"Walk on, walk on...with hope in your heart"

"When you walk through a storm
hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
You'll never walk alone..."
- Hammerstein/Rodgers

I clearly remember being a fifth grader at McCall Elementary School in the spring of 1965.  Lyndon B. Johnson was President of the United States, girls were not allowed to wear pants to school, and mothers still fried Spam and topped it with Velveeta cheese for a "special treat" at dinnertime.

For me that spring was golden.  Our lives had changed drastically that winter when my parents began studying Christian Science and my siblings and I started attending a local Sunday School weekly.  I was learning that I was a child of God and that I could pray.  I started looking at everything around me with different eyes. 

As a fifth grader I was keenly aware that I was growing up.  As the oldest of six children I was well prepared for accepting the new responsibilities of being the "senior class" of our grade school.  Sixth grade was looming and I took it all very seriously.  Our first mission as upper classmen was to give the graduating sixth graders a meaningful send-off as they launched their ships into the dark waters of Jr. High School. 

I was on Student Council and my fellow student leaders and I took this send-off very, very seriously.  We had meetings after school every week as the end of the year got closer.  We planned a party, a pep rally, and prepared programs for the actual graduation.

One day the choir teacher came to our meeting and asked us if we would like to suggest to our fellow fifth graders that we sing a song as our sixth grade friends walked into the gym for the graduation ceremony.  She shared with us mimeographed sheets with the above lyrics from "You'll Never Walk Alone," printed in purple. 

I loved the idea.  And I loved the song.  I carried that mimeographed piece of paper - folded in the pocket of my jumper, skirt, shorts, or sweater - for the rest of the school year.  I wore it out.  When we performed it for the graduating sixth graders I sang full voice with tears rolling down my cheeks before splashing on to the Peter Pan collar of my Sunday School dress.  When I sing it today I can still remember standing on rickety risers, shoulder to shoulder with Karen Mitchell (or was it Michaels) and a boy named Tommy, under the basketball hoop strung with crepe paper.   I had memorized the words and music for our performance, but continued to sing it to myself in the dark, long after my mom had finished the series of lullabies and hymns she would sing each night as she tucked us in to our beds.

I often find myself singing it softly when I am hiking in the woods, facing indifference,  or alone in a new city. 

I have wondered, now and again, why this song meant so much to me in the fifth grade.  I have concluded that it probably had something to do with the timing of its introduction.  I was only just discovering, that spring, that I lived in a spiritual universe with God at its center.  I was becoming alive to the promise of words as they described the deeper realm of Mind, God's ideas.  Every word of that song assured me that I would never have to see myself as "the new girl" again, that I would never again be just "the sweet plain little girl who keeps to herself.  You know the one, the bookworm who loves the library" (the way I heard my teacher describe me to another teacher on the playground one day). 

I was "not alone"…everywhere I went I had God's intelligent ideas accompanying me in "my head" as creative solutions, beautiful images and well-reasoned thoughts.  I could always reach out and feel his warm love for me (in the way I felt about my sisters and brothers, the way I adored my mom, the calm joy I felt about reading a new book) settled in my heart.  These ideas would be critical to my evolving sense of self, my confidence in taking on new challenges, and my hard-earned academic achievements as our family moved many time between fifth grade and my graduation from high school, and I was "the new girl" at another 11 schools.

This song is like a sweet lullaby from God to me.  I still sing it in the night when sleep aludes me and I feel alone on a sea of self-doubt or indecision.  Before I know it I am resting on His promise.  I can walk on, walk on with hope in my heart and my head up high…watching for a golden sky and listening for the sweet silver song of a lark.  
Kate