COLUMN: Rotary, hymns and the legacy of James Cleveland Moore Sr.

Monday afternoon I gave the prayer at the Rotary Club of Macon. 

I joined Rotary a few months ago (although I was a Rotarian in Norman, Oklahoma for several years). As part of our introduction to the club, one of the things we’re asked to do is participate in the programming, which for me meant the prayer.

I did my best. But I told my fellow Rotarians afterward that they picked the wrong Slinkard.

*****

I have two brothers: my twin brother Joshua, who lives in Texas with his wife Sara and their three children; and my younger brother Nathan, who lives in Arkansas with his wife Madison. 

Joshua is a pastor who recently completed his master’s degree in Biblical studies at Criswell Bible College in Dallas, Texas. He’s dedicated his adult life to ministry and service, starting with the Boys & Girls Club, then working as a youth minister and now as a family pastor and elder at our home church.

Joshua has developed a natural teaching style. It comes through effort and practice which began when he was a kid and would line up stuffed animals and preach to them. 

He called me the other day as he was preparing for his Wednesday evening service. He’s got a soft spot for hymns — “Be Thou My Vision,” “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” etc. — and he can sneak more of them into the service on Wednesday night than Sunday morning. 

He decided to use the hymn “Where We’ll Never Grow Old,” a hundred-year-old hymn recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Aretha Franklin. Doing a little research (he would make a better journalist than I would a pastor), Joshua discovered the hymn was written by James Cleveland Moore Sr. when he was a seminary student here at Mercer University. 

The story goes that Moore went back home to Draketown Baptist Church in Haralson County where his father Charles Robert Moore led the congregation in singing. 

Moore heard his father’s faltering voice. In that moment, inescapable mortality and the expectant hope of heaven became real to him. And so he wrote “Never Grow Old,” dedicated to his parents. The first verse goes like this:

I have heard of a land

On the faraway strand

‘Tis a beautiful home of the soul

Built by Jesus on high

There we never shall die

‘Tis a land where we never grow old.

*****

The Macon Melody has been well-represented at recent Rotary meetings. Charles Hayslett, whose “Trouble in God’s Country” runs in The Melody, spoke Monday. Hayslett is the scholar in residence at Middle Georgia State’s Center for Middle Georgia Studies. 

His work highlights economic, demographic and educational disparities between 12 Atlanta metro counties (which he terms Atlanna) and the other 147 counties in the state (Notlanna). 

One of the most shocking statistics he shared was the number of Georgia counties reporting more deaths than births. That number tended to alternate between about 5-12 in the 1990s and early 2000s. But after the Great Recession, it skyrocketed. Pre-COVID, the number peaked at 80. In 2021, it was up to 123 counties.

South Georgia, particularly the counties south of Bibb, have struggled mightily with the triple blows of the recession, COVID and the fentanyl crisis. Their path forward is murky at best.

*****

Melody columnist Ed Grisamore was the Rotary speaker two weeks ago. He talked about telling stories in our community for the past 40 years. 

Sometimes, Gris writes about triumph, about people overcoming the odds to achieve great things. Other stories are not tinged with but rather enveloped by sadness. Joy or grief, Gris invites us to take a breather and think about our neighbors, to reflect on our own lives. That is a valuable gift.

Often, his columns highlight Maconites who in small but not inconsequential ways make this city feel like home. James Baldwin once said “The world is held together, really it is held together, by the love and the passion of a very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair.”

We’re lucky in Macon to have more than a few of those few people.

May they never grow old.

Caleb Slinkard is the managing editor of The Macon Melody. Email him at caleb@maconmelody.com.