learning the Word

We have a number of folk who presently stay at The Tor, a local Christian nursing home. Four, at least, at the last count.

From time to time (as in every few months), I get to take a service there. They hold a service twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays. So they're always keen to have help from the likes of myself. And I'm glad to oblige.

I enjoy being there, and I always count it a privilege to take a service there. But it's a challenge, as well. Their memories often are not what once they were. And their concentration span is often also much reduced. Some of them, too, are fast asleep from before I've even got going.

I choose some three or four hymns which we sing through the course of the time that I have - not much more than half an hour.

I choose them fairly carefully. For one thing, I need to be sure that I know, and can carry, the tune myself - because I may be singing solo, I can never be sure in advance. One of the staff gets the right CD to be played for each of the hymns that we sing. And before we sing I have to go right round the room to ensure that they've all looked up the right hymn in the booklets of words that they have.

Most of the hymns, of course, are hymns which most of them know. That's part of the key to the thing being a meaningful time. The words and music jog the long-term memory. Somehow there's a clarity for folk whose minds have grown to be confused.

The way the music on the CD works, there's an instrumental verse tucked in before the final verse of 'What a friend we have in Jesus'. But one of the residents bashes on regardless, oblivious to the fact that she's singing the last verse entirely on her own.

She's in another world, a world in which she's comfortable and safe: she savours every word of these rich truths she knows so well and now is belting out -

Are we weak and heavy laden,

Cumbered with a load of care?

Precious Saviour still our refuge,

Take it to the Lord in prayer!

Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?

Take it to the Lord in prayer!

In his arms he'll take and shield thee,

Thou wilt find a solace there.

It's moving to stand and listen to the lady as she sings. These are priceless truths, a bedrock of peace and stability in all the disturbing confusion which her latter years have brought. These are enduring realities which have stood the test of time.

These hymns reach far into places which few other things ever touch.

I'm reminded again of the power of praise, and the richness of so much hymnology.

The words and the music together have woven the truths of the gospel right into the innermost parts of these elderly, faltering folk. The words all expressing the wonderful grace of our God. The music enduring and memorable.

I wonder as I witness it if much of what does service as the praise we use today will ever do the same for me in later life when my mind maybe starts to go. The music (which is very easily singable, of course) is often (for that reason) very bland: and the words themselves inept, lacking that profundity of truth which these old songs express.

We read a Scripture passage maybe half way through the service. And later on I speak a bit about it. I choose a familiar passage, triggering recollection in the deepest vaults of memory from the past.

I notice, even when I'm praying, that it's when I'm quoting Scripture that there's obvious recognition of the words. I thank the Lord that he watches over our going out and our coming in - and before I'm even half way through that phrase there are echoes of my own words in the voices of some residents. They know the psalm. They recognise the words. They're keen to make them their own.

I'm impressed once again by the way that these folk have been able in their younger days, when their minds were so sharp and alert, to ingrain on their minds so much of the Scriptural text.

It troubles me to think that this is not a reservoir of truth the present generations are that careful to be building while they can. Such wells of truth in our hearts are stored away only by regular, disciplined reading, by thoughtful, repeated reflection and conscious, far-sighted remembrance.

Such habits are hardly encouraged today by so many different facets of modern life.

The shift from being a reading to a viewing generation hardly helps.

Resorting to technology, whereby the Scripture texts are all so readily available 'on-line', is maybe very useful in the present - but far down the line will prove to be of absolutely zero use when all the outer fabric of our minds begin to go.

Recourse to such a range of good translations also proves to be a blessing that is really rather mixed. Short-term they may help us in our quest to understand just what the Scriptures mean. But longer-term, the fact of this variety is always quite inimical to easy recollection of the Scripture text.

There is much to be said for our settling on one good translation and sticking with that. Flitting around the translations may well keep it fresh, but it's not that conducive to weaving God's truth through our souls.

Most of these folk here today learned the Scriptures by rote and were tied to a single translation. It shows.

I'm not so much teaching them Scripture. For many of them the days for that are now past. I'm triggering the Scriptures they've long since learned already. I'm releasing the grace of the Word of God that's been stored in their hearts for years.

It's a rather different sort of gospel ministry, this, from what I'm doing normally. And it couldn't be done if there hadn't been others before me, before I was ever born, who were careful to teach them the Scriptures and careful to see that those truths of the Scriptures were written right into their souls.

I'm inspired and encouraged again to be pouring myself day by day into teaching God's Word just like that.