By Pete Hyde
A cool north breeze took the edge off the warm sunshine of a winter day in Alabama. We stood in large cemetery near the University of Alabama at Birmingham looking for grave markers of long-departed relatives. Having no real idea where the markers were and with the cemetery offices closed, we did a lot of walking. However, we did have some success. The cemetery was busy on a Saturday afternoon as caravans of cars processed into different parts of the grounds to say a final farewell to family members and friends. As I stood next to the final resting place of a long-lost relative the wail of bagpipes filled the grounds with an eerie rendition of Amazing Grace. The noise of the nearby traffic and the general hustle and bustle of the city faded into the background. A message of hope overflowed in the space filled with mourners.
There was a pause in the music. I turned for a moment to look across at the large crowd gathered around a grave a few sections away. No one moved. The drone of the bagpipes started once again and a lively tune of “O When the Saints” added a new element to the quiet atmosphere of a place meant for reverence and peace. But, how appropriate that this saint, whoever he or she was, was on this day “Marching In!!” I thought to myself how the blessing of music touches each of our lives.
The next day we searched out two more cemeteries in Sylacauga, Alabama and located family members who marched into heaven in the 1860s. Pictures were sent and conversations had with my sister who has done a lot of research on our family tree.
We began the trip home around noon and took the backroads, as we usually do, between Birmingham and Montgomery. South of Montgomery on Highway 331 is the small Alabama town of Luverne. We stopped for lunch at one of our favorite local diners – The Chicken Shack. Don’t pass it up if you’re headed through Luverne even a little bit hungry.
The place was packed with the after-church crowd. The Sunday special was a choice of fried or baked chicken or roast beef. A choice two sides: butter beans, mashed potatoes, fried green tomatoes, macaroni and cheese or peach cobbler. The place was filled with families and friends sharing Sunday dinner and fellowship. The same family and friends that would one day be gathered in a cemetery singing Amazing Grace and O When the Saints. A lonely old preacher and his wife in their “Sunday Best” (Too bad Sunday best has become a thing of the past for church) enjoying a few moments to themselves over dinner.
Then from somewhere in the back of the dining room came singing. The crowded room began to quiet down a little and then go silent as a table surrounded by a group of young women (also in their Sunday Best) sang in harmony “God is so Good, God is so Good, Good is so good to me!” The silence was replaced by a sudden outburst of applause and cheers. We probably would have all stood if we weren’t seated around tables. (Kay said, “Only in small town America…”) We picked up our check for two Sunday specials and two glasses of sweet tea, paid our $13.60 bill and headed back to car more than blessed.
In today’s mixed-up, backward, upside-down world, be assured that God is present each and every day in each and every place and in each and every moment. God is so Good. God is so Good. He’s so Good to you and me. His Amazing Grace fills the space of our lives like the music of the bagpipes filled the mournful setting of the cemetery and the beautiful voices filled the space of the Chicken Shack. Let us live faithfully in that assurance ‘til the day when we all Go Marching In.
Rev. Pete Hyde is the retired Pastor of the Santa Rosa Beach Community Church
Author: Sowal Editor
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