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.”