While on vacation the last two weeks, I very much enjoyed the opportunity to worship with churches where I was not required to be on or up front. Both Sundays I was away, we worshipped with a St. James; St. James, Hendersonville, NC, and St. James, Lancaster, PA. The latter is my home parish, and while I wasn’t there in person, I enjoyed worshipping from my living room the morning after we returned from our travels. St. James in Hendersonville was an enjoyable Sunday morning in a beautiful church with friendly people. It was our first time visiting, and I’m glad we were able to worship there.

My Livestream participation in the liturgy of St. James, Lancaster was special, not just because I grew up there and spent my first three years of ordained ministry there, but because this was the Sunday they were decommissioning the church’s organ. I decided I wanted to watch from afar rather than attend another church closer to home. It was most definitely the right choice for me.

My love of organ music is the direct result of that instrument and those who have played it. In my lifetime I can say, conservatively, that I have heard that organ played more than 10,000 times, if I count up all the hymns, postludes, concerts and such that I experienced from the time I was in my first year of life. It will be some time before I can say that a minority of the Sundays in my life were spent in that sanctuary listening to that organ. For now, that space and that organ represent nearly two-thirds of my Sunday morning experiences. Put in those terms, it’s understandable (to me) that I felt some real emotion as the organ was prayed over and played for the final time on Sunday.

Music, church music, in particular, has been a big part of my life, particularly my formative years. I’ve written about Frank McConnell (Mr. McConnell, as we called him), the organist who played at St. James for more than 50 years, in a previous rambling.  His time on the organ bench covered more than 48 years of this organ’s 72-year lifespan. Like the humans who play them, organs have life spans, too. Depending on the instrument, they can be repaired and reworked, but at some point, the work becomes near replacement, especially when it involves electronics to make the pipes work correctly. This particular organ was rebuilt once and rehabilitated at least once, and was to the point where it would need near complete rebuilding again. It was getting harder to keep in good working order for a reasonable investment of money. The team that studied the options decided to make the switch to a digital instrument.  

Digital organs, while they have improved tremendously in quality in the last 10-20 years, will always lack something to certain ears. Digital organs also have some upsides that appealed to St. James, too. They will be reclaiming a significant amount of space left by the removal of pipes. As a land-locked historic building, space for a growing congregation is precious. And, as St. James has continued to expand their musical horizons on Sundays and for special services, the digital organ will give them options for sounds they cannot get otherwise. When the congregation does hear the sounds of a pipe organ, it will be a series of recordings of real-world pipes from somewhere, but it will not be the unique, soulful sound of the particular instrument I grew up with. That is a real and genuine loss to be grieved, and so I do.  

This is not to say I don’t support the parish in its efforts. While grieving the end of the life of this organ, I also rejoice with the parish for the new era that awaits with a new instrument that will draw people to praise God for decades to come. Many years from now, when that instrument reaches the limits of its lifespan, it will likely be grieved, too, I have no doubt. Things change and die, and there is often new life and new growth. I think there’s some theme like that in scripture…  I wrote to the Rector at St. James after the service, to thank him for the pastoral approach he took as the organ was decommissioned. There was an acknowledgment of the family that donated the organ, memorials associated with its life, those who played it, and its central role in worship for such a long period.  

I pulled out my phone and made a recording of the postlude as it was played via Livestream this Sunday. It was the same piece played at the dedication of the organ in 1948; Improvisation on “Now Thank We All Our God,” by Sigfrid Karg-Elert. I don’t know how often I’ll revisit it, but it’s nice to know I captured just a bit of sound from the instrument that I sang with so many times; the instrument that played at both my grandparents’ funerals, at my confirmation and ordination, at my wedding, and at the baptism of my eldest. The gift of music on such occasions is both fleeting and eternal.  As the strains die away, they do not leave us forever. We carry them with us, even now.  I know I do, and I will.  

Tom+

Now thank we all our God, 
with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, 
in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms 
has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love,
and still is ours today.O may this bounteous God 
through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts 
and blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace,
and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, 
in this world and the next!All praise and thanks to God 
the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns 
with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, 
whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, 
and shall be evermore.  Amen.