The kindness of strangers

It's been decades since these vignettes last came to mind, and yesterday's sun was setting before it became obvious that I should insert them, now, into my personal history. They're a couple of indispensable sidebars on Bostonians whose memory I cherish: it would be a crime to leave them out. No photos, to my shame. Wish I’d thought. It was Blanche, wasn’t it, who taught us about the kindness of strangers…

Maggie

	This is how the line outside the Durgin-Park Dining Rooms tended to look, back before they gentrified the Quincy Market area out of all recognition.

We East Composters, eight or ten strong, scruffy and hungry, would depart the dorm around 9:00 of a Saturday morning in 1958-61 and hike across the Longfellow (“Salt-and-Pepper-Shaker”) Bridge from MIT in Cambridge to the neighborhood of the Customs Tower at the Waterfront in Boston. Then we’d get near the front of the line, so as to be able to dash upstairs when the door opened at 10:30, and claim our spots at Maggie’s table. Maggie, you see, distinguished herself among Durgin’s notoriously sharp-tongued staff for her determination not to see undergraduates starve. Each of us would order a 95¢-special lunch, instituted in those days to get around Governor Foster Furcolo’s Old Age Tax of 5% on restaurant meals over a dollar. When we finished the glass of milk that came with the special, Maggie, ever tall, skinny, dark-blonde, and nearsighted, would absent-mindedly rest a broad tray of coffee-creams on our table and turn her back. By the time she looked at us again, all the cream-jiggers were empty, and our milk-glasses were pretty much full. Miraculous! Same sort of deal with trays of Durgin’s excellent corn-bread to which we weren’t, strictly speaking, entitled. For a sweet sequel from 1964, please check in over there.

Brownie

December, 1958. With all the campus offered and demanded, this California-raised, sweetly sheltered, 17-year-old Tech tool had had very little commercial contact with Boston. But now the first snow was dusting the grime, and it was time to venture forth. Christmas was coming; I was flying home, and the folks back there would expect me to bear thither something more Bostonian than my greenhorn self. So, I trudged across the bridge and down to the Common. Windowshopped, bashfully, for a while. Saw something promising; entered the establishment; sought assistance and quickly formed a distressing generalization that Boston retail people think very highly of themselves and of the value of their time. Not sure anybody said, “And don’t steal anything, either!”, but they might as well have. Very different, culturally, from the almost-gushingly-friendly store clerks I’d grown up with on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Pretty soon, I was in tears. Or maybe it was just sticky snow crystals. Felt the same, either way. Wandered, disconsolate, up West Street from Tremont and the Common toward Washington, and stopped at the bright front window of Bailey’s of Boston. Through which I could see a display of classy hand-dipped chocolates. Thought I, I can at least take Pappy some of those. Entered. Stood by the chocolates. Very quietly. Then a voice: “Wassamadda, kid?” Looked up. Didn’t see anybody. The voice repeated the question. This time I discerned, so help me, standing beside the display (I couldn’t have seen her over it), Flora! See the gray hair, tied up? the round face and twinkly eyes? Fauna and Meriwether didn’t show themselves.

Actually, as I soon learned, it was Brownie, not Fairy. More formally, Louise Larkin, of Dorchester (pronounced “DAAAAHch’stuh). She worked at Bailey’s, but I believe she was on duty that evening primarily to rescue my pathetic young keister. Quoth she, “Y’look like y’lost y’last friend!” At which I did indeed blubber.

Once Brownie figured out what was eating me, she took charge. Named four or five nice retail places. For each, said something like, “At Brooks Bruthahs, tell ’em ya wanna talk ta Henry; then tell Henry, Brownie sentcha. He’ll find ya a very Baast’n tie fa y’dad.” At each establishment, people just like the ones I’d met earlier now treated me with respect, consideration, and all the friendliness one could have desired. Blessings upon Brownie, in whose name and for whose sake I was, however callow, Californian, and doubtless visibly impecunious, suddenly somebody of worth. I won’t bother to get explicit about the theological parallel I’ve come to cherish here. Too obvious.

Exalting Grace—a Shaker experience

Back in the spring of 1978, I woke up at Timbaloo in Arlington, Massachusetts, intending to fly to Bergen County, New Jersey for a meeting. My glance out the window stopped with a thud in solid New England pea-soup, penetrating only inches past the glass. A phone call to Logan Airport confirmed that I needed, as they say these days, to “seek alternative routes.” So, I packed up my research material, kissed Valerie, and jumped into Brunnhilde, our 1969 Volvo station wagon. Interstate 95 was navigable, despite the fog, and I ended up only an hour late.

Valerie and I would fall in love with the Shakers only a couple of decades later, attending their worship service (the only one that day, anywhere, as far as I know) on the Fourth of July in the year 2000, at their community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine. You may remember how a Shaker meeting went: a member, when so moved, would rise and announce, “An angel gave me this for you,” and would then teach the congregation a song and sometimes a dance, often complete with the angel’s name. The Shakers were a modest lot, to the point of declining to put their names on their gravestones. When they acted as angelic conduits, they saw it as a blessing and as an act of humble obedience, not as a means to any sort of personal aggrandizement. They were careful to write down their revealed treasures, including many of surpassing beauty and a wide range of poetic and musical sophistication.

While driving, though [don’t try this at home: I’m a highly-trained, professional, distracted driver], I had what I can only describe as a Shaker experience. Got to thinking about some lovely Folk Legacy recordings by Gordon Bok and friends. In particular, a Scots piece they called “Come by the hills.” Also about my recent efforts (by then fairly consistent for fifteen years or so) in daily, prayerful study of the Scriptures. Pretty soon, I’d put a pad of paper on the shotgun seat and was scribbling (yes, unsafely) on it with a ball-point pen. A lot of my favorite scriptural passages just fell into the gentle, folky rhythm of the Celtic ballad. And by the time I pulled into the parking lot at my destination, I’d written down a hymn (if that’s the right term) of ten quatrains. Named it “Exalting Grace.” Shared it around gingerly: how does a Mormon tell his friends (much less his ecclesiastical leaders) that he’s had a Shaker experience? Not much response. It surfaced again in 2002, in the tender, reminiscent, last days of our Timbaloo period. Realized, to my surprise, that, unlike a lot of my old writings, it didn’t embarrass me, a quarter century later. Revisited the text, introduced a few minor refinements, and recorded it to a computer file and to an audio CD. Sang it in a couple of meetings, including a missionary farewell. Nobody was critical, even helpfully. One nice person (can’t for the life of me remember who) actually took a copy and sent it to Church headquarters, where a kindly functionary replied that they’d keep it in the files. Guess that’s how the Restoration registers a rejection slip. By the time I thought about “Exalting Grace” again, it was 2010. I’d fallen in love again, this time with Doctrine and Covenants 78:17-19: 17 Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you; 18 And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours. 19 And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious… Cycling along the Santa Ana River with daughter Cyndi and grandson Matthew, in early September, 2010, I received something like an angelic P.S. We only did eight miles, but by the time we got back, the ninth verse of the current version (below) had become inevitable. So I’ve decided to put the story and the song out on this blog; it’ll be interesting to see if it draws any attention. Even negative attention: that’d hurt some, but I think I’d prefer it to the hitherto bleak, hollow silence. It’ll also go into my hypertext personal history, not that that’ll earn it any more attention… 1. Come unto me! I am Christ, the Savior of men. Give me your heart. Let it break: I will mend it again. Take my burden with joy. Believe me. It’s easy to bear, And the day of this life is the time for men to prepare. 2. Come and open your door, for behold, I stand here and knock. Surely ’tis I, your Redeemer, your Master, your Rock. When you open to me, I’ll come in, and we’ll sit down and sup. And that meal will suffice, ’til the hour when I’ll raise you up. 3. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. Behold, I command: As I have loved you, so help one another to stand. O remember my poor! Uplift the distressed tenderly: Inasmuch as you do it to them, you do it to me. 4. Truly happy the man who delights in the law of the Lord: He shall increase, as a tree nourished full by my word. His fruit shall not fail, and when he shall enter my rest, Grateful friends and descendants shall rise and call his name blessed. 5. So what manner of men, O my friends, ought you to be? Even as I, showing works you observed first in me. Let your love cast out fear: evil shall perish at length. As I’ve called you to act in my name, I’ll give you my strength. 6. In our purpose, the Father and I have always been one: Bringing you life in abundance, that’s why I Am come. I’ve perfected the work our Father assigned me to do, And I’ve gone up on high to prepare a mansion for you. 7. Immortality’s free, and the path is narrow but plain, Leading to life of a kind kings may covet in vain. By suffering I learned obedience, though I Am the Son: Follow me, and the life of the gods will be yours when you’ve done. 8. Have I said unto any, ’Begone! I don’t want you here!’? No--if you’re far away, you’ve done the moving, my dear. Come, you ends of the earth! Partake of my bread and my wine. I can give them: the Father’s proclaimed all things are now mine. 9. You’re still children, beloved: as yet, you’ve not understood All that your Father in Heaven intends for your good. The Kingdom is yours! the riches and blessings thereof: Now receive with thanksgiving the glorious gift of His love. 10. Overcome! Overcome, and you’ll sit with me in my throne. I, who have trodden the winepress of wrath all alone, Will to share with you now the joy my atonement has won. Grasp my hand and endure: by my grace you shall overcome. 11. I have said what I’ve said. It’s the truth, and I make no excuse. Seek first your crown: all the rest by and by you shall lose. Though the earth pass away, my word shall endure for your good, And death shall inherit no place in the Kingdom of God. If you care to, you may download here sheet music (PDF) and an audio file (MP3—6MB+) of Debbie and me singing last year's version. It's surely presumptuous of me to say so, but I continue to believe that this little unsolicited project plugs a significant hole in our hymnody. I'll save that argument for a later posting.

Lo-ammi?

Why have people¹ named their sons Lo-ammi? Haven't they understood that that lovely, distinctive Hebrew handle comes vertiginously near meaning "not my child"?² Y'gotta be careful how you borrow stuff from the Holy Scriptures, whichever version you may espouse.

Well, "Exalting Grace" bears my name, 'cause I wrote it down. In a deeper sense, though, I have to confess that it's not my child. It isn't very original, and I wouldn't dare claim otherwise. I put borrowed words to a borrowed tune, distorting each as little and as lovingly as possible. Much closer to the self-effacing Shaker model than to contemporary self-promoting authorship, although in 1978 I hadn't yet encountered the Shakers, and I'm not particularly averse to recognition.

The sheet music lists 37 Scriptural passages from which I've borrowed, explicitly and gratefully. Each reports an utterance of the God3 I worship.

Most come from the Bible (5 Old Testament, 18 New, King James Version), with 7 from the Book of Mormon and another 7 from the Doctrine and Covenants. Doctrinally, there's little4 here that should bother any committed follower of Jesus Christ. It has already a significant and (thus far) durable place in my private devotions. Ultimately, that's enough. But if others can find it congenial to their own spiritual life, that's an extra blessing. Some of you have been kind enough to say so. Apart from authorship and credits and such, the other question that keeps popping up has to do with my Church's “Green Book”:5 By sharing “my hymn” in this modern manner, am I angling to obtain for it the kind of approved-for-worship imprimatur that the 341 pieces in that volume enjoy? Complicated question. I'd be pleased and (yes, however inappropriately) flattered beyond measure if anything of the sort were to happen. I'd also be surprised, inasmuch as “Exalting Grace” deviates from the Green-Book pattern6 in some possibly-salient ways: It's long (but so are some in the Book). It's set to a folk tune (but so are some in the Book). It doesn't conform to the amateur-Victorian-art-music tradition that has become something between customary and obligatory with us, ever since the days when we were all amateurs and Victorians in mountainous isolation, some with artistic talents and more with artistic pretensions. It presents God as speaking to us in the first person. Turns out that last point takes this piece farther out of the Green-Book main stream than you might think. Even though the Scriptures are full of wonderful quotes attributed to the Lord:

Please argue with me about individual hymns, if you wish. But the pattern's pretty clear, and (as sampling statisticians are wont to insist) small errors of allocation seldom make much difference: The first person doesn't appear to be forbidden, but few of our hymn-wrights (and, it seems, few of those from whom we've borrowed) have seized the opportunity. Do we feel it would be presumptuous on our part to speak or sing with His voice? I find it hard to square that notion with the Latter-day Saint doctrine of Priesthood. In other theologies, perhaps, but not in ours.

Changing gears abruptly, I need to mention a brand-new realization. It dates to last evening, when Laura and her kids were kind enough to try to sing three verses of “Exalting Grace” around Maggie-on-the-piano. It became obvious that I don't sing it to the exact version of the (monodic) tune that I put in the sheet music. Debbie and I, moreover, have harmonized on this and similar pieces since she was four years old (1978, interestingly enough), mostly in the car and mostly on New England highways. As you can hear in the MP3, a two-part arrangement lends it some intensity.

If anybody were to wish to push this thing any further than the obscurity of a blog, there'd be more work to be done on it.

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¹Not many, to be sure, but some distinguished ones. Colonel Loammi Baldwin of Woburn, Massachusetts, for example, ranks among the honored heroes of our Revolution.
²Hosea 1:8-9.
³Father, Son, or Holy Ghost.
⁴Verse 7 does state one central bit of Mormon doctrine that some might find controversial. If you don't like the source or the substance of a verse, please feel free to skip it. The rest will stand alone, and Heaven knows the angel gave us enough verses.
⁵Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985.
⁶Some would call it a “standard.” On my stronger days, I'd be tempted to argue with them.