Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-22-26

This last week, evidently with the Wanderlust still coursing through my veins, we hit the road again, driving from Michigan to Ohio for a convention of my wife’s family reunion; thence to Kentucky and Tennessee. People – old friends and new – are always fun; but Mickey and I managed to see new sights and sites too.

Without our planning, there were unifying themes and affinities along the way. God lit our paths.

Our main targets were the famous Ark Encounter and the related Creation Museum in Kentucky.

The former museum is a 100 per cent re-creation of Noah’s Ark, built according to the Bible’s construction details. Large (of course), Ken Ham’s museum and the nearby Creation Museum are mature walk-throughs overflowing (sorry) with signage, information, models, animals, dioramas, and please-touch displays that anticipate the questions of adults, and excite the imaginations of children. It is neither condescending nor preachy, but yet cites the answers in Genesis to a multitude of questions about Creation, seeming anomalies in the Bible, the age of rocks, and, ultimately, the Rock of Ages.

At the other end of the spectrum, at the end of our trip we visited the Titanic Museum Attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Spending a few days with my friends Penny and Norm Carlevato (Norm is this blog’s webmaster) and my old writing buddy Diane Obbema, afforded us the opportunity virtually to set sail on the replica – 50 per cent sized – of the ill-fated White Star luxury ship. Penny has written several books on the Titanic.

This was also very impressive: reconstructed rooms; a wealth of information – everything about the astounding construction to biographies of every passenger; displays of retrieved artifacts; the ability to plunge your arm into the 28-degree water into which passengers plunged; and, again, signage and stats and history at every turn.

As I mentioned, it was not our intention to visit in one vacation the world’s premier museums devoted to history’s most famous boats – the ancient Ark and the famous luxury liner that sank in 1912. Yet the contrasts, and the affinities, were compelling.

There is a joke that virtually has become an aphorism about the two ships. To wit, the reminder that the Ark was built by amateurs, but Titanic was built by professionals. It has been attributed to humorist Dave Barry, preacher Joel Osteen, and performers Mark Lowery and Toby Mac; its launching has floated a thousand quips. Most recently Titanic has inspired TV productions, motion pictures, all sorts of merchandising, and notable scrambles for the salvaging of its treasures.

Beyond the jokes (and the truths) about perspectives that we should recognize, and motivations we ought to emulate, are very serious lessons.

Yes, the Ark was built by amateurs, Noah and his sons. But these guys were not half-wits wondering what ends of primitive hammers to hold. This was a time in God’s temporal dispensation when He communicated with His children (one reason for His heartbreak over humankind’s rejection of Him and His precepts). Read Genesis chapters 6 through 9 and review the ship’s length and width; the kinds of wood to use; the pitch to make the ship watertight; and calculate that the construction was over decades, perhaps more than a hundred years (in pre-Flood times people lived longer than today). And so forth. Two animals of every kind? That was practical in a time of earth’s history when there were “kinds” of dogs, for instance, before breeding, cross-bredding, and species variations. Dinosaurs? Young dinosaurs might have been the dragons, leviathans, and behemoths in Biblical accounts and fossil records.

The Ark’s “builder and maker” was the Lord; Noah and his sons handled the tools.

The Titanic might not have been designed by God, but there were many hands in the science of its design. There were many hands involved in its construction – over several years Harland and Wolff (for the White Star Line) was the largest employer in Ireland. And there were many records set by the ship, even before it sailed. For instance, it was the largest moveable transportation machine in the world; it was certainly the most luxurious ocean liner of its day; and so forth.

Yet Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line (although J P Morgan had a controlling interest), was obsessed with PR-related records being set. An eyewitness claimed she heard Ismay urging extra speed on Captain Edward Smith during the voyage. Smith, by the way, went down with the ship as per the naval honor code; Ismay hopped on the last lifeboat and lived another 25 years in general obloquy.

We are confronted by tempting contrasts between the two ships, their manner of construction, and their fates.

• The Ark was built in obedience; Titanic was built according to commercial desires.
• The Ark’s goal was to rescue creatures of God’s creation; Titanic’s goal was to attract paying customers from rivals.
• The Ark followed God’s instructions; Titanic occasionally cut corners with iron rivets instead of steel, among the shortcuts.
• The Ark provided for all creatures great and small, animal and human; Titanic was allowed to have fewer lifeboats than passengers.
• … and so forth.

There is no doubt that Titanic was an engineering marvel, and many amenities were gracious, for instance the higher standards of third-class accommodations. The Ark – whether of Biblical fidelity or legend – was no less, perhaps greater, of a marvel. Thousands of years before Christ, watertight, sufficient for animate creation’s survival.

I suggest that there are many lessons to be drawn in this comparison. Some are obvious; some become evident when we contemplate the times, motivations, and fates. Amateurs vs professionals? It is a question of limited relevance – floating or sinking, so to speak, according to whether we heed the large question: do we listen for God’s direction or do we follow human desires?

Answers will come flooding upon your thoughts.

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Click: The Old Gospel Ship

9-18-23

There have been a few small denominations that discouraged music in worship, just as there were sects that outlawed sex. For similar reasons those groups seemed to perish, disappear… and are missed by few.

Music is a part of humans’ souls. Mysterious in its way because not everybody has the talent to create tunes… or perform well… yet we all respond to music. Those who “can’t carry a tune” (and some people cannot) still enjoy listening. The most hardened people find their hearts softened when they hear a familiar melody. Songs are composed to win lovers and to send boys to war; to bond and to bind; to remember… and, by diversion, to heal and forget.

I am not aware of a survey, but I figure that 95 per cent of songs are love songs. Tennessee Ernie Ford once was asked why he sang so many Gospel songs and not more love songs, and he answered, “Gospel songs are the greatest love songs of all.”

Instrumental music is, to me, the most mysterious, and profound, of all music… all of all the arts. Abstract, yet specific in intent. And musical notation is a language all its own – a universal language. Composers who begin their work with blank staves… and finish with “sounds” that can move us literally and also move us to tears and smiles… perform a kind of miracle.

Johann Sebastian Bach took those blank pages, and before beginning to compose any work, wrote “Jesus, help me” at the top of the first page. When the composition was finished, he wrote “Thanks be to God” on the last page, acknowledging his source and strength of inspiration.

Quirky denominations aside, all cultures, in their social and religious practices, have relied on musical expression. The Bible overflows with descriptions, and endorsements, of joyful music. In Genesis 4 Jubal is identified as the ancestor of “all those who play the lyre and pipe.” Elsewhere, Elisha commanded, “Get me a musician,” wherewith a blessing was delivered. David, the “Sweet Singer of Israel,” ministered to Saul by playing music at night, much as Bach’s Goldberg Variations were composed to soothe those who sought rest.

Martin Luther, the great reformer and preacher, was also a composer (for instance of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) and he defended music in church: “The devil does not need all the good tunes to himself!”

Some of the most important American historians are those who have studied and recorded (including literally) the folklore and folk music of the American past. I was privileged to know (and play music with, even past his 100^th birthday!) the legendary Wade Mainer, whose banjo-picking style influenced Earl Scruggs years before the Bluegrass Sound was born. To hear his stories of rural North Carolina, and hear the songs he and his wife Julia (whose stage name back in the day was Hillbilly Lilly) sang together was like walking through history.

A friend recently reminded me of the excellent book and movie Songcatcher, about those who kept those musical traditions alive. One of the characters mused about the “thread” of a favorite song, perhaps “a touchstone with the past – a remembrance of all the singers who had ever kept a story alive on the strength of their music, and that singing the ballad was a chance to join that chain of voices stretching all the way back to across the ocean to the place where the families began.”

Yes, music hath charms. It is the case, of course, with mighty hymns as well as humble folk tunes. May I provide an example?

Here is a video of a performance of the hymn Nearer, My God, to Thee, which was composed in 1841. Its meaningful words were set to music by several people through the years, including Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). Its words were on the lips of President William McKinley as he died of an assassin’s bullet – imagine an American president today having this as his last thought? – and by legend, as The Titanic sank, Theodore Roosevelt’s former military aide Archie Butt directed the ship’s musicians to play it.

In this video, André Rieu conducts his Johann Strauss Orchestra, plus 400 brass players and a hundred singers in a performance of Nearer, My God, to Thee. The audience of thousands is a mixed, international group in an open square in Maastricht – and the hymn is performed without words, the singers chanting. Does the audience miss the significance? Not counted by the emotions, and tears, on listeners’ faces!

To hear this hymn, even once, impresses the powerful words on one’s mind, carried by the music. And the reverence of this elaborate performance… confirms the Power of Music.

In words written in 1697 in William Congreve’s play The Mourning Bride, “Musick hath Charms to soothe the savage Breast, To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.” And it can lift souls, and carry us somehow Heavenward too:

Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee! E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

There let the way appear, steps unto heaven; All that thou sendest me, in mercy given;
Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee; Nearer to thee!

As Bach, “the Fifth Evangelist,” said, “With devotional music, God is always present in His grace.”

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Click: Nearer My God To Thee

5-1-17

Recently we noted that throughout history, pagan observances and celebrations often were co-opted by the Roman church, roughly conterminous with the expansion of the faith. And when expansion was not tractable in lands or with peoples, organized-Christianity found ways to incorporate the names of tribes’ festivals, or certain practices, or pagan gods with new names. Theories abound about the word “Easter,” for instance, and the calendar-date of Christmas.

Such traditions of organized religion better can be filed under “marketing” more than theology; ecclesiology more than evangelism.

Christendom since the Reformation has split in two ways in this matter too. Generally, Protestant peoples of northern Europe have revived Springtime pagan observances, often calling, and sometimes believing, that they are mere celebrations of Renewal, Nature, and Fertility. Holidays run the gamut from countryside dances to dedications of animals, seeds, and celebrants’ resolutions for the year ahead. Catholic lands often have named or invented saints who overlook the prospects of farmers and planters; Harvest Festivals in advance.

From back in hazy pre-history, May 1 was the date agreed upon as the appropriate day, regarded as the beginning of Spring (advent of Summer in some ancient cultures). It is roughly halfway between the Spring equinox and the Summer solstice.

The fertility goddess Maia, a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology, inspired the name “May” and other related words in many languages. Springtime celebrations of fertility were common to all societies. Singing, dancing, special pastries, and the presence of flowers, as in the May Pole, were common to all. So were bonfires, whose smoke was deemed to have protective properties. Faces were sometimes washed in the day’s morning dew.

In Nordic lands, Walpurgisnacht festivals still are held – nighttime activities including bonfires, wreaths of flowers, planting of seeds, and burning of branches, lending a pagan veneer that even an attempt to retroactively honor a patron saint cannot dispel (Saint Walburga is claimed to have introduced Christianity to German lands… but history bestows that honor on St Patrick). In countries like Estonia and Poland, May 1 – Walpurgis Fest – is a national holiday. In Germany, people still gather around bonfires and dance around May Poles festooned with Spring flowers.

In Ireland and nations of Celtic origin, “Beltane” is honored still, even in sight of ancient churches. Neopagans and wiccans have revived the old practices, often adding incantations. Italians harken to pre-Christian days, celebrating Rebirth in its larger senses as “Calendimaggio,” but retaining pagan rites of the ancient Etruscans and Ligures… whose languages are lost to us, but whose superstitions endure.

In Catholic lands, statues of Mary frequently are adorned with wreaths of Spring flowers. (She is the “Queen of May,” to the uninitiated.) In Britain, Morris dancing, decorating May Poles with garlands of flowers, and such outdoor rituals date back to Anglo-Saxon fertility fetes when May was called the “Month of Three Milkings.”

There is another May Day with which we are all too familiar. Known alternatively as International Workers Day, many people assume its own origins are also shrouded in the musty past and in obscure lands, or at least as a holiday of Socialists and Communists, the progeny of Karl Marx or Soviet conspirators.

The red May Day, however, was inspired by an event in America, as recently as 1886, thereafter adopted by Bolsheviks around the world. Disaffected radicals – workers and farmers, anarchists and socialists – agitated for a national strike in 1886, but in Haymarket Square, Chicago, things turned ugly when a bomb was thrown by persons unknown. When the smoke cleared, police and strikers were dead, many injured. The radical Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW or “Wobblies,” was founded there soon afterward. The Haymarket Riot inspired Communists to commemorate it with labor’s May Day.

From the Soviets’ Moscow to Beijing to Havana to Pyongyang to Harvard and Berkeley, that traditional has continued.

The other May Day we know about is the international distress signal. It is only about a century old, displacing wireless telegraphy’s SOS soon after it was first implemented by the sinking Titanic. “May Day” was the vocal shorthand, as the Morse Code was superseded, for emergencies, probably the transliteration of the French “m’aider” – “help me.”

I am not sure whether towns and schools, in the US anyway, have May Day events any more – at least not like when I was a schoolkid, when there actually were dances around Maypoles, threading garlands of flowers; and assigned essays about Spring, and we were allowed to mention God. Now, in this brave new world that is realizing the dreams of Socialists, from Europe on the brink to major forces in the US, every day is May Day.

But the May Day that has the most relevance – that is, immediate import – to Patriots and Christians, is the international Distress Signal.

We are indeed adrift and in distress. As a society, as a culture, we need help. We need to be rescued. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).

IFs aplenty. We need revival, but we cannot pray for God’s magic wand. He has never worked that way. We cannot effect it without the Holy Ghost; but God will not bring revival if we do not repent.

Unlike the distress call that went out when the Titanic was sinking, we have the ability to influence our rescue. We can save our lives as He heals our land. But May Days will end sometime. Help us, Lord.

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Click: Help Me