Remembrance of Things Past

Grace Church, Traverse City, MI

This Lent has been a time of reconnecting with my roots through the miracle of Facebook and some of the most poignant memories have been of the time I spent at Interlochen, a magical place in northern Michigan dedicated to the fine arts. I spent 5 summers there and one academic year (my senior year in high school).  I have recently been immersed in remembering the people and events of that blessed time and more than once been astounded at what grace led me there. It was probably the happiest time of my life although I didn't realize it at the time. There were many terrifying moments amid all the wonder and it was truly a rite of passage for my spiritual as well as musical education.

I spent many Sunday mornings at Grace Episcopal Church in Traverse City, trying to keep up my recent entrance into the Episcopal Church just the year before. I remember being one of the very few who actually got on the bus to go to a Sunday service, most of my fellow students rather smirking at my spiritual leanings, although my then boyfriend often accompanied me and being an organist took the opportunity to play a little on the organ there. He has since become the music director at the British Embassy in Tokyo, so perhaps that early experience also guided his career, if not his spirituality, somewhat.

The summer before, I had my first encounter with a satanist at Interlochen and remember taking his satanic bible and hurling it into the trash in a fit of righteous rage. It did little but cause a howl of laughter from him and his friends, but I felt like I had stood up for the true path regardless of how little it seemed to accomplish.  During the year I was also subjected to quite a bit of ridicule but I stood my ground even though it did little to enhance my popularity. The following year in Boston when I entered the conservatory I gradually succumbed to fitting in and only occasionally made it out on a Sunday to attend Church of the Advent, and by the time I hit New York I had ceased going to church all together. It would be seven years before I finally looked up St. Ignatius, which I had heard of at the Advent and was advised to attend when I got to New York. And the rest, as they say, is history.

"What is life but a series of preludes to that unknown song whose initial solemn note is tolled by Death? The enchanted dawn of every life is love; but where is the destiny on whose first delicious joys some storm does not break?"  (from Les Preludes by Alphonse Lamartine)

Les Preludes, final concert at Interlochen, summer 1969