A Delicious Tale From The Road Concluded!

   Later the waiter returned to ask our opinion of the tuna and we discussed the preparation of the food we had ordered—the dish. I marvelled at how much better theirs tasted than what I cook at home. When the meal was finished, the waiter returned carrying a dish with four dessert samples--again, “complements of the chef.” We enjoyed the samples which were made from chocolate, white chocolate and raspberry and told the waiter how wonderful they were. After finishing our meal, paying the bill and leaving, Paul and I marvelled over what wonderful service we had received and we went off to enjoy the Sunday evening concert.
   Monday we attended the first official day of the convention. Since I am a songwriter, we planned to spend most of our time in the exhibit hall meeting artists. I had been pitching songs to Tim Maze of Canaan’s Crossing and I wanted to meet him so we went to their table in the Song Garden area. Tim was not there but we met Tina Miller for the first time. We spent a while chatting and Tina commented to me, “You remind me of someone, but I can’t think of who it is.”
   We continued on around the exhibit area, meeting with groups and we spent a fair amount of time chatting with a gentleman from a particular group about how churches have changed and aren’t what they used to be, etc. After awhile, he said to me, “Do you know what I really want in a song?” I reply, “Other than a strong gospel message, I’m not sure. Tell me.” He replied, “I want a song about a pulpit. I’ve never seen or heard a song about a pulpit.” I replied, “It’s amazing how God works! I’ve been thinking about pulpits since last night.” I told him about the pulpit at the restaurant.
   That night, after the evening concerts were over and we had finally made it through the crush to get out of the parking lot, it was about 1:30 am by the time we got back to the hotel and got into bed. I couldn’t sleep. My head was buzzing with pulpits, what they stand for and why they wind up in hotels. I tried to sleep but the pulpits wouldn’t go away. In the dark, I found a pen and pad of paper, got back in bed and start writing a song, hoping I was not writing words on top of each other and that I would be able to read it in the morning.

   The next day in the exhibit hall, we chatted with Tina Miller again. She repeated, “You remind me of someone! It will come to me.” Later we talked with the man who wanted a pulpit song and I showed him the lyrics I had written. He liked them and wanted to know what the music was like. Laughing I told him, “I just wrote it in wee, small hours of the morning and all of our instruments are back in Nova Scotia.” We assure him we will work on the music when we get home and we will send him the finished song, which we did. Unfortunately, he left the group soon after and they didn’t do anything with the song.
   About mid-week in the exhibit hall, as we were headed to Canaan’s Crossing’s table, we saw Tina waving to us, calling out, “I know who it is!” When we got to where she was, she said, “It’s Ina Garten!” We looked at her blankly. “Ina Garten!” she insisted. “I have no idea who that is,” I said sheepishly. “On the Food Network! She has her own show—The Barefoot Contessa!” “We don’t get the Food Network,” we said.

   Sometimes it takes me awhile to put all of the pieces together! About a year later, I was thinking about our last trip to NQC and about meeting Tina and it clicked—if Tina thought I looked like Ina Garten, maybe, just maybe, the people at the restaurant thought I was her with all of the babbling on about  cooking their famous dish I was doing!

Listen to Penny’s Song Copyright 2014: “The Pulpit”

For more information visit www.throughhisgracemusic.com or e-mail: pennylferguson@hotmail.com

Penny L. Ferguson
87 Springwaters Place
Valley, Nova Scotia
Canada B6L 2V2
(902)-895-1345