“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55: 8-9
When my parents told my siblings and I that we would be moving to Texas the summer after my sophomore year, I was devastated. I was never the most popular kid in school, and so the prospect of moving away from the few friends I did have and moving across the country to where I knew literally no one was daunting at best and nearly unfathomable. I had been planning to follow high school with studies at Indiana University, being both an in-state school for tuition and home to the largest music school in the country. But God had other plans, and as these things often do, they worked out far better than I could have imagined at the time.
I was also moving from a small, Catholic high school to a massive public school for the first time in my life. (My junior class was at Lewisville High was larger than the entire population of Saint Joseph’s.) However, this meant EVERYTHING was bigger. I went from being one of three boys in the choir to being one of 20 or so in the varsity choir of 50 (And there were four choirs! Inconceivable!) I found my footing quickly, because I was in an environment that supported the arts. My junior year also introduced me to competitive choral singing, something I never encountered in Indiana. The varsity choir was required to audition for the All-District/Region/State Choir chain, and I had no idea just how big a deal this was until I was one of three kids in the school to make it to the state auditions that year. This also introduced me to the world of classical sacred music, and what to this day remains one of the most influential pieces in my life: Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Op. 86. I could (and probably will) write a separate column on how and why this piece changed my life. Stay tuned for that in the future.
After a few months of church-hopping, we ended up at St. Philip the Apostle Catholic Church in Lewisville. I quickly befriended the music director, looking for any opportunity to get involved. The choir only sang seasonally at Christmas and Holy Week, and there was no children’s choir – the Pastoral Musician (as per her job title) typically cantored from the piano, and there was occasionally an additional keyboardist who played along as well. Soon enough, I was filling in and helping out, similar to what I had done in South Bend.
By my senior year, plans to study back at IU had been replaced with visions of UNT. North Texas boasted the second largest music school, was of course now in-state, and was home to the first and largest Jazz Studies program in the country. At the church, there was a grass-roots push for more involvement in music ministry, and a few adults (including my dad), in conjunction with the youth ministry team, put together a plan to mentor high school aged kids such as myself into a “Life Teen” group… the sort of “next generation” to the folk masses of the 70’s and 80’s. The group flourished. We had adult and teen guitarists, drummers, bassists and pianists playing side by side and over a dozen kids cantoring or singing in a choir for the Sunday evening Mass every week. And it wasn’t just rhythm section musicians. If you were a band kid or an orchestra student and wanted to contribute, we found a place for you. (This was also my first venture into small-ensemble arranging… writing a flute part to go with this song, parts for a trumpet and bassoon to play for another, etc.) Within a year, we had been asked to provide music for the World Youth Day Mass for the combined Dallas and Fort Worth Dioceses being held at Six Flags for thousands of teenagers across the Metroplex.
As a cradle Catholic, Texas was also the first taste I had of being somewhat of a minority amidst the strong Baptist “Bible Belt” environment. I found myself defending my faith against preconceptions of Catholicism I had never even knew existed. It really was an opportunity to grow and deepen what I believed, however. Instead of taking everything I had been taught for granted, I was now in an environment where things were challenged. This became even more pressing when I was asked shortly after graduation by a Baptist minister (and music director, neighbor, and parent of another LHS choir member) if I would be interested in working for his church community. By now, I was filling in at our parish on a more frequent basis (as it was a large parish with five masses every weekend… so there was a lot of music ministry work to go around.) Most of my college life at UNT was spent with weekends playing either the Saturday evening or Sunday 8:00am Masses at St. Philip’s, heading to Northview Baptist for their 9:30 and 11:00 services, and then returning to the Life Teen Mass at 5:30 Sunday evening. (In retrospect, this was also preparing me for the collaborative position I have today!) By now I was in charge of the Life Teen group, and working under a new mentor at Saint Philip’s. But my time at Northview Baptist significantly broadened by horizons both musically and spiritually – it gave me a passion for ecumenicism and an appreciation of both what we share in common with our Protestant brethren and a celebration of what sets us apart (and how we can all learn from both.)
Please accept this invitation to participate more fully, more actively, in our parish’s music ministry. If you are interested in singing in the choir, leading the congregation as a cantor, or enriching our liturgy as an instrumentalist, email Shawn Gelzleichter at sgelzleichter@gmail.com or call the rectory at 781-662-8844.