Engines and Steel, Loud Pounding Hammers....a building hymn

There's a hymn in our hymnbook entitled "Earth and All Stars." It's what you'd call a modern hymn. It was written in 1964; the tune (which is truly lovely, actually) was composed four years later.

When I was a graduate student at Union Seminary we sang "Earth and All Stars" almost every week in chapel. I'm not sure why, but it seemed to be everyone's favorite hymn. Just not mine. I didn't care too much for it then, and it still strikes me as just a little too contemporary. I hate to show such a bias against modern thought, but this is my blog....

So - imagine my surprise (no, shock is a far better choice of word) when we stood to sing "Earth and All Stars" at Union's graduation ceremony last week! I was immediately transported back in time to my chapel days, when my meat and drink of chapel life centered around this hymn. Here are the words, all six verses of them (I can see Bob Dunn now!)....
Lyrics:
1. Earth and all stars, loud rushing planets,
sing to the Lord a new song!
O victory, loud shouting army,
sing to the Lord a new song!

Refrain: He has done marvelous things.
I, too, will praise him with a new song!

2. Hail, wind, and rain, loud blowing snowstorms,
sing to the Lord a new song!
Flowers and trees, loud rustling leaves,
sing to the Lord a new song! Refrain

3. Trumpet and pipes, loud clashing cymbals,
sing to the Lord a new song!
Harp, lute, and lyre, loud humming cellos,
sing to the Lord a new song! Refrain

4. Engines and steel, loud pounding hammers,
sing to the Lord a new song!
Limestone and beams, loud building workers,
sing to the Lord a new song! Refrain

5. Classrooms and labs, loud boiling test tubes,
sing to the Lord a new song!
Athlete and band, loud cheering people,
sing to the Lord a new song! Refrain

6. Knowledge and truth, loud sounding wisdom,
sing to the Lord a new song!
Daughter and son, loud praying members,
sing to the Lord a new song! Refrain

Here is a video of "Earth and All Stars", from youtube. Let me know what you think!

 

As we were "singing to the Lord a new song" at Union's graduation ceremony, I couldn't help but linger on verse 4: Engines and steel, loud pounding hammers, sing to the Lord a new song! Limestone and beams, loud building workers, sing to the Lord a new song! "That's us! That's Woodstock Presbyterian Church!" I wanted to shout. Randy leaned over and commented, "I know you're going to put that verse in your blog." Such rich fodder for a construction blog, don't you think? (By the way, Randy likes the hymn...a lot.)

 

In all my days, I have never heard and felt such "loud pounding hammers" as we experienced last week at WPC! The workers were pounding the fill composite in, making sure it was as compact as possible. Pictures fell off the walls, lamps off their tables, plants from their usual homes. The building shook. (When you were a kid, did you ever hold a sung note while riding on a rough road? You know what I'm talking about, then.) It was deafening, but funny too. Until it got old. Then it was just irritating. Yet, it was the sound of progress...the sound of God "doing a marvelous thing" at WPC.

 

Maybe it's time we all "sing praises to God with a new song!"

But, hey, I still like the oldies...

 

"Loudly pounded" fill composite....

 

 

 

Perspective...

I'm a back roads driver as often as I can be. This past Saturday, while driving home from Pikeville, Kentucky, I rolled the windows down, opened the sunroof, put some good bluegrass music in the cd player and wove my way around the scenic mountainsides of eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia.

My GPS, named "Gertie", only made a few minor mistakes: a left turn that didn't exist, a gasoline station that was boarded up, a road that was closed. Those mistakes were easy enough ~ even satellites have a tricky time making sense of some of the winding switchbacks that make up the topography of that part of the world.

However, Gertie made one pretty significant mistake: as I was driving though Stopover, Kentucky (great name for a town with nothing but a Post Office...) she took me up the side of a steep mountain and right to the entrance of a coal mine. An operational coal mine. Where coal miners were coming out of a 2-mile deep mine with black faces and sooty clothes. As quick as I could I turned around and drove off, but not before picking up two pieces of raw coal for "show and tell." I figured it was predestined....

Once I got to the Virginia side of life, I got on Route 11 (even a back roads driver like me had had enough of the Kentucky switchbacks!) and headed north. When I pulled into the town of Glade Spring, about 10 miles south of Chilhowie, I could not believe my eyes.

You might recall that several weeks ago that part of southwest Virginia suffered horrific storms, which included several tornado touchdowns and 9 deaths. What I saw in Glade Spring astounded me ~ the hairs on my arms literally stood up. It was an eerie sensation. For miles in every direction, it looked like a bomb had gone off. The destruction was breathtaking in its horror. Beautiful old houses with roofs and porches ripped off like the lid of a can of tuna. Gasoline stations and fast food restaurants were gone; all that remained were their concrete foundations. Road crews were still cleaning up debris from the sides of roads.

But what stood out the most to me was Glade Spring Presbyterian Church. Glade Spring PC sits atop what appears to the one of the highest points of the town, right on Route 11. It is a beautiful brick church with the symbol of the PC(USA) emblazoned on its exterior wall. Impressive. Beside the church is the cemetery. I can tell it is normally a well-kept property.

When the tornadoes went through Glade Spring, the Presbyterian Church was not spared. The congregation had just put up a new steeple; it was gone, ripped from its roof. Iron railing was twisted like pipe cleaners; part of the roof was curled into itself; tombstones lay where no graves were, and large tree limbs sprinkled the cemetery, breaking some tombstones in half.

Two women were cleaning their family plots in the cemetery and I struck up a conversation with them. They cried as they told me of the horror of the tornadoes . Each of these women knew someone who had died in the storm. They couldn't make the memories of the storms go away, they said, but they could help by cleaning up part of the historic cemetery, well know in the area. The women told me that Washington County is the only county in Virginia that did not receive FEMA funding after the tornadoes. People are left to clean up their own properties and work with their insurance companies ("those who have insurance" one woman remarked).

Seeing something like this puts our own inconvenient building project into perspective. I say inconvenient because we've had issues with rain, then mud, no phones, no water, lots of noise, loss of easy access to bathrooms....We all knew we'd be inconvenienced by the process of demolition and construction, but you never fully appreciate the inconvenience until you're in full swing of the project.

But you know what? As inconvenient as our situation is, it's nothing compared to what residents of Glade Spring, Virginia are going through. And with no federal assistance, they're going through it pretty much alone. The two women told me they haven't seen much outside help at all. "It's as if the rest of the world doesn't know we're here or what's happened to us" they said.

Experiences like that put things in perspective, don't you think? Here are some pics of Glade Spring, Virginia.

The 3rd floor of this old home was blown away.



Lots of blue tarp and roof damage.



This used to be a Wendy's fast food restaurant.

Glad Spring Presbyteryain Church, minus its steeple.

GSPC damage (but I just love the logo on the building!)

GSPC, after some cleanup

This is part of GSPC's cemetery...