I forgot to take my glasses, which made "We've come this far by faith" a bit of a challenge (luckily I know both the words and the music to the other two hymns pretty much by heart, though their "Lift every voice and sing" is altered at a couple of points from what I learned (our fathers have become our people, and our bright star's white gleam has become its somewhat redundant bright gleam). The Mount Zion girls' Praise Dance Team was absolutely wonderful, and the Massed Choir and soloist weren't far behind. The preacher delivered a solid and timely message based (though the scripture was the "behold, I make all things new" text from Revelation) on Genesis 37, where Joseph's brothers say, "Here comes the lord of dreams" and plot to kill him; he emphasized the need to dream "beyond our reach". Although he mentioned Obama several times (twice emphasizing his middle name) it was in no sense a political pep rally. The congregation was a good mix of white and black Baptists with a sprinkling of non-baptistic types. A guy in the pew behind me turned out to be (perhaps the rabbi?) from . (I thought he said Bet Olive, but then I figured it out.)
All in all it was a wonderful service. The surprising thing to me is that so few people go to such things. The crowd was not small, but neither was it SRO, and I'm sure there are many folks out there, in all three of our caucuses and beyond our fences, who would have really gotten a lot out of it if they had only showed up. Judy and I were the only Fremont folk; Mrs Haruo would have gone but is still a bit under the weather from a severe cold that laid us both low the last couple weeks.
