"A THOUSAND LOST GOLF BALLS......"

"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust...
The Word of God came to me saying:
O miserable cities of designing men,
O wretched generation of enlightened men,
Betrayed by the mazes of your ingenuities,
Sold by the proceeds of your proper inventions;
I have given you hands which you turn from worship,
I have given you speech for endless palaver,
I have given you my Law, and you set up commissions,
I have given you lips, to express friendly sentiments,
I have given you hearts, for reciprocal distrust...
In the land of the lobelias and tennis flannels
The rabbit shall burrow and the thorn revisit
The nettle shall flourish on the gravel court,
And the wind shall say:
Here were decent godless people;
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls..."

(from "The Rock," by T.S. Eliot---poet, critic, playwright, and essayist)

Eliot began his early life as a protege of a brilliant mathematician, teacher, activist, and
atheist. Seeing the futility of this road in life, he became a Christian; we see this reflected in his poetry.
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"Something has spoken to me in the night, and told me I shall die,
I know not where.
Saying,
To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing;
To lose the life you have for greater life;
To leave the friends you loved, for greater loving;
To find a land more kind than home,
More large than earth...
Wherein the pillars of this earth are founded---toward which the
conscience of the world is tending...
A wind is rising and the rivers flow."

(from "You Can't Go home Again," by Thomas Wolfe)

This tall eloquent writer, who wrote in the thirties, was about six and a half feet tall.
He wrote many of his books standing at and writing on top of a short early model fridge. He then gathered up his voluminous and unorganized  manuscript pages and  took them to his most excellent, talented, and helpful editor---Maxwell Perkins, who knew how to sort and edit them.(How can  we praise Perkins enough?) No writer was better at description than Wolfe. Once you've read his description of an old locomotive puff-puffing, three miles away across a Tennessee valley on a cold winter night...blowing its lonesome whistle, you will never forget it!
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"O Lord support us all the day long of this troublous life,
Until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes
And the busy world is hushed,
And the fever of life is over, and our work is done.
Then of Thy mercy grant us a safe lodging and a holy rest...
And peace at the last,
And peace...at the last."

    (Adapted from John H. Newman; music arr. by Gordon Young. Pub. Abingdon Press, 1961.)
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Mil started the first Youth Music Camp at Inlow Youth Camp in the Manzano Mountains near Tajique, N.M. in August of 1962. We had around 250 youth there the first year. It has continued every year since.  My concept was to provide the young Christian singers from N.M. Baptist churches training and experiences to develop and enlarge their music appreciation and skills, and to give them a taste of singing great choral music in a large choir. We also had a youth orchestra.

We invited the best college and seminary choral directors we could find. About the second or third year, we were fortunate enough to secure the excellent composer, teacher, and choral director, Dr. R. Paul Green. As was our custom with our invited clinicians, he selected the choral music to be used during the week.

One day I overheard the camp pastor say to Dr. Green, "Why did you select that piece of music?" ---referring to the above poem. Dr. Green looked at him very seriously and said:   "Have you READ THOSE WORDS:  'O Lord support us all the day long through this troublous life...'"and he quoted the whole music selection above.   I never forgot that, and to this day have a deep appreciation of this music.

                                         

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By Mil, 3/28/12

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