Tag Archives: God

Feb3

Vox Humana

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“The human voice is the organ of the soul.”—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mama always told people that when I was born I came out singing.  I certainly don’t remember it, but I would like to think that my birth cries were at least a little bit musical!  Today’s church services and the choice of operatic soprano Renee’ Fleming to sing the Star Spangled Banner for the 2014 BIG FOOTBALL GAME (which, apparently cannot be called by its more “super” moniker unless one has permission to do so) have gotten me thinking about the human voice, mine and other people’s.

I’ve been singing pretty much all my life, from the time I was a small child.  It was just how I expressed myself and the thing I loved most to do in the world.  Those things are still true.  I took voice lessons beginning in the 8th grade and continued through college, earning a Bachelor of  Music in Applied Voice (it’s called Vocal Performance now).

As a voice student and musician, my fascination with the human voice led me into many other areas of study.  Classically trained singers, for example, need to have at least a shallow working knowledge of several foreign languages.  My first ever voice teacher started me with “the singer’s language”, Italian, a language of pure vowels and the art of bel canto, which means “beautiful singing”.  Singing in a foreign language made me feel very grown-up, but it also gave me a desire to learn how to make my foreign language diction as convincing as possible.  The ultimate goal is for listeners to think whatever language I am singing is my native tongue.

Singers also need to know certain things about how the human body is put together and how it functions, more than the average person generally needs to know.  Our bodies are our instruments and we have to understand how they work.  The voice doesn’t start in the throat.  It starts deep in the abdomen with the diaphragm, a muscle which we spend years strengthening in order to breathe deeply and efficiently, and to control the expulsion of air in long phrases.  We are trained to imagine filling our lungs up from the bottom in order to maximize their capacity.  Once the air is in, it is all about controlling how it comes out, but we have to be able to relax certain muscles even as we exercise this control.  The air passes through the vocal cords, two of the tiniest and strongest muscles in the human body, producing vocalizations of all kinds…singing, speech, laughter.

In college one of the classes I took and enjoyed was Physics of Musical Sound.  It fascinated me when my professor showed us an oscilloscope, an instrument that measures the human voice and other sounds, producing a sort of “sound print” of what it has recorded.  And much like fingerprints, these sound prints are unique.  I remember thinking how much I would love to have a picture of my very own voice print.  Now, with modern technology, one of our computers here at home has an oscilloscope, and I can capture my voice print!

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I spent a number of years working in radio, primarily as an on-air announcer and commercial copywriter/producer.  My musical training kept me mindful that I needed to be careful with my voice.  Even though it was not singing, radio work was also a very specialized use of the voice, and I knew both radio people and singers who developed voice trouble due to improper technique and bad habits.  My radio years were a lot of fun, and I think they gave me a different appreciation for the communication that is only possible with the human voice.

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I still do a bit of occasional voice-over work for a friend’s radio stations, but my first love will always be to sing.  I let my singing go for a long time, making the excuses we all make about not having enough time or energy to commit to music… something I would not allow to happen if I could have a do-over.  As it is, though, I sing as often as I have the opportunity.  Singing is, for me, a way to express the feelings for which there are no words, a way to thank and praise the God Who spoke the universe into being with His Voice. I will hope to sing for as long as l am able, expressing, thanking and praising with my own vox humana. 

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“I will sing unto the LORD, for He hath dealt bountifully with me.”

Psalm 13:6

Nov13

Old Scores

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Musicians’ tools of the trade…

This past weekend was a musical extravaganza for me, very busy and extremely rewarding.  Knoxville Choral Society and Chamber Chorale, accompanied by members of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, performed our annual Fall Concert on Saturday evening at the historic Bijou Theatre downtown, and presented an encore performance Sunday afternoon at the Community Church in Tellico Village.  I was indeed blessed to take part in these concerts and to have been chosen as a soloist.  I no longer take these blessings for granted because I know my days as a soloist are limited. I’m getting older every second, after all, and nothing lasts forever. 

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Between those performances I also had the communion solo for two church services.  So it was a very busy weekend, and I will admit that by the time it was all finished, I was pretty worn out.  Still, this kind of activity gives me much more than it takes out of me.

Part of the concert program was the Christmas portion of Handel’s “Messiah”, a familiar and beloved sacred choral and orchestral work, and a demanding one.  My “Messiah” score is the one I have used for every performance I have ever done since college.  It is 31 years old.  I purchased it as a college freshman because my voice teacher wanted me to learn some of the soprano solos in it, and even though we did not perform “Messiah” that year, he knew I’d need the score for the next year (and for the rest of my life!).  So he told me to go ahead and buy it.  It may be the single most-used piece of music I own to this day.

Even when I have sung portions of the work with church choirs that used a different edition, I have always used my own score.  It is old and worn, with some dog-eared page corners and rusty marks from paper clips of years gone by, like little scars on the page.  It contains markings from the conductors I’ve worked with and from the voice teachers who have coached me, as well as my own unique system of symbols and notes to remind myself to watch, to straighten my tone, to shape a phrase or to raise my eyebrows so I don’t go flat.  It’s a sort of shorthand developed over decades.  I have my own language of markings, and every other musician I know has theirs as well.  It’s as unique as a fingerprint, and just as personal.

As I have asserted before, I am a collector, of objects and of memories, and I am sentimental about all of them.  My “Messiah” score is much more to me than a piece of music.  It is Scripture set to music, the story of Jesus in types and shadows, and as substance and promise fulfilled.  It is also a sort of scrapbook, a memory album of the many times I have raised my voice to offer the gift God gave me back to Him, alone as a soloist and with a chorus of other musicians.  So much more than words and notes on paper, my ‘Messiah” score is a trusted friend, filled with my memories of musical offerings past and dreams of the ones yet to come. 

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Oct21

Beauty, Truth And Goodness

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Thinking upon these things…

This weekend was Homecoming on the campus of my alma mater, Carson-Newman University (although it was still Carson-Newman College when I graduated), an event which I always anticipate with excitement and joy.  This particular weekend was unique in that on Friday, current and alumni members of A Cappella Choir gathered in the sanctuary of First Baptist on the corner of campus to rehearse and record a Christmas CD.  Approximately 180 singers assembled, graduates from the 1950’s all the way up to last year, as well as current student members of the choir.  This event was held in honor of Dr. Eric Thorson (“Doc”) and his 30th anniversary directing A Cappella Choir.

I looked forward to this for months, imagining the fun of seeing old friends and sharing memories and fellowship, as well as the chance to make music with them and a number of my current crop of Delta Omicron students for whom I serve as Chapter Mother.  I knew it would be a special time together.  In my head I knew this…but I had no idea how glorious the experience would actually be.  I am still overwhelmed and processing all of it as I write and share here.

We began the day with a welcome and some announcements from Doc, and for our sound check we sang the college hymn, “God of Beauty, Truth and Goodness”, a beautiful hymn commissioned for the 150th anniversary of the college.  My ears and heart were filled with the sound of all of us lifting voices to one another and to the God we honored with our hymn.  And tears began to flow as I remembered so many wonderful times in the choir when I was a student.

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My years in A Cappella happened on the cusp of a changing era.  Prior to Doc’s tenure with the choir, A Cappella was directed and led by Charles Harrison Jones, affectionately known by decades of students as “Fessor”.   This man was a legend and lots of my peers were so intimidated by his reputation that they would not even audition for him.  I guess I didn’t have sense enough to be scared, because as a freshman I auditioned and was accepted into A Cappella in the fall of 1982, my first semester of college.  In the second semester I was accepted into a select group from choir known as “Renaissance”, which sang featured selections as we toured during spring break.  Fessor could be intense at times, and he was a big personality with a conducting style as unique as his DNA.  I remember how he used to go down the row and have people sing phrases individually, sort of like a vocal pop quiz.  One day he did this with the sopranos, and when he got to me, I sang my phrase and he pointed and me and shouted “GOOD!”  And I shouted back just as loudly, “THANK YOU!”  Someone told me later on that they couldn’t believe “a freshman had the nerve to do that!”  It was just me being me, even way back then.  And Fessor appreciated that.  My freshman year was his last year directing A Cappella, and I have always been so proud to have sung in Fessor’s last A Cappella Choir.  After he retired and I had graduated, he was directing another choir and he graciously hired me as a soloist for a couple of concerts, which were my very first paying gigs as a singer.  He referred me to another director who hired me for more work.  Fessor demanded musical excellence and valued work ethic and character.  He was a gifted musician, and one of the humblest people I ever met.

My sophomore year was when Doc took the reins of A Cappella upon Fessor’s retirement.  Doc also had the “joy” of being my academic advisor for my college years.  I have always said that he did a tour of duty getting me out of school on time and deserved combat pay and a medal for doing so!  In his own humble way, he always chuckles and says it was no big deal.  HIs conducting style was, and is, very different from Fessor’s, and there was a period of adjustment as he began his tenure with the choir.  As different as their personalities and conducting styles were, they shared a passionate commitment to excellence in musicianship and a self-effacing humility.  I consider myself doubly blessed to have sung in Fessor’s last A Cappella Choir and Doc’s first one.  Now I sing with Doc as he conducts Knoxville Choral Society and Chamber Chorale, and it is a joy to have the opportunity to continue my musical journey in this way.

On Friday as we sang the college hymn for sound check, the voices of generations of alumni and current students washed over me in a wave of emotion.  I felt a surge in both my soul and body and almost came completely undone by the magnitude of it all.  And I distinctly felt the presence of our beloved Fessor, who passed away several years ago at age 92.  He was with us in that room.  And I believe that both he and the Lord were pleased by our efforts as we sang and recorded our Christmas offering, adding “The Benediction” at the end.  I had the best seat in the house, on the front row between 2 of my very talented Delta Omicron students with a row of my peers from the 1980’s right behind us.  Past and present folded around me like a warm hug.

“The Lord Bless You and Keep You” by Peter C. Lutkin has been A Cappella’s closing benediction for decades, even since before Fessor’s time with the choir.   It is as sacred to us as scripture, which, in fact, it is.  The words are taken from Numbers 6: 24-26.  It binds us to one another, to members past, present and future.  We hold hands as we sing it, a tradition that I believe my peers in the 1980’s started, although I could be mistaken about that.  We never use music.  We don’t need it.  The singing of it evokes memories of tours, concerts, musical and spiritual moments shared, friendships forged, lessons learned and, I believe, a foretaste of what Heaven must sound like.

Beauty, truth and goodness indeed.

Sep25

His Eye Is On The Sparrow

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Why I collect feathers…

Yesterday I took the dog to the vet for a quick checkup, and as we were leaving, I spotted a beautiful, large bird feather on one of the shrubs outside the office.  With great joy I said, “Look, Roy!  It’s another feather for Mama!”  I am a collector, of objects and of memories.  I don’t remember exactly how my feather collection began, or even when, except that it was several years ago.  And it is not as though I have an organized system for keeping and viewing them, or for documenting when I found each one.  I tend mostly just to stick them in books or my Bible (along with the occasional pressed flower or leaf), although I have included a few in art projects and used some to make bookmarks.  Someday when I am long gone, others will inherit my books and find my collected feathers inside as a little surprise. I hope they will get a smile from them.

I know that these feathers come from birds, but I still like to imagine that they are dropped from the wings of some guardian angel that God has placed along my path.  A childlike notion, but a comforting one just the same.  God knows we all have moments when we need comfort, and I believe He sends us comforts that speak to us where we are, in a language we  can understand.

In telling his followers not to worry about the future or things they could not control, Jesus explained that God has numbered the very hairs on our heads, and not even a sparrow falls to the ground without The Father’s knowledge.  And He values us much more than many sparrows.Image

An old gospel hymn simply and sweetly reminds me of this promise, and I can’t remember whether I learned the song or the Bible passage first.  Both of them seem ingrained in my consciousness since before I can remember.  The chorus of the hymn explains my life, testimony and reason for singing better than anything I could have written myself:

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“I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,  For His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.”

Indeed, nothing in my life is beyond His watchful, loving care.  He sees when I am hurting, or joyful or at loose ends.  He sees my frustration and fear.  And sometimes, He places a feather in my path to remind me that He is looking out for me.

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Sep17

The Eye Of The Beholder

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What IS beauty, anyway?

 

We live in a world that is both beautiful and hideous.  We live in a society that is focused on selling us the idea that we can be “beautiful” if we will simply purchase and use certain products, starve our bodies into becoming a specific size and/or shape, and hide anything about ourselves that could possibly be perceived as a defect or an imperfection.  To me, these impossible standards of beauty are part of why our world is hideous.

Perfection is impossible…and if it were possible, it would be boring!  The iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford once told about a conversation she had with her mother in the very early days of her modeling journey about whether or not to remove her famous mole.  Her mother offered the insight that the mole made her face unique and memorable, and if she removed this unusual feature, all that would be left would be a scar.  

How many of us, in our efforts to fit into some arbitrary definition of beauty, have at some point or other, obliterated the very characteristics that make us identifiable and unique?  I am all in favor of beauty measures that help us to feel better about ourselves, that enhance the qualities and features that we like in both face and figure, and especially those that make us healthy and strong.  But I think the days of torturing ourselves and fighting against our looks need to be over.

God made us in His Image.  He made us beautiful.  At the end of His creative work, He declared all of it, including and especially humankind, very good.  Who are we to say otherwise?Image

Sep12

To Every Thing…

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…there is a season

I am beginning to feel the welcome approach of fall.  For the past few weeks I have been detecting little glimpses of seasonal change in the world around me and, after a wet, muggy summer, I am more than ready to greet autumn with open arms.  My dogwood tree is always the first harbinger of the coming shift, with its shiny berries looking like the red-hot cinnamon candies that Aunt Mary used to enjoy putting into her hot tea.  After the berries burst forth, the leaves begin their gradual change from brilliant green to the warm rusty orange and golden brown I so enjoy seeing.  Each day the sun’s touch on the leaves paints on more color.

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As lovely as the changing dogwoods are, my favorite trees to watch this time of year are the maples.  Several different varieties of maple grow around here, and they turn the most spectacular colors, from lemon yellow and tangerine orange to vibrant reds and rich shades of burgundy.  I remember one year when we were living in Florida, my sweet husband and I came back to the Knoxville area in October for a visit, and the leaves were so vivid that everyplace looked like a postcard.  It was the most wonderful welcome home I could have asked for, and a more lovely fall than I had seen in many years.  Image

Of course, the beauty of nature was only part of the sweetness of that visit home.  Jeff and I took a picnic in the mountains with Mom and Pop Cutshaw, stopping by a little stream to have our lunch.  At one point I noticed that Pop was wandering off by himself and I started off after him, until Jeff told me that he was probably looking for a place to pee!  Such a funny memory now.  We did a little shopping that day and I bought a handmade basket to take back to our little home in Florida to decorate our apartment, reminding me of home and that wonderful visit.  I still have it more than 25 years later.  We took lots of pictures that trip and the colors were incredible that year.

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This time of year holds lots of happy memories for me.  There are the reflections of falls gone by when I was a college student, walking the rolling hills of the campus, feeling the first hints of autumn’s chill on my way to class, breaking out my favorite sweaters and hanging pictures on our dorm room wall.  There have been Homecomings  where I have been united once more with friends and professors from my school days.  I love the change in the air and on the trees this time of year.  And I love the gentle rhythm of the seasons, the reminder that God indeed has the whole world in His hands, and as long as there are summer and winter, seed time and harvest, His hands are where the world will stay.Image

Sep2

Treasures In Heaven

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Visiting the place where I began to store them up

Yesterday I visited my childhood church home for services.  I have wanted to go back and visit for a long time, but Aunt Ruby’s recent death spurred me to get there, finally.  It was with her, Uncle John and our cousins that Reed and I first started going to church in this beautiful old building.  My memories of the times spent there, the visual beauty of the place and the familiarity of the order of service came flooding back, washing over me like a warm wave of comfort.  The Gloria Patri, Apostles’ Creed and Doxology with which I was raised issued forth just as they have for generations.Image

I parked my car in a visitor space and made my way to the nearest entrance, and when I stepped inside I was overcome with the fragrance of the building, warmth and home.  Immediately I was transported back to my childhood and youth group days by the mix of scents: antique wood and tile, varnish and candle smoke, old lady perfume and the “golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints…”Image

Some of the physical aspects of the place have been updated and changed over the years.  Padding on the pews and carpeting on the stairs make it a little safer and more comfortable.  But many more things remain unaltered since my days there.  The colorful windows are still intact, thank God!  Images of faith in glowing stained glass shaped my earliest memories of church and worship, and helped me to learn what being a Christian was all about.Image

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We spent a great deal of time there as children, and many times we went exploring the less public parts of the building, places we were convinced no one else knew about.  There are many back stairways and narrow passages in that place.  Once I remember making our way up into the pipes of the majestic organ, (NOT during services, we would have gone deaf!) an instrument that was funded, installed and dedicated during my childhood there.  Image

The organ and choir sounded just as wonderful yesterday as I remembered them.  A few members from my childhood days are still there, and still singing in that choir.  Some things never change.  I find that very comforting.

There has always been an intricate wood carving of the Da Vinci painting of The Last Supper in front of the choir loft, and it too is still there.  Yesterday was actually a communion Sunday, and I was privileged to partake once more in the elements of body and blood, in the place where I first learned what communion was and what it meant.  This service of communion was both solemn and joyful for me, and very poignant as I remembered all the times I have prayed, communed, cried and laughed in that place, with that branch of God’s family tree.Image

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My cousin Alan’s favorite window was the anchor in what used to be called the Little Sanctuary.  That space has since been closed off and renamed the Flossie Cox Prayer Chapel.  Mrs. Cox was Mama and Aunt Ruby’s Sunday school teacher for years, a wise and gentle lady who loved the Lord and loved His people.  I always loved the window that shows an offering being placed in a treasure chest, reminding me both of the story of the widow who gave more than all the others because she, in her poverty, offered her last mite, and of Jesus’s admonition to store up treasures in Heaven.Image

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I saw many childhood friends yesterday, hugged and smiled and got a little teary-eyed a couple of times.  This church, this place, was where I was confirmed and baptized, where I learned how much I loved to sing, songs like “This Is My Father’s World” and “For The Beauty Of The Earth”.  Image

It is where my faith journey began.  That journey has taken me into many other churches, a few different denominations and allowed me to meet and love many of my brethren along the way.  But there is something special about the places where one grew up.  And even though I no longer attend church there, I will no doubt find my way back from time to time, because it was…Is…Home.

Aug27

Hands That Loved Me

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Healing tears and comforting touches

This time 2 weeks ago we had just said goodbye to Aunt Ruby after spending the day at her bedside, keeping vigil and waiting for her to make her trip to Heaven. It seems both  like a lifetime ago and like it just happened.

 

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I cried little cries several times during that day, as we all did. And I cried when she left to go Home, as we all did. But I have not yet really broken down and had the big cry, the ugly one.

This is unlike me, and it feels like something is wrong. I realize that every loss has its own unique set of circumstances, and that grief follows no specific, or even logical, timetable. Having lost many loved ones in my life, having volunteered with hospice for several years and having completed a ministry course which put me face to face with people experiencing their own losses, my mind knows that I will process my feelings in their own good time.

I just feel…half-dead. I remember the events of the day clearly and vividly, the faces of my family as we all communed together in that sacred space, waiting and watching. I remember all of it. But my feelings have been feeling flat.

This loss hits me in a new place, as each new loss does. But this new place feels foreign, strange and unfamiliar in a way I can’t quite describe. I may need some help to sort this out, in the form of counseling or a major sabbatical from some of my volunteer activities…or both. Or something else. Or all of the above.

Of course, after Mama, (and sometimes even before Mama) the person I would talk to about this kind of thing would have been Aunt Ruby. Aunt Ruby told me when I was younger that it was OK to cry, and to just let my tears roll. She was the only person in my life who ever gave me this permission, and it was priceless. What I would give now to be able to sit at her feet, my head in her lap, and have her comfort me. I can feel her stroking my hair and hear her soothing voice telling me that it will be OK, that God gave us tears for a reason, that crying helps us to heal…to just let my tears roll.

And so they roll now. I didn’t start this post thinking that it would help the crying process to begin, but I am grateful that it has. I can feel Aunt Ruby with me as I sit here, telling me that it’s OK to let go, it’s OK to cry…and that I need to if I am ever going to heal. I don’t know if I will ever meet another person with her wisdom or her serenity, and I am going to miss being able to sit in her presence and enjoy those moments.Image

She possessed an enormous heart, a mind that never stopped wanting to learn, and eyes that always saw something worthwhile in me no matter what anyone else saw. And her hands sewed warmth and care into every piece of clothing and every quilt she ever touched, baked nourishment into every biscuit she ever served, and canned future provision and generosity into more green beans and tomatoes than anyone could begin to count.  She soothed my tears and fears with those hands.  Precious hands…hands that loved me.  Image

Jul10

Angels Among Us

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Comfort in plastic and concrete

 

Shortly after Mama died, I was at the house with Dad and I saw something in the kitchen I had never noticed before.  On a small hook next to a cabinet hung a few little plastic angels suspended by metallic gold thread.  They were tiny and cheap, and I found out later that they glow in the dark!  I don’t know where she got them, if they were a gift or if she had bought them herself.  I can imagine that they might have been attached to some sort of small present as part of the wrapping.  Seeing those little angels at this time of bereavement brought me an odd sort of comfort, and I asked Dad if I could take them home with me.  I don’t think he had ever noticed them hanging there either, and he gave me his blessing to take them home.  

I later received a catalog in the mail and, as I was looking through its pages of gadgets and knick-knacks, a picture of Mama’s kitchen angels jumped out at me!  They came in sets of 10 and were very inexpensive, so I bought a bunch of them.  I figured I would use them in craft projects, gift wrapping and the like.  When Mom Cutshaw died, she had requested a closed casket, so I asked one of the funeral home men to slip one of them into her casket, as a little temporary parting gift from me.  And again, one of these little plastic angels gave me a peculiar sort of comfort.Image

Before and since, I have collected angel figurines and jewelry, and I enjoy taking photos of angels where I see them.  A church near my house has a beautiful angel next to its majestic red front door.  She is almost the size of a real person.  On my way home one afternoon when the sunlight was especially pretty, I stopped to photograph the church, its arched door, old-fashioned bell, historic cornerstone and steeple, and especially that lovely angel.Image

From the street as I drove past, she looked like she was made of marble, but up close, I could see that she is really made of concrete.  Whoever made her gave her detailed wings, a flowing, drapey gown, praying hands and a serene face.  A face I found, again, strangely comforting.Image

 

I took a class last year that had students fill out a form and answer questions regularly before our individual meetings with our supervisor.  One of those questions was, “Where have you found God this week?”  In my faith and my worldview, I find Him everywhere, in big things and small ones…because I choose to look for Him everywhere.  I’m not saying that I can always make sense of what He’s up to or that I understand how He’s working all the time, because I don’t.  But I know He’s there.  

I have found Him in the most unlikely places, maybe more often than in the confines of a church building.  I’ve seen Him in the faces of people who, stricken with their own grief, somehow manage to reach out and comfort others.  I have felt Him in the embraces of my family and friends when no words could offer solace.  I have heard Him in music and birdsong and the sound of ocean waves.  And He has sent me comfort and peace in the form of angels.  Even (or especially) in Mama’s tiny, glow-in-the-dark plastic angels.