How to Have the Singing

On Sunday nights, the young people from our church gather in someone's home for supper, socializing, and an hour of singing--a carry-over from our Amish background. Church families take turns serving as hosts. Last Sunday night it was our turn. This is how it happened.

Pre-existing conditions:

--The house has small rooms. A wide opening between the living room and dining room provides the only space bigger than 12 x 15.

--Side rooms in need of de-cluttering--an uncompleted Sabbatical task.

--Obligations to be at Dad and Mom's house a night and an afternoon in preceding weeks, plus providing one meal.

--Winter Bible School the week before the singing.

--Feeling unwell every day until Thursday with the sniffles and a headache.

--Hiromi and Grant occupied all week with work and their own projects until Saturday afternoon.

--A Sunday School class to teach.

--A temporary brain freeze on menu ideas.

--Hiromi's project for washing up all the shirts still remaining after Joel and Shane moved out--to donate--on Saturday afternoon, before the house was cleaned and ready. It turned out that Joel was still planning to take a bunch of them.

--Grant spending Friday night at Kenny's house and helping him clean up outside at his house on Saturday morning instead of helping clean up here. I am not impressed.

Procedure:

--Consent to having the singing, first on Jan. 11, then change immediately to Jan. 18 when I realize that the tenth is Joel's moving day.

--Wonder repeatedly over the next weeks what possessed me to think I could pull this off.

--Work all the preceding week on extra cleaning jobs, leaving the final cleaning till later in the week.

--Inquire about how many young people to plan for. I settle on planning for food for 40, then panic, when I realize that we will have a hard time finding a place for that many people to sit, let alone moving around a bit and eating.

--Counter Hiromi's repeated suggestions to "just have it at the church." I realize that we may not always have any other option, but now it seems like it might work to have it at home, if we plan just right. The young people have a decided preference for having the singing in homes.

--Settle on an easy menu: Pakastani Kima--to be eaten over rice (a hamburger curry from More with Less cookbook), hot rolls made from Rhodes frozen dough, a lemon-lime-cottage cheese-pineapple jello, a fresh veggies relish plate, and Mocha pudding for dessert. Write out the grocery list for Hiromi's regular Friday evening shopping trip. Plan to use deer burger for the "hamburger" in the curry--along with a bit of sausage. Order ready-made diced potatoes for the curry. Order disposable paper and plastic ware.

--Hiromi goes to the men's meeting at church on Saturday morning. He goes to Glenns afterwards to buy plates, wonders why his bill is so high, and discovers after he gets home that he was charged for two bags of 125 plates, but they only contained 12 each. He goes back to get this corrected. I lament the time wasted.

--Grant comes home in the afternoon from helping Kenney and cleans one bathroom. He leaves in a hurry and stays at Kenny's house for the night. I am not impressed.

--Start with the food preparation after supper on Saturday. Put out meat to thaw before I go to bed.

--Go to bed after midnight, even though the cleaning is not done.

--Get up at 5:30 the next morning. Finish preparing for Sunday School.

--Come home from church and eat a simple lunch.

--Hiromi needs a nap and tells me I need one. I tell him I don't have time. We both lie down for about 20 minutes. He sleeps.

--Grant goes to pick up benches at the church. I do not realize he has gone till he gets back. He did not get the big water jug and the electric roaster I planned to ask for when the trip is made. Hiromi assures me he is willing to make another trip. I lament the time wasted.

--Grant cleans the other bathroom. Hiromi washes up the dishes. I work on the food and the remaining cleaning. I engage in self-flagellation for not being done yet with the cleaning. I decide that the door to the study must remain closed at all costs. Ditto the dressing room. No one will have any reason to go into the basement, which is good, because I don't have time to clean it. I put a room-divider screen in the sewing room in front of the clutter along the south wall. With the light off it doesn't look too bad. I keep the lights dim in the bedroom where people will put their coats. More self-flagellation for these cover-ups.

--We plan to move out the living and dining room chairs to make room for more space-efficient seating on benches. Then we realize there is no place for these chairs to go, so we decide they'll have to stay. We shrink the dining room table to the smallest possible size by taking out the leaves and dropping the two "arm" leaves. It gets shoved to the corner of the dining room in front of the computer desk. We move one of the sofas away from its spot as a room divider between the living room and dining room. The coffee table gets shoved toward the other sofa, leaving just enough room for the feet of people seated on the sofa. The rocker goes in front of the study door. The other big living room chair is backed up to the lamp table. The dining room and desk chairs line the north and south walls in that room. We fill up the middle with benches, and bring in the sewing chair, and two hassocks that are about chair height and can be used for seating in small odd corners. I eye the low turtle hassock and decide that no one is likely to be desperate enough to sit on that. We count, and decide we have seating for 40 people--maybe a few more if the people are small enough to crowd one more person on several of the benches.

--Grant moves our vehicles to the area near the shed to leave room for other vehicles nearer the house.

--People arrive before I expect them. I'm still mopping the kitchen. It's OK because it's family. More people arrive. I catch on belatedly that they're used to having a voluntary prayer meeting before the 6:30 supper. When they ask where they might go for that, the only possibility I can think of is Joel's vacated room, which now has a weight bench and other exercise equiment Grant moved into it. There is no place to sit, but they head down there, and I wince at not having cleaned it. Grant apparently gets there before they do but is still not quite done sweeping when they arrive. Grant has worked diligently all afternoon. Bless his heart.

--Heidi and Trippy get the veggie tray ready. Hannah offers to help, but I tell her I think things are under control. Hilda helps with the hot rolls. Supper is served nearly on time. We thank people for putting up with the crowded conditions, and give directions for how to proceed through the food line, taking a U-shaped path through the kitchen to get their food and then stopping by the shrunken dining room table for tableware, napkins and a drink. They cooperate and it goes fairly smoothly. Afterward, most of the dishes go into the trash. I carry the rest to the sewing room sink to be washed up later.

--At 7:30 the singing starts. Grant and a few late-comer boys stand around in the kitchen eating, etc. till one group of people scoots down the line onto the next bench, leaving a place for them to slip into the dining room without clambering over others to get to an empty seat. ("Too cuddly" was Grant's explanation earlier for not heading for the empty spots.) Grant gets his songbook, gives it to Hiromi and me to use, and stands in the hall looking at the book over our shoulders and helping sing. At some point, I remember that we have one more unused chair--a bar stool at the laundry folding table in the dressing room. I suggest he gets that to sit on, and he does. Every spot is full. There are 42 people, plus Hiromi and me. Two of them are guests, and I later count 14 people who are gone on trips, or who must have had some conflict and did not come.

--The singing is enjoyable and sounds nice. The songs are interspersed with spontaneous testimonies and comments, and then there is a time for prayer, after people give prayer requests in rapid succession. Andrea seems to be the only one familiar with one of the songs they decide to sing. They tackle it gamely and it's lovely.

--I note that there is a place in this group for a wide variety of people--from those who did not attend high school to those who are college graduates, from those who take voice lessons to those who can't read music at all, from those whose families have lived here for generations to those who have moved in recently, from the socially adept to the socially unaware, from the garrulous to the introspective, from farm laborers, woodworkers, bank tellers, housekeepers, and waitresses to students, medical field workers, teachers, and computer programmers, from 16-year-olds to 30-somethings.

--Afterward, I leave leftovers out for people to graze on. Quite a lot of food disappears. I realize that I feel less possessive about leftovers now that my household has shrunk, and cooking is a less daunting task.

--While I'm working in the kitchen, I overhear a conversation there between two young men. They talk about leadership and marriage. (One of them is open to marriage, the other is not at the moment; he loves everyone. I think the parents of the two are probably happy with each of their sentiments, given the variation in their age. One offers to pray about the other's openness to marriage.) The leadership subject relates to the workplace most specifically, in this conversation.

--I visit with Tresa and Rachel about growing flowers and herbs. I show them my gardening library in the bedroom and they each borrow several books. They both moved here within the past year and feel like they know Belguim and Kentucky gardening much better than Kansas gardening. A group "song" game is underway in the living room. Others have gone on walks. The weather is mild and lovely.

--People are gracious in thanking us for hosting the group and providing the meal. I run out of ideas for original and appropriate responses, and settle for same and boring.

--At 11:30 Hiromi brings out the remaining coats on the bed and occupies the bed himself. I putter around in the kitchen, dealing with leftovers; the remaining people head for home. I go to bed without looking at the clock.

--The next morning I set about putting the house back to rights. It takes all morning to get the furniture moved, and putting the things we use in the places we expect to find them.

--I marvel that we made it, and wonder at the same time why we bothered to stress over it.