Past(er)
Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder… G-G-G-F-D-F-F-Eb-Eb-D
I knew the next line, so I looked up at the ceiling. The lights up there were blinding, but I liked tracing the gold chains of the lamps with my eyes. After tracing three on the lamp in the front-right corner, I looked back at the first line of the next verse. As usual, I sang a different part.
When thro’ the woods and forest glades I wander… Eb-Eb-C#-D-B-A-A-G-A-B
This time, I watched the black notes climb up and down the staff. I had to in order to sing the Alto part. I was getting better at hearing the note simply by what wrung of the staff it was on. As we reached the end of the verse, I looked up at the organ. It was a simple brown box on the right side of the stand, across from the grand piano on the left. The pipes rose, tall and grand, behind the choir seats. They didn’t work. I think at one time, they did, but the only things coming from those gold tubes were ghosts of songs sung long ago; from the wooden pipes came beauty, a reminder of the tall trees they used to be, even as they sat there, silently waiting for nothing. The big brass monsters hidden in the alcoves were silent guards of some long-lost sound that once shook the hearts of the congregation and filled the room with almost inaudible waves. When we had moved here the year before, I thought they were real until the choir director complained about how they just take up space that could be filled with choir seats.
Then sings my soul, me Savior God to Thee…
In thinking about something else, I had slipped back into the soprano part. That was alright. It simply changed the part I would sing on the fourth verse. I looked down again at the green Hymnal and prepared for the hardest part of all: the tenor.
When Christ…shall come…with shout of ac…clamation…Bb-Bb-Bb-Bb-F-F-F-F-F-F
This was the easiest part, because it doesn’t change notes very often, but it took the whole first line to find the right note: it was lower than I thought it was. It always happened like this. My voice always hurt at the end, but I still pushed myself to do it, just to make singing the hymn more interesting. It was getting easier to sing so low, the more I did it, but I had only been doing it for about a year, so my voice wasn’t yet used to it. I could sing down to the E below middle C. This song was especially hard, for it stayed at the lowest edge of my range
As the song finished, I closed the hymnal, cleared my throat and got ready for the prayer. As I closed my eyes, the song continued playing in my head: it was the band geek’s curse kicking in again. Her mind sucks in songs and plays them on repeat until it sucks in another song to replace it. And so I sat through Sacrament meeting, O Lord my God, waiting, Then sings my soul, for the Sacrament, my God, how great Thou art!, hymn to replace the one stuck in my head, how great Thou art!
Past
It was cold. I wasn’t nervous yet, but I knew the butterflies would fill my stomach as we walked to the field. Right now, though, all I thought was, “Why did Doc have us climb up this stupid hill two hours early?!” Two people had already almost broken their ankles in the stupid holes. Those holes made me nervous; someone said they were gopher holes, but they reminded me of the snake hole on the school playground in third grade. I hate snakes. Needless to say, I gave the holes a wide berth.
My uniform was tight, and I was used to that, but right now, it bothered me. I wanted to be able to move my arms freely: I couldn’t even raise them straight over my head. I was anxious and annoyed. My calves were starting to burn from all the climbing; that wasn’t good, because they always hurt after basics, and if I started with them aching, it was really painful by the end.
I really wanted to be back in the stadium. Loveland had been next, and their show was always amazing. We never got to watch very many other bands; we were always practicing…
We finally reached a flat part of the hill and started warm-up. I got so bored, I zoned out and almost fell when I took the first step and the ground wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I snapped back to the real world as all my muscles screamed at me for direction. In the blink of an eye, I recovered; I and everyone else focused on our feet and looked down at the ground through our instruments so we wouldn’t step in the holes. The murmur of voices rose as the lines started wiggling back and forth to dodge the gopher mounds.
“I know it’s bad up here, just do your best and focus!” Dave, our instructor, called us to order, reminding us what was ahead. Pomona was one of the hardest competitions and it was good preparation for State. Slowly, we focused. We worked through basics, not doing anything faster than 128 bpm so no one would break a leg. Finally, Dave had us finish and Doctor C called for music warm-up. This was the reason we had come so far away: we lost points if we played anywhere near the stadium that wasn’t a designated warm-up spot, and we didn’t get one of those spots for another hour. It still irked that we had to even practice so early; no other band practiced as much as us. But Doc was the boss.
We set up in our circle. Doc had us do a warm-up scale, and then he started going around with a tuner. As he did, we did our before-competition handshakes. That went quickly, and then I zoned out again. By this time, the sun had set; it was just a fading half-circle of light on the horizon. The stars were coming out above us. From our hill, we could see the city below; I didn’t know which one it was. I thought it might be Colorado Springs. That’s pretty, I thought, and then let my mind go blank. As Doc got to the flutes, just two sections away, I heard it.
“Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder…” It was just a murmur, sung under someone’s breath. I looked to see where it was coming from. There was only one other Mormon in the band, but he wasn’t singing. Then I pinpointed the source: Dave Hein, my fellow mello. I was shocked. Dave did not strike me as the kind of guy who would know that song, let alone sing it. This was the guy who messed around during practice and had to run laps because he was late a lot. He was always talking back to Abbe, making sexual jokes, and last year, at the final run-through…I didn’t even want to think about that. I had no idea he was religious.
“You’re singing that song, Dave?” I asked, trying to suppress my surprise and failing.
“It’s a good song,” he replied. I think he was a little embarrassed that I had noticed, because he didn’t sing again, but it didn’t matter. I looked at him in a new light.
Doc was tuning the Mellos now, so I turned forward and got ready to play. As I tuned, I was still partially in shock. When Doc moved on past me and I put my instrument down, I was hit full-blast with the view of the sunset. I looked at the stars shining in the sky, and the lights of the city sparkling in response. The first line of the song ran through my band geek brain again and again, for that was all I knew of it: Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made. I looked out over the valley and the glory and beauty God created there, and I thought of the child of God standing two people to my right. At the most unexpected time, in a place I had never thought I would feel it, I felt the Spirit of the Lord fill my soul. As we focused on our performance, I tucked that feeling away and fed on the strength it gave me to perform one of the best shows of the year.
Present
Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder… G-G-G-F-D-F-F-Eb-Eb-D
As the song starts with the only line I had known back then, I am transported back to that twilight-lit hill. I see the stars hanging in the darkening sky, the pale glow of the fading sun on the horizon, and the soft glow and sparkle of the city lights below us.
When thro’ the woods and forest glades I wander… Eb-Eb-C#-D-B-A-A-G-A-B
As I now easily switch from part to part, I feel the soft give of the sandy dirt beneath my feet. I hear the soft scratch of the dry tumbleweed against my pant legs. I can see the stickers I’ve collected on the climb up the hill, stuck all over my black tube socks, standard issue for a band geek.. As I look around me, I see the mounds surrounding the gaping black chasms of those stupid gopher holes.
Then sings my soul, me Savior God to Thee…Bb-Bb-Bb-Bb-F-F-F-F-F-F
I hear Dave’s voice singing softly to my right, “Oh Lord my God…” I feel the love start to swell in my heart.
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall kneel in humble adoration, and there proclaim, ‘My God, how great Thou art!’
I belt out those words in the soprano part, sending my heart and soul to the world. My heart is exploding with the love I feel inside, my soul soaring with the joy of the Gospel and exalting in the beauty of the world surrounding me. I look up at the lights in the meetinghouse, and remember the gorgeous stars of that night; I trace the chains of the lamps with my eyes before the prayer, and as I close my eyes, I see the glittering lights of the city reflected in their golden faces. I listen to the prayer as one of my favorite songs plays in the background.
