I want to play with my ding-a-ling
Yesterday was Easter Sunday, and in the grand tradition of many Christians, I attended one of my two annual church services. Typically, I listen to the service and follow along with the hymns; it is usually fairly uneventful. This year's Easter worship, however, was more than just a normal service. It ended up as the embodiment of a joyful noise made unto our poor Lord, who immediately thereafter ran for His bottle of Excedrin migraine.
The new associate pastor had the brilliant idea to have the children's sermon at the beginning of the Easter service. She and my father performed a puppet show and gave out bells and these little wooden dowels with a white streamer at the end to all the kids. They instructed the kids to ring the bells every time they heard the word "alleluia."
It should be noted that the 8:30 am service on Easter Sunday is one of the most crowded of the entire church year, with the most kids. Given that, there is no recourse other than to helplessly wonder why anyone would think that distributing noisemakers to the scores of children in attendance was a good idea. And of course nearly every hymn contained the word "alleluia" in multiple places. So all you could really hear at the end of every phrase was the vigorous ringing of the plethora of little bells.
Christ the Lord is risen today, DING A LING A LING DING A LING DING DING
Sons of men and angels say, DING A LING A LING DING A LING DING DING
Raise your joys and triumphs high, DING A LING A LING DING A LING DING DING
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, DING A LING A DING A LING A DING DING DING
The upside is that the bells somewhat disguised the lady to my right who had the weirdest vibrato ever and the lady off to my left whose nasal voice was more than vaguely reminiscent of Fran Drescher. I was also greatly amused by observing a family of four kids a couple pews in front of me. One little boy complained loudly about breaking a nail. But before long, the broken nail was overshadowed by the pleasure of ringing his bell directly in his brother's ear. Later, he started hitting his sister in the head with the little white flag. Thanks be to God for bringing us all together to be entertained.
The new associate pastor had the brilliant idea to have the children's sermon at the beginning of the Easter service. She and my father performed a puppet show and gave out bells and these little wooden dowels with a white streamer at the end to all the kids. They instructed the kids to ring the bells every time they heard the word "alleluia."
It should be noted that the 8:30 am service on Easter Sunday is one of the most crowded of the entire church year, with the most kids. Given that, there is no recourse other than to helplessly wonder why anyone would think that distributing noisemakers to the scores of children in attendance was a good idea. And of course nearly every hymn contained the word "alleluia" in multiple places. So all you could really hear at the end of every phrase was the vigorous ringing of the plethora of little bells.
Christ the Lord is risen today, DING A LING A LING DING A LING DING DING
Sons of men and angels say, DING A LING A LING DING A LING DING DING
Raise your joys and triumphs high, DING A LING A LING DING A LING DING DING
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, DING A LING A DING A LING A DING DING DING
The upside is that the bells somewhat disguised the lady to my right who had the weirdest vibrato ever and the lady off to my left whose nasal voice was more than vaguely reminiscent of Fran Drescher. I was also greatly amused by observing a family of four kids a couple pews in front of me. One little boy complained loudly about breaking a nail. But before long, the broken nail was overshadowed by the pleasure of ringing his bell directly in his brother's ear. Later, he started hitting his sister in the head with the little white flag. Thanks be to God for bringing us all together to be entertained.
Your ding-a-ling is only a couple blocks from me. Go get it.
God likes sexual inneundos, ding-a-ling.
God also likes us to abuse each other when we go to church 1) by having little kids sing and 2) by giving little kids loud things to play with. This is the purpose of church.
Posted by
Arbusto |
5:42 PM, March 28, 2005
I am officially a nerd (for anyone who didn't already know that)...but IrishTenor has a copy of the Lutheran Book of Worship, and I snuck a peek in it one morning. Turns out that wasn't actually the hymn in question. The tune/lyrics are off. But the "ding a ling" thing still works with the meter.
Posted by
SouthernCanadian |
2:07 AM, May 11, 2005