then sings my soul – Part 1 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)

Since I knew from the age of five or six that I had what the Bible lovingly called “unnatural affections,” I also understood the threat of eternal damnation that could be my fate, unless God wrought a miracle and transformed me from my evil thoughts and desires. During my teen years I felt particularly wicked as I lusted after the girls in church and my favorite female high school teachers. In 1963, when I was seventeen and felt the flames of hell licking around me, I read a small pamphlet called a Statement of the Baptist Faith and Message. I thought I had discovered my saving grace, a distinctive Baptist teaching called “the priesthood of the believer.” While this doctrine produced volumes of theological intrigue, my simplistic interpretation at that point in my life was no one stood between God and me. What a relief. No need for confessions to a priest or necessarily to trust the ravings of Baptist preachers. I was redeemed. It was a doctrine that kept me tied to the church and allowed me to censor its bad tidings for more than forty years.

It was a doctrime that carried me to a Southern Baptist Seminary where I rather ironically had my first lesbian relationship when I was twenty-three years old, a seven-year relationship mired in our mutual feelings of guilt and my infidelity. I first saw Janie in the fall of 1969 when we both entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. We were standing in line at the Registrar’s office, waiting to pay fees for our first semester. She had on a black dress with a white collar and black shoes with low heels. Her hair was a wavy fair brown color with blonde highlights. She was a couple of inches taller than my five feet one, heavier. Her size reminded me of my grandmother on my daddy’s side. Pleasantly plump. She was in an animated conversation with another girl in our line. She laughed a lot and seemed to be having a good time. I couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying registration. In addition, I expected the atmosphere to be a bit more serious and otherworldly in a seminary setting. This young woman seemed slightly irreverent.

When classes began, I found I had every one with Janie. We both enrolled in the sacred music program and shared the basic courses including the Oratorio Chorus that was a requirement for every music student. We didn’t sit near each other. I was in the alto section, and she was a soprano. Janie loved to talk during rehearsals and entertained the rest of us. Our conductor, Mr. Burton, was less than amused.

The introductory vocal class was taught by the dean of the music college, Dean McKinney.  Each of us had to sing a hymn for him in front of our class of twenty-two students. No piano or other accompaniment. A cappella – I remembered my first audition with Miss Pittman for the high school a cappella choir, the feeling of not belonging. I had sung solos in church all my life, but it was very different to sing in a classroom with other musicians listening. I was nervous. I don’t remember my first song or the choices of most of my classmates. We were adequate and eager to prove ourselves, but when Janie sang for the first time in class we understood that her voice was already where we all wanted to be: clear, rich tones that touched a deeper level within us. She was a soprano with a full timbre and no pretense, not the operatic colatura who tries to impress with shattering glass, but the potent strength of the mezzo who sings from her soul.

I had never heard a more beautiful voice.

I loved that voice, but it was her sense of humor and love of family that made my soul sing.

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