Stepping Back in Time, with One Foot Planted in the Present

Sometimes, when you are young, you don't really grasp the enormity of opportunities which lie before you. You take everything in stride, because "this is just how life is". You aren't keenly aware that life could, in fact, be different in any way.

I have had a chance to look back on my own youth and recognize the blessings and opportunities I took for granted. Sadly, those opportunities really aren't available for me now. But, I did have a rare and wonderful weekend to plunge myself back into the realities of my youth and ponder anew God's many gifts, especially music, friendship, and spiritual support.

Music has always been vitally important to me. When we were kids and reached the age of seven, my father taught us how to play an instrument. Three or four years later, we were allowed to decide if we wished to continue. I believe most of us stuck with it. I know that my two older brothers and I did, because when we moved to Chicago, at the beginning of my freshman year, we were allowed to join the Northern Illinois Youth Band.

Despite the fact that there were few young people at our Salvation Army corps appointment, we were able to nurture friendships with other music-minded teens from around the Chicago division. Looking back on those days, I realize how fantastic that opportunity was. The sense of belonging was intense. The friendships were solid. I knew that if I had any difficulties at all, I could freely share them with my youth band friends and they would rally around me.

Last weekend, with the blessing of my husband (who bravely kept the three boys at home), I travelled back to Camp Wonderland to attend the 75th Central Music Institute's Alumni Reunion. I attended CMI from 1979-84. My father attended during his teenage years. I had hoped that my ES would attend this year, but his summer had already been so busy and it would have meant him missing the first three days of school. As a teenager, CMI was the highlight of my year. As soon as it ended, I began counting down the days until CMI would come the following year.

Thus, I was thrilled to be able to enjoy a weekend getaway and relive memories of that fabulous music camp experience. Many of my Northern Illinois Youth Band friends (who had watched the event grow in its appeal through Facebook updates) were there as well. And, the special guests for this year's CMI were our old NIYB bandmaster, Dr. John Richmond, and a bandmaster my husband sat under at the University of Illinois, Dr. Jim Curnow.

What a blast from the past! We stayed up late talking and reminiscing. We gals shared a cramped cabin with one bathroom and talked fashion (well, they talked fashion ... I listened and marvelled) and old times, just like when we were 16. Of course, these conversations were also peppered with remarks about ailments and health challenges, children, marriage, and jobs. We stood back, amazed at how each of our personalities has remained the same over these many years. We contemplated pranks to pull on the guys in the cabin next door, but in the end, were too exhausted to carry them out. We shared joys and trials and we wondered why we ever allowed a quarter of a century to go by without rekindling these fast friendships.






Saturday evening we were up until almost two in the morning, reliving memories from our youth band days: My tendency to click on my valves during any string band performances. Youth band trips to various destinations (like Missouri, Pennsylvania, North Carolina). Various things that went wrong on those trips, like ... the outdoor concert, in NC, where every breath we took in and blew out, processed a million horrid gnats ... the concert in PA, (or was it Delaware?) where the bandmaster stopped at one point, turned to the audience and said, "I'm sorry. The bandmaster has made a mistake." and later on, to poke fun, the band stopped and said, "We're sorry. The band has made a mistake." ... or the time the Army people at our destination forgot that we were coming and thus, we all stood around on the evening of our arrival being divided up into impromptu billets where the families clearly had not been expecting us!

But, just as nostalgic as the friends made me, the music knocked the breath out of me as well. I guess I really hadn't realized how long it has been since I have read music and performed with a group, either a vocal group or a band. During the Saturday morning rehearsal for the Alumni Chorus, under the direction of Dr. John Richmond, I kept turning to friends and explaining that I felt like a deer in the headlights.

Granted, John Richmond is a choir leader extraordinaire. He articulates the need for focus. He gently reminds us of technical clues and notations. We only had a limited time to rehearse and we sat in our chairs mesmerized by the sheer magnitude of the fact that we were singing under John Richmond's direction again.

At that point, it was still nostalgic fun. Saturday afternoon, we had a brief rehearsal for the Alumni Band. I haven't really played regularly in a Salvation Army band since my graduate school years in Champaign, Illinois, during 1988-90. I was thrilled to be able to sit in the second horn section (while in the past, I would have clamored for the first or solo horn section). Lisa, a NIYB friend, sat behind me in last chair. We were both simultaneously amused and mortified by our mistakes. Key changes were deadly.

It felt so amazing to hold the horn to my lips once again. I was enjoying every minute of it, until John Richmond came forward to sing during a piece called "Our Petition." (You may watch our performance with him here, at the 15:00 mark). I have vivid memories of this piece and John Richmond's voice singing these poignant words. As he began to sing, during the rehearsal, the magnitude of my loss began to overwhelm me. I finished that song and the next fighting back tears.

I don't know if I can even articulate what it feels like to participate in a Salvation Army brass band. The music isn't just a catchy tune, it is music which has been written to honor God and to stir souls. It is, as John Richmond reminded us in our choral rehearsal, a high calling to present music. Musicians fulfill a ministry of the priesthood (oh, if I could only recall his specific words!). When I sit in a band and play such music, it moves me beyond anything else I know. I have always felt that way, but I had forgotten. Now, the "what-ifs" and the "whys" of the course of my life, the paths which led away from The Salvation Army and away from those brass banding opportunities, flooded over me.

I looked down and noticed Peggy Paton Thomas watching our rehearsal. This only caused the tears to fall more intensely. She gave up so much of her time during my teen years to offer me private lessons, gratis. I could never thank her enough, because it meant a lot to me. But, it felt so sad to sit there struggling with the music and wrestling with God over the horn that was set aside.

I called my husband and tried to share my emotions with him. Somehow, with the kids clamoring in the background and him moaning over how the boys destroyed all his cleaning efforts during the four hours when he was at work that morning, I don't think he understood. His final words shook me back to reality. He said, "Well, it's not like there's any opportunity for you to pick up a horn now, anyway."

Finally, I was thrilled to partake of those old opportunities for spiritual support. As I said, my youth band friends readily offered spiritual support back in those days. At CMI encampments and other occasions, we met in groups at the altar and prayed for God to walk us through the trials and difficulties of adolescence. But, now we were standing in the services watching those in our children's peer groups line the altars and pray together in close-knit clusters.

Towards the end of the Sunday morning service, as the altar call (in the Salvation Army, at the close of a service, you are always invited to come forward to kneel at an altar and address any spiritual needs you might have) purred along, the friend next to me grabbed my hand and held it tight. Soon, another friend approached and had a word with me.

She wanted to apologize for not being aware of my recent isolation and loneliness in this move to Indiana. She offered such sincere comfort. Her words were soothing and a balm to my soul. "You are not alone... I'll be praying for you... Let me give you my phone number ... it would be great if you could find a mentor, or someone to meet with regularly to share and pray with ... etc." That meant so much to me.

And for all of it - the music, the friendship and the spiritual support - I consider myself so fortunate to have been able to attend that CMI reunion. I know she was right. I am not alone. Several of the other friends who attended, felt the same needs met. As women, we can pour our lives into meeting the needs of our families and forget that we are still those same girls of our youth and need friendships and passions and spiritual support.

This past week, Pete, one of my CMI friends, posted an enticing status on Facebook. He suggested offering monthly CMI refreshers. I'm sure I could never get away for a weekend every month. But, boy did it whet my appetite. The thought of more than annual gatherings. It is too much. Not to mention, we'd get to sing the CMI theme song more often. What a blast!