Years ago, shape-note singers chorused
In their slightly otherworldly way for me,
Familiar hymns of Isaac Watts among the tunes
Interpreted. Memory reheard them on a hot day
During a spring heatwave in the Wasatch Range.
The Latter Day Saints as well adopted a number
Of those old Congregationalist hymns, albeit
For a rather different theology than that held
By Watts or the shape-note singers of Alabama.
I think they liked the way his lyrics deployed
The words “saint” and “saints” frequently, as in,
“The fearful soul that tires and faints,
And walks the ways of God no more,
Is but esteemed almost a saint,
And makes his own destruction sure.”
And walks the ways of God no more,
Is but esteemed almost a saint,
And makes his own destruction sure.”
It was that hymn in particular, “Broad Is the Road
That Leads to Death,” crossed my mind
As I sought sanctuary in a shady canyon.
I nudged myself as far up and into the woods
As I could go, but still there were more folks
And machines getting in there ahead of me.
There is no narrow path we can’t make broad
And crowded, and the only reason so few
Get all the quiet way to heaven is that the crush
Of everyone seeking the straight and narrow
Is what creates the broad way to destruction.
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