The Annual Messiah

It is the season in which musical organizations give annual performances of portions of Handel's Messiah. I sing in the Birmingham Concert Chorale, conducted by Philip Copeland, and we are the chorus for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra. We sing some part of Messiah every year, always with a different guest conductor. We gain from new understanding and insight each year, as a new conductor brings a new approach.

I was thinking back over some of these performances last weekend, as we engaged in this year's effort. I remember one year that the soloists who were performing with us were enjoying a lot of good-natured and humorous fun at one another's expense during rehearsals. I particularly remember the mezzo-soprano giving her recitative in which she quotes from Isaiah 35:5-6, "Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing." The funny part came on the last line, when she turned and glared directly at the tenor while pointedly singing, "and the tongue of the DUMB shall sing." We all enjoyed a good laugh at the tenor's expense.

Our ability to speed quickly over this passage of the musical work, as well as the scriptural utterance, demonstrates how easily the most radical of statements can become quite vernacular to us. I have been thinking about this passage in relation to people I know, and its truth seems nearer to me.

The choir I direct benefits from the loyal membership of a singer who is blind. She is a brilliant musician who has studied deeply, and learns faster by ear than others do by reading the music. Last summer she joined the entourage to Vienna, where we performed the Mozart Requiem. It was a great pleasure to see her spend hours touring museums and historical sites, frequently commenting on their beauty, which, like the music she "reads", is vivid in her mind's eye. I feel encouraged to know that it is only through her participation in the choir that such an opportunity would come to her. In a long concert like the Christmas music we presented a few days ago, almost everyone has a mental lapse or two, including the conductor. But this singer is absolutely reliable, because she sings music that is firmly and visibly planted in her mind, rather than on the pieces of paper in the other singers' folders.

Another singer I direct has been working hard to care for a spouse who has lost his hearing. Over many years he has continued to be an active participant in their busy lives by becoming an efficient lip-reader. With only a small percentage of hearing remaining in one ear, they chose to pursue a cochlear implant, even though the procedure presented a risk of losing the remaining hearing. On the first Sunday after the new apparatus was activated, he attended church to hear a solo by his beloved granddaughter. In the context of the church's Christmas music his miracle of hearing happened with little notice, but great joy.

At the same concert there was a player in the orchestra who is quite famous among those who play her instrument. She lives about 300 miles away, but honors us by traveling to play for our concerts every year. A few years ago she had a terrible accident, and suffered a debilitating loss of the use of one of her legs. At the urging of a mutual friend, I placed her name on our church's prayer list. After a great deal of pain and inconvenience, she has recovered, and is back to her normal hectic schedule. In a conversation after the concert, she told one of our members that she attributed our church's prayers for her regained health, and wouldn't miss an opportunity to come and play for us.

And finally, I've been thinking about one of the choir members who never misses a rehearsal or Sunday service. He affirms and enjoys those around him, and is integral to both the spirit and musical success of the choir. During the aforementioned Christmas concert, his wife was using sign language to "sing-along" on the congregational carols. Her voice is fine, but her memory is diminishing as she courageously journeys into the darkness of Alzheimer's Disease. She has told me that she learned sign language as a means of helping interpret for the hearing-impaired years ago, and that now she remembers the words of hymns and carols more accurately using that language. Her disease couldn't prevent her singing along because she had taken the time to learn to express herself in more than one language as a means of helping others understand.

These experiences surrounding the music of Christmas have reminded me that Isaiah's prophecy might not have been meant to describe a certain episode or person, but that there is always the possibility of the blind seeing vividly, the deaf hearing beautifully, the lame leaping unrestrained, and the person whose tongue is locked by an unseen jailer finding a way to sing for joy. I rejoice to think of the possibilities that might be presented were we to consider these radical predictions more often than once a year, and sing about them as if they were modern descriptions, rather than ancient mysteries.

The Rings of the Tree

Church musicians have two sets of memories in their minds at this time of year, radiating outward from the earliest to the latest. In the first are found their memories of Christmases with their families. Like everyone else, their minds turn toward the memories of their childhood Christmases, then the Christmases they have shared with their own children. This trove of treasured memories is the magnet that draws us back to those we love at this time of year.

In the second set of memories are the annual Christmas musical events that have shaped our celebrations. I remember little details from the first cantata I directed, to the first "Messiah" I attempted, to the special singers who have helped carry out the annual traditions in the congregations I've served.

I celebrated this treasure trove of memories last week, as our choir and orchestra helped me recognize the fifteenth anniversary of my work with Melissa Brewer, the gifted contractor who has ensured the high quality and preparation of the orchestra players with whom I've worked each year.

I celebrated another important memory as Mary Kathryn Borland sang the soprano solo in the Spanish carol, "Carol of the Birds." Mary Kathryn grew up in the church I formerly served, and first sang a solo for me on Christmas Eve of her fifth-grade year. Now she is the academic counselor for the football team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and is a member of the church choir I direct. Her voice provides the sound track for some of my most poignant Christmas memories. And as a former baby-sitter for my children and close family friend, she has a special place in both sets of my Christmas memories.

The church where I served for ten years, and where Mary Kathryn grew up, provides many of the Christmas memories I enjoy. One of the most meaningful incidents came to mind last Sunday, as I turned to invite the congregation to join us as we sang "The First Nowell."

Twenty years ago we moved to Dothan, Alabama, where I became the Minister of Music at the First Baptist Church and my wife became a music educator in the public school system. One of her colleagues was a woman named Judy, who taught elementary music. A couple of years later, Judy was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent excruciating treatments while continuing to teach except on the worst of days. Time after time her doctors informed her that the future was short and the outlook was bleak. Judy kept teaching little kids about music. Years went by and Judy defied the odds. The doctors were surprised, and kept up their best treatment as Judy continued to teach.

One year, as the late fall was turning to advent and our efforts were turning toward our annual Christmas concert, we heard the news that Judy's health had taken a downward turn, and that her doctors had suggested that she spend the holidays getting her affairs in order and spending time with her family.

Just like this year, our Christmas concert included a moment in which I turned to direct the congregation to join us in singing "The First Nowell." When that moment came, and the congregation started to sing along with the choirs and orchestra, I couldn't help but notice that the faces of the people in the balcony were all turning to look to their sides, and shared an expression of astonishment. It was as if something unexpected and awkward were happening. As I followed the direction of their eyes, I became astonished, too.

There in the balcony was Judy. There wouldn't be another Christmas concert, so she was participating in this one with gusto. Her head was back and her mouth was open, and she was singing her last "First Nowell." Propriety couldn't have mattered less as she sang with all her heart from the balcony of the church. The congregation surrounding her couldn't have known that, with a life that could be measured in hours and days, and with finality in sight, she set as her priority for that night the singing of Christmas carols. As a music educator, Judy knew that time spent singing is not wasted. As a terminally ill patient, Judy knew that time spent being creative and expressive flies in the face of a hopeless diagnosis. In her final act of defiance against her strong disease, Judy sang.

Musical Christmas memories, like the rings of an old tree, chronicle the passing years and the creative opportunities they bring. They teach us that every year is made unique by the fact that birthing, growing and dying are taking place, and that singing familiar songs together helps us to cope with the changes of our lives. In fact, there are times when singing Christmas carols seems like the only fruitful way to share a few precious moments, answering the dissonance surrounding us with the melody and harmony that permeate all our memories.

Then let us all with one accord

Sing praises to our heavenly Lord,

Who hath made heaven and earth of naught,

And with his blood mankind hath bought.

Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell.

Born is the King of Israel.

Weeping at the Grave

Last night our choir had its last regular rehearsal before the orchestra joins us this weekend for our annual Christmas concert. We are excited, and the congregation looks forward to an annual event that brings tradition and beauty together in celebration of the holy season of Advent.

I observed the faces of singers who sang through an hour's program with an aspect of concentration and intensity, all wanting to do their best as, once again, they express their faith through musical effort. For that hour they suspend the elements of their daily lives, and exist in a world of work and beauty and faith.

There is a member of our choir whose job it is to keep up with the personal and unique aspects of the lives of the choir's members, and express our love and care when a member faces difficulty. I think that most choral singers feel so connected to one another through their musical endeavor that most choirs elect a person for a similar task. In our choir a particularly gifted person has a constant finger on the pulse of her colleagues, and accurately senses when someone might need an extra touch of care.

Last night, after our rehearsal, she asked me how I felt a certain singer was coping with the upcoming Christmas season, since it is the first Christmas since the loss of her beloved spouse. She wanted to be sensitive to the difficulty most people conceal during this time of year. It can be an emotional and challenging time, and those of us who feel that difficulty often feel guilt, since the marketing world tells us it's a season of unrivaled joy.

As I thought about this choir member's sensitive expression of care toward another member, I was reminded of a sentence from the Orthodox Burial Service: "Weeping at the grave creates the song, Alleluia." It seems to me that the ecstatic Christmas joy we hear about in commercials and marketing ploys is best reflected in brief commercial jingles and sentimental songs about chestnuts and sleigh rides. But if we want to express the reality of the human condition, we need musical expressions that derive from real human situations. When we sing at Christmas, we sing with voices and minds that have lived another year, and have experienced more of the joy and sadness that life offers. When we sing this year's "Alleluia," we reflect that joy can emerge in the story of the Word becoming flesh, even though the flesh is weak. We look up from the grave and sing a more knowledgeable "Alleluia" than before.

It is incorrect and shortsighted to treat this season as if bells are ringing and store windows are shining and joy is all around. The Biblical story reflects that when the Christ child was born, infanticide was carried out, and many families stood around many graves, paying an ultimate price for the threat presented by the anticipated Messiah. We continue to see the death and tragedy in our modern lives as unjust, and we probe for answers to our existential questions.

And then our true friend, the liturgical calendar, calls us to remember that we are not alone. Weeping is not wrong, it is prelude. The sounds that are coming from our throats will evolve, and shortly they will be transformed from wail to "Alleluia." Once again, deliverance will have come in the form of a new baby, surrounded by unlikely stories, and promising hope.

The Meaning of Advent

A new season has begun, and this season impacts the lives of most musicians. As a church musician, I am intensely aware of the advent of Advent. Services will soon start to pile up on top of one another, and I will start to hum the theme song of church musicians during this time of year, "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." For those who work in the secular musical world, annual concerts will consume the calendar. School choirs will have "holiday" concerts, and symphony orchestras will dust off their parts to Handel's "Messiah."

When the season is over all of us will sigh a deep sigh, and take a quick inventory of the gifts yet to be purchased, cards yet to be addressed, and decorations yet to be hung.

We work hard during this time of year with the faint idea that there is some "greater meaning" out there to be discovered, and that our musical production is somehow responsible for helping everyone discover it. Whether our audience is primarily made up of religious or secularly-minded people, it seems that we have the world's attention for a few days, and we know that we must work overtime to make this year's effort stand out. We give very little attention, however, to our own journey of discovery.

I have been thinking that the "greater meaning" we are seeking is not "out there," but "in here." As I have been reading the Bible stories again in planning this year's services, I have noticed the different roles being played. There are announcers and there are seekers. The angels have the information and make the announcement. The shepherds can't begin to understand the announcement, but feel compelled to seek its subject and take a closer look. I began to think about the life of the Advent musician, a life that includes hectic rehearsals, hurried planning, and little rest or contemplation. I can frequently let myself believe that my musical task is to transport the audience to an "out there" of heavenly understanding. I am in danger of seeing myself as a latter day Christmas angel, announcing the good news from on high. What if, rather than trying to lead like the angels, I were trying to seek like the shepherds? What if the singers and parishioners with whom I work saw in me a strong desire to seek the meaning of Christmas, rather than a determination to lead them to that meaning?

In the mystical idea of the "word becoming flesh" we can see a directional arrow of prioritization. When the gospel writer sought to describe God's journey toward an ultimate creative accomplishment, the arrow pointed toward earthly, daily life. Can't we learn from that directional truth that our best leadership might be to help our singers and parishioners to find the "greater meaning" they seek in a daily, earthly life of peace and goodwill, rather than in a hurried, honking, hectic drive to a concert of heavenly music? And wouldn't they enjoy the concert more if the "greater meaning" had already occurred in that daily life?

I think I might have made this difficult season even more difficult. But surely it's possible that it might be more rewarding, too.

Back-up

We think of choral music as a purely "ensemble" activity. We exhaust ourselves in trying to blend and balance the voices in a choir, so that the total sound doesn't reflect the individuals who make it. Rather, the sound the audience hears is greater than the sum of its parts.

But western music seldom happens without featuring a combination of predominant melody and subordinate harmony. As we listen/perform, it is easy to identify the primary tune and the accompanying background of harmony. And this characteristic of most of our music brings to mind the importance of those who give great effort to accompanying.

When I was in graduate school at Florida State University, I was given a graduate assistantship primarily so that I could be the accompanist for the Chamber Choir. It was comprised of graduate students, and its director, Clayton Krehbiel, liked to use its rehearsals as an opportunity to read through a lot of very difficult music. He felt that we should all know the music of composers whose works were so difficult and sophisticated that they were seldom performed. It was my job to accompany the rehearsals in such a way that the singers' efforts to read this music were facilitated. During this time we were privileged to have Robert Shaw as a guest conductor periodically over several years, and I was asked to accompany his rehearsals. Through these experiences I found my dissertation topic, the "Competencies of the Choral Accompanist." For several years, accompanying became my primary focus. Since then I have enjoyed the help of several fine accompanists, making it possible to take this particular kind of musical excellence for granted.

Two recent events have brought the importance of accompanying to my mind again. In the first instance, our Birmingham Chamber Chorus gave a concert a few days ago in which we performed two pieces that call for a very advanced level of playing from the organist who is accompanying the choir. The organ parts actually function as equal partners in the pieces, and frequently provide the melodic material, rather than serving purely as accompanying harmony. The organist, Beth McGinnis, dove into this challenge and did an expert job, in-keeping with her usual level of excellence. The concert's success was dependent upon her efforts, and she rose to the occasion.

In the second instance, I conducted the first performance of the Samford University OperaWorks production of Otto Nicolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" last night. The singers in the cast have done a great job all semester in preparing for their performance. Their director, Bill Bugg, has built a beautiful concept, so that the production is visually and musically stunning. In my role as Musical Director, I spend the duration of the show down in a tiny orchestra pit with a group of student instrumentalists. While the singers in the show have dedicated their entire semester to preparing their roles, the players in the orchestra have had three weeks in which to prepare to play the two-and-a-half hour score. They have faced this difficult process with good attitudes and hard work. They have worked on their own outside rehearsals, and have never complained about the long hours we spend together in rehearsal. These accompanying musicians will not be seen by the audience. In fact, to the degree they succeed in playing the score, they will become completely invisible. They will allow the audience to become lost in the plot of the opera, and forget that individual musicians are busy painting the picture they see.

In a sense, most of the music we enjoy represents a tiny audible portion of a much larger enterprise. Behind a great solo or choir or opera cast stand teachers and accompanists who invisibly make success possible. The performers deserve our applause, and accept it on behalf of the hidden musicians whose efforts they represent. In choral concerts, the accompanist is acknowledged and the audience shows their appreciation, but it is impossible for them to fully appreciated the accompanists' work in the daily rehearsals that lead to a successful concert.

So I'd like to take a moment here to salute the players in the pit, and the pianists and organists who work in our rehearsals and performances. They facilitate our enjoyment and create the context in which beautiful melodies can have their desired effect.

What is sacred?

I am intrigued by the fact that there is no universal standard for sacredness. A great deal of energy is spent in the world of church music arguing over what constitutes appropriately sacred music. Shouldn't there be some place that maintained a list of appropriate music?

The answer is obvious. We are each responsible for the sacred in our lives. The Bible says, "Behold, the Kingdom of God is with people". In our anthropomorphic attempts to understand that which cannot be understood, we assign sacredness to the things that make us feel close to the God we claim to understand.

Somewhere along the journey of monotheism that was begun by the children of Israel, we decided that it wasn't enough to have only one God. We had to increasingly define that God, and in so doing, we had to increasingly deny access to God to anyone whose understandings didn't match our own. I'm a pretty orthodox Christian believer, and I don't really propose any radical change in the ways we describe God in our worship. But I think it borders on blasphemy to think that I alone (and those with whom I agree) possess a true understanding of the nature of God. If God is all-knowing, all-being, then in order to understand God wouldn't we have to be God's equals? Obvious blasphemy.

The trigger for this train of thought came today when I saw a reference to Schubert's familiar setting of "Ave Maria." It's such a familiar piece of music that everyone has heard it, even though it represents a fairly radical part of the Christian understanding, the belief within some Christian traditions that Mary is of such elevated status that we can actually pray to her for intercession. As a Baptist, I was raised with the belief that this was incorrect and suspect doctrine. In the church of my childhood there was no place for any feminine reference related to God.

I remember the first time I heard Franz Biebl's setting of "Ave Maria," and what an impact it had on me. I decided immediately that the choir I directed had to sing the piece. It never occurred to me that we should quibble over doctrine. There was no doubt that this was sacred music. Of course, I received complaints and refusals from a couple of singers, but the rest fell in love with the piece like I had. I told them, "Just because it's not sacred to you doesn't mean it's not sacred." We sang it in our church and in Europe on tour. The last time we sang it we were in the Sistine Chapel. In that rarefied accoustic it came to life in a whole new way. A catholic friend who was traveling with us came over afterward and said, "I think Jesus was very pleased for you to sing so beautifully to his mother." It was sacred to my friend, and that was good enough for me.

I guess my point in this rambling post is that we should learn to believe in the limitations of our own understanding. It's a by-product of our self-centeredness and narcissism that we believe we can fully understand the God of the universe. Why don't we admit to our limits, and accept that other limited believers express themselves in other ways. Why don't we agree that music is sacred because of the pure intent of the worshiper who sings or plays it, rather than because it meets our arbitrary standard. Why don't we seek to be effective and committed stewards of our own musical gifts and abilities, and leave the judgment of others to a more qualified judge.

The Heart of the Choir

I spent a few weeks in Vienna last summer. My trip culminated in a concert on July 4 in Vienna's Konzerthaus, in which I conducted a festival chorus and orchestra in a performance of the Mozart Requiem. After intermission, Greg Hobbs conducted Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass. Greg is the Director of Music at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, where he oversees one of the finest programs of church music in the country.

Greg and I are good friends, and we speak or e-mail frequently. Our conversations usually revolve around "talking shop." His program is large and complicated, and includes the allocation of professional personnel and resources to achieve a dizzying schedule of services and musical performances. Highland Park employs some of Dallas' finest singers, who lend incredible vocal depth and passion to their singing.

Although Greg oversees a program that functions at the highest possible professional level, he reminded me last week of the true heart of the church choir. That heart is different from the professional musical resources required to accomplish the high standards of a major program. It is the organ at the center of the body, pumping the life-giving blood throughout the organism. It is the dedicated volunteer singer.

While we were in Vienna, I met a man name Sid who had grown up singing in the children's and youth choirs of Highland Park Presbyterian Church. He had then joined the adult choir, where his faithfulness inspired the other singers, and where he had sung for over thirty years. At a dinner in Vienna he organized a quartet of men to entertain the crowd. During the festival he volunteered to sing in additional concerts to help balance the sections of the choir. His fountain of good humor and commitment drenched everyone.

I was shocked last week when Greg told me that Sid had taken the H1N1 virus, and its attack had been so severe that he had succumbed. The heart of the choir stopped.

A large memorial service was planned, and I can only imagine how that great choir sang for their fallen friend. The pulse of the choir will return, for Sid wasn't the only dedicated volunteer. In church music the next service is always looming, and the Highland Park Choir will rise to the challenge. But they will need a painful bypass operation, followed by some recuperation. Things won't sound or feel the same. For Sid is representative of the choir members everywhere who pump the blood and bring life to the mind and soul of worship; the amateurs who respond to a calling much higher than merely professional. When we lose the irreplaceable, we can't help but ask existential questions for which no answer comes. But we must not let our questions drown out our gratitude for a life so musically and spiritually lived. Those of us who lead church music are unspeakably grateful for people like Sid.

Good and Bad Miracles

A character on a television show was recently describing Mozart. He was telling that Wolfgang's father thought him to be a miracle, and felt a duty to take him all over Europe and let the miracle be seen. I'm pretty convinced that the father's perceived miracle lay in the profits he earned by exploiting his son's talent. At any rate, the end of the story, of course, is that Mozart became a childish adult. His adulthood started at the age of five or six, and he never matured normally. The world got to witness a miraculous talent, and the miraculously talented performer paid a very high price.

The recent death of Michael Jackson brings a similarly exploitive childhood to mind, as do the biographies of Britney Spears and her sister. I'm not comparing their talents to those of Mozart, rather the fact that their parents took a step beyond normal parental pride. Their talent, which many consider to be supernatural, became a source of both pride and income, and the talented child suffered for it.

Music can have a miraculous effect on children. All musical mentors in schools, churches or private studios can recount cases of prodigious talent that became a source of nurture and discipline in a child's life. They can also tell stories of students with no musical capital to spend, but whose musical experience had a profound effect on their lives.

The miracle of musical effect on a child who doesn't display unusual talent seems to me to be the greatest miracle of all. While I enjoy working with an advanced student, and seeing the minute-by-minute growth that occurs in their ability and understanding, I find most rewarding the situations where a child who has joined the choir with no real contribution to offer finds their life improved and their perspective opened. And I am certain that the parental pride in those families is equally strong, but in no way exploitive.

I know a child with profound hearing difficulty, who chose not to attend children's choir because the noise of the room was so disconcerting when filtered through her hearing aid. Consequently, I never really got to see her fun personality. When she made the attempt to come to Youth Choir, it was because of her efforts to fit completely into the group with all her classmates. I worried that the choir experience might still not work for her. Her mother told me she was committed to trying. It was difficult to ever hear her voice, and when I did it was not surprising that pitch was difficult.

She remained true to her commitment, and as she felt more comfortable, she began to play the piano for me when she arrived early. She played by ear, but had mastered some of the popular songs she enjoyed over headphones. She obviously had a musical talent that was in direct conflict with her hearing disability. One day I was passing by her as we were singing, and I was overjoyed to hear her clearly singing the alto part in tune.

The miracle happening before my eyes could be described as the victory of her musical ability over her hearing disability. I think this is a bigger miracle than seeing a prodigious talent perform with inevitable success. I love to listen to Mozart, but the sound of a young voice singing an alto part is the bigger miracle.

You Are My Sunshine, My Only Sunshine

Among the privileges afforded those of us who work in houses of worship is the opportunity to be involved in the crucial times of peoples' lives. We are usually there for the turning points and pivotal moments. When children are baptized, when couples are married, when illness leads to hospitalization, and when life comes to an end we are there.

There is a lot about church work that calls to mind the old adage about seeing sausage being made. The day-to-day work of committee meetings, decision making, choir rehearsals, calendar planning, and most of all budgeting can lead one to renege on a commitment to the sausage business.

Holy moments are privileges, though. It is part of our human nature to muse about the existence of a higher power, and to imagine that we somehow possess a level of understanding about that creating and sustaining entity. But the holy moments, when we know as surely as our baby has been safely born that there is something greater than ourselves, lead us beyond the musings of human nature, to a place of faith and confidence. We don't really know very much about God's God-ness, but at those times we know that God is enough and that we are not.

Two wonderful members of our church passed away this week. Both had faced long struggles, and had inspired their family and friends with their faithful and valiant spirits. I was discussing one of these people today with a member of the choir who had gone to visit her recently. She had suffered a string of debilitating strokes, and couldn't speak clearly. Her husband remained by her side and tried to interpret, and it was evident that her thoughts were clear even though she couldn't express them through speech.

The visitor had instinctively started to sing. Holding the hand of the suffering woman, she sang,

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

The woman's eyes lit a little brighter and her mouth began to move.

You make me happy when skies are gray.

She began to phonate. The pitches were clear and the words were coming.

You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.

Communicating for the first time in a long time, with the old familiar feeling that what she was thinking was actually coming out clearly through her mouth.

Please don't take my sunshine away.

This simple childhood song gave a dying patient one last opportunity to express herself with clarity and meaning, a skill that had otherwise been lost. She requested through her gestures and her eyes that they sing it over and over. She didn't want to lose the moment.

Singing goes with a holy moment. Those of us who are privileged to share in these moments would do well to remember that just as God's God-ness is inexpressible, music's power to express is unexplainable. This true story is a fitting metaphor for the power of music to enable us to express what we most need to communicate. And when we can't communicate at all, it is a great gift to spend one more verse expressing ourselves clearly.

Singing about attack

September 11 marks a gut-wrenching memory of loss, attack and devastation. My memories are vivid, as I was in Manhattan, having moved there just five weeks before. A former student had helped me to find an efficiency apartment in Jersey City, so I commuted every morning and afternoon on the PATH train, the trans-Hudson subway taken by millions of people who live in New Jersey. The train had two routes, Penn Station and World Trade. I had taken the World Trade train just that weekend to have dinner at a friend's house, but on weekdays I took the train to Penn Station. I emerged every morning from beneath Macy's department store and walked around the corner to my office on 36th Street.

When I came out of the subway tunnel on September 11 my cell phone was ringing, which was unusual at that time of day. It was my wife in Alabama, asking if I was all right. I learned quickly that everyone was watching on television as they reported the unthinkable, two private airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. Only later did they realize they were commercial jets.

I ran to the office and everyone was gathered around radios, trying to decide whether to evacuate, since we were in the shadow of the Empire State Building. I decided to go down to an ATM on 5th Avenue and take some cash out, in case I had to stay in Manhattan. As I neared the corner I witnessed a surreal sight on 5th Avenue. There was no traffic, but it was filled with pedestrians moving north, away from the World Trade Center. They were walking north but looking south over their shoulders in disbelief. As I followed their eyes and looked south, we all saw the second tower collapse. When the dust cleared and the cameras filmed the cavity where the buildings had stood, the one remaining recognizable thing was the PATH train, buried under layers of debris.

I made it home by improvising a ride across the river on a party boat, then walking toward a tall building I recognized near my apartment. I was stuck there for several days, talking to home frequently and assuring them that I was OK.

By the next weekend the trains were running, so I set out to find a church service to attend on Sunday morning. I went to St. Thomas Church, home of the legendary choir of men and boys, expecting to be uplifted by liturgy and beautiful music. And I certainly was deeply affected by the sermon, the readings, the prayers, and the music.

But the most uplifting thing that happened occurred during the receiving of the offering. As the plates were presented we rose to sing, and I expected to join in the familiar "Doxology." Instead, the organ introduced the familiar song "America the Beautiful." A packed church, full of titans of business and finance, rose in unison and leaned their heads back defiantly to sing, "thine alabaster cities gleam, un-dimmed by human tears."

In a city known for emotional detachment and a hard exterior, the familiar patriotic song cracked the surface and gave the congregation the opportunity to vent their strongest feelings. Every voice sang, and every eye cried. The song we usually sing in a perfunctory way had become our defiant lament, and we were ennobled and uplifted while we sang it.

A Life Well-Sung

When I lived in New York I was a member of the Riverside Church. Among the people I met in that congregation was my friend Lisa Maldonado. She and I volunteered for the same committee, and grew to be friends as we discussed our lives in different parts of the musical world of New York.

Lisa managed an office and recording studio that belonged to one of the most prominent Broadway composers, Mitch Leigh. Thanks to my friendship with Lisa, I had the privilege of meeting Mitch on several occasions. He has enjoyed a long and lucrative career, but will always be best-known for his great show, "Man of La Mancha", wherein the lead character, Don Quixote, sings the most-recorded and most-repeated song in the history of musical theatre, "The Impossible Dream."

I was reminiscing about meeting Mitch Leigh as I watched tonight's celebration of the life of Senator Ted Kennedy. In its most recent revival, the great actor-singer Brian Stokes Mitchell portrayed Don Quixote and sang the great song to universal acclaim. Tonight he rendered it as a tribute to the senator.

I was struck as speaker after speaker, from family member to senate colleague to friend, mentioned Ted Kennedy's love of singing. Senator Hatch, his great friend and frequent adversary, talked about how he had written a song to commemorate the wedding of the senator to his wife Vicky. His long-time aide sang one of the songs they shared in frequent sing-alongs with family and staff. Apparently, Senator Kennedy made singing a part of his everyday life.

I find this remarkable because of the remarkable nature of Kennedy's life. For, in addition to an historic career in government, Ted Kennedy faced a life of almost Shakespearean tragedy, enough grief to have stifled the song of anyone.

If one is to believe both the Republican and Democratic speakers at tonight's celebration, Ted Kennedy faced the great challenges of life as patriarch of the nation's tragic celebrity family with a song. When invited to the home of the governor, he showed up with the conductor of the Boston Pops and a pianist so they could all sing after dinner. When presiding over the awarding of the Profiles in Courage Award to his rival John McCain, he arranged cakes and parties and led the singing of "Happy Birthday" to senator McCain's eleven year old son. The stories tonight all mentioned singing.

I am comforted that the more I learn about a life that was both tragic and noble, and always larger-than-life, I find that untrained, boisterous, unembarrassed singing helped to make that life possible. Singing seemed to help make the rough places plain, and the crooked straight. I am grateful to see these legislative rivals honor one another, and to hear that for every mention of political rhetoric, there were three or four mentions of singing together.

A lesson to us all.

And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable stars.

The first sound you hear...

Do you remember the first music you heard? A lot has been made of the so-called "Mozart Effect", the popularization of intense research into the effect of music on the brain. Every now and then a new or expectant parent will ask my advice on playing music as part of the environment of the baby. They want to give their child a head-start, and are trying to be the best parents they can be.

I always tell them the same thing. It is based on my own early childhood music experiences, and my experiences as a young parent. I tell them to sing with their child. I tell them to teach their children lots of songs, and sing them together. They frequently give a dismayed disclaimer about their own singing voice. I tell them to improvise, and that the sound of their voice is the most important sound in their child's life, and that their child is not a music critic. And I tell them about my father's whistling.

I grew up 50 years ago, and my parents had been children of the Great Depression, raised in the share-cropping world of the rural south. In a path that can only be viewed as providential, they were both the first in their families to attend college, and they both studied education. I was raised with a mixture of rural family wisdom and the educational thinking of a world full of scientific conquest, baby boomer upward mobility, and the ubiquitous advice of Dr. Spock. For all the progress that was part of that time in America, it would be 30 years before the research that led to the term "Mozart Effect" would be widely disseminated. But there is no doubt that I remember the first music I heard, and that it had a life-long impact on me.

My father was known in our community as a professor and college administrator. He was also known for his community and church involvement. But to those who knew him well, he was especially known as a world-class whistler. If you woke up in our house, your first waking awareness was likely the sound of a hymn from my father's youth being whistled. If you drove by while we were in the yard, you would realize how far the sound of a well-executed whistle traveled. There were hymns, Christmas Carols and the occasional popular song. I particularly remember "Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling."

When she was young my mother had an illness that resulted in pain in her vocal chords, so she was unable to sing very much. My father's whistling became the sound track of their parental nurturing. My childhood memories include all the usual things: laughter, vacations, meals, play, school. And they all come with accompaniment, pure and melodic, signifying the close presence and care of my parents.

My point in relating this version of childhood is not to point to my family as some sort of prototype of nurture. I'm sure your memories include similar characteristics. Rather, I want to express that the music that accompanies parental nurture is more important for its interweaving in the most basic of childhood experiences than for its guarantee of encouraging childhood ingenuity. In short, forget trying to give your child an intellectual head start until you have met your child's more immediate and important need, the need for your loving presence. There is plenty of time for children to grow intellectually, but precious little time for sitting on laps and riding in cars singing together, or falling asleep to the reassuring sound of a familiar whistle. Gentle singing says more than gentle speaking, and the effect of music on the brain pales in comparison to the affect of musical nurture on the whole child.

A couple of years ago my father had to have two heart valves replaced. He went through a very difficult recovery after it was discovered that the first attempt at replacing the valves had failed, and several more hospitalizations and another open-heart surgery were eventually required before he could begin getting back to normal. My brothers and I tried to stay with my mother and help as much as possible, and one morning after Dad had returned home we turned to one another with a relieved recognition. After months of listening for his labored breathing, we heard a more familiar sound coming from his bedroom, and we knew with decades of assurance that he would be alright. The sound we heard was a clear and melodic whistle, a familiar rendition of "Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling."

No carefully chosen Mozart excerpt could have meant to us what that gospel hymn meant. It meant the same thing it had always meant, "Dad is close by, family is home, and everything is going to be fine."

and a little child shall lead them

It is 6:00 AM, so I've been awake several hours. I'm adjusting to being back in Alabama after bathing in the music of Vienna for the last couple of weeks. I have been Assistant Artistic Director for the International Haydn Festival 2009, where we presented twelve concerts over five days in four different venues, including the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus. A roster of great musicians participated, including Rodney Wynkoop and his choral forces from Duke University, Greg Hobbs and singers from Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, and instrumentalists from the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The repertoire of the festival included masses and instrumental music by Franz Josef Haydn, who died 200 years ago. But it also included three international premieres, a variety of other music, and the Mozart "Requiem", which was performed at Haydn's memorial service in June of 1809.

With so many great musicians performing such great repertoire, it might surprise you to know that my greatest musical memory comes from a group of boys and young men from Atlanta. The storied Atlanta Boy Choir performed in the festival, adding another successful international tour to their long history of outstanding musicianship.

On July 2, in Vienna's famed Musikverein, conductor David White led the Atlanta singers in a program that received ovation after ovation from the savvy Vienna audience, filling the silences between the songs and trying to give some small reward to the young but consummate musicians.

Did I mention that this was happening in Vienna? The ground zero of Boy Choirs? One might think that this audience would greet another Boy Choir with skepticism. But it only took four descending tones, the same tones used by Tchaikovsky to give the world his great piano concerto; the same tones Van Cliburn then played in Moscow to give musical warmth to the cold war. Those tones: sol, mi, re, do; now sung by a small boy on stage left, beginning Ralph Vaughan Williams' setting of the scriptural invitation to the Lord's table, "O taste and see...". Now it was an invitation to join these young singers for a few minutes while they celebrated all that is possible when fine art meets fine artists. "O taste and see how gracious the Lord is."

David White is a good friend, and he comes from a family of great musicians. We usually see one another at choral conventions, and once our conversation reaches the end of our family updates, we tend to resume a discussion of the generally low expectations of musical understanding and performance that people express toward children. I believe, and David's choir offers proof, that young singers are extraordinarily capable. In the 1000-year history of choral music, it is a phenomenon of the last 200 years that women would take the places of boys in the soprano and alto sections. Our greatest choral music was written for just these kinds of voices.

I often see and hear examples of the kind of well-meaning music education that espouses ideas like, "We must be careful with young singers, preserving their fragile voices and self-images by keeping things light and fun." I appreciate anyone whose motivation is the best interests of children. But I stood at the backstage door as these young men from Atlanta left the stage. Having worked very hard for a year, only to receive these great ovations from the world's most informed audience, their self-images couldn't have been better. And David's careful and expert approach to vocal technique left their voices anything but fragile. They turned around and sang as part of a large festival chorus in Haydn's "Heilgmesse," and were still giving their all 45 minutes later.

While the International Haydn Festival was going on, our few English-language television channels were all glued to coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. People my age remember when he burst onto the scene as a tiny boy, and continued to captivate people through most of his 50 years with unique musical performances. Now that his memorials are subsiding, I want to celebrate the consummate musicianship of another group of young boys, and the hard work that brought them to a point of international triumph. They are unlikely to grow up to the kind of fame that ensures wild eccentricities, and that is fueled by record sales. They will become teachers and lawyers and fathers and scoutmasters. But they deserve to be celebrated as artists while they are still in their boyhood, for they succeeded in the attainment of the artist's fondest goal. They prepared and performed the greatest art, and their audience heard and understood.

My favorite moment of their performance came in the presentation of Viennese composer Anton Bruckner's piece "Os Justi." Here are it's words in English translation (with a pertinent edit), a fitting benediction:

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom,
and his tongue speaks (sings?) what is just.
The law of his God is in his heart;
and his feet do not falter. Alleluia.

Christopher's ipod

My favorite week of the year comes in June, when my son Christopher and I continue our trek to attend a baseball game in every major league stadium. This year we saw games in St. Louis, Milwaukee and both Chicago stadiums (stadia for purists). We have now visited twenty of the thirty ballparks. Of course, baseball is not the point, although it's enjoyable. The great pleasure comes from spending a week with my son.

Chris is always entertainment director for the trip, and I get to listen to the music he keeps on his ipod. Like most of today's teenagers, he has eclectic taste. If he sets the ipod to play titles randomly, I hear music from many genres. I seem to remember our generation being more stylistically confined. Didn't we categorize ourselves at that age, confining our listening to either pop or metal or country radio stations? Today's kids don't live with a lot of self-erected barriers, and that seems like a good thing to me. I can't help remembering a man in a congregation I served years ago who told me, "I like both kinds of music, Country AND Western."

As I enjoyed listening to this eclectic sampling of music and singing along with my son, I couldn't help wondering about the benefit of seeing Christopher's ipod, where so many songs co-exist, as a metaphor for a better church. Everywhere I look, churches and their appointed music leaders are fighting over music. The arguments about musical style have taken on a significance wildly out of proportion to the larger goals of the church. In our city, a member of a church's personnel committee can drive past homeless or inadequately housed people, drug addicted people, poverty-stricken children, poorly fed families, seldom-visited senior adults, and sick uninsured people on their way to a meeting where they will discuss terminating their church's music director because they don't like the music chosen for worship. This seems terribly perverse.

I had a conversation this week with a friend who is a church musician and an academic leader in a school that trains future church musicians. He was excited about reporting on a conference he had attended where there was a joyous welcoming spirit displayed by participants who came from different sides of the worship divide. He felt so energized by the fact that contemporary church musicians enjoyed being with traditional ones, and traditional ones enjoyed being with their contemporary worship colleagues. It was exciting to discuss the possibilities for the church if our musicians and congregations all displayed this openness to one another.

I am among those church musicians who live in a very liturgical, classical world. But no matter how I may try to serve the church diligently by presenting my best musical leadership, my value to the church's mission is diminished when I try to criticize or minimize the efforts of others whose worlds are characterized by "contemporary" or "praise and worship" styles of worship. No rendition of classical music is more valuable to the church than a pure and contrite heart. Every time people competed for Christ's approval in the Bible he dismissed the competition. Today's church musicians work very hard and live under a lot of pressure, and that situation can cause them to become like the brothers who argue about who will be seated on Jesus' right in the kingdom.

I suggest that all of us who direct music in the church, no matter what style of music feels like home to us, seek to lead the way to unity within the church. First, let us view our music leadership as an exercise in stewardship rather than performance. Let us strive to be the best stewards of our musical resources, and to lead our church's musicians and congregation to do their best. Then I suggest that we don't just try to use our musical tools to accomplish this within our own churches, but rather that we reach outside our comfort and employment zones. Let's call our colleagues at differently-worshiping churches and combine our efforts to build a "Habitat" house, or volunteer at a shelter, or tutor at-risk kids. Let's show that we can serve without receiving applause or validation. Let's show that the church is more to us than a performance opportunity. Let's exist alongside each other like the different songs on Christopher's ipod, never thinking that part of our purpose is to supplant the other songs.

Elijah

A month ago we presented a performance of Mendelssohn's great oratorio "Elijah". At our church we present a major work each spring, and for the last two years we have invited other choirs to collaborate with us for this concert. These collaborations make our performances better, and we believe they make a contribution to our community.

This year the singers and directors of Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Vestavia Hills High School, St. Alban's Episcopal Church, South Highland Presbyterian Church, the Birmingham Concert Chorale and the Birmingham Chamber Chorus combined their efforts with ours to create a successful concert.

Some clips are available on Youtube, thanks to the work of Lee Watford and Xavier Roberson. Please take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcw80jfgMAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=293o4f8zZr4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzudEVr6gM8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_nYGu_7Xc0

Pentecost

I am a church musician in a church that follows the liturgical calendar. According to the tradition of the church, this Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. It marks the time forty days after the resurrection of Christ, when the Holy Spirit came and the church was established.

A lot of sermons will be preached this weekend about Pentecost, and many will focus on the attributes commonly ascribed to the Holy Spirit. When I was growing up in the 1970s, a lot of churches were struggling as they determined how to react to a rise in "Pentecostalism". People were exhibiting the more spectacular of the "gifts" of the Holy Spirit. They were speaking in unknown tongues, prophecying, seeing visions, and all sorts of "gifts" that made the people who were sitting near them in church pretty uncomfortable.

As music educators and church musicians, we deal with the idea of "giftedness" on a daily basis. We advocate musical training and understanding for everyone, but we also recognize that some people possess musical gifts, or talents, that make them "VIPs" within our musical organizations. Many within the church believe that those talents, or gifts, have come from the Holy Spirit, and should be used to glorify God.

I think Pentecost gives us a good reminder that our time might be well-spent if, instead of looking for spectacular and controversial exhibitions of the arrival and presence of the Holy Spirit, we sought to identify the musical giftedness of the people in our congregations. Once identified, they give us the opportunity to practice good stewardship of those gifts as we lead and teach the gifted. Our Pentecost celebration takes place on one Sunday each calendar, but our stewardship of the gifts the Holy Spirit gives must be our task throughout the year.

As church musicians our real task is stewardship. We are mistaken if we think that our job is determining the musical taste of the congregation, although if you listen to our conversations with one another, you might think that musical taste is our primary concern. God has been worshiped for many millennia before modern musical understandings, and will continue to be worshiped when our current ideas have faded.

Our task is more rewarding and healthy for us and for the church if we strive to identify the musical gifts of the congregation, and create an environment in which the church learns to be excellent stewards of those gifts. And it is likely that a side-effect of that effort will be a steady rise in the appreciation of musical compositions we consider to be of high quality and profound meaning. Promoting good stewardship of our church's gifts is God-centered. Promoting our own musical taste is self-centered.

The Music Musicians Hear

This week the Alabama Symphony Orchestra will perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. I sing in the Birmingham Concert Chorale, the chorus who performs with the ASO when they schedule choral/orchestral pieces. This popular work, which everyone knows from the tune "Ode to Joy", has been made more legendary by the well-known fact that Beethoven was deaf when he composed it and conducted its premiere.

In his book "Beethoven's Hair," Russell Martin explains how scientific testing has been done on a lock of hair cut from Beethoven's head and verifiably preserved . The testing solved the mystery of Beethoven's deafness and growing blindness, as well as his abdominal discomfort and generally sour disposition. He had lead poisoning.

Non-musicians find it odd that a composer could compose without hearing. Musicians understand, I think, that music plays in our minds whether or not it is audible.

A few days ago I conducted Mendelssohn's "Elijah." It is a two-hour (plus) masterpiece, full of beautiful singing and orchestral playing. Every year I conduct a major work in the spring as a part of the effort to raise scholarship funds in memory of our organist, Betty Sue Shepherd. Mentally and physically it is the most challenging weekend of the year, and it has taken a few days to process mentally and recover physically.

One of the interesting things that has been said by choir members as we have reflected on the concert has been, "I try to go to sleep and that melody keeps playing in my head." I have experienced the same thing, after learning such a large score. Sometimes I have to start at the beginning and play the entire piece in my mind before I can really settle down and go to sleep.

Music is such a mental exercise that I think the real musical instrument that we all play is our mind. It is assisted by the trumpets, violins, vocal chords and pianos we manipulate. It is reassuring to know that music can't really ever be taken from us as long as our minds are strong. And I have visited elderly patients whose minds were past the point of normal communication or expression, but who showed signs of memory and recognition when familiar hymns were played or sung.

Music is too great to be momentary. We must savor great music, and play it over and over to realize its potential for enriching us. As we sing Beethoven's Ninth this week, we will reach a point where we tire of rehearsing it. But we won't be able to stop it from playing over and over in our minds after rehearsal. In that way we will finally commune with Beethoven, and experience the music the way he did.

Why do we sing?

When I got married in Massachusetts in 1988, a family with whom I was very close traveled from Georgia to attend. The son, Jeff, was a groomsman, and the daughter, Stacy, was in the wedding choir. Stacy was a fine singer, and interested in theatre. Jeff was an athlete, and a superb golfer. So when they planned their family vacation around traveling to the wedding, Stacy planned an outing for them all in New York City. The highlight for her was attending "Les Miserables" on Broadway. When they arrived in Cape Cod I asked Jeff what he had done in New York. He replied, "I saw 'I Am Miserable.'"

Needless to say, we don't all have the same taste or tolerance for singing. Nevertheless, there seems to be singing everywhere you look. Baseball season just started, and every game begins with the singing of the National Anthem. That's not so remarkable, but every game also includes the entire audience singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" together. It's a silly song, sung in an excruciating way, but it's an indispensable part of the Great American Passtime.

We sing to welcome seasons, to express our love for schools we attend, to bury our loved ones, to worship God, to express our love of our country, and many more reasons. Our singing improves our thinking and learning, and brightens our disposition. The most popular television program highlights aspiring singers. And every corner of every town has a church choir, whose members are also likely to sing in community and school choruses.

I think the answer to my earlier question lies in the fact that we are all pre-disposed to sing. It's in our DNA just like speech. We learn it from our earliest source of love, a mother who thinks no one is listening, and sings from her heart. We need to express our humanity, and artistic expression, regardless how primitive, allows us to do so.

Working for a living is part of adult life, and I'm grateful for work. But I'm far more grateful for the fact that my work involves the daily pursuit of better singing.

Back to "Les Mis"... Have you seen the clip that's taking "Youtube" by storm? It's a 47-year-old British woman appearing on the British version of our number one show, American Idol. She is derided by the audience when she takes the stage. She appears frumpy and unattractive, and makes poor jokes poorly. And then she begins to sing. She performs "I Had a Dream," from "Les Miserables." It is so thoroughly captivating that the audience turns so adoring as to drown her out a couple of times. The judges are completely effusive in their congratulations.

Everyone can sing. That's what makes it ubiquitous. Some sing only in their car, completely embarrassed if someone hears them. Others make their living as singers. But everyone with a voice can sing, and needs to sing from time to time. The lesson is, express yourself. Don't be afraid. Sing!

Quick, what's my name?

I've been thinking about a little boy I taught nearly 30 years ago. I was a senior in Music Education, and it was time for my internship. I was fortunate to be allowed to intern with a choral teacher named Joe Tisdale in the little town of Opp, Alabama. I had known this outstanding teacher for a few years, as he was attending graduate classes during the summers, and we had struck up a friendship.

Our daily routine included several classes at both the High School and the Middle School. While the High School classes tended to be fairly selective in their enrollment, the Middle School tended to put almost any student in the chorus, because they knew there never tended to be any discipline referrals from that class.

So we would drive up to the Middle School around lunch time, and our room would fill with 100 or so students ranging from over-achievers to special needs kids. It was impossible for me, as an inexperienced intern, to learn their names. I became especially concerned about maintaining order in such a large class, and knew that my supervising teacher would be coming shortly to observe.

One particular little boy seemed to have extreme emotional problems. He came from a special needs class, and sat with his hooded jacket pulled over his head and face. He mostly rocked, but if provoked would throw the nearest textbook or other object at a classmate. His name was Chris, and I became convinced that I needed a strategy to deal with him. Meanwhile, I was trying to learn the names of the other kids, and noticed that there were two boys named Tim. Joe just called them "Tim 1" and "Tim 2", so I adopted the same names for them. Everyone found those names to be funny, and the boys took pride in their numbers.

One day I was seated at the piano accompanying the rehearsal while Joe directed, and I invited Chris to sit with me on the piano bench. I explained that he could be a big help if he would turn the pages of the music. Of course, I had the simple piece memorized, so that it didn't really matter when he turned the page. Although suspicious at first, Chris liked the idea of having a job no one else could do, and getting my individual attention. He happily sat and followed the music, which necessitated his coming up out of his heavy jacket. Within a few days I could hear a beautiful soprano voice emerging, and saw that Chris knew the song and was engaging in it for the first time.

Chris started arriving at the door as soon as the bell rang, and hanging around us in the yard or the lunch room. Joe was also a photographer, so he took and developed a picture of Chris and me standing outside the choral room, and when I visited a year later I saw Chris and he still had the folded photograph stuffed in the hood of his jacket.

Well, the funny ending is that one day a new boy moved to the school and was assigned to the chorus class. And his name was Chris. So my little buddy Chris came running excitedly when Joe and I drove into the school yard that day. When he caught his breath he asked, "Now that there are two boys named Chris, are you going to call us Tim 1 and Tim 2?"

I guess the point of this story is that our individual interaction with singers matters a lot. We tend to see them as a group since they belong to an ensemble. But sometimes their identity has to be established individually before their group membership can take effect. Chris had found the first episode in his short life in which he felt special, and he couldn't get enough of it. It would have never been enough to just know his name. That was different than knowing who he really was.

Thirty years later I will be rehearsing tonight with a great group of adults, most of whom lead nondescript normal lives. But if I look closely I will see a person who has recently received great medical news, and another who faithfully and lovingly tends a garden of a spouse, who slips a little farther into Altzheimer's Disease every day. I will see a singer who I first directed when she was in elementary school and who now teaches athletes at a local university. I willl see singers who are choir members out of habit, and others who come because it's the first episode in their life in which they feel special.

I must know them and affirm their identities and gifts, if the music we share is ever to have its greatest effect on them.

"That Word"

In January of 1990, having just turned 30, I accepted a job as Minister of Music in a large church. The reason I was offered the job was the pastor, who had decided to take a chance on me in spite of my youth. I worked alongside him for the next ten years.

If you have read the last few posts, you know that I have been among a large group of friends who are lamenting the life-threatening disease that has overwhelmed a close friend. That close friend is the pastor who hired me at 30, and who became a colleague I admired, a pastor I trusted and a friend I loved. Less than a year ago he found a suspicious lump under his arm. It turned out to be metastatic melanoma, the same thing that took the life of his mother when she was only 50.

For the last several days I have tried to put my thoughts in order. I think I'm ready now to speak about my friend, and this blog is my best choice for a forum in which to do so. I can't speak verbally for the lump that comes into my throat. It's better that I write. And I want to tell you some specific instances in my experience with this pastor that will give you a glimpse into why he is so dearly loved by his friends and family.

Philip Wise grew up in Andalusia, Alabama. His intellect quickly became his calling card. He excelled, and not just at his favorite subjects. He excelled at anything he thought about. His wasn't a memorizing intellect, suitable for attaining high test scores. His was an understanding, analyzing, digesting intellect. And it was coupled with a strong competitive streak that was displayed on the basketball court.

As a student in high school and at Samford University Philip experienced a growing sense that he desired to serve God, and that God desired for him to be a minister. He pursued the study of theology, becoming well-known for his keen understanding, and eventually traveling to Oxford University for three years of intense study.

A return to south Alabama and the pastorate led to the convergence of our paths at the First Baptist Church of Dothan, Alabama. Here are some specific instances I remember from that time.

I remember a time when a church member who was having a combination of health and professional problems disappeared. He didn't leave any clues, and his family and friends were understandably upset. I was at their house with a large group of people, all trying to help, and all adding a little to the growing hysteria. I remember Philip walking in and assessing the situation. He listened to all the conjecture about what might have happened, each guess getting more extreme. He listened to the family members who were grasping for some idea of what to do. And then, from his great intellect came the right words, in the form of a simple question: "What do we know?" Everyone looked around, and all the crazy conjecture stopped, and he repeated the question. The answer was that we knew our friend was gone, and we wanted to find him. So we all turned around and left the house to find our friend, who turned up a little dazed and confused a few hours later. A lot of people would have loved to have a pastor who empathized to the point of validating the hysteria. But God, in mercy, gave us a pastor whose intellectual ability led him to say the words that turned the situation around.

I remember another time when one of those scandals happened that people love to watch in the church. Another pastor had been caught in a very public morality lapse. And this other pastor was a person to whom Philip had been unfavorably compared by a few detractors. As the press went on their field day, trying to get a comment out of any of us who would speak to them, Philip set the example of not ever speaking an unkind word about the other minister. But I learned later that he had spent the entire previous night with that pastor and his family. He had listened and ministered to them and never said a word about it. There was great profit to be had on the low road, but he and his words stayed on the high road.

And I remember a time of tragedy, when one of Philip's closest college friends who belonged to our church had a massive heart attack and passed away on a Saturday night. When I arrived at work at 7:00 on Sunday morning I found Philip looking pale and upset, and learned that he had been up all night with the family of his friend. The funeral was the largest our church had ever seen, with an overflow crowd who were all so stricken with the grief of the loss of this young, good man. I sat right behind the pulpit, and had a view of the extraordinary effort it took for Philip to deliver the funeral sermon. I saw his white knuckles as he gripped the sides of the pulpit, and his shuffling feet as he nervously shifted his weight, like a prize-fighter with everything on the line. I remember marvelling at his strength. And then I remember the final words of the sermon.

Philip gripped that pulpit and set out to recite the hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." I could hear the lump growing in his throat, and see his grip tightening on the pulpit. He relied on the words of Martin Luther to bring truth to an inexplicable situation. And he made it through all four verses. He displayed that intellect and strength that had sustained him through the impossibly difficult task of pastoring. And when he didn't have words of his own that would suffice, he turned to the greatest hymn he knew.

Now we all stand around the bed of our frail, weak friend and don't know what to say. So I say this:

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little WORD shall fell him.

That WORD above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Philip, your friends are gripping the pulpit, shuffling our feet, and wishing we had a little of your legendary strength. You always had the right words. Because you always had the right Word. As your battle nears its end we wish you peace, and thank God for the way you've strengthened us.

Sorrow

One of the privileges and burdens of life in church music comes when death visits a church family. I've spent a lot of time lately dealing with the dark planning necessary when someone faces the end of a battle with disease.

For me it's easier to work than contemplate. So I am glad to have the job of planning services of remembrance, especially when the person who faces death is a friend.

As I've been thinking through a couple of these services, I've been struck with how bereft our hymnal is of any material that can help us grieve. I think it's a lot to ask the family who has observed the pain and distress of disease to instantly shift into a mode of joyful singing. They need to be able to express themselves at whatever stage of grief they find themselves.

So yesterday I wrote a hymn text. It matches the tune RESTORATION, which most of us know when matched with the words "I Will Arise and Go to Jesus." My new text seeks to voice the honest feelings of mourning while drawing strength from the suffering Christ. Its refrain serves as a reminder of the paradox in Paul's Philippian letter, "For me, living is Christ, and dying is gain." Please sing it to yourself, and let me know what you think of it.

(refrain) In our sorrow, grief and mourning,
Lord be present, share our pain.
Teach us your confounding lesson,
"Life is Christ and death is gain."

1. Journeying thru' death's cold shadow
we are shocked and mystified.
You have walked this path before us,
Lord, in mercy be our guide.

Refrain

2. Anger speaks in ev'ry sentence,
and our sadness overflows.
Help us to recall your suff'ring
as we voice our urgent woe.

Refrain

3. Teach us, Lord, through your example
death and pain will be destroyed.
Though we walk through nights of darkness,
morning waits with promised joy.

Refrain.