"It Speaks" by Lewis Ward-Baker
"Taken gently from its first home
Borne carefully and lovingly with hands of hope
Joined with the blocks and mortar long prepared for it,
It speaks!
To the women, children, and men who dreamed it,
Gave thought, concern, and labor,
And those whose gift was of their resources,
It speaks!
In sounds enriching human life
With sublime beauty and zest,
Linking all of us with people of other places and times,
It speaks!
Reminding us the noble things of life,
Our community, our thought, ourselves,
Need cherishing, nurturance, and care, it speaks!
And we are thrilled and humbly grateful to have reached this time."
It has been 21 years since "The Great Organ Transplant," as then newsletter editor Jean Eddy called it - 21 years since the painstaking removal of this organ - pipe by pipe, rank by rank - from its original home at St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Seminary to its present home in our sanctuary. When Louis Kahn designed this church, it was hoped a real pipe organ would grace this space, but funds were inadequate, though space for a pipe organ was allocated. We suffered through almost 20 years of an electronic organ, which was inadequate to this unique sanctuary. And then, in 1981 good fortune smiled upon us.
I can remember when this organ was nothing but a gleam in Ed Schell's eye. I can remember hearing the good news that a fine instrument was available at St. Bernard's Seminary on a first come -first served basis. I can remember hearing it there for the first time. I can remember the cooperative spirit of Father Lioi who had confidence that in this church St. Bernard's organ would find a loving home.
I can remember Canvass Sunday of that year when we knew the organ must be purchased immediately and how relatively simply it was to convince Don Wilder that this was an opportune time for an impromptu capital fund drive. I can remember the expeditious phone calls to 21 members of the congregation asking them if they would like to buy one-eighteenth of an organ with a thousand dollars on the spot. I remember being one of them - wondering what I would do with one-eighteenth of an organ.
I remember the congregation subsequently and enthusiastically buying the whole organ from us - the enterprise being chaired by Glenn Koch.
I can remember when this organ was nothing but a cavalcade of cars and trucks bringing it literally pipe by pipe to our church. I can remember when it was several rooms of pipes, tubes, wires, wind chests and a nondescript miscellany of parts. I can remember wondering if it would ever again be an organ. I can remember not being alone in wondering. The Great Organ Transplant made believers of us all.
And I can remember when I first heard the coughing and wheezing of these glorious pipes when the air blower was first turned on. It was during a Board meeting and official minutes read as follows: "INTERRUPTION. Upon hearing the wheezing and groaning of the new organ pipes, the meeting was adjourned to celebrate the first sounds of this instrument. Within a short while, music was emanating from the same pipes. The trustees were filled with great cheer and exuberance." That is emphasis by understatement.
During the long birthing process of this organ Ed Schell reminded me of the unique nature of this occasion. A church dedicates a new organ only once in a generation or a century. This organ is not simply a new-to-us instrument, but a musical expression of our faith for and in generations to come. In some sense this organ is an extravagance. There are many other ways we could have invested our labor and our resources. But there are few ways that will live on so fully after we are gone.
Ministers come and go; congregations come and go. Organs may not, like diamonds, be forever, but they are for a long, long time. Like the building which shelters it, this organ is the gift of one generation to another. Unlike ministers and congregations this organ is not very mobile, although it is more peripatetic than most - it has gone gallivanting from St. Bernard's Roman Catholic Seminary on Lake Avenue to The First Unitarian Church on Winton Road South, a distance more theological than geographical, thus demonstrating its fundamental ecumenicity of spirit.
What is the religious significance of this rededication of a pipe organ? Albert Schweitzer, who in addition to his theological, philosophical and medical pursuits, was also a superb organist and interpreter of Bach, once wrote:
"The work and worry that fell my lot through the practical interest I took in organ building made me sometimes wish that I had never troubled myself about it, but if I do not give it up, the reason is that the struggle for the good organ is to me a part of the struggle for truth."
Truth comes not only in propositions of logic and science, not only in words of prose and poetry. Truth can also be conveyed in stirring sound which cannot be put into words. The great jazz artist Louis Armstrong was once asked about the meaning of his music, to which Satchmo replied: "Lady, if I could say it, I wouldn't have to blow it."
I am confident there were some among us who at times in 1981 did wish they had never troubled themselves about organ-building. It was in truth a labor of love. It might have been easier if this organ had been given to us in one generous gift by an individual. It surely would have saved our energy and our financial resources. But it would not then have been so fully and completely and beautifully our organ. This organ literally has the blood, sweat, and tears as well as the financial resources and laughter of a community of dedicated souls who labored to make of wood and metal, wire and pedal, a musical instrument. The creation of this musical instrument has been the work of loving commitment. People of great musical talent have worked upon it; people of no musical talent have contributed their labors.
"Honor men and women for their extravagance, for the unneeded things that they do. The fullness of humanity is not only in its labors. We are human not only to survive." Ken Patton surely was not speaking of conspicuous consumption. We are human not only to survive - but to survive with style, with culture, with beauty. So much of our energy is devoted to mere survival - it is crucial that we do things unneeded by the body, but essential to the spirit.
At the November 4, 1981, dedication of this organ, I spoke these words:
We dedicate this organ to the celebration of life:
to the music of the eternal spheres,
to the harmony of human community
to the melodies and handiwork wrought of love,
to the resonance of shared vision,
to the hymns of human service.
We dedicate this organ to the praise and service of life:
to the happy hope of children welcomed here,
to the mature love here witnessed,
to the memorials of those whom we have loved and lost,
to the creation of a worshipping people.
May the joy of this day be in us infusing us with the love of life, this day and in all days to come
After 21 years of enjoyment I would like to ask all those who participated in The Great Organ Transplant to rise. And now I invite all of us to rise to sing our rededication of this organ in a hymn parody written by choir member Bill Trow, called "The Organ Pipes Hymn."
Rank by rank again we stand
From the Seminary gathered hither.
Loud these concrete walls demand
Whence we came to be put together.
From their stillness one can hear
Echoes of electronic gear;
Higher hopes for music good
Call our tall cylinderhood.
Ours the years memorial scores
by composers whose names we reckon:
Heinrich Schutz and Pachelbel,
J. S. Bach and Buxtehude:
Many more of recent lives,
Maybe even Charles Ives;
What they dreamed be our to do:
Clear our pipes and play them true.
Religion without music is to me unthinkable. Music and religion are inextricably intertwined. And so when I came across a quote in Huston Smith's book Why Religion Matters, I was intrigued. Smith referred to a comment from linguist Max Muller who once confessed to being religiously "unmusical." Whatever did he mean? In this case being religiously unmusical referred to the objective study of religion by Muller and others, agnostics and atheists - who studied it but did not embrace it.
While there is much of the agnostic in me - so much about which I am not sure - I am sure there is a reality greater than ourselves - a cosmic mystery we but vaguely apprehend - but in which we live and move and have our being. And I rather think it must have been an organ which accompanied the Creation of that greater reality on the occasion of the Big Bang. How could it have been otherwise?
We are heretics from Calvinism for many reasons, not the least of which is musical. John "Calvin tied music to the sinful culture and restricted its use in worship to a unison line without polyphony or instruments." But Martin Luther, the redoubtable reformer, said:
"A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs." I'm Lutheran here. Surely he must be right in spirit, whatever our theological differences might be, though he states his case a bit bluntly. The music we have heard and will hear this morning transcends the mundane of our experiences and transports us to new dimensions of the spirit. What is more, we have this instrument to hear not only today, but for weeks and months, years and generations to come. The organ is an instrument of the spirit. The word spiritus means breath. This organ lives, as we do, by the air it breathes.
Last summer we visited the old North German city of Lubeck. There we happened on a huge Protestant cathedral with an amazing history of construction, destruction and reconstruction. In this beautiful space was a spectacular pipe organ - probably recently refurbished. As luck would have it there was to be an organ recital that afternoon. We returned at the appointed hour, expecting to enjoy this massive and spectacular instrument. But no, the organ concert was to be played on a very ancient and very small pipe organ in the apse of the church. I was disappointed, because I love to feel my body vibrating to the bass notes of a mighty organ. Our concert organist stood at the keyboard and from that modest instrument came the most lovely music. I was no longer disappointed, but once again transported into a realm to which only a pipe organ can send me.
I am one of the musically challenged among us, yet I feel a deep reverence for and kinship with music. But perhaps that gives me, if not a unique, then a different perspective from all the talented musicians among us. I stand like a child outside the candy store - the aroma of chocolate teasing my nostrils - and I wander in to enjoy it all. I cannot cook, but I can eat.
I recall my experiences with music over the years: the embarrassment in 7th grade when I fancied myself a harmonica player and tried a solo in music class. It was awful. Or the 7th grade chorus in which I was mistakenly put, only to hear my voice stand out in a recording - and I was not a soloist. In more recent years - still stubbornly trying to make music - I took up the recorder.
I made my debut on Star Island, a Unitarian Universalist and Congregational church camp off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In a religious education seminar with about a dozen of us, our leader invited us to participate in a worship service for our group doing that which we normally did not do. Music was to be my medium and I wandered off hour after hour practicing - to the great distress of the sea gulls. A patient friend, both musician and religious educator, took me under her wing. She played oboe and happened to have a duet for oboe and recorder. It was a simple piece, but we practiced for hours until I got it right. If I do say so myself, it was an artistic triumph.
And later, in the Bristol Hills at a Church Council Retreat I was to lead worship. Usually I would bring a musical tape to play. This time, however, I decided to risk playing live for my small congregation. I had learned a few measures of "Ode to Joy" and a mercifully short Mozart piece - chosen because their range was less than an octave and I only knew a few notes. I was unbelievably nervous, but did it - to the astonishment of the worshippers.
I share these stories only to indicate how vitally important music is to one who never had a music lesson growing up, who was seldom exposed to great music, who does not have a knack for it, but who loves it with a passion. The pipe organ is my favorite instrument. If at my memorial service someone would only play Widor's Toccata, it will be enough.
Poet May Sarton puts it well: "There are days when only religious music will do. Under the light of eternity, things, the daily trivia, the daily frustrations, fall away. It is all a matter of getting to the center of the beam."
That's what organ music does for me - helps me get to the center of the beam; I hope it is the same with you.
And so, as we rededicate this pipe organ and the Great Organ Transplant that made it possible, I offer these words:
Thanks be for these:
For rank by rank stately standing above us;
For gleaming sun on pipe,
A glittering feast for ear and eye.
Thanks be for these:
For piccolo sound lilting through towers,
And rumbling thunder from the bowels of earth
Meeting in our ears, and joining in our hearts.
Thanks be for these:
For majestic march in times of joy,
And uplifting melody when sadness engulfs us,
For every time when we are in need.
Thanks be for these:
For pipes played with love
And those who placed them there;
For memories of labor lovingly done,
And anticipation of beauty yet to be.
For all those things in which we are delighted.
Thanks be for these. Amen.
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