Today I would like to thank two people for helping me along my
journey of faith.
First, John. Many years ago John said to me that he wanted to
go to church but he didn’t want to go alone. He wanted us to attend church as a
family. I had not even thought about going to church before that. I accompanied
him, not always with the best grace and certainly without much expectation for
deepening faith. Over the years, though, all of this attending – sitting in
church, sometimes listening, often not; praying the Lord’s Prayer, sometimes
paying attention to the words, often not; singing the hymns, sometimes paying
attention, more often just trying to figure out the different harmonies – has
deepened my faith.
Something has happened to my faith and it continues to
happen because I’m simply showing up at church. The words of the liturgy are
deep and true although my belief is not. Or at least it isn’t yet. But the
liturgy is taking me deeper. And I’m finding that more and more, I do believe.
So thank you, John, for having the wisdom to know that this
might happen when we were only 23 years old and for knowing that I might be
freed from limited faith by coming and sitting next to you all these years.
And thank you Linda Blondel, for suggesting that I audition
for the Virginia Consort. I’m not sure I would have ever done that without your
suggestion. I didn’t think I could sing well enough. I’d started to sing with
the Cove choir but the Virginia Consort required another much higher skill set
that I was not sure I had. And neither was Judy Gary, the director, who let me
try it out to see how I would do. That first Monday evening at rehearsal, we
read through the Bach Cantata, Nach Dir
Herr Verlanget Mich (I long for you, Lord). The opening melody line starts
with the basses, then the tenors, then the altos and finally the sopranos. They
all have an octave leap followed by descending chromatic steps. Whoo! There I
was in a room full of people singing. There were singing voices resonating all
around me, a real surround sound that coursed through our very bodies. All of
our bodies rang with the music.
“This is what heaven is,” I thought, I was so sure that God
was in that room with us and that we were God’s angels. (Or at least the angels
in heaven sing Bach!). I have never forgotten it.
Since that experience, music has become the vehicle to take
me closer to God. It can provide me a direct line to the holy. As Alice Parker
says, “One of the glories of music is that it says what words cannot say.”
Music invites me into the sacred with its holy marriage of
melody and words. I find the sacred when the entire church is singing a
familiar and well beloved hymn and I find it when the choir sings and I even
find it when I’m singing alone. It has given new meaning to this quote from
Revelation:
I hear every creature
in heaven, on earth
In the world below and
in the sea-
All living beings in
the universe
And they were singing:
‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
Be praise and honor,
glory and might
for ever and ever.
I’ll close with the words from this anonymous 16th century
Lutheran chorale:
Shall I praise my God
not singing? Shall I dumb and silent be?
When I hear all nature
ringing thanks and praise eternally?
Song is only love
resounding from a faithful heart and voice,
Making all the earth
rejoice and the echoing space resounding.
All creation clear and
strong praises Love in endless song.
Hi, my name is Annie Eplee. I came to Cove Church because my
family comes here. But, I love this church. It is a great community. 
