There once was, and there still is, a small town in Germany known as Hamelin. One day, a stranger came to this small town. He carried a bag and one could see, sticking out of the bag, a pipe-not the kind used for plumbing or for smoking, but the musical instrument.
The stranger made his way down Main street and found the local tavern. He walked up the bar and ordered a beer. As he was waiting for the beer, he noticed a rat scurrying down the bar. Shortly thereafter, he saw another rat running across the floor. Pretty soon, he had counted some half-dozen rats running around the room.
Intrigued by this phenomenon, the stranger, asked the bartender, "Say, these rats, are they here all the time?"
The bartender replied, "Well, actually, this is a pretty good day. We usually see a lot more rats around here."
"So, have you always shared your town with rats? Does anyone see this as a problem?" "The rats," said the barman, "were here when the town was founded. They just moved into the buildings when we built the town. Keeping them at bay is a BIG job. We have a large rat security force and a vigorous rat abatement program."
Just then a rat scurried up to the piper's glass, helped himself to an enormous gulp, and scurried off. The piper, observing this act of bravado, asked, "Rat abatement program, eh? How does that work?"
The bartender drew a .22 caliber pistol from behind the bar and plugged the rat that had stolen the piper's beer. "That's how it works," he replied.
"So," said the piper, "how long has this rat abatement program been in effect."
"Oh," answered the bartender, "about 50 years, ever since we founded the town."
"Seen any results?" asked the piper.
"Well, " said the bartender, "some things just take time, but we're committed."
"OK," said the piper skeptically, as he paid for his beer. On the way out he spied three rats running for the door with a pie that they had stolen from the kitchen. He decided to follow them. The rats, with the piper not far behind made their way to the Hamelin Town Dump, a huge pile of garbage, paper, tin cans, bottles-everything a rat would possibly need. The piper followed the rats to a kind of cafe that the rats had fashioned out of trash. As the piper took a seat, one of the rats said, "Piece of pie, man?"
The piper declined, but asked the rats, "Say, you rats seem to have all you need right here in the dump? Why do you go into town to steal stuff and risk getting blown away?"
"Hey, man, you've got a basic misconception about the rat lifestyle. You may think we like living in garbage, but we don't. We used to live in the fields and forests around here till the humans moved in, destroyed the fields and forests, and put up this dump. Living in a dump has pretty much destroyed rat culture as we used to know it, and we're pissed as hell about the whole situation. So we stage raids on the town, drinking beer, stealing pies, and biting babies. We figure that if we make things unpleasant enough, the humans will take their dump and go elsewhere."
"So," said the piper, "how long have you been running these raids?"
"Oh," replied one of the rats, "about 50 years now, ever since the humans moved in."
"Seem to be working, do they?" asked the piper.
"Well," said the rat, "some things just take time, but we're committed."
The piper started back to town, thinking about the rats and the people. To help him think, he pulled out his pipe and started playing. He was thinking and playing so hard that he didn't notice a bunch of kids were following him. When he finally did notice, he stopped playing, turned around, and said, "Howdy."
One of the kids said, "Wow, man, that's really cool music. How do you do that?"
"Practice," said the piper, "practice. Don't you have music in school?"
"Oh yeah," a little girl said. We learn to play Brahms, and sing songs like 'Morning Has Broken,' and 'Do, a deer, a female deer, ....'"
"We have a band too," said another kid. "We can play the school fight song and 'Thus Spake Zarathustra.'"
"But they don't teach us to play cool stuff like what you were playing."
"Hey," said the piper, "I'm no music teacher, but I'll bet that I could teach you how to play the music that I play. Let's meet right here tomorrow. Bring your instruments."
"Bring our instruments?" said one of the kids. "Ha! What a joke! We aren't even allowed to take them out of the music room."
"OK," said the piper. "We can make our own. You guys ever heard of a jug band?"
"No," said the kids.
"Well," said the piper, "you're going to be one. Tomorrow, we're heading for the dump. I have some connections there."
The piper then, being rather fond of beer, headed back to the local pub. He felt a bit more comfortable on his second visit because he knew the people, and he knew the rats.
People were sitting around just talking about the important things that had happened in their lives over the past week or so. That seems like such a good idea, why don't we do it now. Does anyone have any milestones, joys, or concerns that they would like to share at this time? At one lull in the conversation, the piper was able to start a conversation between the rats and the people, which wasn't easy since the rats were focused on stealing food and biting babies and the people were focused on blowing away the rats.
In spite of these difficulties, he was able to get them thinking, "Hey, people," why don't you work out some way of recycling all that crap in the dump so that the rats can have a decent place to live? Then maybe they'd stop harassing you."
When the people asked him what made him think that cleaning up the dump would stop the rats, he turned to the rats and suggested, "Hey, rats, as a gesture of good faith why don't you lay off the raids for, oh, say, a week or two."
The rats said, "A week or two? We can live with that." But, of course, they could not. Try as they might to stay out of town, a few rats just couldn't resist coming to town to pinch a few pies. Nonetheless, the number of rat attacks declined dramatically and the townspeople felt a great sense of relief.
In the meantime, the piper took the kids out to the dump as a kind of first step in recycling. They found themselves a couple of jugs, a washtub, a broom handle, some saws, and other stuff to make music with. Pretty soon they had a pretty good sounding jug band.
It was at this point that things started getting complex. First, the band started playing for the other kids in the town, who thought it was so cool that they wanted a piece of the action themselves. So the piper soon found himself to be the leader of the first ever Rock and Roll Jug Band and Chorale. And in spite of how silly this might seem, they sounded pretty damn good. But then, the Hamelin Rock and Roll Jug Band and Chorale, made a serious mistake. They put on a performance for the grownups in the town. They chose, for this performance a song that was only their own, one whose essence was inaudible to the ear and could only be heard by the heart. And the grownups, listening not with their hearts, were aghast, horrified, outraged. Said one grownup, "They sounded so sweet when they were all singing those wonderful songs from 'The Sound of Music.'"
Another said, "I don't see why they don't stick to the old masters: Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart. This cacophony that passes for music will surely lead them to drugs, if it doesn't make them deaf first."
Well, you can bet that the next town meeting was a pretty heated affair. Oh, it started off peaceably enough, with a few perfunctory announcements. And speaking of announcements, if y'all have any that aren't in the order of service, now would be a good time to mention them. Well, all the good people of Hamelin were really steamed about the music, but they couldn't do much about it since it was the piper that had talked the rats (or most of the rats) into staying the hell away. What to do?
Finally, after much fist-waving and discussion the music teacher stood up and said, "Hey, how do we know that it's this piper that's keeping the rats away. I think it's because our Rat Abatement Program finally came to fruition."
Everyone nodded their heads at this suggestion, and the town council even appointed a blue ribbon committee of rat experts to make a determination as to its merit. These experts were the very experts who designed the town's rat abatement program and they took only five minutes to conclude that the music teacher was right and that the piper had done nothing for the town besides corrupting the musical tastes of its children.
So, the next day, when the piper showed up at the pub for his daily pint (or two, or three), the bartender told him, "We don't serve no Pied Pipers around here."
"Pied piper? What's a pied piper?" asked the piper with some astonishment.
"What's a pied piper? I'll tell you what a pied piper is, bub. You're a pied piper! And, if you know what's good for you, you'll get your sorry ass out of town right now!" answered the bartender.
"Yeah, but what's a ...? Oh, never mind." said the piper, as he paid his tab.
And speaking of tabs, you know, this church has a pretty hefty monthly tab, one that I know you're all anxious to help defray. So, this is as good a time as any to pass the hat.
After the piper paid his bar bill, he headed out the door and down the highway out of town, playing a sad song on his pipe.
As the piper was leaving town, one of the kids heard the music and ran up to him. "Whe're you going, man?" asked the child.
"Heading out of town," said the piper. "No longer welcome here," and he kept strolling and playing. He was so caught up with thinking and playing that it was some time before he noticed that the entire Hammelin Jug Band and Rock Chorale was following him out of town, carrying their washtub, jugs, saws, and other paraphanalia, and struggling to catch up with him. He stopped in the road and waited for them.
When the kids had caught their breaths one of them volunteered, without being asked, "Hey, man, take us with you. This town sucks. The music teacher is stuck in musicteacherville, and the town is overrun with rats." And, sure enough, as soon as he said this, the piper heard the pop of a 22 and figured that the rats were back. He gave this kind of "follow me" gesture to the kids, and they headed on down the road, playing as they went.
The rats and the town never did learn to get along, but the Hammelin Jug Band and Rock Chorale got some pretty good gigs; they did OK.
So, what's the moral of this story? Just this. If a pied piper comes your way, follow him or her, even if it means leaving home.
This service is inspired by the music of what's known as the Langley Schools Project. I came by this music when my son gave it to me on CD, and you've been hearing some of that music as part of the story. What is the Langley Schools Project? It's the story of a real-life Pied Piper, a guy called Hans Louis Fenger. In 1971, Fenger was a hippie musician on Vancouver, struggling to make a living by teaching guitar by day and playing rock gigs at night. When his girl friend became pregnant, he figured he had to find a more stable occupation so he accepted a position teaching music in the Langley, BC elementary schools, which he describes as "a sort of Canadian Bible belt," hicksville.
He goes on, "Considering the locality, my approach to teaching music was quite subversive, though I never thought so at the time. I used no professional techniques, no music theory. I tried to impart a musical feel. From the first lesson, I had them play and sing songs. They really got into it." "This," I said to myself, "is the essence of Pied Piperism. A subversive approach that has immediate appeal to kids." And that's why this story comes to you today, as it is told. Of course, there are several themes running throughout, but what I was really after was after were the keys to pied piperism. So, to launch a discussion, let me suggest just a few that I found in Fenger's approach.