A casual comment, like a whodunnit clue, sometimes leads on to much bigger discoveries. You could almost call them crimes, or at least cover-ups. Earlier this year two friends were chatting and unearthed something like a plot.
She
Let's start with her. She, you will be surprised to hear, does not believe that all the good hymns have already been written. Spurred on by her experience of the Lord's grace, her discoveries of Scripture and her awareness of a rapidly changing world, she writes new ones. Many are already in print. Not being as mobile as some of us, she relies mainly on what goes on in her own evangelical church, where she has belonged for some years.
Result? She is hardly ever able to sing in public anything she has written. Her pastor never chooses it. You will have to take my word for it that she is not a self-centred, self-advertising, publicity-seeking worship freak. Being a genuine hymnwriter, she can actually live with heavy lack of exposure. All the same, it's a bit hard. Not so much on her feelings of achievement or personal worth, as on her ability to sense what works and what doesn't, how things sound with one tune or another, what the congregation may come up with by way of helpful feedback. So far as fellowship is concerned, she is working in a vacuum. Some people have to; it's hard to see why she must.
