"The Stoning of the Organist" Acts 29

¹And it came to pass, when Paul was at Corinth, he and certain disciples came upon a mob that was stoning an organist.                                                                                     
                    ²And Paul said unto them, "What then hath he done unto thee that his head should be bruised?"                                            

³And the people cried with one voice, "He hath played too loud.  

⁴Yea, in the singing of psalms, he maketh our heads to ring as if they were beaten with hammers.                          

⁵Behold, he sitteth up high in the loft, and mighty are the pipes and mighty is the noise thereof, and though there be few of us below, he nonetheless playeth with all the stops, the Assyrian trumpet stop and the stop of the ram's horn and the stop that soundeth like the sawing of stone, and we cannot hear the words that cometh out of our own mouths.          

⁶He always tosseth in the variations that confuse us mightily and playeth loud and discordant and always in a militant tempo, so that we have not time to breathe as we sing.  

⁷Lo, he is a plague upon the faith and should be chastised."       

⁸Paul, hearing this, had himself picked up a small stone, and was about to cast it, but he set it down and bade the organist come forward.                                                                     

 ⁹He was a narrow man, pale of complexion, dry, flaking thin of hair.   

¹⁰And Paul said unto him, "Why hath thou so abused thy brethren?"       

¹¹And the organist replied, "I could not hear them singing from where I sat, and therefore played the louder so as to encourage them."
¹² Paul turned round to the mob and said loudly, "Let him who has never played an organ cast the first stone."                     

¹³And they cast stones for awhile until their arms were tired and Paul bade the organist repent and he did.  

¹⁴And Paul said unto him, "Thou shalt take up the flute and play it for thirty days, to cleanse thy spirit."                                             

¹⁵And afterward, they returned to Corinth and sang psalms unaccompanied and then had coffee and were refreshed in the faith.

By Garrison Keillor

Classification:  Humour

For Donna, also for the organist in our congregation who does indeed use the "Assyrian  Trumpet Stop"