Prodigal Songs
Because your story is forever changing, you must sing forever.
Because you are not who you were, and because you shall not be who you are now, you must sing forever.
Because your voice is like no other voice,
Because your voice and your voice and your voice and your voice and my voice comprise the uncompromising strength that is our voice,
And because with your singing, our singing is miles wider…
You must sing forever.
It was three and a half years ago when Unitarian Universalists changed my life.
I was the newly-appointed director of music for the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor. It was one of my very first Sundays, every step filled with that particular mix that comes with doing anything new—a combination of billowing excitement mixed perfectly with sheer terror. Every name a new melody to learn, each conversation a new composer’s duet, each moment an immersion course in a new language. I was learning to speak the dialect of the congregation, learning with each new morsel that this was not at all like the churches of my childhood.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to a lot of different churches. I was the poster child for the term “church kid.” I grew up in churches that loved and nurtured me sincerely throughout my childhood and offered me opportunities in music and leadership for which my family could never have afforded to pay. And in return, I served the church zealously. I was the boy in every Christmas play at Hemingway Temple A.M.E. Church, taking on the complexities of such roles as Joseph, or “Man at Christmas party,” or Sheep #2. I was president of the Young People’s Department and parliamentarian-in-training of the Lay Organization, Sunday school pianist and substitute teacher, church pianist, assistant minister of music, director of music, lay preacher, president of the junior usher board, vice-president of the children’s choir…though not all at the same time. Church had become the center of my living.
In the crime-ridden community that was my home, church was a crucial element to my success—a safe space to hone my talents as a student and a musician. In my later teen years, I began work as a music minister around my hometown of Baltimore, consulting with preachers, guest preaching for increasingly larger congregations and setting on the path to reach my life’s great goal—pastoring a huge church where thousands would come and find their lives transformed and renewed by the power of innovative worship. And, in my teenage years, every aspect of my life had been propelling me to that goal with a remarkable clarity…with one HUGE exception.
In those years, the conversation of religion (specifically Christianity) about its relationship to homosexuality was gaining considerable attention in churches with large black populations. The deep, throaty baritone of preachers proclaiming homosexuality to be the sin that will bankrupt our moral society ran like the brooding soundtrack of a film that had just taken its most dangerous turn. I had certainly been taught that the upright man marries a woman, and I largely ignored the notion that I did not fit that mold. But by the time I had become a teenager, this previously dormant topic had risen to center stage on pulpits, on Christian television programs and even in conversations among congregants. Time and again we were scolded that “that lifestyle” (being anything but heterosexual) would guarantee an eternity in hell, that this “choice” would cause even God to turn away. I wrestled with the notion that this part of me, the gay part, could destroy the dreams I had for a successful life.
But the secret that I thought I held was, I would soon learn, not much of a secret at all. Pastors would offer me books on overcoming same-sex temptations, seeming to bargain with me. “It’s not being gay that’s the issue. God simply wants you to turn away from acting on those impulses,” the cleric would send to my ear with a chilling insistence. Members of my church family would pull me aside, awkwardly dancing at the questions to which I had no answers, volunteering me to stand in the center of circles of praying clergy and fellow churchgoers. They shouted at that “evil spirit of homosexuality,” that “demon” who was set to have my soul for its own. And there I stood—outwardly bruised, inwardly defiant, entirely bewildered.
Well, I left Baltimore (or should I say, fled that place) for Nashville, Tennessee. I began college and took what amounted to a three-year vacation from church. I wanted desperately to shed any evidence of the fire through which I had run. That tiny dorm room became my church, a sanctuary from the noise. And in the quiet, I mustered the courage to come out as a gay man. If the church wouldn’t have all of me, it would have none of me, I thought. I dodged friends’ invitations to church quickly and decisively, remembering vividly what I had left in Baltimore and believing that the church had nothing more to offer me. They all offered the same deal, right? “I love you, you’re perfect, now change.” I had become a spiritual hermit, a loner, content to spend my Sunday napping or taking church jobs to pay the bills while practicing sight-reading during the sermon—an act of defiance of which I had become particularly proud. My spiritual life had become a jaded reflection, a bitter taste, a bad breakup, a nightmare from which I had woken and fled.
When I moved from Nashville to Ann Arbor, the acrid defiance I had harbored for the church had cooled a bit…enough for me to give church one more chance. An internet search of “Ann Arbor church musician” turned up several listings, but only one I hadn’t heard of before. This growing curiosity led me to the source of all truth, Wikipedia, to look for “Unitarian Universalism.” “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Yeah, right. “The inherent worth and dignity of every person”? I walked into the room on that morning, early in my new appointment, with more than a small share of curiosity. Are these people really who they say they are? Or is it all the same?
And Allison began to play the warm, optimistic chords that began the morning hymn. A hymn with a delightfully catchy melody and an all too intriguing title: “We are a gentle, angry people and we are singing for our lives.” I had taken time over the weekend to study the hymn as I’d prepared to lead it, but it was not until we were there—live—singing it, that I noticed that the author penned a fifth verse on the next page. And all at once, the voices of the congregation fused into a powerful intonation, proclaiming in no uncertain terms: “We are gay and straight together, and we are singing for our lives.” I looked deeply into the faces around me, looking for some hint of shock or timidity over having to sing those words…those scandalous, scandalous words.
But that look yielded a surprising picture—young people and older people singing, “We are gay and straight together.” Black and white and latino and middle eastern people singing, “We are gay and straight together.” Lawyers and musicians, students and preachers singing, “We are gay and straight together.” They sang those words with strength in a nation battling marriage equality. They sang with strength in a world whose progress is crippled by hatred and bigotry. In a nation of Matthew Shepard, they sang a song I had never heard before. What came out of the sanctuary was made of the determination and resolve that says to a young gay man, “There is another way.” They sang to me and they changed my life.
I am one of many people whose lives have been affected deeply by that music. I am one of many who have found strength in the sound, and been renewed by the solidarity that springs out from our body’s music. Our bodies create music to soothe us, to comfort us, to pass time, but there is even greater potential. When we have the courage to lift up our voices, to clap our hands in time, to sway or to dance, we offer the world a music like no one else’s. You have a voice that no one else will ever possess, a rhythm that is so special because only you live in it. When you sing, you offer an uncompromising gift of yourself to a universe begging to hear more.
We can truly, easily be ourselves when we sing, and I think that’s what scares many of us (myself very much included) from singing more. When our bodies make music we are loud and we are quiet, we are in tune and not quite, we are robust and piercing, thin and fragile, unrelenting and unsure. I get the same pit-of-the-stomach feeling every time I must sing, every time a rehearsal begins, every time a worship service starts with a song. But I think of those moments that my congregation sang to me. I remember the courage of those words and I remember that within me lies the same power to sing strength and hope into the lives of those with whom I share my music, and it becomes less and less important whether or not I am afraid.
The courage of conviction attained in singing has powered humanity’s greatest struggles for political justice, social equality and religious freedom. These struggles have been sustained and powered by the music inside human beings. When my congregation sang that song with clarity and with pride, they reignited the same strength of song that poured into the streets of Montgomery, Alabama, as hundreds of civil rights supporters joined voices to sing, “I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” Within that singing beat the pulse of a people who had spent too long bearing the weight of racist oppression and disenfranchisement. Within that singing rang the determination of Americans all over this nation to wrest equality from the jaws of resistance. Still they sang: “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around…” And forward they marched.
To sing is to give voice to your self. It is to allow the body’s innermost aspirations to have space to speak with color and with inspiration. When you sing, your sound is rich with your history and your opinions, your heritage and your hopes. And so you must sing. We need your voice. And because your story is forever changing, because your voice is like no other voice, and because your voice and your voice and your voice and my voice comprise the uncompromising strength that is our voice, because through our singing we save lives, we must sing always.
Dr. Rideout worked as assistant conductor for the University of Michigan Chamber Choir in the Grammy-nominated recording of Darius Milhaud’s opera trilogy, Orestie Eschyle. His work with community choruses has been recognized and supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012, patrons David and Nancy Lyman endowed the Glen Thomas Rideout Vocal Scholarship for aspiring musicians attending the University of Michigan’s MPulse Summer Institute.
Dr. Rideout is choir director for the 2016 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, music director for the worship service of Church of the Larger Fellowship, and Sunday morning worship liturgist.
- god is no noun - June 1, 2016
- Prodigal Songs - October 1, 2011
I am moved and inspired.