I Will GOOOO I Will DOOOOOOO!

It’s something I shout from the rooftops when my wife isn’t around to stop me:

I really don’t like Hymn No. 270, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go.”

The words? Well, they’re okay. I remember, however, being regularly cudgeled with them as a callow youth at many a fireside or camp meeting or whatnot, when those in charge of us felt we were derelict in our duties or threatening to become so. We sang it in the mission field – sometimes in English, sometimes in French – when mission shenanigans were getting out of hand and president called us all together for a meeting.

The tune, though. It’s the tune that gets me every time. It’s a slow-motion fall down a flight of stairs put together by a nearsighted carpenter with a terminal case of the hiccups.

That probably sounds cruel. Because, well, it is. While I can sing passing fair, I can no more compose a tune than give mouth-to-mouth to a dying fish through a tuba connected to a trombone, so I should not criticize. I also realize there are many people out there who love this song, tune and all, and I’m okay with that. Others can love things I don’t like, just don’t expect to hear it at my funeral. Or maybe do, since I won’t be around to have to sing it.

Irony: I read tonight that the tune is the second assigned to the words in question, with the first being dumped because, in the words of Mary Deveau, former Municipal Historian of Griswold, Connecticut, it was “unsingable.” What a disaster that first tune must have been to make the current one better.

Yet.

You knew there was a yet coming, because not only does God work in mysterious ways, I’m pretty sure He also really enjoys hitting me in the Ironic Punishments department.

Because whenever we sing the song – as we did at the conclusion of a fireside tonight – it sticks with me and sticks with me and once my brain gets past the batty tune, the words seep through and I truly do understand what those youth leaders and those mission presidents were trying to accomplish with it: “Alert Stupid Here He Can Do Better.”

(Aside: The Primary song “Nephi’s Courage” is similar in vein and near unsingability, but at least we get the joy of hearing the Primary kids shout “I will GOOOO I will DOOOOOOO! The THING the LORD commands!”)

Because I truly can do better. My wife wants me to do better. Those who put me in church callings want me to do better. The missionaries stopped by yesterday and, in so many words, invited me to do better. I know the Lord looks at me and says, “You can do better.” And when we sing this song to that terrible tune, He uses it to speak to my heart.

So tonight as I’m sitting here in my study with that song falling down the haphazard staircase in my mind, I’m reminded of all the things I need to do better. I’ll make a list; maybe work on a few things.

I’ll say what you want me to say, dear Lord; I’ll be what you want me to be.

Just don’t make me sing it.