Generations of Encouragement

My father passed away yesterday, twenty months after receiving a cancer diagnosis that indicated a six month life expectancy. Our family is together, walking through the valley of the shadow of the mundane, planning the service and other details, receiving the thoughtful expressions of countless friends and family, checking that everyone has appropriate wardrobe, shuffling the items in the refrigerator so that more can be added, and many other tasks that you don't think about until they become necessary.

The tasks for today included my driving out to the rural cemetery where my parents have designated their place among my ancestors, and marking the spot where my father's grave should be. My three children drove with me, and we walked around the new and old sections of the graveyard, giving me the chance to make introductions. As I told my children about my forebears, I stopped at my grandparents' graves, and told them about the special respect in which I hold my father's father.

My father was born when the country was a year into its terrible depression, when his parents were in their early twenties and trying to scratch together a farm. Two siblings were added, and the little farm eventually had five pairs of hands to do the work. In poor, rural, depression-era Alabama, adding labor was essential to farming, and all the Johnsons worked hard.

School wasn't mandatory yet, and the farm work needed to be done, but the Johnson children stayed in school. My father excelled academically, and was a class leader. He even drove a school bus. And when he graduated, he went to college. What seems like such an inevitable choice in today's world was completely unlikely in that rural setting. For my father and his brother and sister to attend college guaranteed that they would pursue careers away from the dirt road that fronted the meager farm. Their parents let them go, knowing that their farm would remain small, but their legacy would increase exponentially.

My parents married and both became teachers. And my brothers and I grew up in a family where education was a high priority. We were taught to believe that we could achieve our goals through hard work and integrity, but we didn't have to talk much about it. It was demonstrated for us. And just as the normal path of children on a poor farm would have been to continue farming, the normal path of the children in my family was to pursue academically advanced professions.

When I decided to follow my great passion for music, there were many who thought it was a frivolous idea. Surely I couldn't earn a living, or represent the high ideals of my family by pursuing something that many people considered a hobby. I might have expected my father, who by this time was a college administrator, to urge me to consider a path leading toward academic or professional recognition or financial reward. But he had learned encouragement at the same time he learned honesty and hard work, in long depression-era lessons taught between the furrows of cotton or beans.

When I decided to major in music, he encouraged me to pursue my studies at the college I chose, and he and my mother, who was equally encouraging, drove through the night to hear my performances. When I announced that my graduation would soon be followed by graduate school, he said, "We'll help any way we can," and soon appeared with a trailer to help me move.

When my schooling ended and my career took its various turns, my parents became acquainted with each place, and heard many of my performances. When times were hard, Dad was quick to remind me how he considered me to be among the richest people he knew, thanks to my many opportunities to travel and see the world, and thanks to my opportunities to interact with the great art of the ages. When life was hard, he sat and revealed his wisdom about the situation, assuring me that I was safe and cared for.

Encouragement was a rare thing during the late twenties, but my grandfather's encouragement enabled my father to live a life of achievement and success. And it taught him how to pass encouragement along to his wife and sons, consistently expressing his support and love.

Making music is intensely personal, and open to frequent criticism. I think musicians who lack strong encouragement from others probably find it very hard to pursue their passion. And I think many people seek to encourage musicians, but don't have a fine-tuned sense of how to do it. But some musicians are blessed beyond measure, enjoying the relentless efforts of a world-class encourager throughout their career. I am one of those musicians. In our last conversation, he wanted to be sure I knew how proud he was that I had conducted an opera last week, and how he wished he could have been there.

It would be ridiculous to attempt a verbal expression of the degree to which my mother, brothers and I will miss him. But his encouragement is deeply ingrained in all of us. It was acted out every day, so we have seen it so much we have memorized it. And the true evaluation of whether I have learned his life-long lesson of encouragement won't come after one of my musical performances. It will come in the lives of my son and daughters, when they feel enabled to pursue their passions, no matter where they may lead.

Where God Wasn't

I spent last week in the presence of 5000 colleagues, as the American Choral Directors Association held its biennial National Convention. Inspiration abounded as highly select choirs performed, and experts from throughout our vast artistic field shared their insights.

We were having such a good time that it was easy to overlook the news reports coming from Japan. It took a couple of news cycles for me to realize the depth of the tragedy that had befallen the northeastern section of Japan, and was spreading throughout the panic-stricken region. It has now been several days since the first tremor, and the situation grows worse and worse.

Ironically, the centerpiece of the ACDA convention program was the performance of Mendelssohn's "Elijah" by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Helmuth Rilling. If you are familiar with this musical monument, you are aware that the presentation of the biblical story reaches its denouement when the fearful prophet looks for God in fire, wind and earthquake. But, as reported in 1 Kings 19:11, God was not in the earthquake. It is hard to imagine what could have been more poignant than last week's performance of these words as set by Mendelssohn.

It takes the most amateur of historians only a few minutes of cursory reading to discover that calamity is inevitable. And, inevitably, humans are surprised by it. We live with an imaginary immunity from the unexplainable, and we seek meaning in the random. The obscene sounds of the self-righteous have already begun to blame the earthquake on God's vengeance against some group or another. But while these voices add to the sound of the calamity, other quieter voices bring the soft sound of grace.

The ancient Hebrew stories of the prophet Elijah were passed down from generation to generation as a reasonable antidote against those who for thousands of years have claimed to hear God's voice where it didn't exist. Elijah was afraid, and the calamity all around him made it worse. But after the earthquake, wind and fire, God chose to speak in a still, small voice. I'm no theologian, but it seems to me that this is more than a metaphor. If those who are rightfully afraid during this growing calamity want to hear God's voice, perhaps it can be heard in the quiet efforts of people around the world who extend aid, and in the fervent prayers of their neighbors on their behalf. It can be heard in the reactor workers who heroically stay at their post in spite of the threat of radiation. It can be heard in the hospitality of those in other parts of the country who welcome their newly homeless neighbors into their homes.

Mendelssohn's "Elijah" was performed last week in the composer's native German language. The work received its premiere, however, in Birmingham, England in 1846, and was performed in an English translation. At the point in the story where the earthquake, fire and wind have passed with no sign of God, the translator says, "And in the still voice onward came the Lord." I think it's possible to look at the Red Cross, or the other responders, or the faithful who are praying, and say, "onward came the Lord." To which we can only respond, "Even so, Lord, quickly come."

Children Singing

Last night family members both present and far away celebrated as my daughter gave her senior recital. She is a music education major at Samford University in Birmingham, which has allowed me to be close by as she passed milestones in her vocal development. She performed beautifully, and brought an outstanding end to a fruitful four years of college vocal study.

As I listened, I remembered accompanying her in the school talent show in the first grade. She tentatively sang a Disney song with all her heart. We weren't surprised that she wanted to enter the talent show, for she had sung every day since learning to speak. Each night she sang herself to sleep, and as her sister and brother came along, she taught them her songs. She is never happier than when she is singing.

Her sister is also a lovely singer. She was there to support her sister last night, having also chosen education as a major, and photography as a hobby. But as we listened, I recalled that she was also a singer. I remembered her beautiful face as she sang in the choir in a concert that was particularly difficult for me to conduct. Her beautiful face got me through that night. I remembered one Christmas as our Minister of Music asked us to sing a Christmas Carol in a service. She and her brother took the melody, her older sister sang alto, and I played the piano and added a little tenor. I was never happier than when I was singing with them.

And my son, who drove 200 miles to be there for his sister's recital, has also proven to be quite a singer. A few weeks ago their high school's band director was called to serve in Iraq with his Reserve Unit. The students were eager to let him know of their care for him as he left for a year in a war zone. My son and his friends worked up the Michael Buble song, "Home," and performed it in the assembly the school presented to honor the band director. My son had never sung a solo before, but he seemed at ease doing it because of his love and admiration for the band director. My favorite memories of his singing have come from our annual trips to see baseball games all over the country. Each year we plug his ipod into the car stereo and sing our way to the next stadium.

God has blessed us beyond measure, and I am thankful for all the interests and talents of my children. I would love them as much if they weren't interested in music, and we hadn't shared these experiences. But I think it is a particularly indescribable grace that the sounds of my children's voices are so prevalent in my memories and in my present-day experiences. When I become aware of a young couple's expectation of a new baby, I always wish for the child's great health and well-being. I wish for them to be smart and accomplished and gracious. But I also dare to wish for the parents to experience this extraordinary grace that has characterized my life. I wish for them the frequent sound of their own children singing.

The Crooked Straight, and the Rough Places Plain

Everyone enjoys Christmas music. In every church, the members look forward to hearing the evidence of the yearly special efforts of their friends and neighbors who are part of the choir. In no other season are the same songs presented year after year, and loved all over again by both the singers and the listeners. Frequently, the words and musical phrases of Handel's Messiah bring us the joy we have awaited. A tenor announces that "Every valley shall be exalted, the crooked straight, and the rough places plain." And the chorus joins to exclaim, "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed." At other times the familiar carols invite us to celebrate, and in spite of all the efforts during the rest of the year to convince us that the church's music should strive for "of-the-moment" relevance, we resort to our rudimentary latin, singing, "Gloria, in excelsis Deo!"

In my career of 35 years directing choirs, there haven't been many years that my parents missed hearing whatever music I presented at Christmas. They didn't try to travel from Dothan, Alabama to Ridgewood, New Jersey and hear the holiday concerts of the New Jersey Choral Society. But I can remember them driving to churches or schools as many as 200 miles away to hear our Christmas music in all the other places in which I've directed.

Many of my years of Christmas concerts were spent in a church where my parents were members. During those years, I met a group of musicians who would become the unsung heroes of all the concerts I conduct. They are the instrumentalists who make up the orchestra. Now they drive around 600 miles for each concert we present together, traveling from Tallahassee, Florida to Birmingham, Alabama. For the last sixteen years we have performed together, and I can't imagine a concert without them.

The ingredient that transforms these musicians from typical "gig" players into the unsung heroes of our concerts is their heart. They are professional players, professors and graduate students at Florida State University, and they possess the skill level of the finest players on each of their given instruments. But in addition to their high level of skill, they have amazing hearts. They play as if they love to play. They honor the efforts of the volunteers in the church choir by contributing their best professional playing, and they have become honored musical leaders of worship, rather than anonymous hired players.

Two weeks ago we gave our annual Christmas concert. After rehearsal I had dinner with Betsy, a brilliant violinist who spent her college days rehearsing and playing chamber music with Yo-Yo Ma, and Melanie, a double bass player who plays in the Orchestra of Saint Lukes in New York. Missing from our dinner due to illness was Melissa, who brilliantly manages the contracting of all the players, and plays viola herself. As we laughed and ate and visited, I related how my parents would miss our concert, due to my father's prolonged battle with lung cancer. These lovely people offered to contribute their hearts and musical skills to visit my parents' home in Dothan, and surprise my father with a Christmas concert of his own.

So yesterday they drove early in the morning, after a rehearsal the night before, to the First United Methodist Church of Dothan, and rehearsed for that church's Christmas program. They returned to Tallahassee and played for a two-hour concert of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. Then today they drove even earlier, and played for the two services of the church in Dothan. And after that exhausting schedule, Betsy, Melissa and Melanie came with me to my parents' home, sneaked in with their instruments, and surprised my father with his own concert.

As they began to play, my mother brought him into the living room, where we all listened, cried, and sang along. These brilliant, accomplished players, who had given their all in several concerts and rehearsals this weekend, still brought unfathomable joy to someone who couldn't attend.

The musicians of Christmas never really know whose lives they touch, or to what degree. And in the busy schedule of rehearsals and performances, they can easily forget that their listeners have waited through an uncertain year, hoping to hear those familiar strains again. Today, in a small town in Alabama, world-class musicians made a valley of shadows feel exalted, a crooked, suffering body feel straight, and a rough place seem plain for a little while, and the glory of the Lord was revealed.

My Song in the Night

My Song in the Night (click to hear the Birmingham Chamber Chorus)

Recently, the Birmingham Chamber Chorus performed the beautiful hymn, "My Song in the Night," as arranged by Paul Christiansen. It is a favorite piece for many conductors and singers. One of my fondest memories recalls performing the same piece in the Sistine Chapel several years ago. Its text refers to the metaphor presented in the Psalms and the Book of Isaiah, calling God our "Song in the Night."

All of scripture represents the attempts of poorly equipped people to describe the indescribable. One marvels that all of those writers through so many centuries were capable of summoning such meaningful metaphors to help themselves and their neighbors understand more fully the "Other" that was impacting their lives.

I find the metaphor presented in "My Song in the Night" to be among the more confounding and beautiful. It is sensible to think that a person whose circumstances include darkness might describe God as being "light in the darkness," and certainly that is the description we find in many references: "God is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?" "I am the light of the world." But why, I always wondered, would other writers refer to God as "song" in the night?

I began to understand a few years ago, when my life unexpectedly and suddenly was impacted by great personal trauma. As time passed, and I continuously and painfully processed what was happening, I was aided by the hymns I had recited through forty years of worship. It was interesting that when I attended worship every week I couldn't sing, the darkness seeming to live in my throat. But when I was alone the songs in the recesses of my mind softly approached, presenting a comforting message.

One of those hymns was the funeral hymn "Come, Ye Disconsolate." To my knowledge, I had sung it only once, at the church I attended for a few months as a college student. It came to mind, and gently sang to me, "Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." Years later, I wrote a choral arrangement based upon the way the hymn played in my mind during that time of darkness, and dedicated it to the chorus of Enterprise High School in Alabama, after their school had been destroyed by a tornado and several students lost. They seemed to feel that their walk through darkness was helped by the piece. Afterward it was published, and I hear from directors and choristers about its impact on the dark times in which they sing it. This hymn, which is almost never sung in worship, has a life of travel, seeking out dark places and bringing comfort that eludes the more popular hymns of our modern church.

I also remember being comforted by other musical metaphors: "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole," and "Come, thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace." Each musical blanket warmed me, and gave me strength to await the light.

These experiences have taught me that dark times can't always be immediately illuminated, but comfort can come amidst the darkness, making it bearable. I value the hymns of my childhood and youth, because I recited them often enough for them to return to my memory when I need them. I wonder about the experiences of those who don't have a trove of hymns to comfort their dark times. I hope there is still a song that comes. I wouldn't want to live through a night with no song. And while I appreciate new hymns and the writers who continuously refresh the church by providing them, I expect that generations will go by before they offer comfort in the dark.

Sharing the Ladle

I attended high school in southwest Georgia, in a small town whose racial tension had been so profound that Life Magazine had done a feature story on the subject. By the time I was in junior high school, the "separate but equal" lie had been exposed, and our population's 65% of black students and 35% of white students warily attended school together. My vague memories of that time include awareness of a great deal of fear on the part of the adults of the town as cultures were artificially conjoined. Of course, it wasn't long until the kids made friends and began to get along. Still, there was a great deal of tension throughout the town.

Like many places throughout our country, our town strongly supported our high school's football team. During those days in which the society at large was so divided, the Friday night football field was a place of unity and pride. And during the darkest days of suspicion and anger over racial integration, the students and coaches on the team provided a lasting metaphor that lowered the temperature of the hatred that had simmered since reconstruction. They shared a ladle. In those long-ago days, there weren't dozens of squeeze bottles of sports drinks on the sidelines, with students whose job it was to squirt the liquid through the faceguards of the athletes. There was just a water bucket on the bench, with a ladle in it. So thirsty students had to come to the bench, remove their helmet (revealing the color of their face), and drink from the ladle. As the athletes cooled down, so did the ridiculous fears of the people who thought contact with the people of the other race would result in some sort of contamination.

Racial integration dominated the needs of communities in my youth, but there is never a shortage of reasons for today's society to learn to share with one another, and reduce their level of suspicion and fear. If I watch too much political coverage on television, or fail to reach the "mute" button when the campaign ads interrupt a program, I can easily hear a message that says I should suspect all my neighbors, most of my friends, and even my own government. Nothing should be shared, I am on my own.

Just as the false premises that propped up racial discrimination were undone by the sharing of a water ladle, today's falsehoods regarding our shared lives in a time of financial uncertainty can be disproved by those of us whose work brings art to the community. The words our neighbors hear on "news" channels, chatrooms and around water coolers are bleak and ugly. We must bring them poetry of beauty and meaning. The sounds they hear are desperate and hyperbolic, with each headline accompanied by a sound effect to increase its impact, and drive-time radios tuned to shrill voices of dropouts who now have all the answers. We must bring them the sounds of compositions whose form and structure lead to serene understanding, and whose melody and harmony lead to aesthetic sensibility. And the people our neighbors see around them look like them. They have been taught to fear others from financial, social, political or religious groups different from their own. We must exhibit choirs and orchestras, libraries and museums, whose art and artists are different from one another, and whose beauty is enhanced by the diversity. We must unapologetically insist that if our neighbors will share our artistic ladle, their thirst will be satisfied.

As the artists of the community, we must show how important community can be. We are richer when we are sharing than when we are hoarding. We are safer when we are trusting than when we are suspecting. Our concerts can become the events in which the disparate parts of our society sit together, observe an act of unselfish beauty, and learn to live together. A poor person can observe the singing of a rich choir member and experience beauty rather than resentment. A rich person can hear the playing of a poor person and observe diligence and discipline, and stop blaming them for their poverty. Liberals and conservatives can see each other as multi-dimensional people, rather than as caricatures. And our rehearsals can be places of level ground, where "artist" is our label, and other criteria are not used to judge one another.

Financially difficult times have left us all thirsty. As artists, a fountain of beauty is ours to distribute. We should invite everyone to drink, and pass the ladle until all are satisfied.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

For the ninth time, September 11 has arrived with remembrances of the bright, clear morning in 2001 when the date became so much more than a number. Like most people who were in New York, I can remember a minute-by-minute account of that morning. Each year the nation spends a few hours speaking about the unspeakable horror of that day, and I think back to that frightening experience.

This year's observance has been disturbed in advance by twin controversies. In Florida, a person who leads a small congregation has dominated every newscast with promises of burning copies of the Koran on September 11. In New York, a businessman has purchased a building in the Lower Manhattan vicinity of the World Trade Center site, and seeks to build a community center which includes a prayer room for Muslims. Neither of these projected activities is particularly surprising.

I've lived in rural Florida, and have known people whose ideas about following Jesus are profoundly different from my own. I've also known that sort of person in every other place I've lived. In the early 1970's, I remember an usher in the church foyer with a handgun, watching in case a black person tried to worship there. In the 1980's, I remember an evangelist who convinced the teenagers to burn their record albums because he could hear evil messages when they were played backwards. (I suggested that they just refrain from playing their records backwards, but that didn't seem to suffice.) In the early 1990's, I remember some people who rallied at a school board meeting because the reading program they had adopted for that year included a cartoon dragon character, which they claimed was a satanic plot.

I've also lived in New York, and have seen how diverse each neighborhood is. I saw an interview with the businessman who was planning to build the commmunity center. He was born in a Methodist hospital in Queens, to a Polish Catholic mother and an Egyptian father. He belonged to the Jewish Community Center in his neighborhood, and hoped to create a similar facility in Lower Manhattan. And I remember that many Muslims were among the victims of September 11.

My reflection about God's God-ness includes a heavy dose of awe when considering God's creative power. Throughout history, we are at our best as a human race when we are creating, because we are honoring God through imitation. Just as those of us who wish to follow Jesus must imitate him by feeding the poor, healing the sick, visiting the imprisoned and caring for widows and orphans, so must those who worship God seek to express and admire creativity and beauty, for although we "see through a glass darkly," we can still hope to serve and experience God to some delightful degree through them.

Any reading of the Old Testament gives ample evidence of God's destructive ability. But it is only awe-inspiring as a matter of scale. We can all easily destroy, just not on the massive scale of a plague or flood. But (quoting Jesus), "consider the lilies," and see that scale is not part of the awe-someness of God's creative power. Whether creating a neutron or a planet, God's creativity is overwhelming to behold, and impossible to fully comprehend. By expressing our own creativity, we are serving God by trying to imitate God.

It seems to me that a fitting way to commemorate the destructiveness of humans on September 11 is through creative acts, not a destructive bonfire which is itself an exercise in vanity. We experience hope as we see the Freedom Tower emerge from the scarred ground whose address is now Zero. We watched expectantly as artists in architecture competed for the right to design the new structure. The most difficult early days were improved by the creativity evident in the plans to rebuild. And I think the creation of a Community Center is another positive expression of rebuilding by those who were affected by the tragedy. I understand the feelings of those who wish the community center were being planned for another neighborhood, but I also think that Muslim extremists can only be made more resolute by the actions of Christian extremists, with whom they have great solidarity, since they both defile the words of the Koran. They can actually be quieted by the sensible, creative actions of Muslim moderates. Every time a person who seeks God through Islam acts as a contributing, creative member of society, (as millions of American Muslims do every day,) it is a victory against the perpetrators of the September 11 atrocities, a victory that can never be won by warring Christians.

When the embers cooled after the most famous "Bonfire of the Vanities", the creativity of the Renaissance continued unabated. And if the reporters and their cameras ever leave the lawn of the church in Florida, God will continue to inspire those who are gifted with creativity, and those who seek to serve God through destruction will shortly be forgotten. Creativity, beauty and community are all fitting legacies for September 11, or for every day.