By The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
Dear Editor,
My Grandmother Lula was my mother’s mother. She was a great cook. I looked forward to going to her house for many reasons. We had rituals. First she would take out her miniature Noritake demitasse set made of white porcelain trimmed in gold. It served two. I felt like an adult as she served me the tiniest amount of home brewed coffee with my favorite homemade butter cookies.
The next treat was when she reached into her cupboard and took out her large jar of buttons. Some were oyster shells. Some were bone. Some were large. Some were tiny. All colors. My favorites were the prism-like-glass buttons. I played with them all.
But more than anything Grandma Lula was a philosopher. I remember her telling me about the “outside forces.”
“There will be times in your life when you won’t have an answer as to what to do. Be patient. If you’re lucky outside forces will enter your life and show you the way. There are always outside forces.”
I knew I needed an outside force to fix my relationship with my husband. When I disregarded my husband Willie’s advice and held the séance which resurrected his father The Reverend Mr. Silas Patriot DoGood our relationship became strained; we held the séance in the bus where Reverend Silas founded our Church. Willie and I continued to love each other but there was tension. Willie normally would ask me what kind of music I would like to listen to while we ate dinner but he stopped asking. Being a musical scholar he has an extensive collection of music. Little things reflected his hurt.
And what made it more difficult for Willie was that Reverend Silas remained in the Sunday school bus even after the séance ended. Reverend Silas now communicates with us by writing on the three blackboards. Alice Bright Light knew how to call the séance but doesn’t know how to close the portal to the other side. And so the hurt continued.
And then it happened. When Grandma Lula spoke of “outside forces” she couldn’t have imagined how “outside” the force was that came into my life. As I was in the bus teaching Sunday school all fifteen children stopped listening. Each took out a piece of blank paper and drew a space ship hovering over the bus. While doing that they proceeded to sing a three-part-harmony composition. The compelling music was penetrating. I heard, felt and enjoyed beauty as never before.
“Don’t be ridiculous” was Willie’s reaction. “It can’t be alien music.”
“Why not? I know what I saw and heard. Maybe the aliens needed the portal to be open. They needed the séance to have taken place. What I heard was not human. The notes they sang vibrated my very DNA. You have to come to Sunday school with me. I pray it happens again.”
He did come. It did happen again. Willie wept as he recorded the students singing. Finally after days of Willie not discussing what had happened and him studying the music he came to me.
“The music is like no other. It’s like what Igor Stravinsky said about Charles Ives’ music. Stravinsky said Charles Ives ‘set about devouring the contemporary cake before anyone else had even found a seat at the same table.’ This music creates a new paradigm of musical theory. It is alien to everything we know.”
“Given the students’ drawings and the three-part harmony do you think that it may be a communication from space aliens?”
“With music there is vital communication without the necessity of words. So yes I do.”
Grandma Lula was right. I didn’t know how to bring Willie and me close together again but then an outside force happened. Willie came to believe that the music was alien and that it could have only happened if the portal to the other side was open. It was my séance that opened that portal. I now decide what music we listen to at dinner.
Amen.
The Reverend Mrs. Silence DoGood
Senior Pastor
Executive Director
President
Chairman
Choir Master (part-time)
The First Church of God’s Love