Just Sing.

Sharon Penley is the choir director at First Pres in Vicksburg.  Every week, as we choir members go to do the Sunday morning anthem, Sharon will make eye contact with whoever happens to be looking up, and will mouth the words, "Just sing."

And we do.  We are a pretty small choir, but the level of musicality is - for a small group of singers in a small town church - fairly high.  We work pretty well together, with a decent balance.  Our sound is made even better by the work of the virtuoso organist, Barbara Tracy, an unsung hero working a lovely pipe organ to its fullest potential.

This past week during rehearsal, Sharon clarified what she means by the phrase Just Sing.  During the rehearsals, she said, we are working on notes and rhythms and rests and blending, and all of the mechanics of singing.  During that time, we become aware of the physicality, and we work to make the song sound like it was intended - meeting the intent of both the composer and the director.

It is hard, she explained, to make the transition from rehearsal to worship without moving it into the performance realm.  And what we are doing, when we sing in the church service, has nothing to do with performance.  It has to do with worship.  "You are worshiping in rhythm and notes," she explained.

This week is Holy Week, and predictably, this past Sunday's church service had a huge number of powerful songs - Palm Sunday is a time for singing loud and joyfully.  There was a lovely duet between organ and piano.  Children's choir singing their hearts out while processing with palm branches.

After the Lord's Prayer, my friend Paul leaned over to me and said, "Have you heard her sing this one?"  I shook my head.  It was a powerful tune called The Holy City, and it was one of my favorites when I was a kid.  The late Doyle Langley, uber-tenor in my home church in Greenville, would sing it from time to time, and I would listen to his voice soar impossibly higher and higher, providing awe-inspiring counterpoint with the Pendleton Street organ.

(I heard the words wrong, of course, and my 10-year-old self could be heard singing my own mondegreen version for the weeks following Doyle's solo.)

This Palm Sunday, as Sharon took a breath and began, I glanced over at the other choir members, all of whom had unconsciously leaned forward in anticipation.  The song - a tone poem of sorts -starts out as recitation of a dream.  Low and deep, as if sharing a secret, Sharon built the image of children singing, and the power of her voice rumbled through the verse, a powerful engine building to the refrain.

And when she hit the refrain, her voice soared and the raw power of her song ran through the whole congregation like electricity.  Next verse, the same thing.  Impossibly, the organ increased its volume, and Sharon's voice did, too.  By the time the third verse was concluded, every eye - congregation and choir - was open wide, and every body leaned forward, not wanting to miss a single note.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem.  Sing, for the night is o'er.
Hosannah, in the highest.  Hosannah forevermore!

Sharon sang a duet with the full organ, effortlessly matching power and timbre, instrument to instrument.

It was thrilling.

In that dead silence that followed - the long beat between the last note and the universal congregational 'amens' - Paul leaned over to me and gave a stage whisper that the whole choir heard.  "That, Crorey, is what she means when she says, 'Just Sing'.

Our anthem was a beautiful, powerful piece that we all sang with wild abandon. We worshiped God, as Sharon says, through notes and rhythm.

There exist in my own life so many places where I get worked up about the song, the notes, the pitch, the breath, and the phrasing.  Through all of the overthinking and focusing on the mechanics, my voice comes out weak and timid, for fear of making a mistake.  I forget to Just Sing.  It shows up in a lot of areas of my life.

My faith is tentative, and sometimes I am uncomfortable sharing.

My work, where I fret over decisions instead of just taking the lead.

My friendships, where I worry about saying the wrong thing, and instead just remain quiet.

Some of those times, I need to hear those words from Sharon, and simply join my voice to the organ.
And just sing.

Cheese Straws as Family Trait

"I couldn't find the piece that holds the top of my pastry extruder on, so I made the cheese straws the way that my mother did, and it was so wonderful just reliving that memory."

My mom was sitting in the back seat of my wife's car, on the way to the airport.  Caroline, sitting in the front seat, looked at me strangely, apparently because of the look that had crossed my face when I overheard the conversation mom was having in the backseat with Kathe.

"She never measured anything.  She just took the block of cheese, and then added butter, and then added  flour until the consistency was right.  And it really struck a chord in my memory, because she would let me help with the mixing things together.  It really was a wonderful memory."

It was the strangest sensation.  All my life I had heard about my Nana's kitchen fiascoes.  The installed ceramic tile in her kitchen, with personalized designs from family members, one of which said:

Because Nana was, well... famous for burning things in the kitchen.

Family legend has it that my uncle Richard didn't know that scraping the burnt part off of the toast was not part of the toast-making process.  So much so, that one time when the family went out to eat, he demanded that the toast be sent back to make it right.

Put your hands in the air like you do care

Christmas Eve, 2016.  Vicksburg.

Kathe and I went to the candelight service at the church we have been attending.  It was a packed house, and we stood against the back wall.  Several people made moves to allow us to sit together, and we shoehorned our way between the end of the back pew and a lovely couple from Colorado Springs, who had just arrived on the steamboat between New Orleans and Vicksburg.

The service was lovely.  There were kids everywhere, and the joyous laughter rang out throughout the service.  There was no shushing, there was no embarrassment that the kids were not sitting silently.  And there certainly were no trips outside, with the stern promise of a more severe spanking when we get home.

But I digress.

There was lots of beautiful music - organ, violin, solo, piano.  The old, familiar carols.  The children's choir, singing one I did not know.  Then a  children's sermon, with fifty children all joined at the front of the sanctuary.

And then Sharon Penley got up to sing.

Sharon is our choir director, and she has a passion about music that is very nearly unrivaled.  When we first spoke, she told me that when she sings, it is like she gets transported to heaven.  And when she directs the choir, it is like bringing her best friends to go there with her.

I believe her.  She is amazing, and lets us be amazing with her.

She has a beautiful, powerful mezzo soprano voice.  And when she stood up, and the organist began the opening arpeggio of O Holy Night, I got excited.  This was going to be special.

It was.

I closed my eyes, savoring the beauty of the full sound, all the way back in the back of a church designed for acoustics.  And just after Sharon got to "Fall on your knees. Oh! Hear the angel voices" I got a nudge from Kathe.  I opened my eyes and looked at where she was indicating, and saw the most amazing scene.

About six rows up, there was a darling little girl - maybe 18 months.  We had admired her earlier during the children's message - how beautiful and well behaved she was.

When Sharon's voice reached its powerful crescendo, this tiny girl stood up in her mother's lap, and reached her hands to the sky, as if to make herself bigger so she could hear the notes better.  Her entire little body became an antenna for the sound Sharon was making, and this child was giving it back with every thing she had. Hands up in the air, then clasping them together as if to hold on to the sound, keeping it from escaping.

Oh night when Christ as born.  Oh, night divine.  Oh, holy night.

Without question, it was.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Two Days and a Wake-Up

Counting down to Christmas was always fun.  Mom would come in and say, "Only ten more days and a wake-up until Christmas morning!"

Nine more days and a wake-up.

Eight more days and a wake-up.

With each day, the anticipation would build just a bit more, culminating in a fever pitch on Christmas Eve. The 23rd was Grandmama's birthday party at Charlie's Steak House, with the most incredible steak in existence, followed by a single sample of Dad's annual gift (the 23rd was his birthday, too) of a box of Andes chocolate mints.  And polished off with the free Tootsie Roll at the door.  The 24th was Christmas Eve party at Grandmama's house.  All of the sugar and candy imaginable, and the first salvo of opened presents.

Then the ride home, where we would watch out the window for any chance sighting of Santa.

Finally, the glorious wake-up.

The countdowns are fewer these days, with more stress piling up as I strike through items on my ever-expanding list.

Present for wife, check.
Rake the leaves that fell since I last raked, check.  Kinda.
Plants on the porch for the winter, check.
Visqueen up on porch to help protect plants (especially important with the coming 70 degree temperatures), check.
Report draft, check.

The countdowns are now about getting things done before, rather than looking forward to something with anticipation.  Work lists that are getting ticked off, gift lists that are getting ticked off, me getting ticked off, and the countdown to a Merry Christmas just seems to lack some of the anticipation of days of yore.

But...

But this year, my sister and my mom are coming to spend Christmas at my house.  They are flying on Christmas day, and will be arriving in Jackson around noon.  I then get a week of showing them around my town, doing all of the things I love.  Things that usually get put off, because I am making these lists, and checking the items off.  Sometimes twice (those thrice-blasted leaves!)

And I have found myself excited for Christmas.  Looking forward with great anticipation for the time when at least part of my family is together.  Counting down the days.

Texting my sister each morning, "Three more days and a wake-up."  And today:

"Two more days and a wake-up."

May your Christmas be filled with the love of family, and the joy of advent.  The excitement and anticipation of the arrival of the babe in a manger.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

You Gotta Squint to See Better

A year ago, I had traveled to central Massachusetts to attend a conference for work, and when it was over, stayed an extra day to visit with my sister.

While I was there, she had her Christmas tree delivered.  It was a lovely spruce tree, and it immediately made the room smell divine.  Later that evening, she began a slow waltz of placing lights on the tree, stepping back, then stepping in again to adjust, and then placing the next swoop of lights.

Confession:  I have never enjoyed the decorating part.  I love having the tree, but the act of decorating has never given me joy.  But I love my sister, and so I helped.

My helping normally involves handing the lights around the back of the tree, and then pulling the slack.  The idea of adjusting is so foreign to me that it had to be explained.

The real trick, explained Caroline, is to squint.  If you step back for a second and squint your eyes almost shut, you can see the areas of the tree that are still dark. Then you can adjust the lights to fill that void.

Tree by James Wade

"Seriously?"

"Try it", she said.

Now my family has a long history of telling one another stories with the sole purpose of making the victim do something and look ridiculous, so that we can mock them.  It was definitely not out of the realm of possibility that I was being set up.  But I was also curious, so I tried it.

And I gasped.  "Are you kidding me?  Where did you learn that?"

Haircut

It was that time.  I went to the ATM, and withdrew the appropriate amount of cash.  I walked into my barbershop and spoke to my barber.  "G'mornin!"  He mumbled something in return.

As I went to sit down to wait, I couldn't quite put my finger on it... but there was something very much out of place.

Ah.  That was it.

A young woman, in her early twenties, clad in a blue smock, was standing behind the third chair in the shop.  "Do you need help?  I...I can help you, if you'd like."

Um.  Sure.

As I have written before, the barbershop is a male place.  It is not specifically exclusionary. Women are welcome, but....

But few women come through the door.  If they do, it is mostly to bring their boys; it is not normally a hangout place where the genders are mixed.  I now get to benefit.... I get to jump the line because men don't go to the barber to have their hair cut by a woman.

I don't care about my hair particularly.  I am not vain about my hair.  Hair always grows back, right?

I sit.

"I am pretty new to the area, but I have been here a few times, and I have never seen you.  Are you a recent arrival, or just been out of town?"

"Oh, no, sir." (I grimace at the way she says 'sir').  "I have been coming in here since I was five years old.  I am now living in Raymond, well, actually I am going to barber college there."  She is trimming the hair on my forehead in an odd arc as she says it.

I am trying to relax into the chair, and she is not making it easy.

But then she gets into a rhythm of snip, snip, and I work to not pay attention to her for a bit, just focusing on looking around.  At the deer antlers on the wall.  At the conversations going on around me.  At the fidgeting kid in the next chair.

I come to attention only when, after twenty minutes of trimming (it has been twenty minutes?), she steps out from behind me, surveying her work.  And frowns.

The poor girl did everything but say "oops" out loud.

And goes back to snipping.  All the while, I am sitting, looking away from the mirror.  A few minutes later, she comes back out in front of me to survey the damage.  And says 'hm'. (Hm, apparently, is barberspeak for 'oops').

And she goes back to snipping.

Fifteen minutes later, I have now been in the chair for long enough for two people to come and go.  She starts to finish up, combing my hair from the wrong side, and finds it tougher than she thought. So she wets down my hair.  And combs it forcefully down, making it stick.

Now comes the big reveal.  Turn the chair...

"Do you like it?"

It's um, great.

"Do you like it?  Cause I can do something different, it you'd like."

No, ma'am.  It is great.  Thank you.

"I am sorry it took so long."

No problem, ma'am.

I simply could not get out of the chair fast enough.  Made it outside before running my fingers through the ruins of my remaining hair.  And then rolled down the window, and left my head outside the window, dog-like, to get the hair dried and blown out of the slick-down that I had just gotten.

 The hair is fine.  And it will grow back out.   The back of my hair, my wife tells me, was very nicely done.

I might just have to scope out the parking lot for Misty's car before I go back for my next trim.

Crying

When I gaze into the night skies and see the work of your finger
The moon and stars suspended in space,
Oh, what is man that you are mindful of him?

I broke down and wept today.

Crying is nothing new for me.  In 4th grade, I received a grade of 'N' under the behavior heading of 'Self Control'.  'N' stands for 'Needs to Improve'.

It was true.  I did need to improve.  I was a wreck, re-integrating into a society from which I had been absent for two years while we lived isolated from everything on the Amazon.  I did not understand the rules of society, and any rules that I knew had changed since I left, halfway through the second grade.

My response to all of the stress was tears.  Crying because I did not know about a rule to one of the sports in recess.  Crying when I realized that show-and-tell had fallen by the wayside while I was out of the country.  Weeping in frustration, in fear, and out of uncertainty.  I remember particularly an incident where I wept over the request/requirement that I cut the edges off of the homework assignment before turning it in. Sobbing as I used my blunt-tipped scissors to cut the ragged edges off of the paper.

Over time, the tears became more infrequent.  By the end of the year, I no longer got an N, and it ceased to be a problem.  Mostly.  The truth is, I now no longer define myself by my tears, as I did that year.

When the tears start, though, it is far more memorable.  Failing my oral exams, and having David Anderson walking with me as I broke down.  An embarrassing moment in Yucatan when I had carefully laid plans for extended family waylaid by a parking attendant.  A moment of terror when I heard what I thought what I thought was my wife crying out in distress after her cancer surgery, and the scalding flood of tears that followed.

My tears don't come often, but come as a surprise when they come.

So today, when I walked into choir, and picked up the music, I was unprepared.  I was out of state this week for rehearsal, so I was going to be sightsinging the music.  The music - a piece by Tom Fettke called The Glory and Majesty of thy Name - was one that I knew, having heard it a number of times before.  It is based on Psalm 8, a lovely song attributed to David, that captures the amazing beauty and enormity of the night sky.

The story that I heard was that Dad had been on the USN destroyer vessel in the Black Sea, keeping a late night watch, looking at the enormity of the night sky, and found himself reciting the psalm.  Every time that his church choir sang this particular song, he flashed back to the unspeakable glory of that night.

The Easley First Baptist Church choir sang that song in the chapel after my dad died.

I had not heard the song again until the moment that I opened my mouth to sing it in the choir room. I made it about half way through, before I closed the music and cried.  The soaring Alleluias were what finally took me down.  It is a glorious, joyful, powerful piece, and I was helpless in its wake.

Music has done it to me before.  One week last year, it was a hymn: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.

When I Survey was a tune we sang every year in Glee Club at Wofford, and it was always one of the most intense songs in my emotional repertoire.  Singing the words, in unison, with 60 of the most powerful men I have ever met, blending my voice in full-throated harmony:


Were the whole realm of nature mine
that were a present far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
demands my life, my life, my all.


The words are powerful; the context even more so.  So whenever I sing the song, I am reminded of that setting.  Until....

Until I got into the middle of the song, and, like today, the tune hits the emotional center of my brain. The tears come before the memory of singing that hymn at my dad's funeral does.  And suddenly, I go from singing properly, with supported diaphragm, deep breaths, in my most powerful baritone (the tenor having long ago fallen into disuse) to being unable to catch my breath for the heaving sobs.

Worse, still, I had read the lectionary for the day.  So I was not only weeping in public, but I was weeping in front of the congregation.  Some odd/alarmed/concerned looks later, I had mostly gotten myself back under control.


So, today, after rehearsal, I explained to the choir what had happened.  The choir director, in total sympathy, offered to let me sit out if I needed to.  But I didn't.  Although it remained a powerful song that resonated with me on numerous levels, I sang with the choir, joyfully singing a song that had left me crying just moments before.

I think of my dad with joy and pride.  There is not a lot of residual sadness remaining there about his death.  But there are odd times when it does show up; when music serves as an emotional trigger.  When music has power over me that I can neither deny or defy.

And when it hits, I take a moment, reveling in the rarity of a moment of pure emotion.

Paying homage to the 4th-grade boy who struggled with control.