There is an old term for men like myself: Churchman. The term means that the person knows, understands, and is involved in every facet of their church's worship, operation, politics, and administration. Guilty as charged! My whole life has been the church. Now, being somewhat obsessive-compulsive, I took things to the next level and added church music to my churchmanship... Something few people do. Music has always been a separate preserve in the church appreciated by all, understood by few. In my midlife crisis, I was rescued in my musical abilities by another churchman, and I never forgot it. I vowed to pass the favor along, and rescue other off-the-rails church musicians as well.
Fast forward twenty years and I'm sitting at the console of a huge organ next to an 85 year old woman named Joann who had been the previous organist for 18 years, and retired for 10. Though she had an organ at her home, she had become despondent not playing for a large congregation, and had lost her ability to play as a conservatory trained organist. The tragedy of it all was as the outgoing organist she had helped design the very organ we were both sitting at on this lovely sunny Monday afternoon, but had never played the instrument.
With a great deal of poking, prodding, pushing, praying and yes, making her mad at me, there we were in the church at the organ console. The woman was terrified to the point of turning to stone. I told Joann to relax, ignore the hundreds of buttons, knobs, and switches, and to just concentrate on the three keyboards we call manuals, and the 32 note pedal board. I confidently placed a hymnal on the lighted music rack, set up her voice registration with the draw knobs, and commanded her to play.
She did. In the wrong key, in the wrong tempo, on the wrong manual, and held down a single pedal note throughout the butchering of the entire song that was unrecognizable as a standard of the church: "Let all mortal flesh keep silent." When she painfully finished and released the last note, I asked her, "What was that?" She bit her lower lip and sheepishly answered,
"I'm not sure, but it was at least sound."
"Lets have another go, try this..." And I flipped the pages to, "Holy, Holy, Holy."
It sounded like the pipes where crashing down around us, but at least this time in was in the right key, tempo, correct manual, and she even managed a few correct pedal notes. Encouraged by this, I slammed another hymn in front of her, this time: "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." My attempt was to ease here into a classical composer as the music was written by Bach, even if the words were not. This time around she managed a credible rendition, so I decided to take a leap of faith. I pulled out a 1932 concert repertoire book edited by E. Power Biggs, telling her that these notes were larger and more easy to read. What I didn't tell her was that it was the unfinished Requiem by Mozart, which since unfinished is not familiar to church organists who do not play the formal concert circuit. To keep from scaring the poor woman into a cardiac arrest, I had gem clipped a piece of paper over the title and composer's name. I know what you are thinking! And you're right, just keep it to yourself and don't say it out loud, you'll upset those around you with that kind of language.
Glory be to God! She played the damn thing! Oops... I need to take my own advice! Then as my head was turned for a moment, she took down the book and removed the gem clip and piece of paper. The look she gave me told me to Get Out. I jumped down from the organ bench, and dashed for the stairs. She was right behind me and grabbed a standing hat rack made of solid oak with a point on its top and swung it out like a lance with the intent of skewering me. I bolted down the back stairs forgetting that I was wearing organ shoes that are not designed to walk in, the cape of my bishop's cassock flapping behind me as I gained speed. A cassock is also not designed for the fifty-yard-dash, and my pectoral cross was slamming around attempting to decapitate me.
Meanwhile, what used to be nice sweet Joann, now a mad old hag bent on running me up the bell tower and ringing my brains out, was in hot pursuit. The woman normally hobbles along slowly with a cane, but was doing a credible job in attempting to catch me. At the bottom of the stairs we encountered the wooden floor with our organ shoes, which are the equivalent of skates and an ice rink, and off we went. We slipped, slid, banged into walls, still fleeing at top speed and screaming along the way in the fear of breaking our necks, with me taking note the woman had managed to keep that coat rack turned harpoon aimed at my backside. At this point I hate to admit it, but I'm quite tender there. Bishops are not exactly triathlon contenders... So I attempted to run even faster, organ shoes be damned!
All this commotion alerted Father John to attempt to save his bishop, and he came running from the opposite direction and as we turned the corner we crashed into one another. Then Joann, not being able to put on brakes in those organ shoes fell right on top of us, disarming herself as her intended staff of death flew out of her hands with a mighty crash and careened down the hall finally impaling itself in a large potted plant.
This little adventure took the fire out of the 85 year old organist, a 60 year old bishop and his 33 year old priest. The only real casualty was the large potted plant cut in half by a flying hat rack. The entire matter was dubbed, "The slippery organ affair," And the three of us agreed over our aches, pains, and several cups of Earl Gray, not to mention it again.
Of course I eminently violated that oath by posting it here.
+Metropolitan Archbishop Joel
