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December 24 Remembering Bill ApplingBill Appling, my high school music teacher, died on August 29, 2008. He was much beloved by his students largely because he was so hard on us. He didn't just teach singing, he demanded rigor and respect for the music, thereby planting the seeds for our self-respect.
I remember one time his students had been invited to the Pioneer Women's Club luncheon to provide pleasant background music while tea was served and the club members encouraged to donate to the school. Once Bill realized the plan was not to hold a brief performance with full attention of the attendees, he led the students out, giving no explanation to the organizers who had failed to respect the music.
I was not then and am not now much of a singer. I'm not sure why he let me continue to thrash my way through Glee Club, and I always felt a certain disappointment from him. I represented much of what my high school valued: academic achievement, athletic performance, and noteworthy college placement. I worked hard, really hard, to make these things happen, and though I tried with music it was before Bill that I found my limits. Perhaps he thought I could have tried harder, and it saddened him to see in my example how music did not have equal footing with academics and sports, both in my school and in much of the wider world. So maybe he let me continue singing because he took pity on me: when I was 14 he rearranged Away in a Manager so that my crackling puberty voice only had to hit three notes. But perhaps even more, he liked to see how the things the mighty valued - academic and athletic achievement - could be humbled before the power of music.
And it was powerful. When we sang negro spirituals - swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home - the history of the underground railroad came alive in a way no book or class could match. I gained a small ability to empathize with the experiences of African-Americans in my hometown of Oakland, California, or even why my African-American music teacher in small-town Ohio could be so prickly in the face of an administration that failed to give the proper respect to music.
My favorite times singing were, and are, at Christmas. Each year Bill brought down a few friends, professional singers, from Cleveland to join his students in carols, The Messiah, and hymns, all sung before our school and local community in a little brick chapel cocooned in silent snow. I carry these memories deep in my heart, and have drawn on them in tough times: when my little girl Amelia was slowly dying from a heart defect shortly after her birth, fear shadowing her hallowed eyes, I unconsciously started to sing a lullaby to soothe her just before the surgery that saved her life - Away in a manger, no crib for a bed/the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head. Nearly two decades after I last saw or spoke to Bill, his music and his memory are still there when most needed, helping to carry me home.
  December 20 Merry Christmas 2008With snow on the ground and ice on the streets, it feels very wintry in Seattle and perfect for Christmas. We are counting our blessings, especially the continuing growth of Zack and Amelia, who were joined this year by Cormac. May your lives be equally full, and we wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. December 16 We joined University Presbyterian ChurchJulia and I officially joined University Presbyterian Church on Sunday. We like the traditions (especially the choir, organist, and hymns), and the pastors who present scholarly sermons to full pews of people covering all stages of life (youths, students, families, retirees). It's a vibrant and supportive community, in that typically low-key, stoic and Protestant way.
My upbringing wasn't religious: my dad's experience with what he saw as the intolerance and anti-Darwinism of his Southern Baptist upbringing cured him of any desire to attend church past junior high school. So why did I join?
Julia and I are on the road now with our three children. It feels good to be members and to have committed to a group of fellow travelers.
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