Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

A Sunday Musical

We have a family in our little country church with a rich musical heritage and talent. They have a barn and give public performances, like a show in Branson. Sometimes Brent, the father, does the music for a special service like we had in conjunction with the picnic this Sunday. His daughter and son accompany him and on this occasion, a friend, playing the bass fiddle.

These are not “Wannaby” performers but extremely accomplished musicians and vocalists who are professional quality players in every sense of the word. Linda and I sometimes go to their shows and leave with a sense of awe at how good they are.

The friend had come down from Minnesota to be a part of the service and talked about his fiddle. He’d made it using carbon fiber components carbon and the top surface was black laminated with a sheet. The instrument had a deep resonance that added a modulated contrast to Brent’s violin.

What they did was follow the traditional format of the church hand-out. Brent would give instructions on the fly to the congregation telling us to sing the first verse and then the instrumentalists would have a sort of jam session on the tune. There’d been no rehearsal and each musician was given a featured opportunity to perform. After the hymn the minister would pickup with the structure of the service. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Afterwards, at the picnic, they jammed some more on the steps of the Church.

Afterwards we watched some Sunday afternoon football and went to Mickey Ds for a burger. It was a spiritually inspiring day.