Preacher

I asked the band Director if I could switch from the tuba to the French horn. 

“Sure,” he said, unenthusiastically. I followed him to a closet at the back of the band room. He rummaged around and dug up a beat-up case containing a dented horn. “Here,” he said. “Take it home and try it out.” I felt like I had been given the keys to the kingdom. 

I put it in the bathtub, cleaning and polishing it as best as I could. I took it to my room and put the mouthpiece to my lips. “Splat.” 

Each day after school, I tried without success to make the sound I heard on the Vaughan Williams record. My parents saw my determination and set me me up with a graduate student at the University named Stanton Falling for lessons.

Stanton was a Native American with wild black hair like a mad scientist. Sheets of music lay scattered around his living room. He lived and breathed French horn. I took a seat beside him on a kitchen chair. 

“Listen,” he said. He played a single note. It began as a whisper, with no waver. It grew to be an unbearable presence, then slowly diminished and disappeared. I was in awe. It was like watching the sun rise and set.

“Now,” he said, “You try.”

“Splat.” The sound seemed stuck in the horn. 

Stanton made me put down the horn and taught me how to breath. “The sound doesn’t come from the horn,” he said. “It comes from you.”

Over the next six months, I got better. My parents rewarded my effort with a brand new, professional grade horn. Light reflected off the flawless tubes. I put it to my lips. It made that glorious sound. 

In the evenings, my mother accompanied me on the piano. Soon, we were playing at church. I entered school competitions and won. My senior year, I was a finalist in our community orchestra’s Young Artist Competition, which meant I got to perform with the symphony. 

I wish everyone had the chance, at least once in their life, to be accompanied by a symphony. The sound of a piano is lovely, but there is no escaping the fact that it is a percussion instrument. The strings are struck by things called “hammers.” No matter how gently you press the keys, every note is an attack and a decay.

In an orchestra, each note is produced by a human being playing their own instrument. The notes ebb and flow with their own unique timbre. To be accompanied by a symphony orchestra is like bouncing on a cloud with angels.

But the horn is a notoriously difficult instrument. What if I got up in front of all those people and splatted? What would the reviewer write in the paper? I put on Bachman Turner Overdrive’s Taking Care of Business and turned it up as loud as I could stand it. 

Takin’ care of business, every day
Takin care of business, every way…

I forced myself to tune this out and focus on the sound of the horn. It worked. The night of the concert, I was able to ignore my fear. I placed the horn to my lips and blew. Out came that glorious sound. It filled the auditorium and echoed off the walls. I was Gabriel, proclaiming wonders in the universal language.

Not long after this, Pastor Ashley asked if I would like to preach. This was an even greater honor than winning the Young Artist Competition. The preacher is God’s spokesman. His job it is to turn written word into living Word. It was my chance to help people to feel what I felt; for God to to be as real to them as he was to me. I stepped into the pulpit and looked out on a sea of friendly faces. I opened my mouth and began to preach.
They were smiling. Listening. Maybe the message was inspired. Maybe it was a novelty to see a young person preaching. Maybe they sensed how deeply I felt what I was saying. However, it happened, it worked. It was like the Young Artist concert, that same wonderful feeling of bringing heaven to earth. 

Imagine if this was my job; to study the Bible and help others make a connection with God? How could I do anything else? I majored in music and set my sights on seminary.