And Now, For Something (a Guitar) Completely Different

It all started at a wedding reception.

I was sitting next to a friend from Newman Church, and we were reminiscing about what wonderful liturgies were crafted (and still are!) at that beautiful sacred house on Saint Stephen's Green.  Along with my friend came her partner, a guitarist himself.  The conversation turned to "road axes," those instruments that we dare put on an airplane, perhaps having to entrust them to the luggage gorillas that lurk deep in the bowels of the ship....

I explained that, since being at Saint James in Black Mountain, I had discovered an entirely new material for use in acoustic instruments: carbon fiber.  After years of not being able to play the Celtic Harp (in Ireland, of all places!), I looked around and found an instrument builder right under my nose (well, just south of Asheville):  Heartland Harps is the name of the company.  At Notre Dame, I played a Dilling Model Harp, constructed partly of rock maple.  Weight: more than 48 lbs.  Heartland's instrument, a thirty-six string, 52-inch beauty's weight: just under 11 lbs.  And it's sound is truly remarkable.

By now I'm deep into discussion with my new guitar friend at the wedding reception, and he describes a builder in County Donegal – who creates nothing but carbon fiber guitars.  God must've been laughing, because we had just recently been in that beautiful, northwestern corner of Ireland, but had never heard of such a place.  The name of the company: Emerald Guitars.  So I started doing my research, and what I found online was nothing short of remarkable.  

The instruments are designed to have the depth of sound whose equivalent would come from, say, a dreadnought guitar built by Martin, Gibson, and others.  They have onboard electronics as well, allowing the player to plug directly into an amp (or a house system) without a microphone.  

And because they are built of carbon fiber, they are just about indestructible.  No cracking of wood, no fears of too much or too little humidity, which translates into ease of tuning.  

But it is the sound of the instrument that is the most compelling feature.  After researching video after video, I came away with reviews from guitar nerds that were superlative – every one of them surprised that such a massive, rich sound could come from such a design.

In my next installment, I'm going to go into detail about this discovery from the land of my ancestors.  As you can see from the photo here, this instrument ushers in a whole new concept of both guitar building and acoustic sensitivities.  

Dear John (Henry Newman)

Newman University Church, 87a St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

Dear John,

For five years, you and I had a morning ritual.  By virtue of living next door to the church built with your own funds, I would quietly enter by way of the sacristy, grab the church keys, and head out to the vestibule to open the front doors.  Sometimes I was surprised by what I encountered on the front stoop: homeless Dubliners, occasional sleeping bags, trash from the previous evening's revelers.  And then, after tidying up the entryway, I would head back into the nave of the church.

Often I would take a few minutes to simply sit in a pew, wrapped in solitude, and study your face, carved in marble and quietly presiding from your alcove about halfway down the aisle.  And equally as often, as I looked upon you, I always thought that you were carrying some great burden; your face appeared stoic, grimacing at the task you had been appointed to do.

You had reason for such a countenance.  You were sent over to Ireland as a converted Brit (that, in and of itself, would be a recipe for disaster amongst such a tribe).  You were commissioned to start an Irish Catholic University in a country that was still under the heel of the British Empire, and still coping with a population exodus, the result of widespread famine.  You were advocating higher education in a country that had been deprived of both letters and her own language.  No wonder for the look on your face, as noble as it was, and that it bore the shadow scars of torment and disappointment.

You left Ireland a failure as well, at least in terms of the judgments of your contemporaries.  The Catholic University of Ireland never came to fruition the way you had hoped.  In the end, you had to retreat back to England, where even there, you were shunned by some because of your conversion to the Catholic faith.

But John – the seeds you planted!  What you began on St. Stephen's Green is now commonly acknowledged to be start of Ireland's largest university, University College Dublin (UCD).  The lectures you delivered, which came to be known as "The Idea of a University," have only increased in their amplitude since you first gave them.  Your poetry has found its way into prayer books throughout the world.  (Indeed, it was one of those poem/prayers, "Lead, Kindly Light" that urged me to get to know you more than forty years ago).

So after five years of our little morning meditations together, it came as a total surprise to me that, when attending a wedding last weekend and looking up at that familiar marble bust, I saw the wee hint of a smile.  Not overt, mind you.  But undeniably there.  

Was it because I was sitting in a spot where I usually didn't perch, catching you from a different angle?  Was it the lighting of the day?  I think not for either of these excuses.  Rather, I believe, that after many long years, the fruits of your labour were finally becoming manifest, and that from your eternal reward you could, at last, utter your Nunc Dimitis.

There was no doubt in my mind that I caught the slightest, and yet perceptible, smile upon your face.  And how could you not?  Over the past month, the church was throbbing with life and promise and energy from the weddings of two committed, faith-filled couples.  And those were only the ones I knew of.  

There is reason here to rejoice.

So John, keep this little church of yours blessed with your continued advocacy.  We of the University of Notre Dame, along with parishioners and many other people, have thrown ourselves into the vision of what you created more than one hundred and fifty years ago.  Keep leading us, John.... leading us toward the kindly Light.

Scotland and the Second Yes

A few weeks ago, I had written about a married couple that, years ago (1988) had become a critical support for the tours of the Notre Dame Folk Choir.  That "yes" by two very charitable, gracious people led to more than a generation of pilgrimages to Ireland.

But the story wouldn't be complete unless we cross the Irish Sea, and examine our travels and spiritual trajectory in Scotland.  And once again, it was a married couple that opened up the doors to a country and a culture.  I write about them because they were the guiding hand to our journey to Iona over the past few days.

The year was 2007 and out of the blue one day, on the campus of Notre Dame, I received an inquisitive email from someone across the pond.  Her name was Maureen Bruce, and at the time she was working with a small choir in the suburbs of Edinburgh.  Somehow, she had gotten her hands on the score for Psalm 104: Send Forth Your Spirit, O Lord.  She was taking a chance, and (so she thought) being rather forward in asking, but by any chance was I the chap who had written this piece of music?

What then commenced was a rather extraordinary exchange of messages.  I conveyed that I was, indeed, the lunatic behind the song; I also explained that our choir was coming over to Ireland the following year, and might she be interested in a crowd of Yanks invading her parish?

To say Maureen was "gobsmacked" by this proposal would be rather accurate.  But once again, doors began to open.  Her parish at the time (Saint Kentigern's) became a base of operations and a hub of liturgical music for our days in Edinburgh.  It was also on this journey to Scotland that a formative ministry was hatched within the choir's circle – the notion of a postgraduate year or two of service in the field of music and ministry.  Inspired, in part, by the encouragements of Carolyn Pirtle, then a member of our ensemble, that program became known as Teach Bhríde, the House of Brigid.  It is still alive and a vital part of Newman University Church's operations in Dublin – now a fifteen year old program.

This second "yes" led to even more relationships – with the archdiocesan offices of Edinburgh; with the Sisters of Mercy (who faithfully fed hundreds of people a day in the downtown area); with Greyfriars Kirk; with the men and women who continued to cultivate Ecumenical dialogue, encouraged by the Church of Scotland; with St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral; and finally, with Broombridge's Church of St. Joseph, an incredible community committed to bringing the faith to many marginalized people in the area.  Each time we visited, there were beautiful evenings of song and dance, and as always, the welcome of host families.

As you are wont to say, Maureen: "Lang may yer lum reek!"  May your own commitment to the Church bring you a personal sense of joy and reward.  You assured, in your own humble way, the successful visits, over more than a decade, of dozens of college evangelists – an achievement that would challenge an entire staff to accomplish.

We were honored to be in your company on our first pilgrimage to Iona.  And no better companions than you and your good spouse.

When the Old Bones Speak

Iona Abbey Church, Isle of Iona, Argyle, Scotland

Call me crazy, but my approach to creating music in a church is rooted in several realities, all working at the same time.  The first, and probably the most interior, is a prayerful spirit – a sense of watchfulness, humility, and focus on listening.  The second, which is blatant and obvious, is musical and technical skill.  I wonder if many musicians have this as their sole criteria.  It would be lamentable if such were the case.

The third consideration for me is much more subtle.  Yet for the artist, I would venture that it is probably just as important as the ones mentioned above.  It is also, to my mind, the more slippery to put into words – in fact, sometimes bordering on the ineffable.  

For when an organist or a guitarist or a violinist or even a vocalist creates music in a sacred space, they are always working with two instruments.  The first is obvious, whether it be under their hands or coming from their vocal chords.  But the second instrument is the room itself, because the room speaks, responds, gives assent (or not, depending on many things, including acoustics).  One can approach this scientifically, by simply analyzing reverberation time, the surfaces involved, the kinds of music chosen for the space.  But I prefer another way – an encounter, a dialogue, between what is being created and what is being reflected back.

And so it was that, unlooked for, I was invited to play guitar for one of the Evening Prayer services at Iona.  The summer Director of Music is a person I've long admired – Sally Ann Morris, from, of all places, North Carolina!  We had an unexpected, happy reunion in that ancient church; I had no idea that she was there as a summer sabbatical.  Sally asked me if I would contribute on the guitar that evening.  

I had no instrument, but one was to be provided.  It's an enormous church, and the congregation seemed to appear out of nowhere – both evenings that we were in attendance there were close to two hundred people in the nave of the church.  And so some sort of acoustic amplification was also needed for such a group.  The electronic solution was simple; a pair of wireless lavalier microphones clipped onto a music stand.  

But when I began playing, the old bones of the church seemed to rise up and respond.  I played a medley to begin with – moving fluidly from an English folk tune to a Welsh one (Kingsfold to Ar Hyd Y Nos).  As I played, I got the undeniable feeling that the church itself was listening, assisting, rejoicing.  For this is a place consecrated to Celtic ways, and the selections I chose were deliberate, an homage to the spirituality and legacy of the place.

At the close, for meditation as the congregation dispersed, I played yet another medley, this time wedding together two contemporary pieces: first, from their resident composer, John Bell, came Take, O Take Me As I Am, probably one of Iona's best-loved pieces.  Wedded to this was Kathleen Thomerson's I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light, which seemed appropriate to the dispersing of the community into the evening dusk.

I played in a church whose footprints go back one thousand, five hundred years.  I listened to her responding back to me.  I had a song to offer, and she had one to share in response.  

Such is the world of those of us who create music, who listen for the Old Bones to rise up and speak to us anew.

The Abbey that Refused to Be Forgotten

Iona Abbey Church, Isle of Iona, Argyle, Scotland

If there has been one humbling thing about this journey thus far (well, there have been many, though!), it's the realization that, as a pilgrim from America, we are just young 'uns.  There have been visits through castles one thousand years old, hikes along the way that monks traversed fifteen hundred years ago, crossings of the water by ferry that, in another age, would've been life or death propositions.

So when we crossed the threshold of Iona Abbey's Church, it was important to understand just how old were the bones of the place.

Saint Columba founded the monastery in 563 (do the math in terms of how ahead of his time was this man in terms of the civilization of Europe).  It did not take long for this foundation to become a hub of industry, education, art, and most important – prayer.  Any doubt about this legacy to a continent and its culture can be explored in Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization.

But a place of industry and success also becomes a place of potential gain for others, and such was the case when, about 200 years after Columba, the first Viking raid took place on Iona.  Three such raids took place; the second one, in the early ninth century, saw the slaughter of more than 60 of the community (the beach on Iona where this took place is now called Martyr's Bay).  

The church that we entered is not what Columba had created; by the early 13th century it had changed hands of several Scandinavian lords, but then Benedictines were invited to rebuild, and to do so over the ruins of what Columba had originally brought to life.  And then, once more, a raid took place – this time not by Vikings, but by Irish bishops who were laying claim to Columba's legacy.

Centuries past, but not before the Abbey, once again, was rebuilt – this time by the Macdonalds clan.  Then came another raid, but not by Vikings.  With the Scottish Reformation, most of the abbeys were broken up, their artwork and libraries scattered to the four winds.

Which brings us nearly to the present time.  A visionary Presbyterian minister from Glasgow, the Rev. George MacLeod, was convinced that his ministry wasn't reaching his congregations.  Considered to be the founder of the present-day Iona Community, he set out to rebuild the long abandoned church.  His efforts still go on... and even though it remains one of the more challenging places in the world to reach, on the days we were there we met people from Kentucky, from the Carolinas, and from all over Europe.  

Iona has now created a worldwide community of prayer. Even in my own parish in North Carolina, we use the music of their congregation.  What a remarkable legacy, all of which began with a monk in a leather boat, one thousand, five hundred years ago.  May we never falter when our turn comes to face the questions and challenges of the sea....