"To follow the meaning of the six directions as the ancients plotted them, you begin by drawing a circle around yourself. Then you stand in the center of the circle and face the direction in which the sun rises...The ancients called these directions 'powers' or 'spirits' and endowed them with symbols, ceremonies and names...'There is much power in the circle' said Black Elk". The Roaring of the Sacred River, Steven Foster and Meredith Little,1989
"Draw a circle of power around yourself and stand in that circle." Black Elk, holy man of the Lakota Sioux (1863-1950)
Christmas of 1982 was very difficult for me. In so many ways it was no more difficult than any other Christmas in music ministry, but that year in different ways and for different reasons I made things extremely wearisome for myself. Regarding the music performances at my church, I required much more of myself than my church required of me. I had inherited several choirs that had come with the job that I had accepted three years prior and I had created other ensembles. I personally directed all of them. During the Advent and Christmas season, besides individual performances of each of these musical ensembles, the church hosted the annual Hanging of the Greens the first Sunday night of Advent. This service of worship, which resulted in the church getting decorated for the season, also involved a performance by each of these choirs and ensembles. Between readings one by one these groups played and sang beautiful Christmas music.
If you're a football coach, you take a few days off after the final bowl game, but then you immediately begin preparation for the next season. Regardless of your final standings, your fans expect nothing less than a conference or national championship the next season. If you're a church musician, you take a few weeks off after Christmas and begin immediately thinking about Christmas the next year. 365 days comes around fairly quickly in music ministry. For the church musician, Christmas is the Super Bowl.
In the spring of 1982 I was in a Baptist Book Store in Chattanooga, Tennessee looking for Christmas music for my choirs. I ordered much of my Christmas music from catalogs, but I found a lot of it there. On this day instead of that being a challenge and opportunity, it was a dread and a loathing. As I looked through music instead of thinking about one choir at a time, they all were crowding in at once. And for each of them and all of them I thought about finding the music, ordering the music, filing the music, rehearsing the music, performing the music and then cleaning up after each performance. I thought of the Hanging of the Greens when each of the ensembles was expected to play and to sing. It all made me very tired. The burden became dread. The dread was creeping toward despair.
I found some music to buy and to order and walked to the checkout. There on a carousel on the aisle at the register were several cassette tapes including one that caught my eye. Although I was not and am not an alcoholic, this one was an AA support tape. I thought that if it could help an alcoholic, maybe it could help me. I pulled it out of the slot and included it with my purchase. I slid the tape in the cassette player of my car. As it turned out, the tape included nothing but spoken quotes. There was no explanation to the quotes, it was just words spoken by a narrator often followed by the author of the quote. Of the dozens of encouraging quotes on that tape, I remember only two. One of them was "On their death bed, you've never heard anyone say 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office' " The other was, "Draw a circle of power around yourself and stand in that circle." Black Elk.
It would be three more years until I took a youth group from another church to Farmington, New Mexico to a Navajo Indian Reservation. It would be several more years until my reading took me to anything and everything about the Lakota Sioux warrior and medicine man, Chief Black Elk. But even in that moment in 1982 in my hatchback Honda Accord, I knew that those words meant something; they meant something for me. Until I got professional help ten years later with my emotional issues, there were events along the way that saved me. Those events included those words by Black Elk. His words mattered to me then and grew in significance over the ensuing years.
As Christmas approached in 1982 my stress had reached a breaking point. My "circle of power" had been breached and I was in full survival mode. One Saturday morning in early November I took myself and my cup of coffee to our unfinished basement. I was sitting on the concrete slab with my feet out the back door considering the relative meaninglessness of my existence. I had recently learned of the existence of black holes and I felt that I had slipped beyond he event horizon. In that state of despair, my little boy came up behind me unannounced, sat down beside me, put his arm around my shoulder, pulled me close and said, "Daddy, Jesus loves you and He'll take you to Christmas."
All the music was beautiful. The Hanging of the Greens was deeply meaningful to many people and all of the programs and cantatas were excellent. They not only exceeded the expectations of my congregation, but they met my expectations of myself. I had had nothing to dread or to fear. Christmas music 1982 was in the books.
Until I retired from church music a year ago, I had to learn the lessons of Christmas of 1982 again and again, But in 1982 I had reached a turning point. I had begun to understand that Christmas has its own power, its own will to be. It's not hard for the Tennessee River to power the TVA dam near here; it just flows downhill. It's not hard for those turbines to generate electricity, they simply give themselves to mighty forces of the river. It's not hard for the current to find its way to my home, it just moves through the wires with the speed of light. It's not hard for me to make the Christmas tree shine; I just plug it in. It's not hard for Christmas to come; I just jump in. Christmas is effortless. Christmas takes care of itself. The Jesus of Bethlehem of Judea will take me to Christmas. He didn't do anything to create Christmas; He just showed up.
For the American Indian's "circle of power" to have any meaning for you, you have to do two things. 1. You must define your "circle of power". And 2. You must learn how to stand in it. That's all.
My son, now thirty-five years old, called me from California yesterday to tell me some exciting news. He's always excited about something, but he couldn't wait to tell me how a trip that he and his wife are planning has "gone from good to epic." After he told me what they're planning to do, it did sound "epic." One of the synonyms of "epic" is "monumental". One of the definitions of "monumental" is "serving as a monument." I should erect a monument in Rossville, Georgia. The inscription will read. "Here in Christmas of 1982, God's Son and his own son took David Helms to Christmas."
During my years as a music director in Southern Baptist churches, we concluded nearly every regular service of worship with an invitation. This invitation was accompanied by soul-stirring music and promptings by the pastor. The invitation was to come profess your faith in Christ or to move your membership to that church. So now I offer an invitation. I'll provide the words; you provide the music. For your heart to be full of Jesus this Christmas, it must be empty of everything else. For your circle of power to include you, it must be empty of everything else. You only have one Christmas of 2016. For it to be full of love, joy and peace it must be empty of everything else. Make room for love. Make room for joy. Make room for peace. You make the room; the love, joy and peace will take care of themselves. "Jesus loves you; He'll take you to Christmas." "Oh come to my heart Lord Jesus, there's room in my heart for you."
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