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.

Thank God for the Fleas

During the coronavirus I am amazed at the number of people, especially "evangelicals", who believe that God is punishing us. I estimate that fully 50%, maybe more, of evangelicals believe that with Covid 19 God is sending us a message, a warning. The reasons that I see most often for God's wrath are homosexuality and abortion. In other words, the basic personality of God is anger and judgement. It seems to me that the assumption here is that God actually enjoys raining fire and brimstone down on his people. I see this reaction in storms as well. The assumption is that God is actually personally involved in who is and is not killed or affected by the storm. Furthermore, Christians comment on the "miracle" that happens when the family at 101 Pine Street is spared, but then the family at 106 Pine Street are all killed. If God spared one family, doesn't it stand to reason that God destroyed the other one? Can we assign the "miracle" from God to one circumstance and absolve Him of blame in the other? 

In our local paper there is a Sunday page called Faith and Family. In today's paper there is a commentary by Dr. William F. Holland, Jr. that speaks to this dichotomy.Instead of suggesting that God is punishing us with Covid 19 he says this, "God wants you to know that He loves you very much. He knows your thoughts and what you are going through, and He understands everything". He goes on to say, "Remember, no matter what there is no need to fear for Jesus will always be with you." Isn't this a better opinion of God's involvement with the virus instead of punishment? 

In her autobiography, The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom talks about the lice and fleas in the beds of their barracks. Instead of seeing it as a plague or warning from God, Corrie's sister Betsie realized that because of the fleas, the guards left them alone and never entered their sleeping quarters. Instead of God's wrath they chose to see God's deliverance because of the torment. They both learned to thank God for the fleas. If you find hope and comfort in the wrath of God, then knock yourself out!  For me, I believe that God knows our suffering and actually enters it with us. "Be still and know that I am God." And that's a good thing.

Like

Like

Nothing really.

For 15 years, every few days I got something on my mind that I wanted to write about. I sat down, booted up Word and started typing. The blinking cursor faithfully moved to the right creating the letters and words that I dictated. When I was satisfied with what I had written, I posted the words on Blogspot and from there to Facebook.  In the last six months or so I really haven’t had much to say. It’s not that I’ve given up or am doing nothing at all  to talk about, I just didn’t want to bother to write. The irony is that with the isolation of Covid 19, I have had more time on my hands than I’ve had since I was a kid. And even as a kid, I was busy doing something that I wanted to do. But now on the days I’m home alone, instead of writing I’m usually either reading or watching something on Prime or Netflix.

This morning I got up at about 8:30. I took a shower, got dressed and ready to “face the day.” Today I actually had things I needed to do. I’ve had some issues with my legs, so my morning started with a physical therapist. This was my seventh visit and we’re making some progress. On my way home I decided to  call the Nissan dealership to see if they could do that oil change and tune up my car has been telling me about for several weeks. They told me to come on.  I knew the dealership was taking precautions for Covid and that it would be a relatively safe place to be. As it turned out I was up close and personal with only two people and, like me, one of them was wearing a mask. I’m not very concerned that I was exposed to anything. I washed my hands several times. Since I didn’t have an appointment, I had to wait about two hours. I passed the time talking on my phone with my good friend Mark and texting with several other friends. The wait went by fairly quickly. I paid the cashier, got in my car and drove back home.

When I got home, since I had not eaten any breakfast, I warmed up the pizza from yesterday and ate a couple of slices. After eating I decided to do something  else that I haven’t done in a while. I went downstairs, retrieved my camera, attached my favorite lens, my macro lens,  and went outside. I walked up the street to the cul de sac where I knew there were some pretty flowers. I took several images and walked back home. As I processed my images with Lightroom, I didn’t like most of it, but I thought three of the images were worth working with. I got the images to my satisfaction and posted them on Facebook hoping that my “friends” would  enjoy them too.

Now I’m sitting at my computer typing these words. I’ve reread them several times and am not happy with them at all. My sentences are short and my subject matter seems rather boring. But I haven’t posted anything in quite some time so for better or for worse I’m going to post this. In 1971, the summer I sold books door to door, in sales school they taught us several things to do to  boost our confidence for the day. One of them was to look in a mirror and say several times, “I feel healthy! I feel happy!! I feel terrific!!!” These words helped me back then and they are helping me now. I hope that you are healthy, happy and terrific as well.  If not “terrific” I hope that you are at least healthy and happy.

The Gym Sans Cellphone

Like yours, my smartphone is so much more than  a telephone. It’s where I check Facebook, Instagram,  my email, the weather, and the stock market. If I’m not listening to the radio, Spotify provides the rest of my music. Its GPS is indispensable. It’s where I read the national news.  When I travel by air, I use the app to track my flight (is it on time? Which gate and is it still at the same gate? Estimated time of departure). And I'm just getting started.  If that is not enough uses for this little black box, what about Google? Once years ago I started a sentence with “I wonder…” and my 20 something son said, “Dad, you have a smartphone. You don’t have to wonder about anything.”  But when I leave it at home, like I did a couple of hours ago, of all of its uses,  it became just a telephone.

If you’re older than 65, like me, you remember when  a cellphone was just a telephone. The phone itself was as big as a brick and weighed about as much too. Service was spotty at best. If I was in a city or close to an interstate, I had pretty good service. Other than that, not so much. So today I got everything together to go to the gym. Car keys, wallet, lock, headphones. I’m ready to go. At the gym as I was putting everything in the locker, I realized that I didn’t have my smartphone. Only in this case, its absence was just a phone. I began to run all sorts of awful scenarios in my mind. “What if my wife needs me and can’t find me? She doesn’t even know I’m at the gym.” “What if anybody else needs me and can’t find me?” “What if I have a flat tire on the way home?” “Or my car breaks down? Do people still actually  stop to help someone who’s stranded?”  “Or what if  I have an accident?” ”What if I get in a traffic jam?”  “What if…?”  “What if…?”  “What if…?”

“Ok” I said to myself. “Probably none of these things is going to happen. And if it does happen, I probably will eventually find my way home and not die of starvation or exposure. My wife can probably survive without me for an hour or so”. I also found comfort in the fact that I was, after all,  less than five miles from home.

As it turned out, the gym music was fairly sedate and I got along just fine without Spotify. On the way home, I didn’t have a flat tire; I didn’t break down. I didn’t have an accident; I didn’t get in a traffic jam. It took me less than 15 minutes to get home. Nothing bad happened and I had no need for a telephone. When I got home, I immediately found my smartphone and checked for missed calls and texts, and there were none. Nobody had looked for me or missed me. It's all good.

So what have I learned from all this? Absolutely nothing. The next time I'm away from home without my smartphone, it will be as bad or worse. 

More Than Friends

“A friend loveth at all times.” Proverbs 17:17 KJV

“And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. And he answered, saying: Your friend is your needs answered…For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace..And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared.” From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Over the years I have heard it said, just like I heard a few days ago, “He wants us to be ‘more than friends’ ".  Can you be “more than friends”? I don’t think so.

For some reason people think that adding a sexual relationship to a friendship will deepen the relationship and that now they will become “more than friends”. Think about it. Sexual relationships can sometimes deepen a relationship, but it always makes the relationship more complicated. And let’s say that trouble arises in this relationship, to whom do the parties go to talk about it? One or both of them call on a friend. As Gibran so poetically said,” For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared.” p. 64 The Prophet. And why do we seek out our friends in times of distress in the other relationship, especially one that is physical in nature? We seek them out because we know that we will be heard and accepted with no judgement, with no strings attached. Can we say as much about the sexual relationship that has gone south?

So incorporate sex into your relationship if you choose to, but don’t expect to  become “more than friends”. In my opinion this reality even applies to marital relationships. The marriage began as a friendship, but now it’s just a social and legal contract. To dissolve this union can be a legal,  relational and financial nightmare. And while you’re trying to work things out or dissolve the contract, who do you seek out to talk to? You find your best friend. And how many marriages dissolve when that couple has remained best friends? Not very many. Maybe none. I know people who have had multiple partners and spouses over the years, but still have the same best friend. So what relationship is better, the one that became “more than friends” or just your garden variety “best friend”? Your best friend has seen you through all of it. And will see you through the next breakup, as well. 

Tomorrow I’m going to spend a couple of days with someone who has been my friend for over 35 years. He and I have been through much alone and together. He has told me numerous times over the years, “Please call me anytime you need to talk and I’ll be here for you.” And I know he means it. I’m sure it’s possible for our friendship to deepen in the coming months and years, but I can’t imagine any way that we can become “more than friends”.  Why would we want to?

If you are in a relationship that is in trouble and has moved on from friendship, consider trying to rekindle the friendship before you dissolve the relationship. How many times have you heard someone say who has been divorced, “And now we’re better friends than ever”?  Couldn’t you have somehow found that friendship before the divorce and salvaged that relationship? Why do you have to survive relational hell before becoming friends? And if you can find a way to become friends again after a nasty breakup, doesn’t it stand to reason that you could have found that friendship before it got so bad?

So all this to say, the next time your friend seeks you out to say, “And we are considering becoming ‘more than friends’, listen thoughtfully and respectively and then say, “ Go to bed if you choose to, but never try to be ‘more than friends’. But I’ll still be here for you if you need me.” Then you’ll laugh and talk about other things that matter to both of you. That’s what friends do.

Home

“For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning–not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.”

―Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

My wife and I are compatible in every way possible. We share the same political convictions and religious convictions; we love the same football team, the Auburn Tigers. We share the same grief when Auburn loses--like they did yesterday. We enjoy the same food and restaurants. For the most part we have the same friends. Considering that we are, indeed, “the opposite sex”, it’s quite amazing how alike we are. But of all the things we have in common, the most significant thing is how both of us prefer being at home. Of all the places on earth, the place we like the most is in Ringgold, Georgia on Timber Ridge Trail.

I wrote this blog post several days ago. In my opinion it was one of my best. However, Blogspot, from time to time does something very strange. As I’m writing, all of a sudden all that I have written simply disappears. Even though I’ve “saved” it, the words just vanish into cyberspace. Because of this, I usually write to a Word document, save the document and copy and paste it to Blogspot. This works very well. The only thing, sometimes I decide to take my chances by writing on Blogspot. In this case, it was a bad gamble. Those words are gone.

This particular post called “Home” I thought was particularly personal and particularly good. So good that except for what I wrote above, I’m not going to try to write it again. Well, like the Capital One credit card commercial, “One more thing…” What did Buechner mean when he wrote that we must pass through “Bethlehem” if we are ever to reach home? I don’t know; you’d have to ask Frederick Buechner. But what it means to me is that we were all born somewhere and it’s important to never forget where we were born, how and where we were raised and how grateful we need to be to the person who birthed us and the people who kept us alive until we gained survival skills on our own. I think too that he is suggesting that in spite of the fact that Mary and Joseph had no good reason to be in Bethlehem, because of what happened there, now 2000 years later it is one of the most visited and revered of all cities on earth. Maybe 2000 years from now people will visit your city because of you?

What you are reading here was born as a Word document. It then was copied and pasted here. And here, for better or for worse, is where these words will grow up and live.