Sing Boldly

A Reflection on the Occasion

of a Memorial Service for

Jeannette Gilberta Dalgliesh

May 16, 2015

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC

Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

SING BOLDLY

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan Monk, Teacher, and Mystic puts out a daily reflection, and last week he was talking about the Desert Fathers (Abbas) and Mothers (Ammas) who in the 4^th Century moved out from the cities seeking a simpler life in the desert where they thought they might be closer to God. They found that the simpler life was not about being in the geography of a desert but about being able to focus without distraction on what we are doing in everyday life. Rohr relates:

An old abba was asked what was necessary to do to be saved. He was sitting making rope. Without glancing up, he said, "You're looking at it." Just as so many of the mystics have taught us, doing what you're doing with care, presence, and intention is prayer, the very way to transformation and wholeness.  As other master teachers have taught in many forms, "When we walk, we walk; when we chop wood, we chop wood; when we sleep, we sleep." As you know, this is much harder than it first seems.

Gilberta had learned music as a way of life from her father, an organist – a true musician whom she adored, for he believed the words of St. Augustine, “To sing is to pray twice.” She did not live in the desert, but she prayed when she sang. When she sang, she sang as a form of prayer, to be connected to God. She sang not just hymns, but all songs had an element of praise of God and she sang with her whole being into the song. I talked to a long time acquaintance who was with her in doing Bell Ringing at St. Andrew’s years ago, and she remembered that same sort of dedication of self in preparation and execution. Sacred music was so important to her because of the early and constant exposure she got from her father. I once told her that new church organists are not graduating all that often now days. She cringed at that remark, wondering if All Saints’ would go down the road with second class music, and she reminded me of how much she had been comforted by Steve Blackstock, our organist and choirmaster’s dedication to fine music.

Her focus could at times be disconcerting for choir directors. Instead of obediently following orders, she would make suggestions on how something might be sung better. Choir rehearsal always took longer because she took it more seriously. She did not do things to get through with them; she did them by entering into them fully. Committee meetings would last a bit longer. If I was still a therapist, I might suspect more than a touch of O.C.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder); but there is a reason I am no longer a therapist - because I found that people need to be encountered not diagnosed. We all must live fully - even into all the brokenness in which we find ourselves. I was influenced by Martin Luther when he wrote to his disciple Philip Melanchthon:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.

When I talked with Gilberta’s daughters about what we wanted the service to look like, they told me that the theme needed to be “Peace, Love and Forgiveness”. Gilberta sang boldly and, as Luther said, we, each of us, are both saints and sinners at the same time. Yes, Gilberta was a sinner and her major sin was being judgmental. Sins are not bad things that we do, but virtues done without love. Love covers all sins, and she was able to come to grips with when she allowed her perfectionism to tromp on people; she was quick to repent. She was sinned against, but she trusted that God’s graceful forgiveness was able to overcome all of our transgressions.

I appreciated Gilberta even at the times when I would sing the service music and her eyes would roll, as she knew I was just getting through the task instead of singing it according to the music. She would come up to me the next week, when she was able to couch her criticism with love, and tell me that I needed to practice more before I did it the next time, but I never seemed to find the time. For her my sin in singing was not being fully present to the music. For Gilberta, making priorities meant time was what you filled, not what you found.

One of the frustrations that Gilberta had in her final illnesses was that she did not have the energy to fill her time. She said that she had lived a full life and did not regret dying; for her, a life that was not to be full with her vital presence and attention was not worth living. She enjoyed life and she did not willingly give it up even when, thirteen years ago, the doctors at Johns Hopkins told her she had cancer, the kind of cancer that is usually fatal. She agreed to some trials and she fought through some very unpleasant stuff - she fought because life on her terms was worth living. She wanted more time to love and to do what she loved.

She sang fully. She could be a pain, but when she sang, she sang boldly. When she loved, she loved boldly. Her kids can tell you everything she had done wrong, but she knew how to love. She lived boldly –so boldly that her doctor from Johns Hopkins had to keep in touch to get hope to do what he was called to do which was to treat people who have the odds stacked against them.

At the center of this woman was her faith and she trusted Christ boldly. If you want to remember Gilberta do four things: (1) Trust Christ boldly, (2) Live boldly, (3) Love boldly, and, especially (4) Sing boldly.