Chris’ Fall Reflections

This fall I have been blessed by multiple chances to remember how life-giving connection and community can be, and I wanted to share some of those lessons and reflections. 

In late October I was invited to participate in the first ever "GIA Composer's Academy." GIA is one of the foremost publishers of church music in the US, and is the home to some of my favorite new hymnwriters, names you hopefully recognize from our footnotes like Mel Bringle, Adam Tice, Jacque Jones, David Bjorlin, and Hannah Brown. Thanks to the generosity of some Grace members, I was able to go to Chicago and not worry about being afford my AirBnB or food. At GIA's Chicago offices I joined 20 other writers and composers that have been recently published, or that GIA saw potential in for future collaboration. For 48 hours I was surrounded by incredibly talented, and lovingly humble, musicians. We shared works in progress, heard inspirational talks and concerts, and met some of the composers who serve as editors and panelists for GIA (it's not Artificial Intelligence, they're actual people who read everything that comes across their desk). Beyond the opportunity to put kind faces to formerly intimidating names, and put some of my words and notes in front of them, whatI most valued was the quickly developed community. When asked "why are we crying?" at the end of the gathering, I replied "because it's summer camp, and now we all have to go home!" Those of you who have spent time in those intense, short, and vulnerable church camps will remember the feeling of going "back down the mountain." It does not get much more vulnerable than sharing music-in-progress that you are creating with a room of loving, but also talented and kind but critical, colleagues. 

We had one composer write a poem and simple melody based on the goodbye her 6 year old said to her as she was leaving, and then the colorful harmony that comes from inviting 4 of us to look over her shoulder and, seeing one line, add 4 more parts based on where we felt the harmony going. Another night we gathered at the hotel bar around a piano, and I am now convinced heaven is a piano, an amaretto sour, and a group of choral composers going from Broadway, to Eric Whitacre, to Katy Perry and Whitney Houston. Many of us are still working to continue the connection through Facebook, email, and Zoom. It's not the same, but there is still conspiring (which we were reminded literally means With Spirit, or Together Breathing) going on. And I can't wait to see what God generates with it.

The last lesson I took from Chicago was after the academy was over, I happened to share a cab with one of my fellow students, a young woman named Faith Zimmer-whose name I am sure you are going to see in both the choral and pop worlds in the near future, and with Susan LaBarr. Susan is an Alice Parker-trained choral composer who crafts beautiful new melody, accompanied well, and is also the chief editor at Walton Music, a music education-focused subsidiary of GIA. While on the way to O'Hare, I peppered them with questions like "if I have what I think is a good idea for an anthem, can i send it to you?" And Susan's answer was, "yes, but why wouldn't you do it yourself?" I short-circuited and thought for days afterwords. I've always struggled to think of myself as a composer, honestly because I'm a terrible pianist, and choral composing is dominated by at least competent keyboardists. Yet, here was this queen, telling me that I could and should. I came home and within a week had two drafts of choral anthems, the choir will be singing one of them Advent 2. 

Beloved community both gives us conspirators to both collaborate, complimenting each other's weaknesses, and also encourage us, turning perceived weaknesses into strengths. 

If that wasn't enough, thanks God!, in early November I was invited to speak on religious liberty at the Baptist General Association annual meeting. Now, the BGAV isn't my particular favorite flavor of the Baptist alphabet soup, for reasons Grace Baptist historians are acutely aware of. But there I found welcome, reconnected with friends from BTSR and Leland seminaries, and met people from a broad spectrum of theological and political leanings, who all cared about true religious freedom. I stayed for evening worship, and while I did finally discreetly leave when the worship leader said, at 9pm after two hours of music and preaching on Acts 2 "now find someone you haven't met and pray with them," I left feeling lifted, loved, and connected.

A few days later (see, I told you there was a lot), I was up at 5am, virtually joining the annual meeting of the Fred Pratt Green trust, a group of English church musicians, hymn writers, and composers. I connected with this group after they commended a hymn tune I wrote, RIANNE (named for Erica's middle name), written for Fred's challenging text, When the Church of Jesus Shuts its Outer Door. Listening to a lecture on Fred's life and hymns, while not entirely awake, was surprisingly interesting. The best parts for me were, first hearing another encouraging talk on community (there's a Holy Spirit theme here), and how the French Impressionist painters would gather together, critique each other, and even buy each other's work when one needed help putting food on their table. That sounds like an Acts 2 community to me. 

Later I connected with a composer who wrote the winning entry in the category I was commended in, a Carribbean-inspired setting of the musician's hymn, When in Our Music God is Glorified. A Puerto Rican born in NYC, Dr. Abraham Cáceres had never heard of a cool Baptist church before, but a year ago moved to Cary, NC, and a few weeks ago was asked to sub at one of our Alliance of Baptist sibling congregations, Greenwood Baptist Church. As soon as he's done trying out his anthem setting of When in Our Music God is Glorified on Greenwood's choir, Grace is going to get to play with it to. I have dreams Dr. Abe coming to Grace to help us worship with drums. I said in an email that "I'm not a percussionist," and his answer was something like "I hope you're not, because if you have a heartbeat, you are a percussionist, and I hope I'm not talking to a man without a heart," again reminding me of how God puts people in our path to remind us of what we are capable of.

You can see and hear Dr. Abe's winning composition, as well as the other winners, here: https://prattgreentrust.org.uk/hymn-competition-results

If that wasn't enough, I was able to sing with friends from the Richmond Symphony Chorus for the memorial service of Gerry Baldwin. Gerry was a wonderful soprano, well into her 80s, a founding member of the Symphony Chorus, and former music minister at Ginter Park Baptist. Once again singing Erb's setting of Shenandoah, remembering a friend, I was rejuvenated. Finally, I was invited to return to one of my favorite places, Richmond Hill, to sing with an old friend, Rev. Dr Tom Baynham. Tom recently became acting director there, along with another friend Rev. Sheryl Johnson, after they had some leaders leave as God led them to other ministries. Singing with friends, especially at a place like Richmond Hill, is the best. 

Lastly, I want to say thank you to Linda Savelle and Theresa Steward. A month or so ago I had the idea of writing a hymn in community. In Advent we will be reading scriptural translations by Dr. Wilda Gafney. Dr. Gafney, when she comes across the unspoken Hebrew name for God, sometimes rendered as YHWH, and by convention is translated and read aloud as "LORD," she translates it as another way of addressing God, based on the attributes of God found in the surrounding scripture. These range from "INSCRUTABLE GOD" to "SHE WHO SPEAKS LIFE," or "FOUNT OF JUSTICE." These brought to mind for me similar poetic addresses to God in the hymn, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, names like Wisdom from on high, Dayspring, and Desire of nations. Linda and Theresa took that idea and ran with it, and what resulted is the hymn below O Come Emmanuel, for a New Day. Each week in Advent we will sing one traditional stanza, and one new stanza, as we affirm our hope in God and Christ, and with each other. 

I'm reminded this month of Moses saying to the LORD in Exodus 3, "Who am I?" And God basically saying "why not you? I am with you." Thanks be to God for friends old and new who do the work of God with Us, even as we await Emmanuel.