Church Music

Church music seems to be in our DNA, the Stephens family, that is. My dad’s sister Maurine was the organist for the Methodist church in Ainsworth, Iowa, for a hundred years. My own earliest memory was sitting on the side of the alter steps at Faith Lutheran in Eldridge, Iowa. Nineteen-seventy-two? My mom must have sent me with my dad, it being easy for him to watch me while he directed the choir on a Wednesday night. Lutkin’s “Benediction” as usual. Were there any other anthems in the library? I hummed it all week. I could probably still hum all four parts.

The Lord bless you and keep you

The Lord lift His countenance upon you

And give you peace

The Lord make His face to shine upon you.

And be gracious unto you

Amen

Then came the years at Park View Lutheran. LCMS. Mandy and I were the high school altos in the senior, and I do mean senior, choir. Daddy was conducting there too. Were there twenty of us on a good Sunday? Sometimes I accompanied. He harped on about diction and dynamics. I played organ with no pedals on most Sundays, maybe even once or twice dare I say a little bleary eyed. On Easter I transposed the melody of “Jesus Christ is Risen” today and belted it out on French horn, were there any trumpets? Maybe once or twice we had a section. There were years of two services every Sunday. Two sermons. I figured that made up for my lack of attendance in college.

This last Wednesday evening, Bill and I made it our new church, Mount Olivet, to the Dubois Seven Last Words of Christ. Sigh. Pipe organ, full orchestra, a huge choir of high school and alumni voices, and amazing soloists. Timpani. It was gorgeous. Beautiful and haunting. But I also had other Dubois voices in my head. Early Park View Lutheran voices. Could the twenty-voice choir pull it off with just me high school me on piano? We did. And then came the 2009 voices. Daddy organized a multi congregation performance of the cantata in Tipton, Iowa. Bill and I took the kids, four and seven, down for the Palm Sunday afternoon performance. Daddy conducted, again, but he also sang the solo on the fourth word, “God, My Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Exhausted, he uncharacteristically fell asleep in his chair at the afterparty back at the house. Maundy Thursday he went for the ultrasound. Good Friday he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Those Palm Sunday words turned out to be the last song we heard him sing. It’s taken 17 years for me to listen to it live again. Small town or big city, the message still stands. It's all the theology I need. Well, almost.

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Verily, thou shalt be in Paradise today with Me, Amen, so I tell thee.

See, O woman, here behold thy son beloved.

God, My Father, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

I am athirst!

Father, into Thy hands I commend My soul.

It is finished!

Mary and her roommate Natalie have been singing at Zion in Iowa City. It must be fun for that choir to have two college girls bringing some sparkle to the mix. This time sopranos. The anthem we got to hear from them? “Down to the River to Pray.” Sigh. My favorite.

 Last Easter we were in Iowa visiting my mom. The organist played the wrong processional hymn by mistake. Yes, it should have been “Jesus Christ is Risen today.” These things happen. She apologized to the congregation, explaining to us when we should start singing again. My sister Susan directed the Trinity choir, small but mighty. She’s been the caretaker of Daddy’s legacy there all these years, bearing the torch, while teaching full time and commuting. During the postlude someone knocked over the baptismal font. Bill vacuumed the debris while the organist played on. Small town churches have their nuances and their charm. Their faith. They should make a Parks and Rec series. We have the material. Small town churches come with accountability. Everyone has a job and knows everyone by name. You got to show up.

The twenty years Bill and I and the kids were at Easter Lutheran in Eagan are sacred to me. I would characterize Easter as a pretty big church. It still came with accountability, but maybe you knew half of any given Sunday’s attendees. You had your seats. Mary played piano for the choristers. Calvin for the cherubs. And me, off and on for the adult choir all those years. They stopped giving me a going away gift when I needed a break. We always looked forward to Lent, with Barb leading the Holden Evening Prayer. Even now, it’s her voice singing in my head in moments of urgent prayer when only a song will come.

“Jesus Christ. . . you are the light of the world. . .the light no darkness can overcome.”

One Easter at Easter, Calvin and I played a four hands anthem with the choir. It was back when I was still more experienced than him. That was a special year. There’s a video out there somewhere. I might have still been taller than him too.

 Mary’s favorite was Easter’s Good Friday Tenebrae service. Mine too, really. She was the acolyte a good many years, extinguishing the seven candles, one by one as the service got darker and darker. Bev’s haunting soprano voice acapella on “Calvary.” And me playing “Jesus Remember Me” blindly when all the lights were out. Rituals. The black draping of the cross. Is there a human condition that Christ’s seven last words can’t comfort?

 This Easter Calvin was playing the organ, with actual pedals and stops, for two services in Conroe, Texas. So, it was just Bill, Mary and I back in Minnesota. It was our first Easter Sunday at Mount Olivet. The anthem was Beethoven’s “Alleluia from the Mount of Olives.” We joined Mount Olivet especially for the music and as expected, the Easter Sunday music was amazing and inspiring. Again, the Beethoven featured the pipe organ, the orchestra and their not so small but especially mighty choir. I found my heart racing, remembering the months I practiced that same orchestral reduction, only to be played alone on the grand piano with the medium sized but still mighty choir, for how many Easter services, and how many years. . . back at Easter in Eagan. Good years. Grateful years. Years with Kris Henry. But it was still a whole lot of notes.

 Our church music. It says it all, the Benediction and Holden prayer are woven into our ears and years. Still, it’s the Beethoven “Alleluia” and “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” that complete the theology of the Seven Last Words. Everything else is just supplemental, even most sermons. The cross is draped in white again.

 Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia!

Our church music is deep down. Thank you, Daddy, and Susan, and Calvin and Mary, Kris, and now Dr. Claflin. Thank you for the music that keeps singing in our ears, hearts, and minds, notes still ringing long after the service ends.