Amen. Amen.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him all creatures here below; Praise him above, you heavenly hosts; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

I remember when we lived at Camp Hy-Lake that on Sundays we would go to church at Rock Island Presbyterian.  I was probably in sixth or seventh grade.  Actually this memory goes all the way back to the summer I spent with my grandparents when Jenny and I were eight-years-old. 

This was one of those churches.  The kind that you see on calendars with a steeple, nestled under huge oak trees.  A foyer and one room, full of pews.  Whose very discomfort guaranteed not only no sleeping during the service, but endlessly squirming kids.  The attendance and the offering posted up on the front wall with moveable letters in a frame.  Overhead fans feebly trying to bat the dense summer air.  I don’t remember any of the sermons.  I was in a phase of reading hymnbooks.  Looking at the dates and trying to imagine the people who wrote them.  At the end of every service, the pastor would lift up his hands in a blessing over the church.  He had a debilitating disease, probably Parkinson’s, and I vividly remember his shaking outstretched hands.  Just before the blessing, we would all stand and sing the doxology.  Which of course brought a great deal of relief that the service was over.  But also.  I love the singing of the doxology.  Certainly every single person was pitched at a different key. The pastor’s voice quivered.  But there was such a simple sweetness to the point of it all: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.  With a blg, long quavering, “Amen,” at the end.  Amen.