ONE SUNDAY’S MUSIC

It was a Sunday much like hundreds of others in my life .It was a Sunday full of music-all kinds of music and all manner of emotions stirred, recalled, expressed. Even at 7:15 when we got into our car the all-classical music station to which Jane’s radio is perpetually set welcomes the days with arias, cantatas and fugues. When we sat down in our pews our extraordinarily gifted Minister of Music Stan was already doing one of his incredible riffs on the opening hymn During this season of the church year our congregation is focusing on Christ’s light shining throughout the world so the various parts of the sung liturgy featured the words, the beats, the melodies labeled “Peruvian traditional “ and “Creek Indian" and “from the Norwegian” and “Finnish folk song” Our 50 voice choir sang the plaintive song, “Open My Eyes”. So it was no surprise that when after the service the visiting couple sitting in front of Jane and me turned and said “We always come to this church when we are in San Diego on vacation. It is such a beautiful church-and we love your music!”

I must admit that during this service I had let my mind’s eye and my inner ear roam the world. I wanted to hear the millions of voices and instruments from New Guinea to New Hampshire, from Brazilian Pentecostals to New York Episcopalians, from black soul to white chorals light a spark of the divine within us all; each plucking strings deep within us that start to vibrate when music fills the space around us.

The feeling lingered into the afternoon when daughter Liz called from Connecticut. “I had to call,” she said, ‘ because I cried in church today as I thought of you.” “You see” she said, "we sang 'God be with you till we meet again'. It brought up all those memories of when your family all sang that song at the end of our family reunions. And since Uncle Hal died a couple weeks ago he was the first of the nine of your kids to go-and so when you sing that song again it will have an added dimension.”

Then Liz’s reverie turned angry, as she was very upset. Her teen-age son had just returned from a Church Youth retreat. It was an interdenominational event and the keynote speaker was a narrow fundamentalist. He instructed son Ryan and all others in attendance “When you get home today-before you go to bed- I want each of you to destroy your ipods Smash them to smithereens! Explain to your parents that this is a tool of the devil who in the siren songs of today’s music is luring you all into hell!”

But my Sunday was not yet over. It was easy for me to skip the Grammy’s. My musical tastes don’t really run in the direction of Lil Wayne or Alison Krauss. My kids are making a valiant effort to help me catch up on all the movie classics I have missed in my earlier life and the day’s feature was Casablanca. The first notes coming from Sam’s piano in Rick’s bar touched me in the same place as it touched Ingrid Begrman and the memoirs flowed. I was back in the late 40’s early 50’s and the woman who is now my wife and I held hands etc. to the tunes of Glen Miller, the Mills Brothers, Rudy Valle, Perry Como. All I need is the words “Some Enchanted Evening” and I am again walking my date back to the dorm and all is well in God’s wonderful world.


Then the day, as they all do, came to its end. But my life had been again been changed by the power of the music of an everyday Sunday.