There are many emotions surrounding this death. The first that comes to mind is that even though she was 96 years old, she was still working, she was still “our Queen” and we thought she might live for one day beyond for ever! After all, 70 years on the throne is unprecedented!
Whether you are a royal watcher or not, if you saw anything of the 10 days of mourning, leading up to the state funeral, you will have noticed the integral role that music played in the celebrations of life and the institution of the new King, who, by the way, has waited 70 years for his first job!
Each pipe organ had its own distinct sound.
All the bagpipe players had their own signature sound.
Each royal band had its own distinct sound.
Around the Commonwealth, where folklore and oral tradition are still alive and well, the story of the day was: “All over London, how the people dem cry, when they heard the news that Queen Elizabeth die”. Or whether you listened to the choirs in England, Ireland, Wales, or Scotland, you heard excellence in music on many different levels, all singing the praises of the Queen and giving her a royal send-off.
Whichever you heard, whichever was your personal preference, the fact remains – music was central to all. It has been that way since time began and will remain that way until time gives way to eternity. And even when we no longer use time as a means of counting off days, but we are basking in eternity, by all accounts we will still have music!
All my life, I was made to believe that studying music was a waste of time and energy, and money, because it will never pay the bills. You will never be able to live off of fine arts! Well, the critics and naysayers are only partially right. They certainly have tried to knock music out of schools, but my music teaching career put all three of my children through college. Just saying!
When I was learning music theory as a teenager, I was given one quite thick, red-covered book and told to “go read this” and then take the music theory exam at The Royal Schools of Music in London, England! The book cost less than one English Pound – 50 years ago!
I went looking for that book earlier today. It is still in print and available on Amazon. A used version of the paperback book costs $44.95!!! Amazon is quick to let you know that there is a newer version of the book that will set you back an amazing $93.19 and it will take 4-6 weeks to arrive!
After I did a double-take, I said to myself there has to be a better, more attainable way to learn music theory and take the Royal College’s and Trinity’s music theory exams. And if there is not a better way, I will create a way!
So I created it!
I created a Companion ebook to “Discovering Music Theory” by Simon Rushby where I narrate the book and use my Apple Pencil to do all the examples and exercises in real time, explaining where needed to help clarify all concepts in the book.
Rushby’s work is very good. It is thorough and detailed. It just needs a seasoned educator to break it down for the young or not-so-young learner wanting to excel in music theory.
This classic piece as we know it today, was the last piece that Ludwig Von Beethoven wrote. When he wrote this piece, he was 100% deaf and in ill health. During the premier performance of his 9th Symphony, which he conducted – accurately – by the way – he kept conducting even when the piece was long finished. His first violinist turned him around to face the audience who gave Beethoven a very long and loud standing ovation. He heard none of that. However, he could see their faces and feel their adulation and appreciation of his work.
He was the first to introduce a choir singing in a Symphony. Choirs and congregations have continued to sing this magnificent piece for just under three hundred years!
I combine this masterpiece with Handel’s Joy to the World. Isaac Watts wrote the lyrics to Joy to the World along with my favorite organ composer, Gordon Young, using his Prelude in C to bring this medley together. I hope you enjoy hearing it as much as I enjoy playing it!
Linda is playing the Rogers organ at Ebenezer Methodist Church in Nassau, Bahamas.
We have traveled quite extensively as a family, and so there were times along the way when we asked the question: “Where is home?” As a family, we decided that wherever we were at the moment, as long as we were together, that would be home! Now my children have children of their own. They all love coming to visit their grandparents. I first recorded this song about ten years ago. It is still one of my favorites.
I BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THIS AFTER FLIGHT 77 HIT THE PENTAGON ON 9/11, T
THE FOLLOWING HAPPENED:
A daycare facility inside the Pentagon had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do.
There were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants who would need to be taken out with the cribs. There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers.
Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they
needed. After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared. The director thought, “Well, here we are, on our own.”
About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 other Marines in tow.
Each of them grabbed a crib with an infant, and the rest started gathering up toddlers.
The director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward the park near the Potomac River.
Once they got about three quarters of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped
in the park, and then did a fabulous thing: They formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy.
Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off.
Outside of the circle of cribs stood the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions.
There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their infants and toddlers.
The chaplain then said, “I don’t think any of us saw or heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our military men there.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
The very thought of those Marines and what they did and how fast they reacted: Could we expect any less from them? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon.
It’s the military, not the politicians that ensures our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It’s the military who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag.
If you care to offer the smallest token of recognition and appreciation for the military, please pass this on and pray for our men and women, who have served and are currently serving our country, and honor the memory of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice!
Here Linda plays this song on her Kurzweil with an string orchestra backing
Dr. Linda Lightbourne relaxes and meditates to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
Linda merges two great songs: Toccatta in D by Bach and “Up from the Grave He Arose” on the Rogers Organ at Ebenezer Methodist Church in Nassau, Bahamas
Dr. Linda Lightbourne plays Toccata in D on a beautifully responsive Rogers’ Organ
Linda’s early attempts at playing organ Bach’s Fugue in F in Louisville, KY
Can a piano player play an organ?
Not automatically! The keys and structure and layout of the instrument are the same but that is where the similarity stops! If you can read the music on a piano, you can read the music on the organ EXCEPT there is a whole other staff of music added to accommodate playing the bass pedals with your feet! So if you are not used to reading that bass clef line, you are – let’s say – in deep trouble!
Piano players never have to worry about all the stops to pull and push. You can get a degree in organ stops and registration! It is complex and complicated. Understanding the stops can make your piece powerful, rich and elegant, and missing the stops, or playing the wrong combination of stops can make the same piece dull and life-less!
It takes time to understand the stops. It takes times to get used to reading the notes for the bass pedals and getting your foot to co-operate by playing the right pedals at the right time, while your right hand is using one keyboard and your left hand is using another keyboard!
So can a piano player just sit down and play an organ? uhhhh – NO!!
Can an organ player just sit down and play a piano?
No! Again – not automatically. An organ player does not have to worry about how you apply the art of “touch” to your piano playing. The stops and registers do that for the organ player. Invariably an organist will play the piano keys too lightly and so the piano sound becomes thin and consequently, the organ player’s touch on a piano sounds frail.
Then there is the whole art of pedaling on the piano. The organ player has to hold the keys down if there is to be a continuous sound. The piano player can play the notes and scurry up or down the keyboard and keep the notes sounding with the art of pedaling. That is a learned skill. It is not an automatic skill. So an organist might have to learn that skill if the piano is to sound well when an organist plays the piano.
So can an organist just sit down and play the piano? NO!!
Can you be a good organ player AND a good piano player?
The answer to this question is yes! As stated above, being an organist and playing a piano well is not automatic. Vice Versa is not automatic, but with intention and a desire to understand the intricacies of the two very individualistic instruments, a good organist can become a good pianist and a good pianist can become a good organist!
I was reading a 2013 Seventh-Day Adventist paper on the role of the Pastor’s wife where Josiah B. Andor quotes Ellen G. White as saying: The wife of the minister of the Gospel can be a most successful helper and a great blessing to her husband, or a hindrance to him in his work”. She goes on to explain that: “it will depend on the wife if a minister will rise from day to day in his sphere of usefulness or sink to the ordinary level.” She continues: “Satan is ever at work to dishearten and lead astray ministers whom God has chosen to preach the truth. The most effectual way in which he (satan) can work is through home influences, through unconsecrated companions”. He ends this article by quoting another one of Ellen G. White’s statements: “The pastor’s wife can be said to be a great helper in her husband’s ministry, but “an unsanctified wife is the greatest curse that a minister can have”.
Mr. Andor – what about unconsecrated and unsanctified deacons, and unconsecrated and unsanctified church decisionmakers and unconsecrated and unsanctified church gossipers who make it their business to go against anything the Pastor wants to accomplish for the good of the congregation, the good of the community and the glory of God?
How is it that these entities are not mentioned in Ellen G. White’s writings?
How is it that the minister’s wife bears the brunt of whether the husband/minister, the church and the ministry is successful or not?
How is that even a reasonable expectation that the wife is responsible for the success of her husband, his church, his congregation and his ministry?
Let’s look at this logically
Is it the responsibility of a wife of the CEO of a fortune five hundred company to conduct board meetings, shareholder’s meetings, create product, take the product to market, raise funds, plan, organize and execute the plans and events and disperse profit sharing?
Is a doctor’s wife responsible for her husband’s ability to perform delicate and mind-boggling life and death surgeries five days a week?
Is a lawyer’s wife responsible for all the cases her husband will take to trial and is she responsible for all the favorable and unfavorable outcomes?
Is a politician’s wife responsible for the success or lack thereof of the legislation that is her husband’s responsibility to bring to the floor, debate, raise support and send to the courts to ratify?
Let’s take this argument further.
Is it the job of a heavy machine operator’s wife to help him and support him as he builds the roads, the bridges and the highways, the overpasses and the underpasses?
Anybody reading this want the dentist’s wife to do your root canal??
No, no, no, no and ….. absolutely not!
So why is it the Pastor’s wife’s job to help him teach and preach, be a role model for the women in the Church, and raise the family, and be a domestic goddess and be on public display at all times? Why is that a reasonable expectation? It defies logic. It defies reasoning. It defies everything that can be deemed normal.
We know nothing of the wives of any other professions regardless of how public the husbands profession is.
Everyone knows the Pastor’s wife. Why?
The article I read of pastor’s wives in Ghana said that 76.1% of the wives assist their husbands in preaching at different levels – as in all the time, most of the time and sometimes. Only 6.5% of wives never do help their husbands with the preaching, visiting, community service and counselling.
She garners a negative and irresponsible label of “detached pastor’s wife”.
I am wondering how much she gets paid for doing her husband’s job.
If she is spending time preparing sermons and preaching, counseling, doing community service, and visiting, what is he doing?
I am wondering who is raising their children?
I am wondering why this is okay.
I am wondering who decided that all this was even a good thing.
It is an erroneous expectation to think that any woman should be doing any of this. She is not the pastor. She is the pastor’s wife. She is not the pastor’s unpaid assistant. She is his wife.
She is put on a pedestal so that some unsanctified church members and some ungodly community persons can throw rotten eggs, rotten tomatoes and rotten cabbage at her criticizing her and critiquing her, putting her every move under a microscope to see if they can find something to criticize and critique and complain about, and holding her to a standard to which they do not hold for themselves or a standard to which they do not hold their own families. When the pedestal is rocked and she falls off or wobbles even slightly, she is labelled as :
“detached”,
“unsanctified”,
“unconsecrated” and
“a curse on his ministry”.
Really? Honestly?? Seriously???
The role of the pastor’s wife has gone through many changes over the last 500 years since Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church and formed the Protestant Church and allowed priests to marry. Some changes have been good, and some have not been good.
One thing that is constant is that the Pastor has either been paid extremely well as in the mega churches – (15% of the time) or 85% of the time, he has been paid, he has had to fight for every penny and make do with less than enough, even though he has a seminary degree. He is not paid to the level of his counterparts in different professions with the same level of education but with a heightened and very public level of responsibility.
It is a travesty and should be an embarrassment to the faith that the Pastor and his family cannot afford to live on what they receive in compensation from their Churches and at the same time, expect the Pastor’s wife to “assist” for free. The mantra persists: Lord you keep him (the pastor) humble and we’ll keep him poor.
I remember living in a manse that was so damp, that my husband lost his library to mildew, dampness and mold inside the manse. Our 15-month old daughter had constant upper respiratory infections directly due to the dampness and coldness and mold in that manse. The manse did not have running hot water just running cold water. The manse was set in a cemetery on the left of the house, a back alley on the right-hand side of the house, another cemetery behind the house and yet another cemetery directly across the very narrow street from the house. The one across the narrow street was very well kept! Very well maintained.
As a teenager, I remember our very good Pastor, not preaching on this particular Sunday, but stating the fact that termites had eaten away their bed and the bed collapsed one night with them in it. Would the church please consider investing in a new bed for the manse. He had to bring the matter to the Church’s attention on a Sunday morning because the Church Board and Church Leadership refused to act on the purchase of a new bed for the manse even though it was well within their means so to do. It was one of the wealthiest Churches in that particular conference. Thy prided themselves on the multiplied thousands they sent to missions each year but could not spend a little bit of money on a bed in their manse for their pastor and his wife.
How can church leaders justify allowing their pastor to live this way?
Why do church leaders think this is okay for their minister and his family?
Then they expect the wife to do all that I mentioned in the first part of this article?
Really?
Seriously??
Honestly???
To a varying degree, and with varying details, the minister’s wife is viewed by most Churches in a less than balanced light. The expectations are brutal on one end of the spectrum and ignore her every need to build and nurture her marriage and her family on the end of the spectrum.
I respect the work and witness of Ellen G. White, even though I am of a different religious persuasion. She has done much for the formation of her denomination with her expansive and comprehensive writing and her persuasive and charismatic speaking in her day. Her work is highly regarded and so it should be. It is worthy of such high praise and honor. However, with great respect I must respectfully say that the greatest curse respectfully, Ellen G. White, in the Church is not the minister’s wife. The greatest curse in the church, is some unconsecrated church leaders, and some unsanctified congregational members expecting the minister’s wife to be all that they are not and all that they could never be. That is the greatest curse in the Church, and it is everywhere. It is time to take the noose off of the pastor’s wife’s neck and put the shoe on the foot that it fits.
Welcome to The Lightbourne Group. Here you will always find useful and useable information when you are looking for ways to help to improve ministry as we know it. Church is a business. We don’t like to think of it that way, but circumstances and our new normals are forcing us to re-examine the way we do Church.
Here in a non-denominational type forum we can discuss and share things that we do well and things that we need to improve. In so doing, maybe we can find ways to help each other rise above the growing tides of discontent and relevance.
Who Am I?
I have been a Pastor’s wife for 40 years
We have served Churches in the United Kingdom, the United States and presently, we are serving in the Bahamas
I retired from my job/jobs to move across the Atlantic Ocean with my Pastor husband one more time!
My background is in educational leadership and organizational leadership and many of the lessons I learned and the classes I took, and the experiences I gained along the way are transferable.
I taught elementary level music and middle school music
Also, I taught business courses as an Associate Professor at the local University in their Adult Education Programs. I taught at the Associate level, the Bachelors level and the Master’s level.
One thing that I have learned in Church life over the years, and across many denominations and countries is that 80% of Church leaders are flying in the airplane that they are trying to build. This makes everything tough and impossible and frustrating and dangerous!
Many Pastors are not willing to speak up for themselves. They are willing to speak up for everyone else and support the causes of others, but they are unwilling to make their needs known. Consequently, Pastors are at the mercy of Church Leaders, Church Boards etc., who are 100% volunteer, not seminary trained and have very few experiences outside of what has been garnered on their own over the years.
This is not said in a negative way. Please do not take it as such. I have been in Churches where bank managers and insurance brokers and other professional business people are on the Church Board, but somehow, they left all of their business acumen at their place of employment.
Thank You
For purchasing my book: 2 Things Leaders Can Do to Truly Value Their Pastor. I believe it will open necessary and valuable conversations that can bring about action and stability to any size congregation.
The Lightbourne Group 