Here you can listen to or print my new piano/vocal arrangement of Away in a Manger. You will need the Scorch plug-in, which is available on this website. I wrote it in the key of Eb major, which is my favorite key to sing in. The website above allows for transposing this into any key you like.
I find it interesting that in our hymn book the Christmas carol Away in a Manger is set to the tune more commonly used in Britain, rather than the one used in the US. My arrangement uses both of these tunes, which are different from the one in the Children’s Songbook.
Although this is a children’s carol, we all love to sing it. The simple, yet profound text, puts us at the manger scene, in our child mind—where we experience the innocence and faith of a young child.
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head. The stars in the heavens looked down where He lay, The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes, But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes; I love Thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky And stay by my cradle til morning is nigh.
Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay Close by me forever, and love me, I pray; Bless all the dear children in thy tender care, And fit us for Heaven to live with thee there.
I have been reading the October General Conference talks, and many of them remind me of how much the church has evolved during my lifetime, regarding our relationship to the mainstream Christian churches. Now that we have an LDS candidate running for president, he is certainly in a much stronger position than was his father, who tried the same thing forty years ago. There are many more members now, and so are better known. Our church leaders are encouraging us to get out there and be, well, who we are. They want us to tell people about our church in order to reduce the confusion and misconceptions about us. They want us to get out of our comfort zone, and be more present in our communities in our service to others.
From 1980-2001, I worked as a music director and organist for various protestant churches. I met many wonderful people, people with the same family values and standards that we hold dear. I was always open about my religion and my religion beliefs, and for many of them, was probably the only Mormon they knew. My first job was on Long Island, where I found myself, married, and between graduate schools, helping to put my first husband though his Master’s program. One of my jobs was playing organ and conducting the adult choir for the United Methodist church across the street from where I lived. I remember one choir rehearsal, where I was suddenly impressed to stop, and talk to my choir members about our Mormon belief in eternal marriage. There were some married couples in the choir, and a couple of the wives turned to their husbands and asked them if they would marry them again, if it was going to be for time and all eternity. I was flabbergasted. I sensed that many of them believed that what I was telling them was true! I was reminded of those massed conversions in England in the early days of the church. The spirit does testify of the truth, and this group of people knew the truth when they heard it.
A year later, I enrolled in Westminster Choir College in Princeton, and moved to nearby Plainsboro. I studied organ, choir conducting, and church music, and continued to work, playing for protestant churches. I was one of the only two Mormons in the school, but it did not seem to matter to anyone. I felt welcome everywhere I went.
At the time, I did not completely understand who the people I met really were. For example, all I knew about my Gregorian chant teacher, Father Farrell, was that he was a Catholic priest. It was not until the book “Cloister Walk” came out many years later that I realized he was one of the Benedictines from the abbey church in Collegeville Minnesota—the source of that wonderful book.
Another thing that confused me was church terminology. One of my classmates had a father who was a bishop in the Lutheran Church of America. I thought that a bishop in the Lutheran church must be like a bishop in the Catholic Church. I was over at her house for dinner one evening, with a bunch of other people, and took her aside to ask about her father’s position in the church. She explained to me that he presided over the church. “What do you mean?” I asked. “You mean he’s in charge of the whole thing?” Indeed he was. Apparently “Bishop” in this context was synonymous with “President.”
As I started to write this, I decided to do a Google search on Bishop Crumley, to see what I could find. What I found is that back in the mid 1980’s he visited Pope John Paul II, and later exchanged letters back and forth. What he went to talk to the pope about was how to improve the relations between their religions. (I also found that Bishop Crumley’s archives reside in a library in Columbia, South Carolina, the very city where my second husband and I went to the temple to be sealed.)
I am beginning to realize that it is all of a piece. The world is full of good church going people, trying to find ways to understand and communicate with other good church people, so that we can all work together for the greater good. The spirit of ecumenism that the protestant churches were trying to establish in the 80’s and 90’s, also related to my own church. I knew this because when I was a Director of Music in a United Methodist church in New Jersey, Pastor Wynn passed along copies of magazine “The Christian Century,” anytime there was an article about my church. I was amazed to discover that a student at a protestant seminary could specialize in Mormon Studies, and that there were scholars who studied our church, and wrote about it. The articles I read were well-researched, and accurate, as far as I could tell, and seemed fair.
Pastor Wynn used to drive me and my assistant organist to Drew University to attend church music workshops and lectures. Once we went to hear William F. Smith speak about his work on the new hymnal, which consisted of composing the musical arrangements of the spirituals. W.F Smith was a singer, as well as an organist, and had a deep, bass voice. A number of years later, I was rehearsing a stake choir for a series of public concerts. There was a high tenor in the choir who had recently joined the church. He was African American, and his last name was Smith, but it never occurred to me that he could be related to the recently deceased William F. Smith. It turned out he was “Billy’s” brother, and it had been Billy’s death that caused him to search out and join the Mormon Church.
As I grow older, I see how all these lines intersect, and connect. I like to think that my presence in those protestant churches helped people to learn a little more about our church and what we believe. It certainly helped me to learn more about different religions, and have the opportunity to get to know many wonderful people.
Every once in awhile it’s nice to take a whole day to devote to music. Yesterday I got up at 6:00 a.m. to get ready to go to the 7:30 Michigan Concert Choir rehearsal. It was a lot of fun. Singing through Christmas music put me in a wonderful mood. I got home at 10:00 and went to the church to practice organ for sacrament meeting. Then I went home and began searching for the Bach organ music I had been practicing before someone crashed into my daughter’s car, and I had to do all the driving for several weeks. She and her red Cobalt are back on the road now, flying solo, and I finally have time to go back to the organ pieces I was working on before my world was so rudely interrupted.
I had been re-learning Bach’s Schubler Chorales, Bach’s transcription of six chorales from his cantatas. I searched for half and hour, and could not find the music. I did find the first chorale, “Sleepers Awake” (Wachet Auf) in the old Peters edition I bought back in the seventies. The good news was that the whole thing was printed on two pages, so there were no page turns. The bad news was that the top two parts were written in C clefs, the right hand in alto clef, and the left hand in tenor clef.
My first introduction to alto clef was during the week I took viola lessons in elementary school. It was not until I was in college that the dreaded alto clef came back to haunt me. My first year music theory teacher required that we do our counterpoint exercises in the alto clef. That helped me later, when I found that some organ music I wanted to was learn used C clef for the left hand. Eventually I could read C clef as well as the more familiar treble and bass clefs. Throughout my music career I encountered tenor clef now and then, but didn’t pay it much attention.
I stared at the Peters edition, gritted my teeth, and took it to the piano to see if I could still read alto clef, and fake my way through tenor. Since I already knew the music, it was not as hard as I thought it would be. Before I could decide whether to use this edition or keep looking for the missing book, my husband was ready to take me to Car City Records in St. Clair Shores.
Once there, I began plowing through the 94 cent used records, hoping to find some recordings of “Wachet Auf,” both the organ and cantata versions. I found an organ recording by the French organist Marie-Claire Alain, and snapped it up. I found three recordings of the entire cantata, and chose the one that was performed by a boy choir, thinking that this would be a more authentic performance. Then I found something that surprised me—a recording of Bach choral music by none other than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Two of the selections were from the cantata Wachet Auf! I added them to the ever-increasing pile of records my husband and I had waiting at the checkout counter.
Back home there was still the Saturday food shopping trip to do, something we often do with our kids. My daughter had recently decided to eat vegan this week. I knew what to do, because my son goes vegan several times a year, and then goes back to just being vegetarian. (Vegetarians don’t eat meat, but can eat dairy products. Vegans don’t eat dairy products.) I made sure that my daughter had a week supply of vegan food in order to keep herself full and have the proper nutrition. Back home we put the food away. My husband cleaned out the freeze in order to find room for everything. My daughter spied some frozen raviolis, and began to waver on her vegan decision. My son came to me for help with a persimmon. He had bought it a week before, and it was finally ripe. He had tried a bite and didn’t like it. Hating to waste food, he wanted to know if I could help him make persimmon bread. I called my mom, who is an expert on persimmons since she lives in California and has had a persimmon tree for the past thirty-eight years. She gave me her fabulous persimmon cookie recipe. Around then, my daughter told me she decided not to eat vegan this week after all, and, thank you very much, she’d like a steak for dinner.
After dinner we went downstairs to listen to our newly purchased vinyl. Wayne had found Ricky Nelson’s very first record, and had been so happy about it that he had picked up his cell phone in the store, and immediately called his brother, Sonny Boy, with the news. Ricky Nelson was sixteen when he recorded this record, about a year, I think,before he sang with Dean Martin in Rio Bravo. Anyway, the music on this first record is really cute, and I’m always amazed at how good he sounded at such a young age.
It was my turn. I listened to the Marie-Claire Alain recording of Wachet Auf, and just loved it. It helped that she was playing on a Marcussen Organ in a church in Denmark. Most organists play this pretty much the same, as Bach wrote specific articulation markings. I found Alain’s performance particularly good, and full of life. Oh I was so glad I had bought this record! I then listened to the Tab choir’s recording of the Cantata version of the same piece, with Eugene Ormandy conducting. It was the usual Ormandy style, that oh so lush string sound, beautiful, but soupy, and not at all like this piece is supposed to go. No surprise there. I then put on the Karl Munchiinger recording with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and Hymmus Boy’s Choir. I was very happy with what I heard. It made my heart smile.
By then I didn’t care any more that I had to read C clefs in the Peter’s edition. It would be good for me, I decided, like a refresher class. I figured the other music would turn up eventually, hopefully sometime before (or if) I ever performed this in public again. Listening to the chorus (English with the Tab choir, German with the Stuttgart recording) reminded me that this cantata is about the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. It is just the right music to get me into the Christmas spirit.
Did I say that the Persimmon cookie recipe is a Christmas recipe, with pretty mixed candy fruits? At the end of the day I found myself with a fabulous cookie recipe and a new appreciation of a piece I love to play. Once in a while it’s good to devote a day to music. When the family stuff comes in between, well that’s just the frosting on the cake.
I was just going through my scrapbook, and I found Christmas and Thanksgiving concert programs that I had put together for a ward choir I used to direct.
Below is a list of music for a Christmas concert I put together in California, in the late 1970’s.
Three German Christmas Songs, (sung by choir)
1.Break Through O Beauteous Heavenly LightJ.S. Bach
2.Josesph Lieber, Joseph MeinJohann Walther
3. Low How a Rose E’er BloomingMichael Praetoreus
Now Let us All Rejoice (sung by quartet)R.L. Pearsal
Christmas Songs (sung by relief society choir)
1.Ding Dong Merrily on High
2.A Babe so TenderKatherine K. Davis
Selections from Handel’s Christmas Messiah
We did the alto recitative and air: Behold a virgin shall conceive, O thou that tallest…
The soprano recitatives and the chorus Glory to God
The chorus For unto us a child is born
The Pastoral Symphony as an organ solo
The soprano Air Rejoice Greatly
The Hallelujah Chorus
I don’t remembering doing this, but I found the program and my name is on it. What I do remember is that Bach’s “Break Through O Beauteous Heavenly Light” is in one of our earlier LDS hymnals, and that all three of these German songs are in the public domain. I like the idea of using a relief society choir to sing part of the concert. This involves more people, and means there is less for the choir to learn. The selections from Messiah were all numbers that choir, soloists, and accompanists already knew from previous performances.
This next program I found is a Thanksgiving concert from 1977.
This one I remember. It was sung by the full choir, except for the last two numbers. I do not still have copies of this music, but they are all classics, so they should not be hard to find.
The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote a lovely poem about music. I've posted it here, in my English translation.
On Music
Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps:
Silence of paintings. You language where language
ends. You time,
that stands head-up in the direction
of mortal hearts.
Feeling for whom? O you the feeling
Transformed into what?—: into a landscape we can hear.
You stranger: Music you heart space
grown out of us, the deepest space in us,
which, rising above us, forcers its way out,--
a holy goodbye:
when the innermost point in us stands
outside at a distance, as the other
side of the air:
pure
boundless,
no longer home.
----
I love Rilke’s description of “language where language ends.” Music is a universal language, and can penetrate into the soul, far beyond the need for words. Unlike art and architecture, music is in real time, and has an end and a beginning. Where are we after the music is over, after it has said its holy goodbye?
This morning I went online to LDS.org to read conference talks. My early morning vision is almost always blurry, and so it is easier for me to read scriptures and talks at LDS.org where I can enlarge the print. I was surprised when the website would not load. I thought that I had typed the URL wrong, and tried again, but it looked like the website was down. Well, I thought that, as this is a world-wide church, there must be some mirror sites. I found a website for South Africa and clicked on the link to 2006 conference talks. I read the first two talks from the Sunday afternoon session. They were both powerful talks. The second one was “And Nothing Shall Offend Them,” by Elder Davis A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve. He spoke of how many members become less active in the church, because they had taken offense at something somebody said.
Growing up in the church, I take for granted that, now and then, people will misspeak. I am sure that I have put my foot in my mouth on numerous occasions. When I was a teenager, I was unhappy that our current bishop did not make it easy for me to practice organ at the church. This was my chosen instrument, and most organists don’t have instruments at home, so have no choice but to practice in a church. I suffered this in silence, but never quite got over what I thought was unfair treatment by this bishop. It seemed to me that the church wanted and needed trained organists. Why was he making it so difficult for me to continue my education?
My problems were solved when I began to take college classes, and was granted permission to practice on the pipe organ on campus. Many years later, this same bishop, who was now retired and elderly, contracted a horrible disease, that caused his family a great deal of sorrow. I felt badly for him, but especially for his wife, who had been unfailingly loving and supportive to me during the years I knew her. I also felt badly that I had ever had unkind feelings towards him for something that now seemed so trivial.
After this man passed away, I read his obituary in my alumni magazine. That was when I learned that his life’s work had been developing hardier varieties of rice, as a way to combat world hunger. I was truly humbled. Here is a man who did more good in the world than I ever would or could, a man who, although he may misspeak now and then, had a good heart, was a wonderful husband and father, and a stellar member of the church.
In my experience, it is often things having to do with music that can cause people to feel offended. As a choir director, I have had experiences with sopranos who appreciate it if the choir music is dialed down a key so they don’t have sing as high, and also with sopranos who are offended at the idea of making the music lower and easer to sing. So many times we think we are doing the right thing, and it turns out to be the wrong thing. If other people can forgive my mistakes, then certainly I should be willing to forgive others.
When I was in college, a bishop extended a calling to me to be ward choir director. He then said, “You might not want to take this calling because our ward choir is a battleground.” I accepted the calling. It was difficult, but I survived the experience with my testimony intact.
But what if we take offense at something, because it goes deeply into our heart of hearts?
Many years later, I found myself in a situation that severely tested my faith. The offence was so deep and so wrong, that for a quite awhile I could not bring myself to even enter a ward building. I had always had an overdeveloped sense of justice, and to be persecuted for doing the right thing hurt me at such a deep level, I was unable to forgive and forget.
I continued to be involved with the church, but my heart was not in it. It took me a long time to get over it. What finally laid this to rest was a scripture from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven.” This brought to mind Christ’s atoning sacrifice, as well as the martyrdom of the prophet Joseph Smith. I thought of all the early Christians who died for their belief, as well as my own Mormon ancestors whose lives were threatened, property taken, and endured many hardships in order to help bring forth this marvelous work, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Put in this perspective, everything else seems trivial.
If ever again I feel like I am being persecuted for doing the right thing, I will be proud instead of ashamed, happy to be in the company of all the good people who have walked before me on this particular path.
I found a very interesting video on youtube. It is a demonstration by a French organist, with an English translator, on a historic North German organ, for a broadcast in China.
Below is the URL and their description of the video. This is worth a listen, just to be able to hear this organ.
A snippet from a 4-DVD series on the history of the pipe organ. For some mysterious reason this excellent documentary set featuring world-famous organists like Gustav Leonhardt and Marie-Claire Alain is available only in China (go figure).
In this short excerpt Bernard Foccroulle demonstrates the three basic organ ranks: the principals, the flues, and the reeds. The organ shown is in Norden, Germany, and was built in 1688 by Arp Schnitger. It was restored in 1985 by Jürgen Ahrend.
I just love Michigan. I have only been living here for a year and half, but feel like I have finally come home.
This is because I spent six years of my childhood in Ann Arbor, while my dad taught at the U of M. When I was eleven, we moved back to California, where most of our extended family still lived.
When I lived in Ann Arbor, George Romney was governor of Michigan. I knew his daughter Jane when we were in an Ann Arbor ward, so I followed his career with interest, as well as his son's, who is now running for president. Whether Mitt Romney wins or not, his candidacy has been great publicity for the church.
Yesterday I went to LDS.org and read some news articles, to find out more about how the church is doing in the press. Church leaders are working very hard to clear up misconceptions about the church, especially the false conception that we are not Christians.
I believe that part of the problem has to do with semantics. "Christian" is one of those words that has more than one meaning. Although traditionally the word means people who believe in and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, some evangelical Christian churches have commandeered the word to mean churches with their specific belief system. So there is more to this controversy than the fact that we do not believe in the Nicene creed.
It is like the phrase "classical music," which refers to the great Western composers, like Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms-- the music of genius that has stood the test of time. But music of the "classical style or era" refers to music composed in the late 18th and early 19th century by composers such as Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. We don't say that composers like Brahms and Verdi, or even Stravinsky are not classical just because they did not happen to live in the classical era.
At the local level, the Michigan Concert Choir has recently received some publicity from the Detroit Free Press. Last Saturday morning, a reporter attended our rehearsal, took a great many photos, and talked to some members. The article was published yesterday. It's quite flattering, although I laughed when I saw in print "stake house" instead of "stake center" which made it sound like our church building was a restaurant.
This publicity will be good for the choir. It includes a couple sound clips. One of them is a clip from "O Divine Redeemer." That is me accompanying on the organ, and Joe Pacifico playing cello.
It took Jan Bishop quite awhile to convince me to sing with this choir. At first, I just didn't have the time. Also, like several of the members, I had sung in a professional choir before, so the idea of singing with an amateur choir didn't seem all that interesting.
After the first couple of rehearsals, people started asking me why I was not singing in the choir. One of my friends from Southfield ward even phoned me to ask me about it. She thought that maybe I was not involved because I needed transportation, and offered to drive me. Then Sister Hanson, who is one of the piano accompanists, asked me to accompany three of the numbers on the organ. Well, after all I was the stake organist, and I figured I could fit that into my busy schedule.
After the concert, in a weak moment I agreed to sing in the choir, even though I still didn't have time. I thought that doing all this singing would help me to get my voice back, which was not what it used to be, because of misusing it during two bouts of laryngitis.
I did not realize how much fun it would be to sing with this choir. This is a group of very enthusiastic singers, and includes many professional musicians. The choir is getting better and better all the time.
Right now we are praying for more tenors. Please, if you know any really good tenors, ask them if they are interested in auditioning for this choir.
One day I heard the sounds of a familiar pipe organ piece coming from my son’s computer. I recognized it as something I used to play quite a lot. I looked at the screen, and sure enough it was the Praeludium in E Major by Vincent Lubeck. I don’t now what amazed me more, that this was on Utube, or that my 21 year old son had found it and was listening to it.
I played this back in the early 1980’s. I never bought the music. I must have heard someone play it, and then photocopied it from a college library. I remember pasting it on cardboard stock, on the other side of Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor—music I did buy, but found easier to play from cardboard sheets that I could move at convenient times for page turns. Sometime during one of my last four moves I lost these pages.
Hearing this piece again, made me long to feel it under my fingers, and play it again. It’s a first-rate work, and I just love it. I searched online, but found that it was only available in an expensive volume, with a lot of other music. This is not a particularly well-known piece, except for organ enthusiasts. Recently I was at Annie’s music in Rochester Hills looking at piano music. I was impressed by the large selection of piano music. However, the organ section was minuscule. I looked through the organ section anyway, just to see what they had, and I found the Lubeck piece for ten dollars.
The Utube performance is fun to listen to. It is on a Denis Londe organ at the church of St Louis, St Etienne, France. The organist is Pastor de Lasala. His playing is not perfect--he misses a few notes here and then--but he plays very musically, and has a good feel for this piece.
One of the difficulties I find in reading the New Testament, has to do with the translation of the Greek word “kosmos” into “world.” By the context of passages such as John 15:19, it seems that “of the world” means worldly things and “not of the world” spiritual things. But what exactly did John mean? Did he mean that there were things so unworldly and spiritual that only those with special knowledge and understanding could grasp them, or did he mean this in a more general sense?
At church, we continue to use the scriptural “the world” to mean worldly habits and values. Those of us who are in the church understand that this is what “world” means in this context, just as an inner-city teenager knows that “wicked” is slang for “cool,” which is what people used to call “neat,” and before that, “swell.”
Even so, the use of “world” is often vague. Sometimes I have difficulty understanding who is this enemy we call “the world.” Is it film and television? advertising? the Internet? The nearest mall? I find these things useful conveniences, and not inherently evil. I suppose the “world” is what we make of it.
Once I read in the New Yorker Magazine about a leader from an Arab country (it might have been Iraq, I don’t remember) coming to New York City. It was the first time he had been in the Big Apple, and the first time in the US. The visitor was surprised at how peaceful and safe he felt there. He had been expecting something more like a war zone, with shooting in the streets. That was because his entire knowledge of what it was to live in the US was based on American television.
This makes me wonder how much our perceptions of what the “world” really is, are colored by television and movies. It may not be as bad as we think. Fictional shows are, well, fiction. I may be overly optimistic, but it seems to me that most people are just trying to live good lives and take care of their families. We need to be careful of an “us” VS. “them” mentality. It is too easy to think of “us” as being not of the world, and “them” of being in the world. Who is “them?” Is it anyone who is not a member of our church? Is it anyone who is not Christian? Is it anyone who is not part of our Judeo/Christian heritage? There are plenty of people, everywhere, who have the same moral standards and family values that we do, and have no religious affiliations at all.
Another word that bothers me is “society,” which we sometimes use as a synonym for “world.” That is another one of those vague words, that is not going to score you any points on the essay writing portion of an SAT test. The concept of “society” is muddled enough to warrant a ten page article in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. My dad wrote this article in 1968. I have always been impressed that he took on this writing assignment which, I suspect, nobody else wanted. Some concepts seem to defy a clear definition.
When words are overused and have too many meanings they lose their power. Sometimes when I hear someone at church say “of the world” I suspect they mean “evil” and when they say “not of the world” I think they mean “good,” but there is more to it than that.
Our church leaders are trying to clear up misunderstandings about our church, including the misconception that non-Mormons are not allowed to attend church with us. In 1968 I attended a ward in Berkeley California now and then. Once a well-known hippie walked in barefoot, in robes, with long hair and beard. Several of the brethren greeted him with huge smiles and warm handshakes. I was impressed at how welcoming they were. If there ever was an "us VS. them" mentality it was in the 1960's. It had to do with what people called the "generation gap". Many of the youth of that era grew up to be part of the "establishment" they had so vilified.
I love my new church calling in the nursery. Is this my imagination, or is this not the most favorite calling in the typical ward?
Below is a purely fictional scene of how I imagine such a calling would take place.
An LDS man, young, suited, clean-shaved, (I will call him Brother Y) finds the husband of his next victim and asks if he can talk to his wife for a moment.
Husband (this must be the new counselor in the bishopric. What’s his name again? I think he’s new to the ward.)
Husband: “Yes”
Brother Y. “Do you think she’d be willing to accept a calling?”
Husband (looking befuddled. Why is he asking me?) “You’ll have to ask her about that.”
Good old Mormon handshake.
---
In an empty classroom, Brother Y and Sister Z sit across from each other.
Sister Z. (This must be the new counselor in the bishopric. He looks familiar, but I can’t remember his name.)
Brother Y. (Oh no, another nursery calling. I wonder how she’s going to take this.)
Brother Y.“ I would like to extend a calling to you.”
Pregnant pause.
Sister Z. (Calling, what calling? About a zillion young families have just moved into the ward. What could they possibly need me for?)
Brother Y. (I’d better get this over with as quickly as possible.)
“We would like to extend to you the calling as nursery helper in the primary.”
Sister Z. (feeling all warm and fuzzy) “Okay.”
Brother Y. (My daughter's in the nursery. I wonder if she knows how to take care of toddlers.)
“Have you, er, had any experience in the nursery?”
Sister Z. “Not since my kids were little, about twenty years ago.”
Some meaningless banter about how important this calling is, etc.
Good old Mormon handshake.
Brother Y. (That didn’t go too badly. I guess she’s one of those people who accept callings, no matter what it is. I hope she likes children.)
Sister Z. (Wow, how did they know this is where I wanted to be? I guess the bishop really is inspired.)
I have several questions, that I hope my readers will help me to answer. Please leave your comments. I’d like to hear what you have to say.
1. I have noticed that certain people tend to get called to the same callings over and over again. My father taught gospel doctrine class in the three wards he lived in, from graduate school to the year before he died. One of my brothers seemed to have “elders quorum president” written on his forehead, for every time he moved that was the calling he was extended. My husband usually winds up in the clerks office. Is there a certain personality type that you think of as a nursery worker?
2. My husband was surprised that I was happy about this calling. Probably other people were too. Why would they be surprised? Is it their perception of me, or the calling itself?
3. Do people view a certain category of people (intellectuals, senior citizens, single men) as the type who may not like to be around little children?
3.Do some people assume that being in the nursery is a drudgery, and that some members of a ward may find it insulting to be asked?
Part 2
A pro-football player works in the nursery/husband and wife teams
When I lived in New Jersey, I was a member of the Emerson Ward in Caldwell Stake for thirteen years. My son grew up with a little boy his age named Zachary Oats. His father was Bart Oaks, who played football with the New York Giants. A friend of mine, who had been in the ward since it was formed, told me that when Bart and his wife Michelle had first moved into the ward, they had been called to be the nursery leaders. She thought it was so cute to see this big, burly football player down on the floor playing with the kids in the nursery. He is a kind and gentle man, and I have an adorable photo of him at a ward Halloween party, dressed as a pirate, holding my son who was dressed as a jack-o-lantern. James looked so tiny in Bart’s arms! By the way, with their own kids, Michelle played the heavy, and Bart the lightweight.
So pro-football players are people too, and some even know how to take care of little children. Can men still be extended callings to work in the nursery? All the men I ever see in the nursery are there taking care of their own child, who is having separation anxiety. When my husband and I were in a ward in South Carolina, the elders quorum was responsible for providing two men to cover the nursery for the Relief Society enrichment meetings. The rule was that, if the men were covering this, there had to be two of them. My husband always volunteered. The other guy who volunteered never showed up. Since it was thought to be inappropriate to have a man and woman who were not married to each other working in the nursery together, I was the only one who could bail them out. So I missed a lot of enrichment meetings, but I enjoyed working with my husband in the nursery. There was one little guy named Blake, who had separation anxiety. But he warmed up to Wayne, and whenever he saw him, his little face lit up, and he said “Zufall! Zufall!”
Once more, Handel's oratorio “Messiah” has bailed me out of a tight spot.
I am eating trail mix for lunch as I write this. Handel's Messiah is one of those works that never fails to raise my spirit. I often put the music on when the day is windy and cold, and I need inspiration to get on with things.
There is a rule of women in developed nations, something inexorably part of our heads and hearts, that when one is meeting, for the first time, an ex-wife of one's husband, one must lose ten pounds of body weight.
Only women know this rule. It is a fact,that husbands everywhere are ignorant of that rule, and if told about it will shake their heads in disbelief.
I have just found about a trip to Dallas in two weeks from today for a college graduation. A certain person spent a whole month forgetting to tell me about it.
That is why I am eating trail-mix for lunch, one of my daughter's concoctions, made up of freeze-dried peas, beans, corn, dried, fruit, seeds, and nuts.
This is also why this certain person is taking me clothes shopping Saturday in search of a dress that I can actually fit into.
This is why I was power walking on my treadmill this morning.
I was walking to the music of Handel's Christmas Messiah, wondering if I could maximize my calorie loss if I sang along, when I heard a big-fat operatic bass voice begin to sing “Who may Abide the Day of His Coming?” I jumped off my treadmill, trying not to collide with an empty computer box, and turned up the volume. The hearty bass of John Cheek of the Metropolitan Opera Company filled the room. I marched along, in time to the music, at a steady 3mph. When he got to the Prestissimo (very fast) “for he is like a refiner's fire” I felt like running. I felt like running, more than I had ever felt like running. I increased my speed to 4 mph and jogged along, still in time to the music. I went back to walking at 3mph at the next larghetto, and then to running at 4 mph at the next Prestissimo. By then I was so psyched, I knew that if the piece were longer, I would have kept running. This gave me an idea for a cardio routine based on this aria. Of course it only works if it is sung by one of the greatest basses in the world.
Instructions
Put CD in, and begin to play piece, good and loud.
Alternate walking and running. “Who may Abide...” is walking, and the refiner's fire is the running, especially for people, like me, who hate to run.
When song is over, jump off the treadmill do five push-ups (the real kind, not the cheaty kind)
Set the CD player to repeat the piece, jump back on the treadmill, and repeat the alternating walk/run.
Repeat the process for as long as you have breath.
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February, 2008
