Michael B. Curry - Songs My Grandma Sang

Songs My
Grandma Sang

MICHAEL B. CURRY

Songs My
Grandma Sang

MICHAEL B. CURRY

Copyright 2015 by Michael Curry

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission.
All rights reserved.

Morehouse Publishing, 19 East 34th Street, New York, NY 10016 Morehouse Publishing is an imprint of Church Publishing Incorporated.

www.churchpublishing.org

Cover image: Photo of Nellie Royster Strayhorne, Bishop Michael Currys maternal grandmother.

Cover design by Laurie Klein Westhafer Typeset by Denise Hoff

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Curry, Michael B.

Songs my grandma sang / Michael B. Curry.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 9780819229939 (pbk.)ISBN 9780819229946 (ebook) 1. Curry, Michael B.Songs and music. 2. Music, Influence of. 3. African American EpiscopaliansNorth CarolinaBiography. I. Title.

BX5995.C785A3 2015

264.23dc232015002688

a bird doesnt sing because
it has an answer, it sings
because it has a song.

From A Cup of Sun
by Joan Walsh Anglund
a favorite quote of the
late Maya Angelou

When my children were small we lived in New York City, and a regular feature of those beautiful summer evenings was a subway ride away at Yankee Stadium. We would grab some cheap seats and not-so-cheap eats and delight in watching our Yankees, win or lose. We would watch our left-handed sluggers put home run after home run in the seats of the short porch in right field. We would come out of our seats when our boys of summer pulled off a suicide squeeze. The infielders in those days were so good that one could easily forget you were at a ballgame and not the ballet. My children knew every player, the number on every jersey, and could follow baseball statistics before they understood basic math. Those were memorable summer nights brimming with the sort of stuff from which a good life is made.

Eddie Layton, the only man in history to play for the Yankees, the Knicks, and the Rangers, was the stadium organist. He would work up the crowd with his prowess at the keyboard, get us singing and clapping, and offer a constant running commentary on the game from the console of his Hammond B-3. No matter what was happening on the field, opening day or game seven of the world series, the experience would not have been all that it was without the deep, intuitive understanding of baseball, and New York fans, that flowed from Eddie Laytons fingers.

But there is more. At every single gameat the last crack of the bat, the final pop of a fielders glovesomeone in the sound booth would hit the switch and crank up the volume and everyone in the stadium, and well beyond it, could hear Ol Blue Eyes begin the closing hymn of every game: Start spreading the news! Win or lose, victory or defeat, we had some news and we were going to tell it. You always left Yankee Stadium singing along with the Chairman of the Board.

When you think of Bishop Michael Curry, I dont suspect baseball is the first thing that comes to mind. I suspect it is his preaching. But there is a deep connection here. Bishop Michael is a renowned preacher in The Episcopal Church and well beyond. The power of the Word of God to instruct and inform, the transformational energy at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus, and the sheer power of the Holy Spirit to change lives and alter the status quo, are the dangerous, potentially explosive assets in his arsenal. When Bishop Michael preaches you expect to be instructed, inspired, propelled, and sent. Bishop Michael is blessed with the gifts to deliver strong word on Word. Listening to Bishop Michael preach the gospel is a lot like hearing Eddie Layton weave a summer nights baseball game into an unforgettable, formative, glimpse of something beyond ourselves. This is important. Important because in what follows, Bishop Michael lets us in on a secret: no one ever went home from church whistling the sermon!

Christians sing. And the songs of the church, like the Psalms for Israel, are the most penetrating source of the churchs prayer and the most accurate indication of what is close to the hearts of Gods people.

As a pastor I am secretly delighted when I visit with a family at the death of a loved one. I will sometimes ask, What was your momas favorite scripture or psalm? Perhaps that will give us a place to start in thinking about her burial service. And one of the children would pipe up with, Momas favorite psalm was I want to walk as a child of the light. Or, Momas favorite story from the Bible was the part where they Crown Him with Many Crowns. Or, When Moma was unhappy or depressed, she would always read that part in the Bible about the Amazing Grace that saved a wretch like her. Why is this so? Because when the chips are down we turn to those texts and tunes that have bored their way into our souls, that live in the deep recesses of our consciousness, and that provide healing balm like nothing else.

For me, when life is challenging and full of trouble, the words of Holy Scripture and the prayers of the church are great gifts, but nothing wells up with salvations healing salve quite like the hymns and spiritual songs that are way down deep. The book you are about to read is Michael Currys personal witness to the truth that Christians sing, and what Christians sing may tell you more about what is really important to them than anything they could tell you.

I doubt it was Bishop Michaels first concern when he penned these pages, but this book should also be read as a provocative reminder of how important it is to teach our children and young people the songs and hymns, the spiritual food of the faith. And here I am not talking about junk food. Im not talking about the little choruses that might well have their place around the campfire at summer camp. I am talking about the rich deposit of the churchs faith that is stored in the churchs hymnals and songbooks, the songs we sing in the wilderness, the hymns that guide our journeys, the texts that travel with us all our days. Gods people are a singing people and if our children are going to have faith, they are going to have to learn to sing their great grandmothers songs of faith.

J. Neil Alexander
Lent 2015
Sewanee

Tom Brokaws 1998 book The Greatest Generation told the story of a generation of people in the United States who were raised in the hard times of the Great Depression only to go off to fight the Second World War, essentially saving human civilization from the dark nightmare of fascism, racism, and nationalized hatred. After the war they came home and rebuilt the country. He was right to speak of them as the greatest generation.

But there was another, just before the greatest one. They were the people who gave birth to and raised the greatest generation through the breadlines and in the dust bowl that was the Great Depression. It was from them that the greatest generation learned the faith and the values that made them who they became.