John Rutter and Significance [jay]

can you hear the sound of the angels’ voices
ringing out so sweetly, ringing out so clear?
have you seen the star shining there so brightly
as a sign from God that Christ the Lord is near?
have you heard the news as they came from heaven
to the humble shepherds who have waited long?
gloria in excelsis Deo!
gloria in excelsis Deo!
hear the angels singing ‘Peace on earth’.

I write these lyrics from memory. They are inexorably burned in my mind and story. To some, they are simply song lyrics. To me, they carry much deeper significance.

a significant setting
From fifth grade through graduation, I attended a small Christian school in Limerick, Pennsylvania, a not-quite-Philly-not-quite-the-country sort of town and sort of school. Most schools generally have something at which they excel: football, soccer, painting, pretty girls, immature boys; something to call their own. At this particular small Christian school -- about 150 students in Junior and Senior high schools -- fine arts was the name of the game. We had sports teams, and every now and then we’d put together a devastating run through our league of six small Christian schools and capture a title in basketball, soccer, volleyball or softball. But when it came to fine arts, we were the cream of the crop, and not just in our small association of Christian schools, but nationwide. It was a truly cut-throat culture of choirs, vocal ensembles, instrumental ensembles, Shakespearean dramas, handbell choirs, handbell ensembles, dramatic monologues, humorous interpretations, extemporaneous speaking, preaching, vocal solos – and that was just the stuff in which I took part.

Maybe you are not familiar with the concept of “fine arts”. In most small Christian schools, and definitely the one I attended, there is a fear of culture in general. “Art” and “beauty” is something to be feared first, analyzed second and commensurately fed to you by your authorities with a large helping of “this is good” [hear fine] and “if you don’t like it, then you don’t understand the arts” [hear: arts]. Fine. Arts. Fine arts.

Most Christian schools see it as a way of indoctrinating young minds with things that are good and pure while setting up the next generation for a continued renaissance of the fine art that is high culture. Christian school fine arts is where Christian music becomes sacred music. Christian school fine arts is where acting becomes drama. Christian school fine arts is where nerds become heros and the socially-challenged get their moment in the spotlight.

a significant person
Fine arts was chiefly delivered to us in the person of Mrs Nawomb. A Bob Jones University grad and Frank Garlock disciple, Mrs Nawomb embodied all that was fine arts. A thin, beautiful woman with high cheek bones, and long, dark hair – she was the kind of woman you could develop a crush on but would be embarrassed to tell your buddies about. She was a typical choral leader, proper and disciplined with a voice like an angel. Mrs Nawomb could play a Chopin etude, sing a Handel aria and stare you down at forty feet all at the same time. Her eyes are what I remember most. During choral performances, I was always on the third row of risers, slightly to the right of center. Like all good choral leaders, Mrs Nawomb demanded attention and eye contact at all times. When she would seek a large dynamic swell, her eyes would bug out from her head, silently begging us to give more volume without losing feeling. I can remember wondering if her eyes hurt after a concert from all that bugging-out strain.

It was Mrs Nawomb who introduced me to the music of John Rutter. Rutter is a composer from Cambridge, England. His beginnings were at Clare College in Cambridge and his prodigious road of development and achievement has taken him all over the world. He is widely considered one of the finest composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially in the arena of sacred choral music. So accomplished is he, that the Archbishop of Canterbury conferred him with an honorary doctorate of music in recognition of his contribution to church music. Not just anyone can form their own choir of professional classical singers to sing his or her body of work around the world. Rutter can.

John Rutter is Mrs Nawomb’s favorite choral composer. She adores everything he writes and so esteems his music that she will only allow her choirs to perform certain pieces of his music because the other pieces are too good to perform. The first Rutter piece I ever heard was “Angels’ Carol”. It is a floating melody on a wind of concentric eighth notes that almost plays and sings itself. As Mrs Nawomb played the tape of Rutter’s “Angels’ Carol”, I was sitting in the back row of the choir in Room 100, where we would practice during seventh period, and had it not been for the presence of my machismo, I would have been led to tears. For the first time in my life, the words were not primary. In fact, they almost got in the way. This music connected to something deep within me, a place that I did not know existed. I asked Mrs Nawomb if I could borrow the cassette tape she had brought that day with Rutter’s music on it. Falling asleep that night, I listened over and over to Wexford Carol, Candlelight Carol, Dormi Jesu, Silent Night – all with no cognitive connection. But my spirit was beaming.

a significant experience
About a year later, I developed a major crush on Jill Nawomb. As Mrs Nawomb’s youngest, she was every bit as beautiful as her mom, and equally talented. I began the pursuit and a “dating” relationship began. I qualify “dating” with quotation marks, because Jill was younger than I and going out essentially took us to nowhere that could actually be considered “out” -- unless “out” was school functions, music practices, or her parent’s car or living room.

Dating Jill required me to date her extremely conservative parents and, as it turned out, they were not big fans of anyone dating them or their daughter -- especially if that someone was I. Mrs Nawomb was the only person I could never get to like me. Try as I might, as studious in choir as I was, as consumed with fine arts as I tried to be, as strapped with practice after practice as I was, as demoralizingly ass-kissing as I turned out to be, she could not, would not be won over.

At Jill’s beggings, the Nawombs invited me over for dinner one evening. I was so nervous. There had to be a way to get Mrs Nawomb to like me. Deciding to meet her on her turf, I read a book called The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers so as to have some knowledge of fine arts and high culture on which to engage the Nawombs.

Over our candlelight dinner of poached salmon and rice pilaf with Mozart dancing in the background, I said something like, “So Mrs Nawomb, which of Richard Wagner’s operas is your favorite? I personally prefer The Valkyrie.” The whole table became dead silent as Jill’s parents and sister stared at me quizzically like I had just asked whether or not they all shared the same underwear. Then Mrs Nawomb burst out laughing. She looked knowingly at Jill, who by this time had more than caught on and was doubled over in laughter as well, as were Mr Nawomb and her sister. I still had no clue what was happening.

Perhaps, like me, you read the composer’s name in my question as Richard Wagner (rich-ard wag-ner). In reality though, Wagner was German and his name is pronounced Richard Wagner (ree-kard vogg-nur).

I wanted to crawl under the table and die. I hate being laughed at.

I am pretty sure that I didn’t say another word during the meal. I finished dinner as quickly as I could, excused myself, sneaked to the living room, tucked the cordless phone in my pocket, went to the upstairs bathroom and called my mom. I told her to wait a few minutes, then call the Nawombs’ house and ask them to send me home right away. When I got in the car and started it, John Rutter’s tape (the one I had paid Mrs Nawomb to order for me) was in the deck. I was so embarrassed and angry from the dinner experience that I ejected it and threw it to the floorboard as hard as I could, breaking the casing.

It was hard driving home that night because of the torrential rain. Or maybe it was the torrential tears. I don’t exactly remember.

a significant redemption
We would continue to sing Rutter pieces in choir now and again, and I would continue to pursue Mrs Nawomb’s approval of me (which I never obtained), but never again did I willingly pursue John Rutter or his music.

Last Christmas, I was preparing a teaching for our church about the sacrifice that was the incarnation of Jesus. God sent Jesus knowing exactly what Destiny awaited Him. I wanted a song of reflection and meditation for the congregation to simply listen to and I wanted it to feel beautiful but be mournful at the same time. I researched many popular pieces, but none seemed to fit. I was talking to a friend about looking for just the right piece, the kind of piece that bypasses the mind and goes straight for the spirit. Something like…and then I said it: John Rutter.

I broke up with John Rutter and his music fourteen years ago. We haven’t spoken since and I burned the paper where I had his number recorded. But Rutter was exactly what the worship gathering needed. Actually, Rutter was exactly what I needed. God was saying something to me about the beauty of the incarnation, the fragility of the baby and the wonder of His calling. My spirit began to sing “Candlelight Carol” by John Rutter:

How do you capture the wind on the water?
How do you count all the stars in the sky?
How can you measure the love of a mother,
Or how can you write down a baby's first cry?

Candlelight, angel light, firelight and starglow
Shine on his cradle till breaking of dawn.
Gloria, Gloria in excelsis deo!
Angels are singing; the Christ Child is born.

Shepherds and wisemen will kneel and adore him,
Seraphim round him their vigil will keep;
Nations proclaim him their Lord and their Savior,
But Mary will hold him and sing him to sleep.

Find him at Bethlehem laid in a manger:
Christ our Redeemer asleep in the hay.
Godhead incarnate and hope of salvation:
A child with his mother that first Christmas Day.

I sat in our pitch black sanctuary and played the song on repeat, over and over. I felt again the spiritual ecstasy of the music and my spirit bowed to its beauty. At the same time, like an ogre rudely awoken from a deep sleep, my mind remembered Mrs Nawomb and my emotions felt the sting of embarrassment and inability to succeed in a place I so desperately wanted to be significant. These two things warred against one another for over an hour.

The music won.

a redemption of significance
The hero in this story is semi-hidden. I wonder if you saw her.

When I got home that evening, I did what I always did when I wanted to be alone: I shot hoops. Grabbing my ball out of the trunk, I didn’t even go inside. Late into the night I was out there, replaying the scenario over and over in my head. Feeling more and more like an idiot. I decided I would not be going to school the next day, and possibly never going to school ever again.

Dressed in her floor-length robe, Mom came out of the shadows on the edge of the driveway and gave me a hug. She didn’t ask a single question. Holding my face, she told me she loved me and that whatever had happened or would happen, her love for me would never be shaken. In doing so, she declared my significance to her, not because I was good at fine arts or because I had somehow won her approval, I was significant to her just because I was her boy and no matter what, I would always be her boy.

The thing about significance is that it must point to something outside the one feeling significance -- something better, something solid, something true. That is why it is called sign-ificance. Significance that is earned or merited is significance that is cheap, disingenuous and easily broken. Whatever significance I had earned in the eyes of Mrs Nawomb, that feeling of significance was easily broken with the slightest word or experience, because I am easily broken by the slightest word or exerience. Significance that is unmerited but freely given and received based on the merit of Another is the kind of significance that is truly significant. It is the kind of significance my mom understood and imparted. This is the kind of significance present in the incarnation and at the Cross.

And again, the music wins.