We Are All Enlisted

It's pretty rare that a church hymn weasels its way into my head in the morning, which is a surprise, since religion and music in church is such a big part of my life.

Today's song is called "We Are All Enlisted."  It's hymn number 250 in the hymnbook with which I'm so familiar.  I've been an organist at my LDS congregation for the last 7 years.  It's a challenging song to play, mostly because of the fast tempo and dotted quarter notes. 

Here's what the song sounds like:

 

 

 

 

 

A little about the song itself, and then a quick funny story....

 

 

The hymn was written by William Batchelder Bradbury in the 19th century.  He was a well-known religious writer and musician who had been raised himself by a father who led a church choir.  He wrote several religious hymns in his life. 

 

 

I couldn't find much about the hymn, like the year it was written or any stories about it or anything.  A quick search tells me that 4 of Bradbury's hymns have found their way into our LDS hymnbook.  As far as I can tell, you can't find this hymn in other places besides LDS hymnbooks, but I didn't look terribly hard.  I do wonder, however, if he would be happy to know this or upset as some of the Christian world seems to dislike Mormons.  I hope he would be pleased about it. 

I have a semi-blasphemous joke about some of the hymns we sing in church.  I think a lot of them sound like old drinking songs.  This song definitely fits into this category in my book- but I digress. 

OK, a quick story.  I've shared this with lots of people, but I think it's a fantastically embarrassing story and I love the reaction I get from people as I tell it:

I bite my fingernails.  I bite them like my life depended on it.  It's a terrible habit and I've always done it.  I've tried to stop several times in my life to no avail. 

Well, a few years ago my oldest daughter challenged me to stop doing it.  I didn't want to let her down so I took her up on the challenge.  I went a good month or so without biting them, to the point that they started to look like "normal people fingernails." 

Usually I am tempted to bite them when I am stressed, nervous or just plain bored.  This particular Sunday, church had been pretty boring and I so I started biting my nails.  I hadn't realized I was doing it, that's how bored I was!  Soon the close of the meeting had come and it was time for me to play the closing hymn. 

I rushed to the stand where the organ sits and played my little heart out.  I hadn't noticed that my fingernail was bleeding as I tickled the organ keys with my graceful and musically dexterous fingers.  Needless to say, I got blood on the organ keys. 

I didn't notice though until I half-opened one of my eyes while my head was bowed during the closing prayer.  So I did what any person would naturally do in the same situation:  I wiped the blood of the keyboard.

BLAAAAAAAH!  The organ blared its loudest sound, interrupting the reverence of the prayer.  I quickly folded my arms and caught a glimpse of members of the congregation who had started giggling.  I had to stop myself from laughing out loud, and used one hand to hold the key in place as I wiped the blood stains off with the other. 

A friend stopped my in the foyer "a little anxious there huh?"  We had a good laugh, but I know my face was bright red from the whole situation. 

Oh, I still bite my nails.  Really badly.