Thinking of Music

My friend, Margaret Maxwell sometimes plays for funerals. She was  playing for one a while back. She says:

I will never forget finding in the bench a copy of “Selected Funeral Hymns,” which I began to read since I was not otherwise interested in the deceased. One of the hymns was so ludicrous that I had to throttle my laughter. Title is “Life’s railway to heaven” which ends that you will finally behold the Union Depot and meet the Superintendent, God the Father, God the Son. “Keep your hand upon the throttle, and your eye upon the rail. “ is the refrain. At the end of that funeral I decided I had to have that hymnal so I stole it. I still have it on my shelf and I laugh every time I see that incredible hymn (which is sung to the tune of “Truth reflects upon our senses,” 

Tucked into that book was a story which I cannot resist sharing with you. There was once a handyman who had a dog named Mace. Mace was a great dog, except he had one weird habit. He liked to eat grass, not just a little bit, but in quantities that would make a lawnmower blush. And nothing, it seemed, could cure him of it. 

One day the handyman lost his wrench in the tall grass while he was working outside. He looked and looked but it was nowhere to be found. It was getting dark, and he gave up for the night and decided to look the next morning. When he awoke, he went outside and saw that his dog had eaten all the grass in the area around where he had been working. His wrench now lay in plain sight, glinting in the sun.

Going out to get his wrench, he called the dog over to him and said, “A grazing Mace, how sweet the hound, that saved a wrench for me.”

Now if that doesn’t make you chortle every time you sing that hymn 

Margaret

The first story seemed too hard to believe. So I went and googled the words. And here they are if you choose to click here.  I tried it with "Truth Reflects Upon our Senses" and it works.  Now there is a song for Family Home Evening.