Of Age and Anxiety

I can remember my very first ride on a roller coaster. During my early teen years, I eagerly anticipated two annual camps every year: CMI (Central Music Institute) and CBLI (Central Bible & Leadership Institute). Both of these camps, back then, used to take the middle day of the ten day encampment (a Wednesday) and transport all the campers to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. For CMI, we would practice all week for our participation in a parade around Great America. In exchange for the parade performance, we were allowed to spend the rest of the day riding rides.

My friends, Patti and Lisa, spent a good long time talking me into riding The Demon roller coaster. It looked horrendous, full of loops and twists. I was quaking in my shoes as we patiently waited in the long line. They were right! Once I finally was on the darn thing, I was hooked. It was amazing, the feeling of flying, the wind through my hair, the exhilaration of speed. I loved every minute of it and became a roller coaster fan that day. I believe I was thirteen or fourteen at the time.

I couldn't wait for my oldest son to achieve the height requirement for those daredevil rides. Boy, was he ever game! I remember attending DeKalb's Corn Fest with him one day before John got out of work. Bryce simply couldn't wait for Daddy. He just had to ride the Zipper all by himself (he looked so tiny contained in the metal cage as it spun around and around and upside down).

For a while, when Bryce and I would attend CBLI every year, they continued to host the Wednesday trips to Great America. We always had a blast and John would often join us for the day to ride the rides. Sadly, some stuffed shirt decided that it was inappropriate for a Bible encampment to make a yearly trek to an amusement park (perhaps they felt it was a frivolous use of money - serious Bible scholars and evangelists don't pursue personal entertainment?) and they took the annual trip away, replacing it with a family day. (The first year was the hardest because they actually expected everyone to give up this family fun day to spend it working together doing service projects on the camp grounds. Now, I'm not against service projects, but try being the one to explain to your pre-teen son that instead of going to an amusement park as expected, they would be shoveling gravel onto a walkway in the heat that day.)

Of course, by that time, it was becoming difficult for me to ride the rides anyway, because I had two little ones to keep an eye on. Someone had to stay below with the little boys while John and Bryce went off to ride the big thrill rides. Then, time shifted again and Trevor was old enough to ride the roller coasters. Bryce would bring along a friend and Daddy would ride with Trevor while I remained below with Sean. Alas, eventually Sean, too, was tall enough to ride the rides, and like John and Bryce and Trevor, he was fully game. This was when the problem developed.

Now, Bryce would be off with his friend and it would leave John and the two boys ... an uneven number. So, they began to urge me to ride with them. I assumed this would be no big deal. Boy, howdy, was I ever wrong!

Suddenly, these rides were no longer exhilarating. They were downright terrifying. Age pulls a number on you. Somehow, in your late forties and early fifties, what once thrilled now terrorizes. Besides the fear I experience, there's the added factor of being jostled around. I don't think the jerking movements bother the younger set, but I feel every jolt. At Holiday World, they are forever begging me to ride the biggest coaster, The Voyage, with them. But, I find I have to ride it with my eyes closed and even still, it shakes me up so that I end up with a headache for the rest of the day.

I say all of this because we are, probably at this very moment, visiting Cedar Point for our vacation. Everything would be hunky-dory, if we were just going as a family. The three boys could ride all those terrifying rides with their father and there would be an even number waiting together in the lines. I would simply remain below and read a book or people-watch. Alas, Bryce is bringing his girlfriend for the trip. He assured Dad that she will ride these big rides, so John went ahead and purchased ALL of us fast passes for the rides for our two day visit (Wed. & Thur.). Now, with the uneven number and the money spent on a fast pass for me, it will be virtually impossible for me to remain behind when they board these roller coasters. Then, my sister made it even worse by telling me that the very biggest coaster at Cedar Point often gets stuck way up there at the top of the ride. She urged me not to ride it.

So, if you could take a moment and whisper a tiny prayer for my safety, my sanity, and my stability (in the face of those jolts), I would be most appreciative! I promise to provide a full account of the terrors when ... and if ... I return. Turning fifty has its benefits (I even get a discount at Goodwill now), but it certainly sucked the thrill out of riding roller coasters.

Bryce's Music Camp Awards

After missing Bryce more than I ever have before, I was finally able to go with the group from the Salvation Army corps to go pick him up on Saturday. The first event of the day was an awards concert for the campers. Last year, Bryce won the solo contest and thus, played his solo for everyone in the concert.

This year, he could not find a solo he wanted to use, so I suggested he write his own. I figured that way he could showcase his strengths. When he showed me his final product, I was absolutely blown away. It looks like a professionally notated piece of music:


I think one of his great strengths is that he recognizes the need for variations in volume. Last year, his solo revealed many dynamics changes. Of course, there is only so much one can showcase when limited to performing on a mere snare drum.

I could read the disappointment on his face when he discovered that he took second place in the solo competition. The winner played an outstanding cornet solo which displayed great skill.

Bryce was disappointed again when he took the second place spot in the over-all top band awards. I was very proud nonetheless. He managed to snag the same "Top Instrumentalist" for the whole camp award again this year (which comes with a full scholarship to CMI - Central Music Institute). Altogether, he certainly cannot complain about the awards he brought home:



The medal is for the solo competition. The smaller trophy is for 2nd place in the Brengle Band. The largest trophy is the Brigadier Richard Miller Band Award for Outstanding Instrumental Musicianship.

I am really urging Bryce to take advantage of the scholarship. He may never again get the opportunity to attend this camp (a camp that I attended as a youth). Our school district is considering moving to a year-round schedule and the proposed 2012-2013 calendar reveals that CMI would fall entirely during the school calendar. This year, he would only have to miss the first three days of school.

I think this is feasible and he would easily get caught up. However, he is planning on playing football this year. He will miss a large chunk of practice time while he is gone at CBLI and doesn't want to then add another chunk of absence for CMI. The special guest there at the camp repeatedly urged Bryce to go to CMI, stating that he will easily make the top band there. I agree with another camper who was standing nearby during our discussion. When Bryce said he didn't think he should miss so much football practice, he observed, "It's not like you're gonna make the NFL someday!" It will be his choice to make, but I will beam if he makes the decision I prefer.

Longing for the Road Not Taken

There was a time when my musical instrument was my passion. And I mean PASSION! During the high school years, I practiced so many hours on my Alto Horn (a brass instrument slightly smaller than a baritone and in the key of E-flat) that my brothers began to call me "Metallic Lips." I had a clear goal and I would stop at nothing until I reached it. That goal was to make it into the very top band, Wonderland Band, at Central Music Institute (a famed Salvation Army band camp in the Central Territory).

Make it, I DID! I will never forget the first rehearsal. A friend of mine, Kevin, was also getting his first exposure to playing in a top-notch band like Wonderland Band. He and I exchanged glances that said, "Can you believe we're here? Can you believe we are living this incredible dream?" It was powerful. I wanted that moment to last forever. I wanted that music to last forever. I wanted those friendships, honed in part by the music, to last forever.

Forever DIDN'T happen. Life intervened. Shortly before my senior year in high school, I was approached by the bandmaster of the Chicago Staff Band with news of an opening in the horn section the following January. All I needed to do was graduate from high school one semester early. Sadly, my parents (S.A. officers) received moving orders and the South Dakota high school I moved to placed my three remaining courses in the second semester, ruining my one chance of joining that prestigious band.

I carried my passion overseas after college, when I worked at The Salvation Army's International College for Officers. I attended a large London corps where I was refused admittance to their senior band. Even though my abilities matched those in the horn section, they were not yet allowing women in the upper band. I was offered a spot in the junior band and time in their weekly rehearsals. I decided to make do with the rehearsal time and, again, thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity of playing with an outstanding Salvation Army band.

When I returned from London, I began graduate school at the University of Illinois and eventually met and married my non-Salvationist husband. I kept hoping, over the years, that somehow the Army would lure my husband in (since he has a masters degree in trumpet performance and is a far more gifted musician than I am). Alas, that hasn't happened. I haven't played regularly in a Salvation Army band since we married.

I have been able to get my Salvation Army fix from our annual attendance at our ten day Bible camp (CBLI) and sporadic corps attendance over the years. I am able to sing those great Salvation Army hymns and associate with Army friends. But my passion for Army banding has lain dormant, burning like an ember that refuses to be fully snuffed out.

This past week, I have found myself in full-blown homesickness ... homesick for those moments of belonging to an Army band ... moments of hearing the tones blend in such a way that an audience can be moved to a spiritual pitch of worship unlike any other. The Chicago Staff Band has been in London performing with various other Salvation Army staff bands. I have viewed the photos of old friends who are living my dormant dream. I have watched the videos of a magnificent march up the mall towards Buckingham Palace (the very Palace I was privileged to visit with my Upper Norwood friend, Ray). It makes me want to weep.

But, I am holding back my tears and clinging to the promise of God's wisdom for my life. A few weeks ago, I spent a few days with a faithful Army friend, Lisa (who also left the Army when life intervened). As we talked, she was marvelling at all the amazing opportunities God brought my way in my twenties. She married young and had children early (and is already enjoying the grandparent phase of life), while I travelled the world and had my children late (what feels like my geriatric years).

I regaled her with my tale of tea with Ray at the Palace. I told her about the awesome privilege of an invitation to tea with theologian John R. Stott, while at Wheaton College. She listened as I explained how I landed a job transcribing C.S. Lewis' personal letters for four years. Then, I told of the rare chance I had to travel with Dr. Lyle Dorsett and his wife to Scotland for an oral history interview with C.S. Lewis' first cousin, Ruth Parker. During my time at ICO (International College for Officers) I was able to return for an individual visit with Ruth Parker and bring her a Madeira cake (her favorite). I travelled with a missions group to the Philippines. The Lord blessed me with so many fantastic, enviable opportunities.

So, while I sit here in my little farmhouse, babbling with preschoolers all day every day, Lisa declared it "no small wonder" that I am casting backward glances to the many opportunities of days gone by. My heart is frantically searching for direction, some passion to move my life in a direction of purpose ... to regain an identity apart from my mothering role. It is too easy to look back and say, "Lord, why did you carry my feet on a different path than I expected?"

At this point, I have to continue looking to God and asking Him to guide my steps, even if they lead away from passions like Army banding. Perhaps I must carve out a new purpose and goal for my life. I truly pray that He has more amazing opportunities lying just ahead of me, waiting to be seized. And I'm also praying that He won't turn me to a pillar of salt (like Lot's wife, who, leaving family behind cast back a wistful glance) for my longing for the road not taken. It can't hurt to put a further Army banding opportunity on my bucket list, can it? Only God knows where my feet are headed. All I can do is lay my passions and my willingness at His feet.

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!