There are a few choirs I’ve been listening to over the past couple of years that have really challenged me, blessed me, and have taken me deeper in my faith. Most of these have been Mennonite choirs.
Hearing the pure human voice—men and women together, usually unaccompanied, singing sacred music in multi-part harmony, reciting uplifting words about Jesus and our hope in the future despite our difficult circumstances here on earth…
This was just what I needed when surviving the darkest years of my adult life (so far).
My little brother’s death in 2020…
My wake-up call in an emergency room with a heart event in 2021…
Being diagnosed with autism in 2023…
Dealing with a cancer scare and choosing to finally reject suicide for good in 2024…
Losing my wedding ring right before my 19th anniversary…
And the full-blown midlife crisis I’ve been dealing with in the midst of all of this.
This has been an extremely difficult season, yet their music has given me strength and hope to keep going.
Without knowing it, their voices have been the soundtrack to my life for the past five years. They’ve been singing to me this whole time, totally unaware of who I am. And they also don’t know that I’ve been singing along with them.
Some of the groups I’ve treasured most are the West Coast Mennonite Chamber Choir, Oasis Chorale, Laudate Mennonite Ensemble, and Antrim Mennonite Choir.
I found the West Coast Mennonite Chamber Choir’s album “Through an Open Window” by accident during the lowest part of my darkest moments, closest to ending my own life (or at least wanting to).
Of course, I know this was no “accident.” It was, in fact, a miracle.
That album flooded me with so much emotion, it revived my spirit, which had felt nearly dead for years.
It was a genuinely spiritual experience.
Hearing the words (sometimes in German), and being moved by the music which has a connection to my own family’s Mennonite heritage, was such a big deal that I found the contact info for the group’s leader, Dr. Larry Nickel, and emailed him to tell him about my experience and thank him.
He got back to me and thanked me for sharing my story. Then he shared another story about how that same album affected someone else he was unaware of:
Interesting story about “Through an Open Window”; We found a church out in the country that had those wonderful acoustics. Two blocks down the street was a hospital.
A couple on holidays was driving down the highway and the husband had a heart-attack - ending up in the hospital. The wife, in a state of shock, took a walk and came upon the church.
She heard singing (we were recording that particular album) - and tried to enter the church.
My wife was in charge of guarding the doors to be sure our session wasn’t interrupted. She saw the woman at the door and sensed there was something wrong, so she said, “Come quietly and sit with me”.
Long story short, the man died and the album was played at the funeral. The woman became a Christian.
I’m telling you, music saves lives.
Sometimes literally, sometimes spiritually.
Just a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon another “accidental discovery.”
While scrolling through YouTube, I noticed a video by Laudate Mennonite Ensemble called “Crossing the Bar” that I had somehow never seen before.
That was strange, considering it had been uploaded a year and a half ago and I had been subscribed to their channel for a few years.
Intrigued, I pushed play.
Instantly, tears welled up as I listened to the angelic music and saw those men and women singing sacred music in that holy space.
I was impressed at how they had thoughtfully arranged the lighting, ensured the acoustics were just right, and carefully captured this rehearsed moment with a high quality camera and microphone on what was probably a rolling tripod or gimbal.
I was happy at what I saw and heard. But I was also saddened. I thought about how much I miss singing in a choir, and how participating in the gift of music with other people has been one of the greatest joys of my life. Also, sometimes, in more intimate settings, I’ve sung with people while holding hands in a circle just like this.
I’m not saying it’s exclusively a Mennonite practice (of course it isn’t), but growing up, there were a few families we knew that would hold hands in a circle and sing with my family when they would visit us and it was time to say goodbye, and as far as I can recall, they were all Mennonites.
A few years ago, one of the more conservative families that attended the Mennonite church I grew up in was driving through Colorado and decided to stop in at my house.
Not my parents’ house this time, like they had when I was a child, but my house—I was a full-grown adult now and had my own family.
It was totally surreal to see the woman (the only woman from our church who always wore dresses and a head covering) who used to be my Sunday school teacher now talking to my wife and children. When it was time for them to hit the road and say goodbye, they asked for us all to hold hands and sing, so we did.
We stood in the front entry of my house, singing (I don’t recall what song) in a circle and holding hands, then we said goodbye and they left.
“Wow, that was kind of weird,” my wife said after they drove off. I didn’t really think it was weird, but I realized then that she’d never done that before.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true: as a family we had in fact done that before. Every night when our children were young, as part of their bedtime routine, I would pray over them, then we’d hold hands and sing The Doxology:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
But my wife was right that since she and I had been married we’d never done this with people outside our family, and I guess she didn’t grow up with this tradition, either.
But anyway, back to the video of “Crossing the Bar” on YouTube, I found it again earlier this week and looked into it a bit more.
The funny thing is, it turned out I was wrong about almost everything I originally thought about it.
The building isn’t a church. It’s a secular event space and wedding venue.
The video wasn’t planned at all. It was captured at the last moment, on a whim.
The audio/visual gear was literally just a smartphone and nothing more.
There was no gimbal to stabilize that smartphone either; it was just held by a person.
WHAT?!
Not only that, the song they were singing isn’t even a hymn at all: it’s a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a man hardly known for being a songwriter.
And Laudate Mennonite Ensemble, one of the choral groups that helped me think about being alive and staying alive was singing about death!
But wait… the story gets even stranger!
This song about dying by a Mennonite choir that was unplanned, unpolished, wasn’t even a hymn, and wasn’t even sung in a church, was spontaneously recorded in Coatesville, Pennsylvania.
Coatesville, Pennsylvania is around 50 miles from Upper Salford, Pennsylvania, where at least five generations of my Mennonite family members lived, died, and are buried.
That’s kind of cool right? …and a little bit coincidental?
But wait… once again, the story gets even stranger!
I dug further and further down the rabbit hole, and found an even more bizarre connection.
The wedding venue where the song was recorded used to be a church (as you can plainly see from the architecture). Today, it’s been remodeled and is called “The Arches,” but it used to be St. Cecilia Catholic Church.
St. Cecilia Catholic Church used to be part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia oversaw the churches that my Irish Catholic grandmother (and her mother before her) went to.
My great-grandmother, Brenny, is laid to rest at a cemetery owned by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.
Yeadon, Pennsylvania is also around 50 miles from Coatesville, in a different direction. If you map out all three of these locations—Coatesville, Upper Salford, and Yeadon—they make a nearly perfect triangle.
Okay, am I making WAY too big a deal out of this? Perhaps. But my goodness, there sure are a lot of strange connections and coincidences here. Maybe I’m just feeling a bit Irish today, overly sentimental and looking for meaning in the mystery.
Come on, though, isn’t that nuts? A Mennonite choir recording a song right next to where my Mennonite ancestors lived when they came to America around 1698… and here I am, in Arizona, finding it randomly on YouTube?
And somehow, I am genetically, physically, geographically, and spiritually connected to all of this 325 years later?
That’s amazing.
Now, watching this recorded song, I am moved even more than I was before, and I was mistaken about all my assumptions the first time around. It hits even harder now.
So, today, I felt like sharing this. If you’d like to experience this beautiful song in the fullness of its glory, put on some nice headphones, press play on the video above, and read along with the “lyrics” of the poem below. I hope you are blessed by it like I was.
“Crossing the Bar”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.Watching this video and listening to this song once more, with tears in my eyes yet again, I am struck by a final, profound thought that made me speechless.
In heaven, I do hope to see my Pilot face to face, and I believe I will.
I also believe I will be singing hymns while holding hands with my own family Mennonite choir: Daniel and Catherine, Abraham and Eva, Abraham and Maria, Joseph and Catherine, Isaac and Lucy Ann, and many, many more.
They’ll be there, and we’ll be holding hands and singing praises… when I have crost the bar, as they have.
By the way, I highly recommend you check out Laudate Mennonite Ensemble on YouTube and subscribe to their channel.
Song Credits - Crossing the Bar:
Words: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Music: Rani Arbo, arr. Peter Amidon
Video Credit: Myron Eby
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