Why Isn't Everyone Praising the Lord?

It was a bleak time for me and the approach of Christmas wasn't particularly appealing that year. To cheer myself, I went to Philadelphia's Christmas season opening parade on Market Street East. It was great fun with floats, marching bands, antique cars and culminated with Santa climbing a fire truck's ladder into Gimbels at the Gallery.

At a few street corners along Market Street small portable stages had been set up to feature singers from various schools and institutions. The light snow flurries that were falling looked really pretty with the old fashioned colored lights that lined one little stage, so I stopped to listen. A small cheerful choir of teens sang a lively gospel song. Its title asked the question: "Why Isn't Everybody Praising the Lord?"

I wish I could remember where they were from. I have also searched the Internet many times, without success, to seek the words to that song. It's almost as if the whole evening was a dream, but it wasn't. It was instead a moment of sharp insight that lifted my spirit, changed my perspective, and until this day has helped prevent me from seeing life through the dark lens I'd been burdened with in the few months before that evening.

I hope those children, grown now of course, are all well and that each one still remembers that song. Although I'll probably never find the lyrics, the title itself has turned out to be enough for me. Why isn't everybody praising the Lord? I'm not sure. I just know I do often. - from Dean