“O Triune God” - Of Jazz and the Sacred

I love jazz because it is so cool, in the purest sense of that word. Uniquely American, jazz is our indigenous music, the progeny of an African-American musical experience that eschewed traditional, classical and popular forms. With jazz, notes are syncopated and bent in a bluesy way, harmonization is freed from the confines of Top 40 pop, the rhythm swings, and melodies take off via creative improvisation that renders the original idea almost unrecognizable. What emerges is an art form that literally liberates the musician and the listener to embrace a much larger musical universe.

To the untrained ear, jazz might seem like a cacophony. What have they done to that melody? This surely can’t be the song they started playing. I think about what Miles Davis did with “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” that innocuous and iconic song from Snow White, the Walt Disney cartoon. The original melody is there in the beginning, played in the oh-so-mellow way that only Miles can do. But then he and his band launch into variations that seem to take the fairy tale song into directions that neither Disney nor the Brothers Grimm ever dreamed possible.

Jazz. You either love it or you don’t get it. That has always been the appeal of jazz for me. I grew up a rock musician with some classical training, which is not as contradictory as it sounds. As a child of the 1960s, I was formed by the music of the Beatles, the Doors, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and other rock groups that seemed to revel in the rebellious abandon of the Boomer generation. This in-your-face brashness was tempered for me by my involvement in sacred music, particularly the traditional music of the Catholic Church: Gregorian chant, polyphony and hymnody.

As a teenager I was especially taken with the groundbreaking 1968 album Switched-On Bach, in which Wendy Carlos performed the great classics of Johann Sebastian Bach on the then-new Moog Synthesizer, giving “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and the Brandenburg Concertos a radical realization that seemed so right for the late 20th century. Because of this album I started listening to traditional performances of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and so many other classical masters, learning something from each composer along the way.

Rock, classical and folk music fed me in my teen years, but another style of music definitely caught my ear because of the Charlie Brown television specials. There was something so mesmerizing about watching Snoopy dance with abandon to the jazz riffs of Vince Guaraldi. I bought the Charlie Brown Christmas album and listened to it repeatedly, even in July. Jazz was definitely in a world unto itself, so different and so cool. I was just starting to get good on the piano, playing in the styles of Paul McCartney and Elton John. But I wanted to also play like Vince Guaraldi and couldn’t figure out how.

Classical musicians have difficulty understanding how a jazz musician can improvise so freely and easily. The performance of a jazz song is different every time. Although jazz musicians do read music — “lead sheets” that feature only melody and chords — this is a far cry from the precisely notated octavos and scores used by classical musicians. Jazz musicians don’t read classical scores but they do know music theory, in their head and in their heart. A jazz musician-in-training has to spend endless hours playing scales and chords IN ALL TWELVE KEYS, memorizing patterns and harmonic approaches that will eventually equip them to improvise and comp (play the basic support for improvisers) with other jazz musicians. It’s a code, a secret code that most people have no patience to learn. Did I mention that all this theory has to be memorized?

I have been trying to crack the jazz code for most of my adult life, with little success until quite recently. It has taken years of listening to records and CDs, attending jazz concerts, studying jazz theory, and even taking a jazz piano course at a community college, and I still don’t have it all down. I admit, I don’t have the time or patience to memorize scales, patterns and chords IN ALL TWLEVE KEYS, but I know enough now to incorporate jazz theory in my sacred music. And that has been my goal all along.

In the 1970s I discovered a marvelous album called Vince Guaraldi: The Grace Cathedral Concert. In 1965, as part of the experimentation in liturgy that was sweeping the country, Bishop James A. Pike and the Rev. C. Julian Bartlett, rector of the cathedral of the Episcopal Church in San Francisco, invited the Vince Guaraldi Trio to perform a jazz Mass at the landmark church. I couldn’t believe my ears. Here was the sacred text of the Anglican liturgy, almost a word-for-word match of the Roman Catholic liturgy, sung by a cathedral choir that was accompanied by the hottest jazz pianist of the decade. This jazzy merging of traditional and contemporary assaulted my soul like nothing before or since. I must have played Guaraldi’s rendition of “Adoro Te Devote” (“Humbly We Adore Thee”) over and over until the record grooves wore down. I was smitten and promised myself that someday, I would make sacred music like this.

Alas, I never became the accomplished jazz musician of my dreams (I’m still working on it) but I did become a liturgical composer. And although I have had success over the years with both liturgical and youth ministry music, I still had a yearning to bring jazz to the liturgy. That opportunity came in 2008 as I was planning tracks for my upcoming Doxology CD.

Doxology was something of a risk for me. People generally know me from the gospel-inspired Mass of Glory and from such upbeat youth ministry songs like “Bless the Lord” and “Holy Spirit.” Doxology would be a way to showcase my love for both contemporary and traditional sacred music, with modern renditions of “O Sanctissima” and “All Hail Adored Trinity.” It was now or never. I realized here was my opportunity to do something with jazz.

For many years, I had been playing a jazz arrangement for the Easter hymn, “Ye Sons and Daughters,” which is based on a haunting medieval chant melody. Notated in modern hymnals in 3/4 time, the tune can be expressed as a jazz waltz and, with the right jazz chords, can really soar. I just needed new words to reflect the Trinity theme of Doxology. Like manna from heaven, I received in the mail new Trinity lyrics by the dear Sister Genevieve Glen, OSB, a noted hymn writer. She used “Ye Sons and Daughters” as a template for her new hymn, “O Triune God.” I thanked Father, Son and Holy Spirit for this gift and submitted my jazz arrangement to the OCP editors, who gave me an enthusiastic green light.

What a jazz combo we assembled at Dead Aunt Thelma’s Studio! I was blessed to work with stellar Portland session musicians: Tim Ellis on guitar, Phil Baker on bass, Mike Snyder on drums, Clark Bondy on saxophone, and the incomparable jazz pianist, Rick Modlin. That summer afternoon session is forever burned in my memory. I gave them the charts and told the guys I wanted something that was both cool and sacred. They delivered in just a couple of takes, staying true to the original hymn tune while improvising creatively. All that was left was the vocals.

I almost fell on the floor when our producer Kevin Walsh informed me that he had successfully recruited Rebecca Kilgore to sing the lead. Are you kidding me? Rebecca Kilgore, the famed jazz singer? I had not realized that she lived in Portland and was rubbing my eyes as she walked into the studio. She nailed it in just a few takes, of course. “Ye Sons and Daughters” is basically a repetitive chant, and Rebecca respected its simplicity while infusing it with her own jazz sensibility.

Does jazz have a place in the sacred liturgy? Do we dare blend the sacred with the secular? I wrote a whole book on this topic: Keep the Fire Burning. Although the book is about the revolution of folk music in liturgy, I believe the same principles apply to jazz. In my next blog I will write more about that. In the meantime, please click here and give “O Triune God” a listen. I hope it helps people expand their horizons on sacred music. Yes, God is very cool indeed.



Rebecca Kilgore and me

Teachers

The death of Mr. Jaime Escalante, teacher extraordinaire, got me thinking about the teachers in my life, and the way they inspired me to come out of my shell and explore new worlds and and experiences.

Teachers are the real heroes of our culture. They are grossly underpaid and seem to derive their fulfillment from their dedication to their students. How many of us owe our lives and our livelihoods to their selflessness?

In the immaturity of my youth, I probably didn’t say "thank you" to my teachers as I should have. There are a handful of educators who really inspired me and shaped me, and this is probably just as good a time as any to express my gratitude. I have no idea where most of these fine women and men are, or even of they are alive. But somehow, through our cosmic interconnectedness, I hope they can know of my gratitude and appreciation.

Miss Anderson was my second grade teacher at Stoner Avenue School in Los Angeles. She was young, pretty and so affirming. She encouraged me to be my best in everything.

Mrs. Holzer was my fourth grade teacher, also at Stoner Avenue. I had her for two semesters at a time when I was bullied by mean classmates, and she encouraged me to always strive for excellence, no matter what anybody else thought.

Sister Maria Goretti, SNJM: I was a latecomer to catechism classes and I made my First Communion in third grade CCD at St. Gerard Majella Parish in Los Angeles. As a public school boy, the Church was a whole new world that intimidated me. Sister Maria Goretti regaled us “unchurched” kids with marvelous stories about Jesus and Mary and the saints and helped me look forward to my First Communion with a fervor that totally transformed my childhood.

Mrs. Pat Presti was my fourth grade catechism teacher at St. Gerard’s. Her faith, her devotion, and her personal interest in me moved me closer to God.

Mr. Thomason was my music teacher at Marina del Rey Junior High School in Los Angeles. I played flute in his orchestra, back when public schools still had the funds for such programs. His dedication to music and to young people, and his good humor, inspired me to pursue music as a career.

Father Peter Diliberto, CM: I felt called to enter Queen of Angels High School Seminary in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a whole new world from my public school experience. Father Diliberto was an excellent teacher of math, a subject I hated in junior high. Somehow, Fr. Diliberto pulled me through the haze of algebra and had me mastering the quadratic equation through two fun semesters. I can still do fractions and proportions to this day.

Monsignor Carl Gerken was music director at Queen of Angels when I was just learning how to play the organ and piano. His enthusiasm for life inspired me to take up liturgical music as my vocation.

Father Peter Nugent also taught music at Queen of Angels and at St. John’s College where I attended after high school graduation. Fr. Nugent was dedicated and no-nonsense, but also friendly. I learned to love Bach and Beethoven and Mozart from his music history classes.

Father Ron Wilkinson, CM: Going off to college in the 1970s was like setting foot on another planet. Fr. Wilkinson taught Freshman writing at St. John’s and he helped me to find my voice as a writer. I never would have even thought of myself as a writer if not for Father’s constant encouragement for all the little short stories and humorous essays I was submitting every week. He also helped me discover the wonderful works of John Steinbeck. My life was never the same after a whole year of Father Wilkinson.

Father George Niederauer (now the archbishop of San Francisco): Before he cultivated his reputation as a statesman for the Catholic Church, Father Niederaurer was a professor of English literature at St. John’s who taught his classes with dry humor and disarming wit. From him I learned of Tolstoy and Faulkner and Hemingway. We read Waiting for Godot and The Great Gatsby and saw the movie The Pumpkin Eater, and my life was all the richer. Later, in post-graduate school, he taught Pastoral Theology and I learned to love the Church even more.

There were several more teachers who inspired me, and the years have played havoc on my memory. I was diagnosed with hearing impairment in first grade and Stoner Avenue School had a special program for “special needs” kids. I honestly cannot remember her name, but I had a once a week hearing-specialist teacher through my six years of grade school who taught me lip reading and conversational skills in such a fun way that I never thought of myself as “handicapped.” I am deeply indebted to this wonderful woman who prepared me to cope with a world that wasn’t always receptive to a near-deaf person.

To all these teachers and to all who guided me though my childhood, my teen years, and my college years: Thank you! I wish I could tell each of you how grateful I am for putting up with me and inspiring me. I owe my success to my dedicated teachers! God bless you all!

Palm Sunday: So Too Must I Die With Him

How quickly the crowd turned against him! On Sunday they were shouting at the top of their lungs, "Blessed are you! Hosanna in the highest!" Now, just five days later, there were cries of "Crucify him!" Yet, this man had done nothing wrong.

The first day of Holy Week perfectly captures this dichotomy. Originally called "Palm Sunday," various liturgical publications now refer to it as "Palm-Passion Sunday," "Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday)," or "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion." So, what exactly do we celebrate on this day?

By whatever designation, Palm Sunday is the final Sunday of Lent and the beginning of Holy Week. Although not a part of the Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday's Easter Vigil, Palm Sunday certainly points to those three days of commemoration of the Lord's passion, death and resurrection. Indeed, for the many people who will not participate in the Triduum, Palm Sunday is their only liturgical celebration of Christ's suffering and death. It affords them an opportunity to complete their Lenten preparation by placing the following Sunday's Easter event within the proper context of Jesus' ultimate sacrifice.

I strongly encourage you to participate in one or all of the Triduum liturgies. These are the most important liturgical celebrations of the year, and I will write more about them in a few days. But if you do attend the Good Friday liturgy, please do not think of it as a rehash of Palm Sunday. The suffering and death of Jesus is too rich and too profound to limit to one day of remembrance. Each has its own emphasis, its own spiritual message for our prayerful consideration. . .

Click here to continue reading on spiritandsong.com.

For the Sake of Christ

“For the Sake of Christ” has become my most requested song this year. Many people have asked me how I composed it. Here is the story that first appeared on spiritandsong.com.

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Arleen Dunne was an energetic person, full of life and ideas and enthusiasm. She was the Director of Religious Education at St. Monica Church in Moraga, California when I became middle school minister there in 1995, and I had the pleasure of working with her on the parish staff. Her daughter Shannon was one of our cantors, and I always looked forward to doing music ministry with her at our Sunday liturgies.

The mid-1990s was something of a golden age at this parish. Our youth ministry was beginning to take off, reflecting the changing demographics of this region in the Diocese of Oakland. Once thought of as a quiet "retirement" community, Moraga was suddenly bursting at the seams with children, necessitating a building boom in local schools. In the midst of this growth, Arleen coordinated a thriving religious ed program for the elementary children, recruiting and training teachers, scheduling overlapping class sessions in our small parish plant, and supporting the parents in their role as the primary religious educators of their children. All this was done cheerfully, and Arleen's smile and laughter were contagious.

Arleen also made time to be a good wife and mother, and the parish watched Shannon blossom as an outstanding singer, growing up from high school musicals and liturgy to a burgeoning career in show business. Arleen and her husband Frank were proud of Shannon and all their children.

One day, the unthinkable happened. Arleen was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. Also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. The affects in Arleen were gradual but noticeable. As her body moved toward muscular paralysis, Arleen lost her ability to speak. But she did not let this disease prevent her from carrying out her responsibilities as our DRE. Arleen communicated through a wonderful portable voice synthesizer that "spoke" the words as she typed into it. Her teachers continued to be supported, First Communion was celebrated with great joy, and the children grew in their faith. Over the next year and a half, Arleen charged into her ministry with a zest and cheerfulness that struck many of her friends as saintly. ALS was not going to stop her from bringing children to Christ.

I was personally inspired by Arleen's spirit, and moved by how her loving family dealt with these new challenges. I wanted to give Arleen something to show her my appreciation and love. While praying the Liturgy of the Hours, I came across this reading for Friday Morning Prayer, Week III:

I willingly boast of my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I am content with weakness, with mistreatment, with distress, with persecutions and difficulties for the sake of Christ; for when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong.

— 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I looked up the passage in the Bible to see it in context. Preceding this passage, St. Paul gives this memorable piece of wisdom:

He [the Lord] said to me, "My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection."

Tears streamed down my face as I realized that this passage was personified in dear Arleen. I went straight to my piano and this song came out almost immediately. I started with a chant mode on the words "For the sake of Christ," and the song basically wrote itself after that.

By the time I finished the song, Arleen was in the final stages of ALS. She had to step down from her daily DRE duties, and the parish staff covered for her. I went over to her house and played my new song for her. Afterward, we embraced through our tears. God's word spoke powerfully to us at that moment. It would be the last time I would ever see Arleen in this life.

"For the Sake of Christ" became a Lenten favorite at St. Monica, and a fitting remembrance to a dedicated parishioner and dear friend. I am now long gone from that marvelous parish, but whenever I play or hear this song I think of Arleen and how God worked so powerfully through her to bring children to Christ.

For when I am powerless, then I am strong.

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Here is a link to the song on spiritandsong.com. That's Bob Halligan, Jr., of Ceili Rain, singing lead vocal. This version appeared on the Spirit & Song, 2nd Edition CD-library. I later recorded the song myself for my 2009 Doxology album.

The video above features a guitar/vocal interpretation. I have no idea who created this beautiful video but I am grateful.

Growing Up with the Dameans

Note: This reflection first appeared a few years ago in my old artist blog page on spiritandsong.com.

The exhibit area in the convention center was the usual mix of color, sights and sounds, with music and videos blaring out of hundreds of booths, costumed street teams passing out flyers, and countless people bumping into each other. This was the scene at Atlanta in October 2005 at the National Catholic Youth Conference. I had just finished playing bass for the concert of my friend, Angus McDonell, and was looking around for members of my youth group. Suddenly, directly in front of me, there stood a vaguely familiar person.

“Ken!” said the smiling man as he extended his hand to me. “Gary Ault.”

Did I hear that name right? I had to look at his nametag to be sure. Gary Ault! A little older and greyer, perhaps, but still tall, with the same trim collegiate-styled hair and winning smile I remembered from his record album covers. It’s been, what? Over twenty-five years since I last saw him at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress? Of course, we embraced.

Gary Ault! A founding member of the Dameans, one of the pioneer singing groups of the Catholic Church’s first generation of contemporary composers. In the late 1960s, the Dameans stood out among the increasingly crowded field of Folk Mass artists. Whereas most of those artists were individuals, the Dameans were a group: five seminarians from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans. How well I remember their names, prominent on the credits of the songs that were beloved by so many of us young Catholics of the time: Gary Ault, Darryl Ducote, Buddy Ceasar, Mike Balhoff, and Dave Baker.

I can still remember when I got my first Dameans record, Tell the World. There they were on the back cover, five handsome young men dressed in the same uniform that I was wearing at Queen of Angels High School Seminary in Los Angeles: white shirt, thin black tie, and black pants. Their photo could have been taken from our yearbook in the way they held their Folk Mass instruments of three guitars, upright bass, and tambourine. I showed the album to my classmates and we had a good laugh. It seemed that all seminarians looked alike back then, right down to the regulation close-cropped hair. But what we heard on the record and saw on the sheet music wasn’t something to laugh at. In fact, it was the answer to our prayers.

By 1969, the Folk Mass was no longer a novelty in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Although we were one of the last dioceses to finally use guitars and folk music at liturgy, once we got official approval the Folk Mass spread like wildfire, especially in the seminaries. Our early repertoire consisted of the fun catchy songs of Ray Repp, Joe Wise, Paul Quinlan, Sebastian Temple, Peter Scholtes, and a few others. We loved these songs, with their immediately singable melodies, but we wore them out very quickly, too. The Folk Mass repertoire was limited. After all, it had only been three years since Ray Repp was first published. Thus, we experienced an unprecedented phenomenon in Catholic liturgy: the constant need for new music. In our youthful minds, the Dameans’ music was heaven-sent.

“Tell the World” was an upbeat song that seemed to capture the enthusiasm for the Spirit that framed those times. We had fun singing in rounds with “Shout Out Your Joy.” “All That We Have” was the perfect Offertory Song. “Look Beyond,” the song that introduced me to the concept of the major seventh chord, was a seeming rarity: a folk Communion Song that actually spoke of bread and wine as it reflected on the Eucharist passage of John 6:

Look beyond the bread you eat. See your Savior and your Lord.
Look beyond the cup you drink. See his love poured out as blood.

In addition to their prolific songwriting, the Dameans had a great vocal blend. Their intricate five-part harmonies were reminiscent of the Lettermen or the Beach Boys. What a cool sound for liturgy! It was folk music with choral harmonies. We seminarians ate this stuff up.

As a budding liturgist it was great to grow up with the Dameans. When I moved on to St. John’s College in Camarillo, Bob Hurd taught me Gary Ault’s song, “The New Creation.” It was an outright rock song, with that stunning C-G-D power chord riff. But more exciting were the lyrics, which spoke of social justice:

Hear the cry of the needy, your brothers each one.
Too many people talking and nothing gets done.
And you better hurry!
Come along to the new creation . . .

Social justice in a liturgical song! That was groundbreaking in 1971. I wished more liturgical songs would address that theme. As my seminary classmates got closer to our priestly goals, the Dameans had one more song for us that we sang at ordinations and first Masses everywhere: the memorable “In My Name”

I call you from your brothers;
I send you in my name.
I’ll light you with my Spirit’s fire,
to burn as my love’s flame.
I call you for your brothers
and send you in my name.

Seems like there was always a Dameans song that spoke to me at various stages of my teen and young adult life. From them I learned more about music, chords, and songwriting in general. You can imagine my thrill when I finally saw them at the Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, California in 1972. They were giving a music workshop on Youth Day, and the large auditorium was packed with over 1000 hyper teenagers. Gary and company managed to keep the young crowd entertained, singing their terrific songs while telling stories that helped us to enter into deep and meaningful prayer. I met Gary a few times after that. One fond memory I have is from the 1978 Congress, when Gary introduced me to the “new” Gary of the group, a young and eager Gary Daigle, who was apparently fresh out of high school. I thought to myself, “Dang! How’d this kid get so lucky to join the Dameans?” Gary Daigle replaced Dave Baker, who had to move on to other commitments in his ministry.

As time went on liturgical songwriting matured to embrace more scriptural lyrics and ritual awareness, and the Dameans’ music also matured. Remember Your Love was their most successful collection for liturgy and ritual. But their early folk music certainly paved the way. Before Tom Booth and Matt Maher, before Bob Hurd and even before the St. Louis Jesuits, there were the Dameans. We must never forget the enthusiasm and dedication they brought to what would later become known as contemporary Catholic music.

All these memories flooded my mind as I shook hands once again with Gary Ault at the Atlanta NCYC. He was there to chaperone a group of teens from his parish in New Orleans, and I invited them to check out a concert that Jesse Manibusan and I were giving later that day. I saw them in the crowd and was excited to perform in front of someone whom I considered as my composer role model. After our set, Gary was gracious in his compliments. He also had an idea.

Gary was teaching religion at a special Catholic high school in hurricane-damaged New Orleans. This school was special because it was more than just a school; it was SEVERAL high schools combined together out of necessity because of Hurricane Katrina. Gary invited Jesse and me to come to New Orleans to perform for his students, who needed encouragement and support as they dealt with the many issues of hurricane recovery. How could we refuse such an invitation? That gig in New Orleans turned out to be the most memorable performance of my life.

TO BE CONTINUED . . . not here, but in SPIRIT SPOT on spiritandsong.com in the blog, Rummel T: Hurricane Survival Story.

Hear the Dameans’ music on my latest Keep the Fire Burning podcast, either on iTunes or via RSS subscription.

Keep the Fire Burning: The Folk Mass Revolution available at Amazon.com.

Writing: The Creative Process

John Steinbeck used to write his books in longhand with a pencil. Can you imagine? Sometimes my typing on the computer can’t keep up with how fast I think. How did Steinbeck deal with that delay between thought and medium? On the other hand, there’s something to be said about creating with hands-on earthy tools.

For East of Eden, Steinbeck utilized a huge blank book, writing thoughts and letters (mostly to his editor) on the left side while writing the actual book on the right side. The journaling helped shape his ideas for characters, plot and settings. And when he got stuck on the book, he would return to the journaling to hash things out. It was like a creative dialogue with himself. The problem, of course, was the necessity of having to type up his manuscript for publication during the pre-digital age. But by the time of East of Eden, Steinbeck was already a famous and established author, with Grapes of Wrath and other books under his belt. He occasionally mailed this workbook to his New York editor, who had a secretary type it up, then sent the workbook back to the author. Perks of success, but the mind boggles at how much the future Nobel laureate trusted the US Mail with the only copy of his masterpiece!

Writing on paper. I’m not sure if I can do that anymore, specifically because of the need to type everything again in a word processor. But I do write songs the old-fashioned way, sitting at my piano with manuscript paper and pencil in hand. I can’t seem to get myself to write or arrange music directly from keyboard through MIDI and into notation software. I don’t want to record myself playing a new song idea either until the song is fully developed. No, I treasure the feel of pencil, eraser and manuscript paper all in front of me at my piano. I even constructed a “desk” that floats above my keyboard specifically for the purpose of writing. (See photo above.)

Yes, I save everything, every scrap of paper for every single musical idea, all filed away in a “half-baked” folder. Sometimes I write a song where the words are terrific but the melody not so. A few months later, I might pull it out and realize, hey, these lyrics are in rhyme and meter! Let’s put a better melody to it. Voila! New song!

The songwriting process is more concise than the book writing process. I go back again to Steinbeck’s inner dialogue with himself, how journaling influenced the book and vice versa. With two major books on my writing agenda, maybe it’s good idea to talk with myself in this way.

Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters

Mountain of God

With all the skiiing and snowboarding at the Winter Olympics, I am reminded of my youth group at St. Monica Parish in Moraga, California. Here is a reflection that first appeared a few years ago on the old artist blog page on spiritandsong.com.

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There’s something about a mountain that conjures up a lot of mental images: rustic beauty; a vacation getaway; a challenge to be climbed and conquered. For teenagers in a youth group, “mountain” means an important high school ritual: the annual ski and snowboard trip! As youth minister at St. Monica Parish in Moraga, California, I learned early that this was probably the most important activity of the year for my teens. Kids who were only minimally involved at church suddenly came out of the woodwork when the ski trip was announced.

So there I was at Boreal Ski Resort at Lake Tahoe, talking amicably with the other adult chaperones in the lodge as our 40-plus teenagers happily charged down the slopes. Suddenly, a couple of girls burst in looking for me. “Ken! Ken!” The adult group looked up with concern. “It’s Nick!” Of course, it had to be Nick.

Nick was one of those “minimally involved” teens. Not really a regular at our weekly youth ministry meetings, he always showed up for lock-ins, summer workcamp, and ski trips. Dark-haired and slender, Nick was a gregarious and outgoing risk taker who always kept a wise-guy shell around himself. Every group has a disruptor, and I could always count on Nick to tell the most outrageous non-sequitur jokes during group discussions, or give a silly intention as we went around the circle during prayer. What had he done now?

Nick came limping in, his arms around two other boys as they walked him slowly into the lodge. “He tried to do a Jonny Moseley,” they told me, referring to the young man who had just won a gold medal for his outrageous hot-dogging ski maneuvers at the recent Winter Olympics. Nick apparently attempted a 360 aerial and found out quickly that he was no Jonny Moseley.

We sat him down and it became obvious that Nick needed medical attention immediately. His limbs weren’t broken, but he complained of a pounding headache. By now, a large group of our teens had heard about Nick’s escapade, and they swarmed into the lodge, worried about their friend. The injured youth put up a macho front in front of his peers, but he was clearly in pain. I went with Nick to the hospital in the lodge ambulance. The staff had put him in a neck brace and each bump on the mountain road made him wince.

Gone was the wisecracking Eddie Murphy persona. Nick was now just a scared kid. Realizing that I had to call his parents, Nick looked at me with pleading eyes and said, “Go easy when you talk to my mom. Don’t scare her, Ken. Please!” I promised him I wouldn’t as they took him in for x-rays.

I called Nick’s mom, who was trying her best to be calm, but her anxious voice betrayed her concern. As she gave me insurance information, I assured her that I would be with her son the whole time in the hospital and would keep her informed.

Returning to ER, I found Nick lying on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. I had never seen him so quiet and helpless. I decided to take a page out of his book and started cracking jokes, asking him if he enjoyed the attention of all the pretty nurses. Nick gave a slight smile and we started trading quips and one-liners over the course of the afternoon. Eventually, we prayed together, a Hail Mary and a spontaneous prayer for protection and good health.

“I’m sorry, Ken,” he said after we prayed. I had never seen Nick so serious before. “I didn’t mean to cause you so much trouble.”

“It’s all right, Nick. Just take it easy and relax. All your friends in our youth group are praying for you.” He smiled and grasped my hand.

Eventually, the medical staff came in, examined Nick, and showed us the x-rays. Nick’s neck wasn’t broken, thank God; only badly sprained. We had a long bus trip home and the doctor gave me some painkiller pills that the patient was supposed to take every half hour or so. Nick and I were both relieved that his injury had not been serious. We also had a new understanding of each other. After two hours together in a tense, uncertain situation, Nick gained a new respect for my commitment to youth ministry. I learned there was more depth to this young man than he was letting on.

On the bus trip home, Nick sat in back with his friends as the conquering hero. I stayed in front because I didn’t want it to look like I was “baby-sitting” him. Occasionally, I went to check on him and give him his painkillers. The laughter that came from the back was reassuring.

Finally, after a long three-hour journey, we were back at the parish, and Nick’s mom was there to greet us. She was relieved to see her son was all right. After shaking hands, Nick walked gingerly with his mom to their car. Then he turned around and walked straight back to me. Macho Nick was not known to be an affectionate guy, but he came back to give me a hug.

“Thanks for everything, Ken,” he said, smiling. “I’ll see you next week at youth group.” And he did come back every week after that. No longer a “minimally involved” teen, Nick became an active member of our group. We had been to the mountain, taking on the simple challenge of getting to know each other better.

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Note: I wrote the song Mountain of God with Marc Cavallero and Dan Brennan, who were part of our youth group and on this ski trip. Those were fun times! The awesome teens of St. Monica youth ministry of the 1990s are all grown up now, into their lives and careers and families. I still stay in touch with a few of them on Facebook. God is good!