A significant part of my annual Christmas celebration is listening to the music of the St. Olaf Choir on Spotify and YouTube. St. Olaf College is a private liberal arts college located in Northfield, Minnesota associated with the Lutheran Church. Northfield is about forty miles south of Minneapolis. I know little or nothing about the college. My interest is in its choir. It's world-renowned a cappella choir of 75 mixed voices is the best choir I've ever heard. From the choir's website, "The St. Olaf Choir is internationally renowned for a unique combination of superior choral singing and the presentation of challenging choral programming with a vast repertoire that encompasses the entire history of Western music from Renaissance polyphony to new music." Perhaps the webmaster needs to be reminded about run on sentences, but everything he says is true.
I am now a recovering Southern Baptist. I go to two meetings a week. When it's my turn I stand and say, "I'm David Helms and I was a Southern Baptist for nearly thirty years.." "We love you David". But in 1975 I was an actual Southern Baptist.
The Saturn V "moon rocket" was the biggest engine ever built. It's first stage at launch generated over 7.6 million pounds of thrust. As the first two stages progressively fell away, its three stages successfully propelled its Command Module, Lunar Excursion Module and three astronauts to a landing on the moon 238,900 miles away. Technically, two of its inhabitants landed on the moon in the Lunar Excursion Model and the third remained in the Command Module.
What does any of this have to do with beer? I'm going to get to that.
In 1973, after graduating from the Enterprise State Junior College, Enterprise, Alabama I transferred as a junior to Samford University in Birmingham, At that time I was two years into a horrible self-imposed religious fundamentalism What happened to me was not entirely my Baptist church's fault, I wrapped most of my chains around myself.
Stage 1 was my upbringing in "a good Christian family." I put this in quotes because it is a cliche. But we were, in fact, a good Christian family. I'm forever grateful for that. But just before leaving Enterprise, my separation was vital not only important for the life of my family, but for me to continue my mission of becoming an authentic human being.
But beer? Just be patient.
Stage 2, my three years at Samford, was a life saver. My liberal arts education there was the beginning of my deliverance from my self-imposed theological bondage.
In 1977 I separated from Stage 2. Stage 3 was two years at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. And I still didn't drink beer (foreshadowing). I almost never mention that significant affiliation for fear you associate me with the theologically depraved fundamentalist Bible College this institution has become. It bears little to no resemblance to the incredible institution of brilliant music and theological instruction that I graduated from in 1979.
The Command Module of the past thirty seven years gave me a place to live until moving into the Lunar Excursion Module not all that long ago..
There are so many incredible things that happened to me during my Samford years, too many to recall or recount, that changed the trajectory of my life. But without a doubt the most significant event was when I found myself as a member of the Samford A Cappella Choir. It was, in fact, an a cappella choir and that was also our name the A Cappella Choir to distinguish itself from other significant choral ensembles on campus. An a cappella choir, in case you don't know, sings totally unaccompanied. "So you sing without music?", every now and then someone would ask. Our music was our voices. We were eight sections of eight voices yielding sixty-four perfectly tuned vocal pipes masterfully manipulated by our conductor. We rehearsed five days a week, performed often on campus, all around the southeastern United States and even around the world. Being in the A Cappella Choir was a big deal.
"Will you ever get to the part about the beer?" Hold your horses. I'm almost there.
In the spring of 1975 Samford hosted the world-renowned.St. Olaf Choir. I expected them to be good. I expected to be impressed I didn't expect them to be breathtaking-magnificent-phenomenal-extraordinary. After all I was in the "world-renowned" Samford A Cappella Choir. In some ways I had no adequate frame of reference since the only way to compare them to us was from listening to our albums. For the most part all I heard when we rehearsed and performed with the ten to fifteen voices around me. But I knew that musically I was in the presence of something awe-inspiring. And they were better than us. I felt that God had delivered a choir of angels absolutely intact to Birmingham, Alabama from Heaven (notice the title. I must be getting close).
The after-glow from the concert was palpable and pervasive. Walking from the Wright Center to Crawford Johnson Hall(CJ) at around 9:30pm, I was walking on celestial ground. The fullness in my heart seemed to have spilled out onto the campus and the whole world. Only I was not walking alone. There was one very unlucky member of the St. Olaf Choir walking beside me. All of the choir members were divided and staying with the members of the A Cappella Choir. As far as I was concerned I was walking with an angel. As far as he was concerned, he was thirsty. Before we got to my dorm room he asked, "Do you want to go out for some pizza and beer?" BEER?? Did I hear him right? Did he just say, "Get some beer" !? This angel of God wanted, just after his choir from Heaven sang on my campus, to drink beer? (I told you that I would get here). He may have been a liberal Lutheran, but I was a devout Southern Baptist. I didn't drink beer and I didn't associate with those who did. My parents were against it. My church was against it. The Bible, I was told, was against it. Drinking alcoholic beverages was just wrong.
I don't remember anything else about the evening. But I do know that we didn't go out for a beer. We didn't eat pizza either. I'm sure he would have liked to have found alternate transportation and entertainment, but this was decades before texting. Unfortunately, he was stuck with me,
As I listen just now, forty-one years later, to the Christmas music of the world-renowned St. Olaf Choir, I'm still a little embarrassed about what I did. But I did what I did at the time because of who I was at the time. I would have been betraying my core beliefs to have done anything different. I doubt my guest has ever given it another thought. And maybe Crawford Johnson Hall had a little foreshadowing of its own. Several years ago my dorm was gutted and rebuilt as Samford's religion building. Surely there's no consumption of alcohol in there.
"I'm David Helms. and I was a Southern Baptist for nearly thirty years." " We love you David. And David, that's a very good thing. Without Stages one,two and three you would never have made it to the moon."
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