Tabernacle Choir Postludes & Miracles

TABERNACLE CHOIR POSTLUDES-Miracles

1. The Church in it’s wisdom, has used the power of music to member and non-member alike to soften, stretch and change hearts. Participating in choral music has had the power to change my heart. While the Tabernacle Choir has always been a good will arm of The Church, my true inner motive for singing has always been music’s power to deepen my faith and increase my testimony. The text of the scriptures and the praise of God, set to rhythm and melody has helped me retain, and reflect on their meaning and has provided me with personal therapy and needed truth. Bach said it best: “Where there is devotional music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.” Music, for me is a purveyor of joy. My life’s joy derives primarily from my relationships: those with God and from bonds with other human beings, especially my husband and family. Joy also comes from the capacity to enlarge the boundaries of my soul. My own experience has taught me that joy is generally derived IN TANDEM with or maybe in spite of personal struggle. Music, especially great choral music, has been an important bridge to enlarging the boundaries of my soul. The immense satisfaction of mastering beautiful text, set to complex musical passages, has brought into an ordinary life, all the beauty, wisdom and learning that I have the capacity to hold. It has provided a rich and vast range of spiritual and emotional experience, beyond my deserving. I believe that there is a special repository in the soul where music lives to tutor and heighten the impact of the senses on the soul . I know this is true for everyone and that great music embraces all and alienates none. I think of GRANDMA ALLEY (Oma) in the advanced stages of Alzheimers. She often didn’t know me or where she was, but could sing in full voice along with any hymn, word and note-perfect. As she was dying, when we were singing hymns around her bedside, she opened her eyes to correct a word and asked us to sing it again, even though she had been laying nearly lifeless for days. One day I was making a drop-off at the Deseret Industries and had my choir study tape on, trying to memorize notes.. My windows were down and It was going full bore. The worker at the loading dock, who was clearly mentally disabled, but his soul alive and vibrant as anyone’s, handed me my receipt and said with tears streaming, “Ma’m I sure like your music!” The compliment belonged to M. Lauredsen, composer of the sublimely beautiful “O Magnum Mysterium”. Simply put, the power of music is the genesis of many miracles.

Grounded at the airport in Melbourne, AUSTRALIA by a dense fog, we were laid out on the floor, head to head, toe to toe, purses for pillows, coats for blankets. A prayer had been offered to temper the weather so we could sing our concert in --------------------that night. Adding increased sincerity to our prayer we broke into “Holy Radiant Light”, a Choir favorite. Our chartered plane was the only one that lifted off that night, as the fog parted only momentarily to allow our departure. And it seemed to me that we departed on a slim trail of “Holy Radiant Light.”

Assembled in front of The DRESDEN TEMPLE for a concert to dignitaries and important opinion leaders of the area, we were keenly aware of the history of the temple there and we knew there was much at stake. Right before the downbeat it started to rain….pour; it was coming in sheets. We had our umbrellas up, poking each other in the eyes, trying to keep dry. It was a disaster. As soon as Jerry (Ottley) raised his baton for the downbeat, the rain ceased…midstream, like in Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. (Kids, you remember that one). It seemed as though the water droplets just hung in the air until we were done and resumed on cue precisely at the conclusion of beat 4 of the last note. The rest in history.

Another miracle happened at CHECKPOINT CHARLIE as we were trying to enter Poland. The entire Eastern Bloc (Russia, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, Hungary) was in the throes of divesting itself of Communism. The Berlin Wall was being chipped away, the glass shards lining the top of the wall going to the boldest of the scramblers, and Gorbashev was just about to be kidnapped during our stay. On our choir bus, it was discovered that two of our male singers were missing their passports. Without discussion, spontaneously, seamlessly, we began singing while the border guards, guns brandished, came aboard the bus to check identification. We reached into our bags to retrieve recordings and pass-along cards to share with them. Even the Communists are zealous music lovers. In the meantime, two tenors, one straddling the toilet, the other in a fetal postion against the tiny corner of the bathroom wall, had stopped breathing so they wouldn’t be detected. The distraction worked and the performance there was history-making. For me, breath control took on a whole new meaning.

Each of us has claim on those experiences when we feel the Lord propelling us beyond our own limitations to accomplish something worthwhile. In 1989 during the flurry of activity surrounding President George Bush Senior’s INAUGURAL, sleep deprivation was fierce. I was sick and my voice was shot. Approaching the risers at Constitution Hall, I was weak, daunted by the task of reaching row 8. At the conductor’s cue I tried to push off from the riser to stand but couldn’t. I said a silent prayer at warp speed and in an instant, rose to sing with renewed physical strength and vocal power. As if to remind me that the Lord is my strength, I was allowed to experience both the complete emptying and renewing of strength between each of the numbers. I also knew that the blessing was given, not because of my own merit, but because the Lord wanted us to sound good in the nations’s Capitol. In awe of the experience, I shared it with another singer who offhandedly commented: “You haven’t been in the Choir very long, have you?”

At the NAUVOO TEMPLE DEDICATION, a lovely and intimate space, yet too small to accommodate the size of the Choir, we divided into four small groups. At each rehearsal we sounded puny, shallow of sound. We lacked the usual depth and richness of sound. We were discouraged, all of us, and wondered along with Dr. Jessop, if we could or should sing. During the first dedicatory session, in which I sang, if I hadn’t had the discipline to “keep my eye on the stick:, I would have been sorely tempted to turn around to see who else had joined us in producing an angelic, rich sound with the depth we had been missing.

The whole gamut of human endeavor is open to us when we align ourselves with

God and his holy purposes. I have seen that truth reinforced time and time again as a participant and a bystander. I am profoundly grateful for my calling to sing in the Tabernacle Choir and express my love to you, my children for the many sacrifices that enabled me to honor that calling. Despite the challenges, some benign neglect, and being abandoned on an occasional Christmas, you grew into high-functioning, wonderful adults. I appreciate the good parents you are and the consistent striving to please your Heavenly Father that I’ve observed in every one of your homes. This Christmas, though we are separated by oceans of water and more land than I ever dreamed, I hope you will feel my love and prayers across the miles and know how grateful I am for you and your children, all of whom are a wonder. I love you dearly, Mom

(Sister Alley, Asia Area China Mission)