Travel on the Gravel

Although I was scheduled to sing for the late Christmas Eve service at my own prairie church, Maple-Sheyenne Lutheran, I was free to spend the early eve with my friends and neighbors at Canaan Moravian Brethren Church. After arriving early and visiting with Pastor Chuck Belzer, I snapped a view of the church interior before the congregants arrived, then another of the flowers and banners around the pulpit. Among the first members to arrive were Virgil and Dorothea Hans. Mr. Hans was kind enough to tell me about the Moravian candle tradition for Christmas Eve services. The church filled, and the service commenced with Mrs. Hans at the organ. The service of carols and texts was subdued and touching; Pastor Chuck was too hoarse from a cold to preach much, but a young woman, Ms. J. Gohdes, filled in with a striking set of remarks about the Christmas traditions of her family and neighbors. (I’ll write more of these wonderful remarks by the mini-skirted, maroon-haired Ms. Gohdes in a Plains Folk column.) Next came the climax of the evening; while several young women distributed beeswax candles to the members, a mixed choir came to the front and sang “The Birthday of a King” followed by “A Thousand Candles.” The women of the choir then returned to the pews, leaving at the front a modest men’s choir of four voices to sing the “Solo” parts indicated for “Morning Star, O Cheering Sight”—a favorite hymn that never fails to move the assembled worshippers, some of them to tears. During this song the lights are extinguished, the worshippers sing by candlelight, which makes the pale plaster walls of the church glow, and on the final stanza, the people all hold their candles above their heads. Departures following the service are protracted; no one is anxious to leave.