Thoughts Happen

Epiphany in Music

I love to sing. But sometimes I forget that. Daughter said she wanted to go to the Epiphany Eve Carol Sing at our church, so we went together, but I ended up enjoying it at least as much as she did, and not only because of the cookies and cider afterwards.

Epiphany eve, sometimes called Twelfth Night, marks the official end of the Christmas season. Epiphany is the day the Three Wise Men, or Magi arrived to visit the baby Jesus, and falls on the 12th day after Christmas, January 6. (You knew those songs about the Twelve Days of Christmas and We Three Kings went together, right?)

The service was billed as the last opportunity to sing favorite Christmas carols. I love singing Christmas carols. It’s true. I love their familiar tunes and cadences and the continuity they bring to the years. Over time I learned the alto harmony to many of them, and I love singing next to my sister and mom on Christmas Eve, trading off melody and harmony, hearing our three voices weave in with the rest of the congregation. But there’s just one problem; there’s never enough of them.

To get in all the traditional favorites and still leave enough time for the rest of the service, we usually only get to sing at most one or two verses of the same carols every time. I feel like I’m just getting warmed up and we are off "Angels We Have Heard on High" and on to "Joy to the World".

But the Carol Sing was perfect—it could have been called the “All Carols All the Time” service. We called out requests, and while we still didn’t sing every verse, we got to sing more than just one from each carol. We even did a few I had never heard before: “When Christmas Morn is Dawning” and “Jesus, Our Brother, Kind and Good.” We stumbled through the Spanish verse of “Fum, Fum, Fum” and all got to sing the solo parts of “Oh, Holy Night.” At the end we lit candles just like we do on Christmas Eve and sang all the verses (including one in German) of “Silent Night.”

I tipped my unlit candle into Daughter’s flame and realized I was happy. I had my daughter next to me, wonderful music all around, and I had remembered again how much I love to sing.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattwright/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

A Place Called Home

Our guest was quiet, unassuming, and soft-spoken—characteristics I wouldn’t automatically associate with a member of a rousing African gospel vocal band. But there he was, sitting in my living room watching CNN. How I came to have a houseguest from Tanzania is a matter of good luck and timing. The New Life Band is touring the U.S. this fall, raising money for a much-needed secondary school in their hometown, and had a scheduled stop at our church; when our pastor asked for host families for the band members for a few nights I volunteered right away. After all, how many chances would we get to offer hospitality to someone from halfway around the world?

For three months the band is touring at the rate of regular rock stars, maybe moreso—I don’t think Blink 182 gets up at dawn to get ready for three Sunday services in addition to a demanding nighttime concert schedule. And what a concert. Anyone who can get a churchful of Lutherans to get up and dance has got some pretty powerful mojo going on. They pulled it off because they believe in what they are doing and don’t have to manipulate their audience; joy and genuineness just exudes from them. They were simply being themselves, and we all got swept up in the fun of it. They even sing a Swahili version of "How Great Thou Art," which should seem pretty apropos to anyone who read my August post about that particular hymn.

So it came to be that Gabriel, who has been with the band for 30 years (wow), had dinner with us Tuesday night. I picked him up at the church and drove back to our house, and as I pulled into the driveway our new motion-sensor light over the garage door came on. Making small talk, I noted how much I liked the new light, because sometimes it’s really dark outside when we get home.

Over dinner we asked him questions about Tanzania, trying to strike a balance between not being too nosy yet not wanting to waste this opportunity to learn about somewhere so foreign from a local. Yet the more we talked, the less foreign Tanzania started to seem and the more it seemed like just a place people call home, where parents raise their kids, worry about them getting good jobs, hope the weather improves for the crops next year.

During our conversation it came up that a lot of people in the villages in Tanzania don’t have electricity, and even some people in the city don’t have it. They use kerosene lamps and schedule their lives around daylight hours. I thought back to my comment about the garage light and how that might sound to someone who lives without electricity. And then I tried to imagine the velvety blackness of someone’s hometown in Africa after dark, a place someone not so different from me would call home. 

How Great Thou Art

Sunday was Favorite Hymn Day at church, and we sang medleys of everyone’s favorites sprinkled throughout the service. One stanza transported me back 30 years to a crisp Pennsylvania morning and an elderly couple’s commingled voices spiraling towards the open sky.

Their names were Lorenz and Inez, which as a child I thought were very exotic—all those “z’s”—and they were part of a Christian camping club my family belonged to in the ‘70s. They were the parents of the club’s leader and driving force, a stocky, down-to-earth Born Again Christian named John with a buzz cut and glasses that fastened around his head with a strap. John had a bear’s hug, a watermelon smile and a handshake like a ham sandwich on rye.

Weekends with “the campers” were filled with campfires, volleyball, flashlight tag, potluck dinners with “sweet treat,” tri-carts, rainy day games of Pit in a neighbor’s trailer, finding the perfect stick to poke in the fire, cocoa, roasted marshmallows and mountain pies (two pieces of bread with cherry pie filling in between heated over the fire in a press).

And Sunday mornings were for church. They set up an outdoor service on the campground stage, if there was one, or else in a clearing or empty campsite, with folding chairs for anyone who wanted to come.

“Then sings my soul ...”

The format never strayed too far: testimonials; a children’s story from a club member with his own ventriloquist’s dummy; a message, usually delivered by John; and lots of singing.

“... My savior God to Thee ...”

A staple of the service is Lorenz and Inez singing a duet. Lorenz is tall, lean, square-jawed with a frame of wavy white hair, wearing leisure-suit slacks and a collared short-sleeved shirt. Cataracts cloud his eyes behind clear glasses.

“... How great Thou art ...”

Inez is petite with an ample backside. Her slightly forward-tilting posture, strong nose and tiny mouth give her the impression of a mother sparrow. Gray hair pulled back in a loose bun and wearing a shirtwaist dress, she barely reaches to her husband’s shoulder.

“... How greaaat, Thou aaaaart ...”

When they sing they sometimes close their eyes, Inez holding Lorenz’s hand or perching her arm at his elbow. As the chorus builds, her soprano soars above his workman’s tenor, taking on a choir-lady warble on the high notes as Lorenz works to a crescendo until the final climactic stanza.

I witnessed it so many times it’s indelibly imprinted on my memory. They seemed rooted, in a matter-of-fact way that made an impression on me.

My faith isn’t the same as it was when I was nine, and there are many things I have come to question. But I recognize when I encounter someone who is secure in their faith, regardless of their tradition, and I have grown to appreciate the genuineness that exudes from them.

Usually it’s not the ones who expound the loudest or the most, but those who simply are their faith because they couldn’t be any other way. Lorenz and Inez, under the blue sky of a Pennsylvania Sunday, were like that.

(Photo courtesy of tambrieann via Creative Commons)