Because I don't want to...

My 12 year old granddaughter is both bright and beautiful. She is a straight A student and a wizard on the basketball court.  She is as good an athlete as she is a scholar. She's very verbal and articulate. She has strong opinions and doesn't mind sharing them. She, in every way possible, is a joy and delight.

My wife and I, during this virus isolation, walk a lot. We usually either walk around the cul de sac of our subdivision or drive ten minutes to Ft. Oglethorpe and walk a couple of laps on Barnhardt Circle. Barnhardt Circle provides an easy .7 mile walk around a slight grade. It also provides a place to walk with little or no vehicle or pedestrian traffic. All this walking gives us plenty of time to talk.  Our conversation flows from topic to topic. We talk about whatever series we’re watching on TV, and we talk about our family and friends. Very seldom do we walk without talking about our granddaughter and a significant four year old little boy. Besides talking about our granddaughter’s current accomplishments and brilliant things, we often reminisce about “days gone by.” On our last walk at Barnhardt Circle this morning, we had one of those conversations.

Ten years ago, when she was two years old, our granddaughter said something that affected my wife and me very deeply. We didn’t realize it  at the time, but over the years she has saved us a lot of wasted time and grief by what she said. This is what our two year old granddaughter said to us that day that changed everything for us. On this particular cold morning in West Lafayette, Indiana she was all bundled up and riding her tricycle down the sidewalk. We were walking along for her protection from the street. Her father had his cellphone out and was following her and taking pictures of her. What she was trying to say, we think, is “please stop taking photographs of me”, but how it came out was, “Daddy, I don’t want to take a picture because I don’t want to.” Now stop and think about that for a minute.  Wasn't she saying, “The only reason I don’t want you to take pictures of me is because I don’t want you to”. And she let it go at that. I would guess that  you, like me, have over the years come up with a multitude of reasons and excuses to give somebody when they ask you to do something that you really don’t want to do. Instead of just saying, “No, I don’t want to” we make something up to justify not going along with the request. We have to have some good reason. Sometimes in the absence of  a good reason we just lie about it. Another response that I think is rather common is that we say “yes” and just go  along with it. We then find ourselves spending time and effort in some activity that we really don’t enjoy just so we don’t hurt someone’s feelings. Not hurting someone’s feelings is a good thing, but not when it involves something that we really don’t want to do. In that case, we hurt our own feelings. And aren’t our feelings as important as anyone else’s? If our feelings don't matter then no one else's feelings matter all that much either. 

So take it from my two year old granddaughter, a perfectly good reason for not doing something is simply because you don’t want to do it. Maybe it’s possible to be more diplomatic than just to say, “I don’t want to” but that’s the gist of what you’re trying to say. You at least say it to yourself while you’re deciding how to put it. If you consider what my granddaughter said and what I’m saying about what she said, I think that you will see the vast wisdom in it. All of this to say that “I don’t want to” is a perfectly good reason to decline the offer. And it’s the only reason that you have to have. So take it from a very bright two year old, if you don’t  want to do something, just say that and leave it at that. "I don't want to" is the only reason you need to have.

Music as my Refuge and Light

“Sing, be, live, see

This dark stormy hour

The wind, it stirs

The scorched Earth cries out in vain

Oh war and power, you blind and blur

The torn heart cries out in pain

But music and singing have been my refuge

And music and singing shall be my light

A light of song, shining strong

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Through darkness and pain and strife

I'll sing, I'll be, live, see”

Earth Song by Frank Ticheli

Although I had been singing and listening to music since at least age three, I was sixteen years old when music changed my life. My Minister of Music and Youth took a group of teenagers, including me, to Dothan, Alabama to hear and witness the very first youth musical of its time—Good News. During the invitation part of the service, I wanted to bow down and sacrifice a cow. In the absence of any four-legged creature, I “went forward” and dedicated my life to the making of music.  Sitting here now typing this around 50 years later, I can surely say with much joy and conviction that music has indeed been my refuge. Music has seen me through some extremely joyful and sometimes very dark times to deliver me to this very day.

For the past couple of hours I’ve been listening to choral music on YouTube. Some of the pieces, such as Hymn to the Eternal Flame, I have listened to several times. Although I enjoy listening to a wide variety of musical styles, it’s choral music that can most often touch me the deepest. There’s something about the blending of male and female voices, and those voices both high and low—sopranos, tenors and altos and basses, that model the harmony in the world and the universe. The blending of these disparate voices gives me hope that the differences in families and society are somehow working together toward a harmonious conclusion. One can only hope.

After that experience at the First Baptist Church of Dothan, I also “went forward” at my home church, the Hillcrest Baptist Church of Enterprise to make public my desire to spend my life in the making of church music.  After several months passed and with one year of music school behind me, my phone rang at 102 Glenn Street in Enterprise and it was a local pastor asking me to consider coming to his church as their part-time Minister of Music and Youth. I directed the choir that Wednesday night and accepted the position on the next Sunday. I ended up staying there a year and a half until I continued my education at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. While at Samford for three  years and for one more year afterward, I was the part-time Minister of Music and Youth at a Baptist church in Jasper, Alabama, the New Prospect Baptist Church.  Those four years were to be four of my most significant years in ministry, especially in music ministry. Although I was their youth director, looking back, the youth choir was the core of that ministry. I did very little for the young people who were not involved in the choir. But for the 30 or so in the choir, it was a grand undertaking.

After Carolyn and I were married, we moved to Louisville, Kentucky where I continued my education at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. At the time, this world-renowned seminary boasted one of the best music schools in the country. There I applied myself and excelled in every way possible musically and academically. That institution no longer has a music school and is a paltry shadow of its former self. During those two years I was again on the staff of a local church, the Fairmount Baptist Church,  as the part-time music and youth director at the Fairmount Baptist Church in Fern Creek, Kentucky.  After graduation, Carolyn and I moved to Rossville, Georgia where I accepted my one and only “full-time” position at The First Baptist Church of Rossville. After those mostly good four years, I resigned and accepted a youth director position at a neighboring United Methodist church. Two years into that position, I accepted a position on the staff of the Signal Mountain Baptist Church, Signal Mountain, Tennessee. I held that position off and on three different times over a period of nearly 20 years. There with a choir of about 25 people and two accompanists from heaven, I made some of the best music of my nearly 50 years in ministry. At the end of that tenure, I went back to that United Methodist church, McFarland UMC, and eventually became their part-time music director.  I built a choir of about ten people into a wonderful choir of about 20 senior adults.  Besides the  music we made at church, we hit the road a couple of times and shared our music with other churches. I have nothing but good memories of my six years on the staff of McFarland UMC. Besides the church music I was involved in all those years, I found myself directing the choirs at a local high school, Lakeview-Ft. Oglethorpe,  for four of those years. That position stretched me in every way possible to  apply my skills in other than a church setting.

I retired from formal music making about five years ago, but music has remained my refuge especially while listening through Spotify, Sirius XM and YouTube. I’ve lost my singing voice after two significant throat surgeries, but that doesn’t keep me from enjoying the music of others. “Through darkness and pain and strife, I’ll sing, I’ll be, live, see.”

Woven into Fire

"Every face is in you, every voice, every sorrow in you.

Every pity, every love, every memory, woven into fire.

Every breath is in you, every cry, every longing in you.

Every singing, every hope, every healing, woven into fire.

Every heart is in you, every tongue, every trembling in you,

Every blessing, every soul, every shining, woven into fire."

text by  Michael Dennis Browne

I just celebrated a significant anniversary. Twenty eight years ago, on Wednesday night June 10, I was admitted to the psyche ward of Parkridge Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There is nothing significant about twenty eight years except at my age and stage of life every anniversary is significant. Since I was not living at home at the time, a good friend took it upon himself to take me to the Parkridge ER at around midnight on Wednesday June 10^th. As I was experiencing a psychotic break from reality, I was medicated in the ER so that I could calm down enough to be admitted. I remember a nurse named Jo who was particularly kind to me. She lovingly talked me down and helped me to get to the place that I could  make somewhat rational decisions. I remember nothing else until I woke up in the psyche ward the next morning. I was not at all happy to find myself in those surroundings.

I had been in the ward for two weeks before I was diagnosed. My doctor told me that I was suffering from manic-depression, otherwise known as the bipolar disorder. It took me several weeks after that to accept that I was mentally ill. Even now, these twenty eight years later, it’s somewhat hard to accept. The thing you need to know if you’re not mentally ill or do not know someone that is, mental illness happens to “normal” people just like you and me.  I didn’t ask to be mentally ill any more than anyone asks to have heart disease or needs to go on dialysis. The brain as a major organ of the body sometimes goes awry and needs to be treated just like any other organ of the body that has problems. Although I had spent most of my life depressed, it was the mania that landed me in the hospital.  I have read that depression affects the one suffering and the mania affects everybody else.

Over this twenty eight years I have had a number of psychiatrists and counselors. These medical professionals have prescribed medication and offered hours of life changing therapy. I owe all of them a deep debt of gratitude. I owe my wife most of my gratitude. She has stood beside me all these many years through the best and worst of it all. 

The lyrics above are from a piece called Hymn to the Eternal Flame by Stephen Paulus. That piece is from  his major work, To Be Certain of the Dawn.  Nothing written explains my illness much better than the words to this hymn. “Every blessing, every soul, every shining, woven into fire.” May was Mental Health Awareness Month. The only reason I’m publishing this here and now is to make you aware. It’s important that you don’t let “mental illness” scare you or even to make you feel  uncomfortable. It happens to the best of us. My treatment has been successful. For years I have been in my right mind and my mood has stabilized. Mental illness can be treated and controlled, even an illness as significant as manic-depression. I would like nothing better than to open a dialogue with you about my own experience and to be of help with your situation.