II

Who Sings Love Songs?

"The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory."

Psalm 97:6

One golden August afternoon in a recent year, I sat under the trees next to my cousin Garold's home on Mt. Charleston, not far from Las Vegas, Nevada, and thought for some time about the love songs we hear from the radios, the stereos, movies. Indeed, over the past years I have devoted considerably more time to listening to such music than I ever had previously. My reactions, to put it mildly, have been mixed frustration, irritation, amusement, and, in the end, growing appreciation for those writers and performers whose depth and passion is so eloquently expressed in the popular and country songs teeming unendingly on the air waves of myriad radio stations across our world.

The warmth and tranquillity of the summer afternoon brought back to mind another August afternoon several years earlier when Garold had sung a love song at my request. I thought of all the songs to which I listened, the times when I heard those songs, the people who sang them and those to whom I sang love songs in my life.

Some Who Sing

Not too many years ago one of the more popular male vocalists on the charts, Cat Stevens, abandoned a career in full bloom to devote his life to service to the God of his chosen faith. His love songs and performances on stage and in recordings had been heralded often and extensively. This choice to forego the life of fame and pleasure was greeted with a wide variety of reactions; and he is almost forgotten in many venues today. His love songs changed only in the direction, now towards the One to whom he has committed his life.

Another vocalist, popular with many audiences and the source of increasing controversy among some groups, is a woman from Tennessee who makes no secret that her love songs are, before sung for any human person, are dedicated to the Love, the guide of her life. Amy Grant must contend regularly with misunderstanding that she might be, perhaps, too secular for some of her more conservative listeners; but the theology of her music is pure. She sings Love.

While I have rarely engaged in the creation of heroes from humanity, there are a few people who sing love songs with their lives who deserve admiration and respect. Their songs echo, not only from the stages of the world and on the recordings to which we listen, but also through the manner in which they live their lives among their neighbors. The love songs such people sing through those daily moments give us all hope and renewed faith that a better world is possible. Some of these people we see on the pages of our newspapers, hear their voices and their music on recordings and stages. Others live almost hidden lives in ordinary circumstances, playing a symphony of unequaled beauty through lives of humility and service. I think of many people, one of whom had a powerful effect on my life, my grandfather Ross Smith.

It was often frustrating, even occasionally irritating, to know I could not walk down the streets of the small town where we lived for eleven years without all the neighbors, the store owners downtown and the funeral director up the street knowing I was Mr. Smith's granddaughter. The old lady who lived on the corner used the same party line for her telephone, thus usually knew when we were talking on the phone. My piano teacher worshipped at the same church as Grandpa. There was no shame in the identification with him; indeed, I usually felt honored to be known in such a way. However, I did think occasionally it would be desirable to be anonymous enough to get away with a little teen-aged devilment. My friend Betty Jo says I did, she was the one who got into all the trouble I usually deserved.

Grandpa was a man whose life exemplified loving acceptance of his circumstances and of those with whom he came in contact. He and Grandma, both children of farming families in northeastern Kansas, moved into town when they married, and Grandpa owned a dairy store until forced to close it during the Depression of the 1930's. He then worked for the next twenty-five years as custodian of the local Junior-Senior High School, "graduating" into retirement the same year my sister graduated from high school and at the same ceremony. He never complained of the difficulties, the loss of financial means or the challenges life had handed to him. His neighbors, business associates, friends, students and teachers in the school all respected and loved for himself and for the kindness and generosity with which he lived his life. He was a man of integrity and honor whom everyone trusted, and the respect of others added much in the way of acceptance from those in positions of leadership in the town to my life.

I asked my father a few years ago if my memory was accurate when I recalled never having heard Grandpa speak any negative thought about anyone. Pop affirmed my memory and added a few others from his reverence for his father. I often have failed in living up to such an example, to being able to sing a love song such as my grandfather sang with his life. He lived his prayer life gracefully; and he never flaunted his solitary meeting with the God who had given him such beauty of soul, strength of purpose and perseverance through all his life, characteristics contributing to the beauty of his unfailing spirit even in the most difficult of times, including Grandma's sudden death in her mid-60's.

Two other singers of love songs come to mind. One is a woman who would be unlikely to consider herself a vocalist; she lives her love song in complete dedication to the well-being and dignity of others. The other is a man whose vocal talents clearly place him as a leader of those who sing love songs, although his most frequently performed genre may not be as appealing to the average audience as it is to me. I am particularly vulnerable to the sound of one of God's most glorious creations, the voice of a man who can sing, using his talent with the full beauty and power of which he is capable. this peculiarity no secret among my friends . In fact, I met my first serious boyfriend in church after I fell in love with his singing behind me on the Sunday my sister was married, three days after my fifteenth birthday. I have no shame in admitting that I am not attracted to a man whose voice is not pleasing to my ears, while I am not concerned to any great degree with physical beauty.

Thanks to the wisdom my mother displayed in making classical music available to my brothers, sister and myself, I developed early a passion for a wide variety of composers and their music, including many of the world's enduring operas. While I lived in Houston for several years I indulged my passion in the form of season tickets to the grand opera and never missed a performance during those years.

Although there are many tenors, basses and baritones whom I enjoy hearing, Placido Domingo stands out, not just for his undeniable musical talents, but also because his love songs are not limited to public performances. I learned more of this gentleman when I spent several days in Mexico City at the time of my oldest son's wedding. Señor Domingo's love songs encompass the care he has for those people who are his and his family's neighbors and friends; and he endeared himself always to the citizens of that city when he gave considerable time and money to assist in the myriad needs following a major earthquake and the resulting extensive damage to the area in 1985.

There are many women who sing love songs with the manner in which they live simple, hidden lives of service. These are the women who, more often than not in these days of financial challenge, work at full-time positions in the business world and at full-time commitments in marriage and motherhood. While it would be easy to list them with little to say in the way of supporting evidence to clarify my focus, I choose to speak of one woman whose life is now anything but hidden.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta long ago may have assumed she would live out her days searching out the most unwanted and poorest of God's children and give to these people the recognition of their human dignity as they die. Mother Teresa gave her life to that noble work, with simplicity and humility, she is a beacon still, after her life here has ended; and her love song is a mighty symphony of the power love has when lived in purity and truth. She spoke a truth in her singing through the work of her hands, a truth both incredibly difficult and demanding, and, at the same time, one bringing peace and the touch of the Sacred into each life with whom she came in contact.

While we see those who are giants in our world and we hear their love songs to the God who blesses and calls each of us, most of us sing our love songs amid the clamor of our world or in the solitude of the daily challenges we all face, in the ordinary moments of toil, heartache, small and great achievements, commuting in traffic, waiting up for errant children to return home, doing the laundry or cooking dinner. The men, who work long hours to provide as completely for their wives and children as they are able, sing their love songs through those hours of toil although they may have great difficulty in articulating the motivation for the effort. I think of a very dear friend who is one of the more gifted men I have met on this earth and who is far more adept at verbal communication than many men are. Yet, he sings his love songs, his care for those to whom he gives his work and daily efforts, less through the words and music with which he is gifted and more through the endless meetings and struggle through terrible challenge that would bring many other less valiant souls to their knees. He does not speak of his dedication to the well-being of all those who people his life; he lives it.

Any of us has but to look down the street on which we live and watch the teen-aged population: those who stop to pick up a child fallen off a bicycle, who cut the grass for the older couple around the corner, who spend summers working on service projects for those who have inadequate housing. This young constituency to whom much of the recorded music is aimed sing their love songs with frequently misunderstood lives of dedicated effort hidden underneath strange hairstyles and baggy clothing, black nail polish and ever-present earphones, car speakers blaring and engines roaring through the night.

The language of a sixteen-year old boy may leave much to be desired, inarticulate as he can be, often deliberately; but his heart is unmistakably adept at expressing his love when he plays football on his knees in the front yard with his little brother, giving the younger child a better than even chance of winning. The fifteen-year-old girl who flashes a wide smile and chooses to sit and talk with a much older woman sings a love song in her gift of time and acceptance as she expresses her delight in finding such a "cool" friend.

It seems, then, singing love songs is a universally shared activity. While the cultures and the manners of expression may vary by place and in time, one characteristic of those who love remains constant. Love desires communication. Whether the lover writes or speaks or sings, love demands to find an avenue allowing the message to be heard or read, to be understood and shared. To share a quiet moment in the middle of the day with one we love, to give and to receive a wordless hug, to laugh together at something small and trivial, these are moments of simple melodies of love. To stand on a mountain trail in the spring and watch mating pairs of birds in mutual flight, to listen to the songs of the male birds as they woo their ladybird loves to fly with them is to hear love songs of another sort; yet, it is the sharing of creative love and its expression uniting us even more closely to the world around us.

Those Who Pray Sing Love Songs

Just as love is the first language of communication among people throughout time, prayer is the form in which our response to God's love most often finds its manifestation. Three Psalms, 96-98, speak most vividly of praise, songs of joy. From the words beginning with, "Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth." proceeds a liturgical call to worship inclusive of not just human creation but all: the heavens, the trees, mountains, the sea. The passage closing Psalm 98 speaks vividly the language saying to me everything God created is called to pray in thanksgiving and in recognition of that mighty Love.

Not long ago I engaged in a conversation of some intensity with an acquaintance with whom I had not previously shared my conviction. I believe even the "rocks cry out" in praise to God. I have spent many hours on trails of incredible beauty, in awe to the point I could not speak. The unmatched generosity of a God who creates deciduous trees with their characteristic of throwing their leaves to the winds each autumn, decorating the hills, valleys and mountainsides with a liberal palette of shades of green through the spring and summer and hues from bright yellow through deep burgundy in the autumn, testify to a Love with no boundaries. The miniature flowers along the trail and those carpeting the spring desert with their delicate colors and intricate detail evince Creator Spirit who cares for the details of perfection pleasing to the eye and spirit.

When I spoke of the voice of a mountain, this gentleman was mystified and probably began to question my sanity. Yet, I am convinced all creation sings praise, including the stars, comets, hills and oceans. I have stood at the base of a mountain in the Mojave Desert and driven along her side sensing a peaceful, welcoming presence, one with no articulation except for the responding intensity from deep within the earth meeting the center of my soul. I spent one day near her and sensed her warmth and delight in the appreciation for her beauty she received from my companion and myself as we hiked at her feet. Almost every drive back up the canyon to the village on the mountain where I lived for that one beautiful year was one in which I sensed the welcome from the lovely lady mountain whom many say is holy. It felt as though her arms, her magnificent palisaded canyons and mountainsides, reached out to enfold and to bring me home from each trip down to what is called civilization in the cities below.

Hummingbird Song

I have no question birds sing love songs of praise. One such song, a cherished memory, will remain as vivid as the moments in which I stood on the trail listening in wonder, a gift of song from an Anna's hummingbird. Until that sunny spring afternoon on a little-known trail above the village I had no idea any hummingbird sings. I had developed a regular route up one side of the mountain following Don Olson's trail, above the wood cross on Yucca Flats where there was an annual Easter sunrise service, across the ridge, by the old work camp built to house those who built the ridge road and into Cow Canyon Saddle, a wonderful location to see the nighttime stars.

Occasionally, I would wander on up Sunset Peak a little way, for this path had other significance to me. Often I would meditate for long, silent moments as I stood overlooking the canyon between two ranges of the San Gabriel mountains and watched the sun set. Then, in the twilight I would turn back and follow the old utility track back down to the village.

For a few months of my mountain retreat I was able to work for my landlord, leaving the mountain only to join in worship with the little church down below or to do errands. This meant I had more time on those lengthening spring days to wander the trails. On the day the hummingbird sang I was coming down the trail rather slowly, since I often saw my little male Anna's friend perched on a dead yucca at one place on the trail and was hoping he would be there this day. He was perched where I had hoped to see him this particular afternoon and I stopped, as usual, to enjoy the glory of his jewel-bright magenta head and teal body, glistening in all his metallic glory in the sunlight. Quite suddenly, he began to sing; I was transfixed for as long as he continued. Not Mozart, Bach, Beethoven nor any human ever to walk the earth could write such music; and no human voice could echo the beauty and purity of that song of praise. He sang for, perhaps, a quarter of an hour, blessing me and the beautiful day with his gift.

All creation turns towards Shekinah to sing love songs of praise, prayers of supplication, words of thanksgiving, pleas for assistance. Shekinah, Creator Spirit who is active among her people, always loving and recreating, renewing us and the earth, calls us to herself and we answer with our prayers in whatever form they might take. Augustine, who shared so many pertinent thoughts and wrote them better than most, expressed it so well: "Our hearts are restless until we rest in Thee." We turn towards God, whatever name we choose to employ to identify the Sacred in our lives, seeking to communicate even the words we do not know and cannot speak. Our spirits realize, while our conscious minds may not articulate or even recognize, we are created for joy by a loving God, and we know deep within we long for unity with that love through whatever means of communication we can achieve.

As flowers and leaves on bushes and trees turn towards the sun, every being, all the earth and the universe turn toward Life, drawn to the Love who created and holds everything in being. The perfection and orderliness of our world speaks of God, even as we continually seek corresponding unity and purpose in our lives. Jesus the Christ spoke of his Father's care for even the birds and the flowers, telling those who listened that day long ago and who listen still, of the love who cares even more generously for us, the children of such a munificent Divine Parent.

When each of my children was still in early infancy I often seized any opportunity to watch each one in the quieter moments when he or she was not doing any more than just being there. I would look into those blue or hazel eyes and wonder at the expressions I saw, inarticulate though the child was. Such moments were rare with Catherine and Ross for each of them was in what appeared to be constant energetic motion, rarely still. However, there were, even with them, a few instances during which I was allowed a glimpse of a reality I do not question. Since I am convinced each of us begins our residence on earth with the understanding of God who creates us for purpose, I am equally convinced we remember our beginnings and our presence in God's love in our early days, before we are aware we are separated from that creative love, before we know what kind of world in which we make our home. Once the knowledge of separateness begins to emerge, at around the age of five months, I think we begin to forget. I have seen a far away look in infant eyes, some silent prayer of unity with the Love who is God. Too soon, the mien disappears and it takes years, or so it seems, to find a way to communicate once more and often less effectively with Shekinah, loving Mother God.

We sing the love songs of our prayers when we simply say "Thank You" for a sunset spreading its beauty across the evening sky, painting shades from amethyst to mauve to pink. Perhaps, poets and song writers pen words far more articulate than those most folks can find to express the prayers swelling from full hearts in response to the gifts blessing our days, gifts from the hands of those who love us, unexpected pleasures, events we might think are coincidence but are more truly gifts from a loving God who bestows through the kindness and love of others around us. Those, too, are love songs, prayers to praise.

Who prays? Who sings love songs? Perhaps, it is more accurate to try to discover one who does not. There is a poem used as the last verse of a song George Beverly Shea has often sung during the meetings at which Billy Graham has preached for many years. This song, "The Love of God," speaks with powerful simplicity in its final verse in the words of a man whom his caretakers thought to be hopelessly insane. He scratched the words into the wall of his cell in an insane asylum; the words were found after his death, many years ago.

We pray: grandmothers in the silence of sleepless, lonely nights; students facing finals with results determining college or career choices; parents by the bedside of a critically ill child, we who love and wait in silence for those beloved to find strength and courage to take hold of life and act on difficult decisions, to meet daunting challenges. We seek for meaning in the confusion and pain of lost employment, broken dreams, marriages ended when mutuality of purpose has disappeared as smoke, death, even in the ordinary daily life occasionally seeming so pointless. We rejoice when a pay raise comes just in time to meet increased living expenses, we question the purpose of work, a job is only that when career hopes die in the starvation times of corporate down-sizing. Little six-year-old, red-haired Katy struggles with her need to express her confusion and anger at a world where she continues to suffer bruising to her already injured soul. She seeks to understand why she hurts and has lived in anguish since her earliest memories began on this earth. We beg for a sense of direction and we look towards a brighter hope if we can find it in the present moment; we all pray. We may name our activity with other words; we may not recognize the One to whom we turn. Still, we pray.

Some of us pray with more purpose, more direction, more discipline than others. Perhaps, in discovering the reality of our spirits yearning towards God, we will find corresponding desire to sing our love songs in a key suitable to our individual vocal range. While formal prayer and the adept verbosity of some may intimidate those who are less experienced and less articulate, we are all able to pray, to sing love songs. Octogenarians thrill us with stories of enduring love discovered in a senior residence and charm us as they lend us hope with their new beginnings of life in the twilight days. Just so, it is always the time to begin to pray, to build new relationship. We can still begin a new love song on any day of living. The song will be even sweeter for the spirit with the courage to sing praise and hope even in the darkest night.

Prayers and love songs do not require experts who pray or sing well. We each can and do pray and we improve technique and style with practice. Few of us will ever reach the Met to sing our music or will lead the Easter Sunday liturgy at St. Peter's Basilica to exhibit our prowess at prayer. Few of us will ever write words of simple eloquence people will sing through ages to come. Yet our hearts' music, coming from the purity of our love and desire to pray with integrity of soul will be without equal.

Because Christ directed we pray in solitude, whether it be in physical aloneness or in the aloneness of our soul bared before God, we can be free to stand before our loving, accepting Father and know the qualities unlocking the song in our souls are our sincerity and honesty. When we realize God loves us unconditionally, we are free to accept that great Love and let it sing using our voices. The purest prayer, the perfect love song, is the love who is God speaking in and through us, using our willingness to be united to God as our prayer. Love makes the song beautiful; and God, who is perfect Love, gives us the words to sing.

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