Lyn Millner
It seems important to tell you that I have no choral experience, unless you count the school choir in eighth grade.
So I call every African Methodist Episcopal church in Southwest Florida. I leave messages, explaining who I am and what I’d like to do. And no one calls me back.
I’m about to abandon the idea when my phone rings one afternoon. It’s Rev. C. Leon Hodge from Bethel AME Church in Naples. The next thing I know, I’m at a Thursday afternoon choir rehearsal. It’s held in the church—a small, modest sanctuary with white-washed walls and happy, stained-glass windows.
The choir director is Melanie Weatherspoon. The accompanist is Yvonne Thornton. And there is one choir member, Joan Harper. On a good Sunday, Yvonne tells me, there are seven people in the choir.
I had imagined a host of a hundred, electric guitars, drums. I’m disappointed at first.
But this is the task God has laid before me.
Melanie and Yvonne have decided to let me direct both selections on Sunday. We start with Over My Head, which seems apropos. The music begins, and I’m liking it. I’m nervous, but I try to relax. As Melanie and Joan sing, I get into it. I start grooving to the music and pointing my fingers and waving my arms around. It’s great.
But all of a sudden, Yvonne stops playing. She tells me I’m bouncing. I’m not supposed to move my body.
"The choir members are supposed to be watching the hand movement," Joan says.
You probably won’t believe me, but until then, I hadn’t thought I’d need to do much, aside from dancing around. We go to the next song: God Has Smiled on Me. I try to do all the things they told me. Don’t bounce. Use my hands.
It’s worse.
After the rehearsal, Melanie tells me I’d better pray. And I do. Specifically, I ask God to keep me from messing it up. Sunday comes, and I meet the four other members of the choir right before the service. They have no idea who I am or what I’m doing there.
"Somebody needs to tell us something ’cause we do not know anything," says Beatrice Mostiller, the eldest member. She listens as I explain. I promise to do my best, and she assents, grudgingly, to the experiment.
The service begins. Everybody sings. The preacher calls them to worship. There’s a litany. More singing. And finally, it’s time. I stand up and face the choir. I look at them. The accompanist starts to play.
I really practiced this intro because it’s tricky. The choir is supposed to come in with "God has smiled . . ."
They don’t. All of us miss the "God" part. One person chimes in on "has." The first word the congregation hears is "smiled."
In other words, God doesn’t smile on us. There is someone smiling on me. The tenor. In fact, he’s about to bust out laughing. Everyone else looks down at their hymnals and just pushes through the song. They’ve all lost trust in me. No thanks to me, they sound pretty good.
When we sit down, I’m thinking, "Darn it." I knew when to come in. But I hadn’t thought much about how I’d let them know. So I had just pointed at them. Suddenly. And while I’m berating myself, the preacher’s words reach me.
"Some people are selected for leadership before they are qualified," says Rev. Hodge. "And before they are ready. Lord have mercy."
Is he talking about me? No. Later, I find out that today is his 19th year—to the day—as Bethel’s preacher. He’s talking about leaders in general.
"Before anyone assumes a position of leadership in the church," he continues, "he or she must be in a right relationship with God."
And this makes me wonder: "Do I have a right relationship with God?" I don’t know. I’m definitely not as devout as everyone else at Bethel. The service lasts two hours. One of the air conditioning units is broken. People are fanning themselves. And I’m thinking about packing up and slipping through the choir room and out the side door. I never would. That would be rude.
So I sit there, and I feel awkward because they’re worshipping. And I was just here goofing around. I was open to a peak spiritual experience. What I got was something humble. I met these friendly people who took me in, even though I was clueless. I’ll never understand what possessed them to do that.
When the service ends, I turn to Melanie and say thanks.
She says, "You’re welcome. We did good with your direction. You did well today."
And I know she’s just being polite. But, you know what? I did the best I could. I made some friends. I had a great time. And in the eyes of God, I think, that’s all right.