Utterly Beautiful

I’m just back from church where I understood very little of what was said during the three-hour service. The frustration of missing out on what everybody else seemed to be enjoying was a small price to pay for the glorious singing. It really is futile to try to describe the rich, joyful sound of African worship. I have a recurring thought in Zimbabwe:

I think that is the sweetest sound my ears will hear this side of Glory.

I thought that when I heard the staff singing at Matthew Rusike; I thought it again one Sunday when a men’s choir filled a little church with blissful sound; I thought it again one morning at dawn when a child at Matthew Rusike sang a plaintive song whilst doing her chores; I thought it again when a dancing throng in a village sang like angels…and, of course, I thought it again this morning!

Although it is futile to try to describe the way Africans sound at full voice Mark Twain made a worthy attempt -

When Mark Twain visited Switzerland in 1873 he heard an African-American choir in a beer hall. Inside was “…was a crowd of German and Swiss men and women…with their beer mugs in front of them – self contained and unimpressionable looking people…The singers got up and stood – the talking and glass jingling went on. There rose and swelled out above those common earthly sounds one of those rich chords the secret of whose make only the Jubilees possess, and a spell fell upon that house…Away back in the beginning – to my mind – their music made all other vocal music cheap. It is utterly beautiful to me; and it moves me infinitely more than any other music can” 

Amen Mr Twain.

Grant