Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Tag: songs

  • In praise of the hymn

    I write in praise of the hymn as a tool for worship in the Christian church. My youngest son was baptized a few months ago in his mom’s church, and I attended. I was thrilled (in tears, really) to see my son baptized. But the worship featured a rock band and a slate of songs…

  • The old songs

    On this Good Friday, I’d like to repost a story from a few years ago. I’m now a member of the little church in this story, and we will observe this Good Friday just as described here. I went to an evening church service last Friday, Good Friday. I’d never done that before. My Christian…

  • Another day

    Has a song ever powerfully restored a lost memory for you? One has for me. In college, I was collecting Paul McCartney on vinyl – everything he recorded after he left the Beatles. It was the mid 1980s; everybody was selling their records to buy CDs and discarded albums could be had for a buck…

  • Paul McCartney kind of saved my life once; he has no idea of course

    I was away at my first year of engineering school working harder than ever before or since. My full class load was delivering six to ten hours of homework every night. I tried to keep up but it involved too many late nighters. My life consisted of meals, class, homework, and too little sleep. As…

  • At the foot of the stage

    I last stood in the wings of this stage when I was in the sixth grade, so it was 1978 or 1979, but I didn’t particularly want to be here. I would rather have been singing with the choir at the foot of the stage. As part of a concert, a few of us entered…

  • The old songs

    I went to an evening church service last Friday, Good Friday. I’d never done that before. My Christian “heritage,” if you can call it that, has its roots mostly in Restoration Movement churches (Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and Christian Churches). These churches tend to lack the usual trappings of Christendom as part of…

  • On the Dummy Line

    What fun songs do you remember singing as a child? Preacher Mike’s blog this morning quoted a line from an old song about trains that I learned in the second grade but haven’t thought about in years. The teacher gathered our class around the piano every day and we sang songs from a set of discarded songbooks that…

  • Mamunia

    When life rains on you, let it, because you will surely grow.