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Why on earth does it bother me so much? Why do I stand there seething while we plug our way through ‘Sweet Hour Of Prayer’ (and, I hate to admit, my resentment often carries through to the third speaker’s talk. Or maybe I’m just bitter because women aren’t allowed to give the closing talk in my ward.) My husband, who is as TBM as they come, refused to stand up for the rest hymn today. (He hates this practice as much as I do – AND he doesn’t sing.) So I sat down. If he’s not going to stand there and mouth the words, I’m not going to stand there and sing.
Why? I don’t know for sure, since it is irrational, in and of itself. In fact, it’s common in lots of music settings to stand or move around or change positions, in order to lessen monotony. I think there is a deeper issue at work here – maybe the idea of being told what to do in little, tiny things like how you sing a song. Maybe it feels like you are being “commanded in all things” – which is a very legitimate, rational concern.
If you don’t want to stand during the hymn, don’t stand. Exercise your right to sit and sing or not sing. It might be a very good baby step to taking charge of the simple, little, mundane, totally unimportant aspects of your church experience.
Joni, Maybe you and I could trade wards. We don’t stand here, and I can’t stand that we don’t stand.
I don’t mind standing, the hymn itself breaks the monotony and standing helps that a little more, IMO. I actually get irritated when we don’t have a rest hymn, and I’m especially fond of the more rousing songs during that time. Our ward has lots of people who don’t stand. Some of them are older and really do have a difficult time standing, but some don’t – they just don’t stand. To my knowledge no one has ever said a word to them about it – there are no hymn police. As a side note, I think it’s sad your bishop hasn’t caught on with sister speakers. We had only sisters again today, and it ended up the last speaker had nearly 30 minutes of time. I didn’t like her topic (“Hasten the work through family history,” no mention of God or Christ at all) and read most of the time, but she was a trooper.
Some people don’t stand in our unit, mostly for health reasons. Sitting or standing I like the rest hymn. It’s
activeworship. Fast Sundays and Sundays where a small few sing a musical number in lieu of a rest hymn are always a bit disappointing to me because I do like singing hymns. As for the reasons why we stand… I think the original intent was to get people’s blood flowing, wake up a bit mid-meeting. After all, most people in attendance didn’t get their coffee that morning.
If I sit around for too long I feel uncomfortable. I appreciate it. I like music whether it’s a rest hymn, opening hymn, a solo presentation, a group of PM children, etc. As I get older, getting up & sitting again can be difficult. I don’t see any problem sitting during
the rest hymn.
Music is a better sermon than the spoken word many times.
My Brother in law when he died, requested that the funeral service be more music than anything else.
Joni wrote:Why on earth does it bother me so much? Why do I stand there seething while we plug our way through ‘Sweet Hour Of Prayer’ (and, I hate to admit, my resentment often carries through to the third speaker’s talk. Or maybe I’m just bitter because women aren’t allowed to give the closing talk in my ward.)
My husband, who is as TBM as they come, refused to stand up for the rest hymn today. (He hates this practice as much as I do – AND he doesn’t sing.) So I sat down. If he’s not going to stand there and mouth the words, I’m not going to stand there and sing.
I have strong (too strong) opinions about music, so I try to understand when others do, too….
Are you against standing for any rest hymn, or just ones that don’t seem rest hymn-ish? Or just ones that aren’t at a good tempo. Fwiw, I don’t think I’ve ever stood for “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” Not a good choice, in my opinion.
(In general, put me down for standing. I like it.)
Bumping an old thread to say that it took me something like a year, but I finally made my peace with this issue by just not standing for the rest hymn anymore. The first time I remained sitting I was convinced that everyone was staring at me – the next time I felt a little less self conscious, and after that it got easier. We always think people are thinking about us way more than they actually do. And it’s funny that I went looking for this thread today, when the rest hymn actually WAS Sweet Hour of Prayer.
Joni wrote:And it’s funny that I went looking for this thread today, when the rest hymn actually WAS Sweet Hour of Prayer.
Poetic. Thanks for the bump. I like rereading things to see how my attitudes have changed over time.
Thanks for the bump, I had forgotten we had discussed this. The ward I am assigned to visit doesn’t stand for the rest hymn, so it’s not a universal practice. I attended a Methodist Easter Service this year (I needed to get the lacking Easter Experience, since I knew I couldn’t get it watching GC on TV). The congregation stood for all hymns. It was great. Just sayin’. Standing for hymns definitely has meaning for a lot of people. I don’t have a problem with that – I just found it irritating for some reason! It was really liberating to give myself permission to stop. Another thing I do is if we’re singing a song I hate, I keep my mouth shut. It’s not some kind of protest, but I finally realized that it’s MY voice and I get to decide what I do with it!
Joni wrote:It was really liberating to give myself permission to stop.
So true. Really, it’s that way about many things in the Church.Joni wrote:Another thing I do is if we’re singing a song I hate, I keep my mouth shut. It’s not some kind of protest, but I finally realized that it’s MY voice and I get to decide what I do with it!
Haha. I keep my mouth shut during a lot of hymns too, but in my case it’s out of concern for the well-being of people around me
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