? Don’t Stop Belieeeevin! Oh, the hair! And his awful nose..
I swear, Two even got his virtual lighter out in praise of his older sister and her cool.
Me, I just wanted to set fire to the woman with the non-fancypants Bible but I will restrain myself as I do not want to be branded a heretic.
My reputation is sketchy enough in Stepford as it is.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh I’m right there with you on this one. I went to church as a kid in the UK and remember it fondly. Still love belting out original hymns off key to the offense of all around me. And after not going to church for – oh blimey far too many years than I care to calculate – I have been on occasion in the US because so many of my American friends attend every week and (Oh God, I am definitely going to hell) the church services can verge on being 2 hours long which means that Sunday School represents that cheapest 2 hours of childcare of the whole week. But the modern ‘hymns’ make me uncomfortable. And all the people closing their eyes in complete reverence and raising their arms ‘to the Lord’ whilst singing, praying, listening to the sermon makes me squirm. Am I just too British for this type of worship? Have things changed and this is how it is back at home too? Still, it is 2 hours of free childcare…and by Sunday morning (particularly in the winter) I am so desperate to be a) around other adults after having the kids for 24 hours by myself and b) skint, so this is really the only fiscal option. Hallaluah.
I am right there with you and I am laughing so hard because I am the only one I have ever known to mention Tess of the D’Urbervilles when I mentioned my love of certain parts of churchand not others.
We have an issue similar to this with once a week chapel at my daughter’s pre-school. She comes home talking about stuff and singing songs we are not so cool with at all! We’ll see how we handle it long term.
Nicola that is how I feel down south but not all US church services are that long and if you go to New England you can find tons of wonderful KJ services with poetry and old music! And yes, still free childcare. Amen!
Oh, heavens. I’m not sure I’d have your restraint.
Blimey, I go to church every week and K sings in the choir, but even I would be cross with all of that!
That’s. FANTASTIC!!! God (! – get the ironic reference?), I wish I could see that. Have to admit you would probably need to put me in restraints to stop me beating that silly old woman dissing Shakespeare about the head with a compilation of his collected works, but still, hilarious. And I totally sympathise with your wish to get the kids involved without their actually understanding what they’re spouting – and I say this as a (barely) practicing Catholic, currently questioning whether I want to put my boys through all this.
Oh my – I remember church as nothing like that. I wwnt to a church school, but didnt have the voice for the choir (althoug my bro was will 14), I used to love the hymms, but they were all things like Autumn Day and the Grass is jewelled and Climbing Jesus ladder. American Religion scared me ridgit. Look at califormia and the Gay marriage stuff. It seems that it is an all or nothing kind of place!!
Oh wow. I am not really a churchgoer, being more of the Richard Dawkins persuasion, but I do like some hymns and carols at Christmas – I guess because it reminds of times singing these at school. So I think it’s great to expose them to some of it, particularly the music, but when it comes to songs about Satan and fire and brimstone bible readings, that’s going a bit far. My sons’ nursery gave them a book of Noah’s Ark last Christmas which is the King James biblical version, and I just can’t bring myself to read it to them so I paraphrase it with ‘And Noah told all the lovely animals to go into the ark two by two…’.
It seems over here that you can’t really just dip your toe in, it’s all or nothing. None of that showing up once a week for mass (RC) and then buggering off. Here, they want you to get involved – so I don’t. The Queenager however, has taken to going to mass on her own (guilty, moi?) so I went along a few months ago to show her how to find the songs and the prayers in the various books. Trouble was, all the hymns have changed. Not a “Praise my Soul” or a “Oh God our Help” to be heard. I was completely adrift so I’m not going back!
I love 5s comment about God and the whole paramedic situation. She has hit the whole religious doubt thing on the head – does it make it better? How much better? Is that guaranteed?
I dont think they do vicars in America. And my kids religious education consists of watching The Life of Brian, so I am doomed.
I love Gospel music. Fabulous.
You dont want too much of that Bible bashing stuff though. I went through that as a child, and ended up rebelling ten fold. Still rebelling now!
As long as you’re happy and 5’s happy. No worries.
RMxx
So funny ans so true, i think every church these days is a little too hard core and if they aren’t including decent songs it’s just plain torture. I loved “shine jesus shine” as a kid but they never seem to sing it anymore and the liturgy is far too short for the kids, only 15 minutes in exchange for 45 minutes of sheer boredom – i’m going to hell aren’t I?
I’m American and religious (ish? I constantly offend my own religious colleagues so maybe I’m just a general heretic), and I agree. Also I have a sneaking suspicion that you live where I have a lot of family and spent a lot of years living so I think I know the exact church you refer to….
I think you should have told that woman “Excuse me, but where I come from, Shakespeare IS God”.
Ha ha ha – he looks like a cross between Mulder from the X Files and Dr Dreamy from Gray’s Anatomy!!! Could his trousers BE any tighter???!!!