Remembrance

Sorting one's live does sometimes yield surprises.  I ran across a small song book: The Worker's Quarterly - Songs for Now.  This contains several memories.  The Quarterly was a small periodical published for youth workers of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.  But because its name was simply 'The Workers Quarterly' it was once listed as a subversive publication by the US House Committee on Unamerican Activities. But the more important aspect of this particular issue was that it was my introduction to Christian folk music and African-American spirituals.  The LC-MS was, and generally still is, a very conservative and very white, upper Midwest Church, so this little publication was a revelation to youth of the 60's who had never heard this sort of music before -- songs like Sons of God, and Lord of the Dance, and We Shall Overcome.  A radical education for we who were young and looking for some excitement in worship.  As I looked thru the pages, noticing the graffiti, the upside-down printing, the hand lettered verses, I remembered how radical the changes we wanted were. And how we tried to drag our parents from the drab 50's into a brave new world of unregulated creativity.   And how quickly most of us abandoned those radical ideas for a steady job in the 70's.
  But worship and our whole approach to the Faith changed in ways we didn't anticipate and never reverted to that old and staid past.  We may not have changed the world, but we did change the Church, at least a little.