"The Lost (and Found) Chord" | Walden Moore | November 23, 2023
When Joe asked me to give this meditation today I found myself somewhat at a loss as to what I should focus upon. Goodness knows that I have no shortage of things for which to be thankful. I am surrounded in this very congregation today and in this place by many of the people and things for which I regularly give thanks for having them in my life. I’ve known the physical place that is Trinity for forty five years, and have gotten to know the people who dwell in and around it over the intervening years. It is, and always will be, a home and haven for me, and for my soul.
Last night I sat at the organ in a quiet and calm church, on an evening when most folks were at home making preparations for their Thanksgiving or traveling to join others, finishing my preparations for this service, for a funeral service that I will play on Saturday, and for the Sunday morning services. The need to prepare this meditation was very much onmy mind as time for its creation was getting short and I still didn’t really have my focus. Suddenly, as I sat there, the poem The Lost Chord came to mind. That lovely work, authored by British poet Adelaide Anne Procter, was made eternally famous when Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame set it to music. Sullivan had tried to do so several times without success, but as he sat at his terminally ill brother Fred’s bedside, he finally found the inspiration to write the music that would match these moving words and it has become a favorite of generations. I share those words with you here as I have experienced so much of what is described therein in this hallowed place:
Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
I know not what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.
It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ,
And entered into mine.
It may be that death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in Heav'n
I shall hear that grand Amen.
I realized last night, seated at the organ, that the things for which I give fervent thanks are intertwined with many people and events in this place. Mine is the Lost and Found Chord, which then made me think of our Rachel Segger who has helped me with both chorister recruitment and chorister and family management over the years. Often these blessings are in my thoughts as I am seated at the organ, or when I am conducting a choir rehearsal. I give regular thanks for having two such wonderful bosses as Andy Fiddler and Luk De Volder these forty years. It’s hard to calculate how many hundreds or even thousands of hours I have spent in this church, creating music together with others or alone at this magnificent organ which has formed my playing style in a way that will never leave me. How lucky I am to have had the opportunity to connect with generations of singers and their families, and with Trinity parishioners. Were it not for a former Trinity Organ Scholar, Nancy Shearer Ludwig, the very first Scholar (who recently was ordained a priest), I likely would not have applied for the position of Organ Scholar here that likely led to my eventually becoming Director of Music. The story behind that is for another day. Were it not for the kindness and encouragement of Joe Dzeda, in whose home I stayed my first night in New Haven when I came for my Trinity Church audition, and who, as we sat talking in his comfortable apartment, described his love for this place we call Trinity, I might have ended up in one of the other area organist positions that were open to incoming Yale ISM students.
It is seated at the organ that I get to experience the wonderful singing of this congregation as we raise our voices and the roof of this venerable old building in the timeless words of the hymnwriters. We’ve already done that together this morning – if we had simply read aloud the words for Come ye thankful people, come or We gather together, would it have had the impact that it did when we sang our hearts out within these walls that have heard and seen so much, both joyful and sad? And we’ll do it again in the closing hymn Now thank we all our God. Let’s see how much noise this crowd can make, accompanied by this fine instrument that Mr. G. Donald Harrison gave us 88 years ago in 1935 and with which we can still sing to this day as it is so lovingly cared for by Joe and his colleagues. I give thanks.
Being in this church at this place in New Haven, we are not isolated in a bubble. We are surrounded by a community made up of people at many different places in their life. It is our privilege as a church to hold up a light in the community where one is often needed. This past Tuesday night, after I completed my last rehearsal at 9 pm and Kyle Picha and I were closing up to leave the building, we started to leave via the Chapel Street side door after turning on the alarm. It was raining outside and, in the doorway, underneath Duo’s “rooflet” as we call it, was a woman with her belongings gathered around her for warmth and security. She was huddled against the cold rain, trying to stay dry under the shelter the rooflet provided. She started to move but Kyle and I signaled her to stay. We went around to the front door to exit and then back down the side of the church to where the woman was huddled. We chatted with her for a few moments before heading off to the Crown Street Garage where my car was parked. Kyle and I were headed off to our warm homes and this woman was doing the best she could for her night’s rest. I gave thanks for the blessings of shelter and food that I have always had, and I gave thanks for the example of perseverance and love that this woman showed. I hope that in my retirement years I can do even a bit more to give time to help some of these good folks I have seen in the decades that I have been here at Trinity.
And remember Adelaide Anne Procter, the author of The Lost Chord? While she was a well respected poet, her work didn’t get the recognition it deserved in her own time. I give thanks that, in more recent years, it has been my privilege to be a part of bringing to the fore the work of underserved composers and authors – a work that has often been led by a few of our former Organ Scholars. Our Sunday anthem selections and our upcoming Christmas Concert are a part of this evolution. And our Organ Scholars – those whose names are listed on a plaque in the hallway behind me – I give thanks that I have had a chance to be a part of the lives of these folks, many of who now serve in churches across America and, now, in Britain.
Though I will only be seated at this organ and in front of these choirs for another seven months or so, there will be much time to reflect on what we have done together, and what still must be done. We will give thanks together for the opportunities that we have had. I am grateful for the recognition being given my work here at Trinity, though we all know that work has only been possible with the hard work of others. And it is in the future, both for me and for this community, that the true depth of what we have done will be measured. I give thanks for the opportunity that has been mine to serve in this place but I have only been the incumbent steward of a work that has been ongoing for generations and, God willing, will go on for many more. Through our singing together, through the relationships that are built in choirs, through the work that those choirs do that goes far beyond anyone’s awareness, what we have done will continue to be what is done. I give thanks that I have been a part of this community and will always be thinking of what will continue in this place we share, whether I am physically present or not.
God has given us this place and has called us to be God’s hands on this earth. We’ll do it with song, we’ll do it with our daily works. And in those times when we falter, may the voice of the music we hear and make remind us of the real work at hand – the love that we are called to share with each other and the world, as best we can. And for this privilege, especially – I give thanks.