Emma Still Sings

Emma Still Sings

 

Jesus loves the little children, Emma sang with fourteen other seven-year-olds in her Sunday School class back in 1969, her eyes lifted to the stained-glass sunlight that she thought so beautiful only God could have sent it directly to her. All the children of the world, she sang. Red and yellow, black and white, she sang. They are precious in his sight.

            Emma knew she sang off-key, so she offered her song softly. She tried to believe that Jesus could hear her voice, feel her love, despite the many better voices floating heavenward. Sometimes, she only mouthed the words, her voice shadowed by her shyness. But she meant each syllable that crossed her lips.

            Only one classmate sang as bad as Emma, but he didn’t know it. He thought everyone looked at him because he sang so wonderfully. He thought his volume and his classmates’ stares were proof of a heavenly voice. Jesus loves the little children of the world! he roared. He was certain Jesus loved him best of all.

            Leaving church, that classmate’s daddy shouldered up next to Emma’s father, spoke almost as loud as his son sang. “What’s worse than a busload of darkies going over a cliff?”

            Emma’s father looked away. The other daddy punched out his punch line big to her father’s back, lips curling up around his wide set of teeth, “One seat being empty!”

            Emma’s father grasped her hand, walked faster, almost pulled her to the car. The song again filled her head in the Buick’s wide back seat, and she whispered, Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.

            Decades later, in a Facebook profile pic, that loud-singing classmate sweats into his MAGA hat and “Fuck Your Feelings” t-shirt. His posts are rants about libtards, and he blames his dead-end job on DEI, illegals, and men invading women’s bathrooms. He types his posts so loud that Emma can’t quiet the memory of his childish childhood singing voice. “THE BIBLE AND CONSTITUTIN AINT GOT NO PRONOWNS YOU WEIRDO SNOWFLAKES!”

            Emma ignores his friend request, wonders why he’d even bother, lets her finger hover over the block command. But she relents. She’ll keep watch. Hiding from the devil only helps the devil.

            She still finds herself whispering that old Sunday School song now and then, especially during protest marches to help keep her head up and her feet moving forward while so much of the world falls backward. Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world, she’ll sing. Sometimes, when she can’t find her own words to express the way grief blends with hope, she’ll sing the whole song, so softly that no one can hear but God. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, she sings. Jesus loves the little children of the world.

            And Emma still believes in those whispered words, still believes that Jesus really does love all those children, all over this planet, even though sometimes she worries that the Jesus part of the song has been stolen from us all.




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