Church and a Norman Rockwell Cameo
I was 11 years old in boy choir rehearsal one Tuesday afternoon at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I had discovered my voice as a personal musical instrument which brought me very great satisfaction. A dozen young boys with quality voices with different ranges and tonalities is a remarkable sound when released in church. We sit near the front and close to the minister and senior choir members as the Sunday morning service rolls on. The pipe organ opens the setting with the fullness and majesty you didn’t think possible. And you take it all in. High, vaulted architecture reaches up into space, the organ fills the moment with incredible magnificence, the senior choir opens the service with a hymn, and the junior choir adds its unique higher than possible blend of voices to complete the opening scene. The choir stops, the organ goes silent, and silence surrounds the space. And then the Rector opens the service in great voice with a message about God! How could you at 11 years old, Sunday after Sunday not feel that the Church was a special place, that the whole event of a religious service to glorify God had merit, and that the missing element was mystery, not proof of fact. The organ’s power of sound and tone from disharmony to harmony sets the stage for an event that is beyond one’s daily experience. The blending of the senior and junior choirs’ voices is an arresting experience of human capacity. The whole place exceeds one’s expectations of what life is all about. Yes, we go to church to participate in the Holy because our days are too full of transactional responsibilities.
One Thursday at choir practice, the minister entered the room with a tall man I didn’t know. The minister interrupted the choir director’s practice to ask if Tommy could be excused for a while. I didn’t know what was up!
In a nearby sitting room I was introduced to Norman Rockwell, the famous Painter of Americana Illustrations on the Saturday Evening Post. The setting was awkward. I didn’t know of his fame, he was kind and nice mannered, and asked me if I would like to be on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post? Unmoved by the suggestion, I answered I would need to ask my mother.
The church has always been a surprising experience. At school, I learned things I was supposed to take in. But through my early life in God’s church as a baptized child, choirboy, acolyte, I learned about wonder, awe, majesty, and mystery close up. To be among God’s works is to be empowered and emboldened with assurance to act out who you are.
