Fixated on A capella Hymns

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corksacredharpIt was near St. Patrick’s Day. I typed “Irish sacred music” in the search engine. And I discovered Cork Sacred Harp. My husband Curt was on medical leave and we sat entranced for hours watching videos on YouTube. And now it’s become a daily habit to listen and sing along to our favorites a capella singing from Ireland.

In 2012 we rented this DVD about Sacred Harp singing from Netflix. The quote in the photo above says, “features some of the most raucous group vocals that have been recorded.” True, that. The music in the movie is primitive, unrefined, at times jarring. It is intense, heartfelt, loud. We found ourselves simultaneously compelled and repelled. And so intrigued that I bought the DVD. What is shape note singing? See this article. The shapes correspond with fa-sol-la-mi; the first swipe through a song the singers use these syllables. With several parts singing different notes, it may sound like random mish-mash to begin with.

Listen: The music is often fugal. This means that there are the melody lines enter in a staggered fashion, braiding tunes until all parts sing together. Here’s a good example, a hymn tune we regularly sing to a different text:

Why has this music captured me? I think it is the clean—yes, even sharp—edges of rhythm. It’s that the majority of the songs are in minor keys. It’s the full sound of people singing with gusto. If I had a gun to my head and had to say my favorite hymn (a funny thought experiment) I would say Come Thou Fount. Here it is to the tune I Will Rise.

I don’t like every one of the videos listed under CorkSacredHarp, but I’ve “liked” my favorites and then watch that “liked” playlist daily. I don’t get weary of them. Here is a list of my favorites. The title is name of the tune.

146 Hallelujah – might be the best known Sacred Harp song
63 Coronation – All Hail the Power. The frail woman in the inner square: priceless
30t Love Divine – Tollie Lee is the most lively, engaging leader
350 Nativity – Another example of fugal singing, one we love to sing at my church
128 Promised Land – I love Shirley! I am bound for the Promised Land.
45t New Britain – Amazing Grace done Sacred Harp style
569b Sacred Throne – I grew up singing this tune to Alas, and did my Savior bleed?
59 Holy Manna – Eimear and Sadhbh are my favorites. The song, too.
547 Granville – This gripping lament was written in 1986 by Judy Hauff
344 Rainbow – We sing this “as is” except for the solfege at the beginning.
148 Jefferson – You will never hear Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken the same again 457 Wayfaring Stranger – Another familiar song with glorious harmony
117 Babylon Is Fallen – Oh. my. I wake up with this song on my lips.
448b The Grieved Soul – What is that that casts thee down? A song for depression.

I suspect that 95% of my dear readers will not enjoy, explore, pursue this music; there is no accounting for taste. But I know there are a few of you who will become as fixated as I have become. You will lose of day of productivity soaking this music into your system. Someone said Sacred Harp is a capella Heavy Metal. (I copied it from a website in German!) This metal is embedded in me.

Five Seven

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img022Five Seven. An unforgettable date. We may not remember Three Twenty-Three (her birthday). I don’t even know her wedding date (the year was 1945). But this day, oh I know Five Seven. The calendar starts fomenting emotions around the third or fourth.

I revisit my last goodbye as I trotted towards the car, facing forward out the front door, head turned on the final step as I sing-songed my farewell: ♪♫♪ Bye Mom! ♪♫♪  I see my father waiting for me at the edge of the school grounds, and I hear the deadly quiet when we entered the house.

Last night when I read about Kara Tippett’s family’s first event without her I burst into sobs. Have you followed Kara’s story? Her shimmering grace, her honest struggle, her big love. I look at her kids and I know a small piece of their story. The oldest girl, who will mother her siblings the rest of her life. The girl and boy in the middle whose grief might get overlooked, who will consider their dad’s cares. The youngest girl, the focus of concern for all, the girl who turned six this week.

Although Five Seven can never be the second Sunday in May, it is always in the suburbs of Mother’s Day. Sorrow scoots over and makes room for gratitude. For too many, the grief of Mother’s Day is the ache of having had a mom who couldn’t or wouldn’t, but clearly didn’t express love and kindness. Their focus is on breaking the chain of affliction, expunging the critical words, watching others to figure out how to be a good mom.

I learned the goodness and kindness of God through Mom. Sure, she taught us and corrected us; but she sang while she laundered, she cheerfully plowed through sandwich-making every school day morning, she wrapped her long arms around us, she prayed. What didn’t she do? She never gossiped, she didn’t complain, she didn’t worry, she didn’t fear. Sometimes she sighed, and I know she groaned. But she lived a simple, authentic life, a small life really, that influenced many for good. And she loved me, this I know. To know your mom’s love is a gift of unfathomable magnitude.

Thank you, Mom. I love you.

Nellie Arlene Stover Harper
3/23/1920 — 5/7/1968

What’s on your nightstand – April 2015

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DSC_5007My previous WOYN post showed a (well, for me, at least) pristine nightstand with four books neatly stacked. All but one of those books are still on the nightstand, in the if-I-put-it-there-maybe-I’ll-read-it-next happy thought category.

Random notes:

§  Earthen Vessels is my present read. I’m loving in, but taking it in small bites. It’s about how the body matters in things of faith. Favorite quote so far: Grace is not a technique.

§  See two books with the fore edge showing? One says E.O.C. Library on it? They remind me of a story I have to tell you. We were at a friends’ house for dinner and she had a whole bookshelf of books with the spines facing in and the fore edges out. Whaaaa? I stammered. She laughed and said, I just love the look. Aren’t they pretty? … Have you ever??

§  About those books–one is a Ring of Words, about Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary or ‘the OED’ if you want to impress academic types. I say I want to read this book. I have a son who adores Tolkien, who also has a birthday soon. But. The combo of heavy-words and light-head have put it in the slogging category of reading.

§  The two top on the right are some Alexander McCall Smith books I snatched from the library, part of the 44 Scotland Street series. I love Bertie, the six year old prodigy who only wants to be normal. Lots of laugh alouds.

§  Not shown: the Call the Midwife triology. I haven’t made up my mind since I’ve finished reading them. Big sections are 5 stars and a few places are 1.5 stars. It’s sort of like life: lots of love mixed with disappointments.

§  What’s in me ears? Coolidge by Amity Shlaes. Interesting and enjoyable.

§  Finally, I started reading the Nikon D3100 book. Wow. I’ve had my camera 3 years and this book makes so much more sense now. I’m trying to wean myself off of auto settings and the long lens. This book is a good one to regularly dip into.

The Kindness of Strangers

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DSC_3818Life is in the little things. I’ve been thinking about the kindness of strangers, thankful for recent encounters with folks I’ll never see again.

::     ::     ::

I was trudging up Morgan Lake Road. When cars drove by I was embarrassed by the trudginess of my heavy gait but incapable of looking like a normal person walking up a steepish hill. Then this truck passed me and the driver stuck his/her hand out the window with a thumbs up. What did it cost her/him to do that? Nothing. What that small gesture did for my spirits? Reinvigorated them. Thank you, stranger.

                                                 ::     ::     ::

Last month my husband had surgery in Portland. We arrived at the hospital at 5:00 a.m., departed at 5:00 p.m. My job was to drive us home. All that was required was to cross the Willamette River, merge onto a familiar interstate highway, and drive four hours. No biggie except it was Friday night rush hour.

As we entered the bridge, I hugged the far right lane so I could take the first exit on the other side. Towards the middle of the bridge I saw the sign that indicated a left exit. I had about 200 yards to negotiate three lane changes. The one rule I remember from Driver’s Ed is: Never change lanes on a bridge. Ha!

An excellent city driver is neither timid nor aggressive. I was both. I put my left blinker on,  punched the accelerator and slammed on the brakes. Husband and I both yelling. Go! Not now! Watch out! It was not the finest moment of our marriage. I kept in mind how much a collision would hurt Curt. Lord, help! was the all I could pray.

Somehow, three drivers gave me space and I took the exit with one car length of grace. The gorgeous generosity of people I will never know. Thank you, three strangers.

Have you received kindness from strangers lately?

The Habit of Be-ing

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DSC_4059It is my favorite cozy: snuggled in with a grandson, listening to him read. When Noah sounded out the word “before” we took a detour.

Oh, I love be- words; I actually collect them, I said.
You do?
Yes, let me show you!

I grabbed my journal. I am burdened with an insatiable urge to show-and-tell.

DSC_4088Be- words delight me, I explained. So when I spot  one, I write it down.

Later, when all the rest of the house was napping, I watched Noah cut and paste. He decided to make a little booklet. Well, now. Here’s something even I could help with. We could make you a be- book, I shamelessly suggested.

DSC_4063He started scanning every Bob Book in his possession, not the best place to find vintage words. But he found a few! I didn’t quibble about words that began with be that weren’t the prefix be- e.g. Benjamin, best, bend. One has to start somewhere.

DSC_4061When Noah loaded up to go to Safeway with Papa, he grabbed his book and a pen in case he found some more be- words. They found themselves in the beer section (a word he missed!) when Noah backed up into a stack of whiskey. It’s what they call in literature a destabilizing event. Curt threw out his hands trying to steady the waving bottles, mentally calculating the cost of this quick trip to the store. Fortunately, none fell.

But, suddenly, Noah is sitting on the floor with his book in front of him, writing down “Beam.” Few lessons could be found in a more unlikely location.

DSC_4079The next day Noah told Aunt Lindsey about his book. The first words out of his mouth were, Well, I love be- words. Like boat and baseball and balance? she asked. No, b-e- words like before and below. His younger brother Levi chimed in, I love be- words, too! What is your favorite? she asked him. Begin! What is your favorite? she asked me. I looked at her, a vibrant newlywed, and smiled. Beloved.

The Last Verse

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old_handThis post is dedicated to dear Sally W.,
who is singing her last verse with grace & peace.

One of the glories of old hymns is their last verse. Singing them was a weekly reminder that death would come, that life follows death, that we have promises on which to stand. The regular drip irrigation of those last verses watered our hope and confidence.

Here’s a few that I found in my hymnal.

Great things he has taught us, great things he has done,
and great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
but purer and higher and greater will be
our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.

Through ev’ry period of my life your goodness I’ll pursue;
and after death, in distant worlds, the glorious theme renew.

E’en down to old age all my people shall prove
my sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
and when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne.

He will keep me till the river rolls it waters at my feet:
then he’ll bear me safely over, made by grace for glory meet.

Jesus loves me, he will stay close beside me all the way:
if I love him, when I die he will take me home on high.

Now by this I’ll overcome—nothing but the blood of Jesus;
now by this I’ll reach my home—nothing but the blood of Jesus.

He will gather, he will gather the gems for his kingdom,
all the pure ones, all the bright ones, his loved and his own.

Then he’ll call us home to heaven, at his table we’ll sit down;
Christ will gird himself and serve us with sweet manna all around.

Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee:
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

And when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil a life of joy and peace.

While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyelids close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown, see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.

When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell’s destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side;
songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever give to thee, I will ever give to thee.

And when my task on earth is done, when, by thy grace, the victory’s won
e’en death’s cold wave I will not flee, since God through Jordan leadeth me.

I’ll love thee in life, I will love thee in death;
and praise thee as long as thou lendest me breath;
and say, when the deathdew lies cold on my brow;
if ever I loved thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I’m so glad I learned to trust thee, precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
and I know that thou art with me, will be with me to the end.

Jesus lives and death is now but my entrance into glory.
Courage, then, my soul, for thou hast a crown of life before thee;
thou shalt find thy hopes were just: Jesus is the Christian’s trust.

What’s on Your Nightstand, March 24

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DSC_3970Although I love the concept of What’s on Your Nightstand, a monthly overview of one’s reading, I have only participated a few times. In a rare and wonderful synchronicity, I  deep cleaned my nightstand area yesterday.

My husband had surgery two weeks ago (he’s fine, thank you) that allowed me seven hours of reading in the waiting room. There was a huge flat-screen TV that looped through Travels in Europe with Rick Steves for 4.5 hours. Eventually, a penguin documentary came on. Occasionally I glanced up, but it wasn’t bad background sound.

Keeping my mind occupied was A Pianist’s Landscape, a book of essays about playing, learning, performing and teaching the piano. This was a book sale find. The cover and title drew me in. Carol Montparker is a Steinway Artist; her essays have been in the New York Times. Delightful!

I’m working on consistently reading poetry. It’s one of those things that takes an effort, but offers rich rewards. I found Wis£awa Szymborska (w sounds like /v/, £ sounds like /w/; thus, Vees WAH vah shin BORE skuh) funny, dark, random, full of irony, beauty and profundity. Many poems didn’t strike a chord in me. But some did. When asked why she didn’t write more poems, her answer was “because I have a trash can at home.” I kept forgetting that these poems had been translated from Polish. The translations are magnificent!

“Disappointing” — two historical novels. Widow of the South centers on the Carnton Plantation near Franklin, TN. I didn’t like that a major part of the plot centered on a contrived and fictitious relationship between Carrie McGavock and one soldier/patient. It was a weird Jayber Crow-ish intimacy.

A Separate Country tells the story of defeated Confederate General John Bell Hood’s life after the war in New Orleans. He marries Anna Maria Hennen, a young society belle, and they have 11 children in 10 years, including three sets of twins. The author uses a scaffolding of facts but most of the story is fanciful. The tone and language is a bit salty for my taste.

I made small progress on my goal to read through Shakespeare’s canon with Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. Before I read these, I had thought Falstaff was witty and clever. No, sirrah! His self-aggrandizing, manipulative, lying behavior erased any gladsome thoughts of this main Shakespearean character.

My Kindle read – did you know if you have Amazon Prime you can borrow a book a month on your Kindle? I’m a junkie for books on how to write. To say I have dozens would be only a minor stretch. I love to read them, to re-read them, and to promise myself that someday I will do what they say.

I was reminded to slash away at adverbs and adjectives. Yes. But I really enjoyed Rosenblatt’s comments on education: “Teaching takes a lot of wheedling and grappling but basically it is the art of seduction. Observing a teacher who is lost in the mystery of the material can be oddly seductive.”

Audiobook  This long audio book was mostly tedious, but I was so glad I finished this life of Anna Leonowens. I was reminded how powerful a teacher can be. Prince Chulalongkorn attributed to Anna the decision he made to abolish slavery (without war!) in Siam (Thailand).

For Fun   I love Jane Austen, but I don’t consider myself a Janeite. Among the Janeites was an entertaining read. What struck me was how many ways there are to read Austen. People see virtue, wisdom, feminism, eroticism, autism, therapy, and more in her books.

DSC_3968Reading in preparation for Easter: Silence, by Shushaku Endo and Nikki Grime’s At Jerusalem’s Gate, Poems of Easter.

My Grief Will Not Stop the Green

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DSC_9186Parting with a View

I don’t reproach the spring
for starting up again.
I can’t blame it
for doing what it must
year after year.

I know that my grief
will not stop the green.
The grass blade may bend
but only in the wind.

It doesn’t pain me to see
that clumps of alders above the water
have something to rustle with again.

I take note of the fact
that the shore of a certain lake
is still—as if you were living—
as lovely as before.

DSC_3750I don’t resent
the view for its vista
of a sun-dazzled bay.

I am even able to imagine
some non-us
sitting at this minute
on a fallen birch trunk.

I respect their right
to whisper, laugh,
and lapse into happy silence.

I can even allow
that they are bound by love
and that he holds her
with a living arm.

DSC_2792Something freshly birdish
starts rustling in the reeds.
I sincerely want them to hear it.

I don’t require changes from the surf,
now diligent, now sluggish,
obeying not me.

I expect nothing
from the depths near the woods,
first emerald, then sapphire, than black.

DSC_2445
There’s one thing I won’t agree to:
my own return.
The privilege of presence
I give it up.

I survived you by enough,
and only by enough,
to contemplate from afar.

— Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh
from Poems New and Collected

Three dear friends of mine are approaching the one-year mark of grief,
the dreadful day they went from wife to widow in a moment.
They came immediately to mind as I pondered this poem.

The Pageant of Digits

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Talk about happy timing! I read Wistlawa Szymborska’s Poems New and Collected discovering this gem **before** Pi day!

Pi-symbol.svg

Happy 3.14.15

Pi

The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can’t be comprehended six five three five at a glance,
eight nine by calculation,
seven nine or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything
two six four three in the world.

The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn’t stop at the page’s edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh how brief—a mouse tail, a pigtail—is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star’s ray, bent by bumping up against space!

While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size the year
nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven,
nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity
to continue.

Poem by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

 

Processing Wheat

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DSC_5746The smallest detail changed my mind. The height of wheat plants.

Genetic strains have been induced to increase yield per acre. The average yield on a modern North American farm is more than tenfold greater than farms of a century ago. Such enormous strides in yield have required drastic changes in genetic code, including reducing the proud “amber waves of grain” of yesteryear to the rigid, eighteen-inch-tall high-production “dwarf” wheat of today. (Davis)

The problem with increasing the yield was that the head of the wheat plant got so heavy, that the stalk broke. I live in grain-growing country. I have seen, but had never noticed, how low the wheat plants are.

DSC_9124Why I never expected to go GF

Our married life began in Humboldt County, California, a mecca for hippie homemade-granola types. We ground our wheat, fried soy burger patties, ate carob, drank kefir, sweetened with honey and seasoned with tamari. There were no cans in our cupboards. (Our food righteousness was suffocating.)

Whole wheat was our banner. We’ve since relinquished (and later revisited) some of our hippie food, but we never abandoned whole grains. I embraced baking our daily bread. I’ve taught a baker’s dozen how to make loaves of bread, persuaded several to buy a wheat grinder. After the decade of teenage boys, in which I shredded six bread machines, we bought a Bosch mixer that has proven itself a great dough maker.

But it goes far deeper. I am a Christian; I regard the Bible as a holy book.  Phrases like Bread of Life, eat this bread, bread and wine, bread from heaven, consecrated bread have nourished my soul.  Why would Jesus say, “I am the Bread of Life” if bread is bad for you? Bread is as daily as it gets.

DSC_6326A house in Maine

Last summer we stayed a week in a house at Maine. I love scanning bookshelves, gauging compatibility with the owners. There it was, Wheat Belly. I picked it up and began reading. My interest rose like yeast and I bought a copy once I had returned home.

I decided to do an experiment. I stopped eating wheat for a few days. And I felt good. I stopped eating wheat for a few weeks. And I felt great. Very scientific experiment, don’t you know. So scientific that I reintroduced wheat into my diet. And I felt achy all over. People like me with their anecdotal twaddle drive scientists bonkers. But there it is.

DSC_1812This one thing I know

My family medical history is grim. I have been dodging diabetes for a decade. I have a fasting blood glucose test drawn annually and I attend to my numbers. I keep (figuratively) running, and cancer keeps (literally) chasing me. If/when a doctor looks me in the eyes and says, “Carol, you have cancer” I can imagine being sad, but I cannot imagine being surprised.

One way that I try to keep diabetes and cancer behind me is by eating foods low on the glycemic index. It’s good to cut back on sweets, but it is helpful to know that flour is my sugar, that modern wheat quickly converts into high blood sugar. Whole wheat bread has a glycemic index of 72 (glucose = 100), higher than ice cream or Coke (Harvard  Health Publications, HMS).

101_0089In everything give thanks

I could never reconcile a gluten-free diet with the biblical injunction to “Eat this bread.” I believe we were created to eat bread, but tinkering with wheat has made it unhealthy for people who are insulin resistant and leptin resistant. My husband can eat bread every day. I still grind wheat and still make bread for him.

I understand that I haven’t been diagnosed with a “food allergy.” I just know I feel better when I don’t eat gluten. And I control about 90% of what I am served. When I visit a friend and she serves me a sandwich, I eat it with gratitude. In my case, the laws of hospitality trump my preferences. And the laws of thanksgiving cover it all.

One argument remains for eating bread. It is delicious! Nothing excels the smells of bread. Oh, how I look forward to weekly communion and the yummy amazing bite of bread. I chew and remember and swallow.

If you are interested in pursuing this topic further, I recommend you read Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar–Your Brain’s Silent Killers (where the dementia/diabetes relationship is explored) and Wheat Belly. Read the arguments and find the flaws. Convince me I’m full of macaroni, would you?