A song in the night

My sister, Debi, and I were on our way to McAllen, Texas. It was September 1982 and in the back seat of our compact rental car, all buckled in together, were her two children, Dano and Krystal and my two youngest, Lisa and Patrick. We were on a mission of mercy as Mom had just undergone a radical mastectomy and was due home from the hospital in a couple of days.

A long road lay before us.

Since we had decided to drive straight through, some 1,200 miles, we promised to keep each other awake for the whole trip.

Even in the remembering, it was a long, long road.

Growing up, we were surrounded by music, of all stripes. Big Band, musicals, Salsa, rock 'n roll, you name it, we heard it. And not only did we hear it, we sang along. Neither of us played a musical instrument. We left that to our brothers, Dave on guitar and Dean on drums. Our voices were our only avenue of melodic expression and we used to challenge each other to hold the same final note Andy Williams does on his rendition of "Do You Hear What I Hear?" I don't know how long that note carries, but it was all either of us could do to stay the course. We wore new grooves into that vinyl, picking up just that closing measure.

Eventually, Debi ended up singing backup for her then-husband's band, Winfield, when they toured armed services bases across the globe. I ended up writing.

Oh, I still sing, every chance I get. I just wait until it's just me and the Lord these days, a matter of courtesy to my neighbors, because I have long taken the advice offered by Karen Carpenter to "sing, sing a song, sing it loud and sing it strong." Music requires full participation, heart, body, mind and soul, and for me it is an offering of worship.

But on this trip, it was just Debi and me, with limited radio reception in the wilds of Texas. So we grabbed a hymnal and page by page looked for songs we knew. Neither of us read music at the time. I still don't. But if memory served sufficiently, I could pick out the melody and soon enough, we were a duet, the children content to nap and listen in the back seat. It was a once in a lifetime experience, even for sisters. (Danny and I were car-singers, too, when long road trips came up. We sang the songs he remembered from his dad's truck driving days and we can still do a pretty good a cappela harmony of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot to this day. Unfortunately, or fortunately for our fellow travelers, long road trips are far and few between these days.)

I pulled out another old hymnal a few weeks ago, looking for a particular song recorded by Fernando Ortega on his "This Bright Hour" album, "O Thou, In Whose Presence." The song has long been a source of comfort, my heart-sister Joanie got me the CD years ago. But I wanted to revisit it, and refresh the words in my memory because Ortega is coming to McCook April 19 for a benefit concert at Memorial Auditorium.

When I interviewed the Rev. Dr. Chris Atkins following his return home from Texas where he was treated for a brain tumor, I wasn't surprised to learn that he found the music of Fernando Ortega soothing. If he listened long enough, he said, he could finally find a little peace in the chaos of ICU and get some sleep.

The closing verses of the song contain the majesty of the Lord and the security of our Shepherd, powerful to save.

"He looks and ten thousands of angels rejoice

Often, when I'm awakened in the dark watches of the night, memory will play this song until I fall asleep again.

"By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me -- a prayer to the God of my life." Psalm 42:8