Burn and wear out for Thee. Don’t let me rust, or my life be a failure, dear Lord, for Thee.” Bessie F. Hatcher, 1957.
This song is part of my spiritual DNA. I grew up hearing it at my church and later on at the Christian university I attended. I always found it to be affecting . . . and daunting. However sincere the author may have been–and I’m sure that she was– her words induced more guilt than inspiration, for me at least.So I appreciated the words of my Voice & Diction teacher, Mr. Pratt. (He was so precise in his own diction that I often said his name needed to be pronounced “Prat-t”–both t’s being sounded.) A young man had performed the song one Sunday in the Vespers program, and the next day in class Mr. Pratt said that he had always disagreed with its sentiments. Certainly, he said, one doesn’t want to rust out, to not use one’s gifts for God. That would be wrong. But it would be just as wrong to burn out, or wear out, because of not taking care of oneself. Wouldn’t it be better, he said, to do neither? To work wisely and well and therefore be able to have a longer, more productive life? Didn’t God want us to be good stewards of the bodies and abilities He’d given us?
I was reminded of the song by the documentary I discussed in yesterday’s post. In that film the central character, the pastor, absolutely drains himself in his efforts to serve the homeless people who crowd into his church building. He’s an immensely appealing figure, and yet his ministry completely falls apart, destroyed by scandal. It’s hard not to see him as a tragic figure, and also as someone who failed to recognize his own weaknesses until it was too late. That’s not an excuse, not at all. It’s a warning. As I Corinthians 10:12 in the good old King James Version, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”