When I sit to write Music Notes, I never know what I’m going to write. I often dread it, honestly. I feel helpless because the bulletin information is due. I feel it’s my job to help you hear the music more deeply. How can I do that when I feel helpless?

As you study music, you realize it has a vertical dimension. This is also true of writing. This is also true of being human. Some people seem to be very deep. Some make a lot of noise. Sometimes it’s those who have experienced impactful things that learn what depth is. They don’t push away their experiences, they use them to communicate deeply complex feelings.

Our two anthems this morning have that depth. For Ralph Vaughan Williams, the composer of our offertory, two episodes made notably deep impressions on him. He served in The First World War and twenty years later, though in his sixties and devotedly married, he was reinvigorated by a love affair with a much younger woman, who later became his second wife.

Paul Manz, the composer of our communion anthem was also deeply affected by personal events. Our communion piece this morning was written during a time when his three-year-old son was critically ill. His wife Ruth wrote the lyrics. His son did recover, and this remains one of his most profound compositions. It seems to cry from “out of the deep.”

Sometimes when we’re faced with what seems like insurmountable obstacles, we feel utterly helpless, in a pit of despair that seems endless. Feeling helpless is a calling. So is being inspired. Impactful things open a portal of depth. I know when I have felt helpless, writing something or practicing or creating relieves that feeling.

Sometimes we just feel like the world is out of control and violence cannot be stopped. We feel helpless and hopeless. But in that emptiness, we often find deep strength, the de profundis. It was Leonard Bernstein who said, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Maybe that’s what makes determination and hope possible – the feeling of helplessness.

I didn’t know what I wanted you to hear in the music today until I started responding to my feeling of helplessness. I don’t know what I will write each week. I don’t know how the playing will come out or how the singing will sound, but we will do it more intensely, more beautifully, and more devotedly than ever before. There is something to artistic expression and creativity that is related to helplessness. There is something about verticality that goes hand in hand with the impression and impact of profound events in our lives. If Music Notes makes an impression on you, then good. That’s what I’m after. I’m after the vertical dimension, the impactful one where you hear the music more intensely, more beautifully, and more devotedly than ever before. If Music Notes helps, then good. It alleviates my feeling of helplessness and gives me a deeper sense of hope, much like the music you’re hearing today. Soli Deo Gloria!