The Steinway leaned against a dusty, eggshell-colored wall. Once its sounds pierced paper scrolls with pinpricks punched as if by angels’ harps. But the old instrument must now endure earthly hands. For long ago the heavenly realm had been sealed behind thin veneer doors glued irreparably shut. Just a week before, a crisp twenty had snatched the scarred relic from retirement to bless a few more heart ties with bonds of Christian love.
Mom opened the bench lid just wide enough to extract a dog-eared hymnbook. Opening it eye-level she began to rehearse her repertoire of twelve hymns.
Soon felt-tipped hammers would pound out chords of praise to tone-deaf ears, and raspy voices would respond in kind. All this would meld into a dissonant soup of joyful noise.
My job was less musical-opening five drab folding chairs to secure the mechanical support of a handful of congregants. Support of the financial type would be secured only by the hands of adults-a few crumpled bills and a handful of change.
A rap jostled the door. Mom snatched her hands mid-note from the ivory to welcome the last attendee, the itinerate pastor. Brother Frank, a towering mystical figure, had arrived.
Several of his home groups would soon combine to form a local church built with funds from a strange investment called bonds. Here an eight-year-old would listen in amazement as Brother Frank explained in great detail such big words as sanctification and tackle strange concepts like propitiation and substitutional grace.
But for now our home would be church. Mom’s hands would play sweet melodies to my untrained ears. Great hosts of angels would listen, I suppose with a giggle, to amateur praise of simple town folk who loved to lean on everlasting arms and spread the blessed assurance of his saving grace.
The old piano eventually retired but not before reverberating sheetrock walls with resounding praise. And stanzas of peace were stamped into the songbook of a young boy’s heart.
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