then sings my soul – the end (from Not Quite the Same)

Two roads diverged in a tumultuous roller coastal relationship between Janie and me for seven years from 1969 – 1976, from singing in the choirs of a Southern Baptist seminary in Fort Worth, Texas to singing duets in the Pacific Northwest to the music we made together working in our leadership roles in Columbia, South Carolina where Janie worked for the Women’s Missionary Union of the South Carolina Baptist Convention and sang in choirs I directed in two different Southern Baptist Churches in the area for four years. From the west coast to the east coast and Texas in between, we tried to find a place where our guilt over our sins of “unnatural affection” could be absolved. No matter where we rode to, we always found ourselves there; and Janie didn’t like what she found. She needed to find a place of forgiveness for the life we shared, redemption from the guilty feelings that plagued her. We lived, sang, laughed, cried, and loved not only each other but also our families. But after seven years of agony and ecstasy, we each took a different road.

As I approached thirty years of age, I began to look outside our relationship again for comfort and acceptance. I knew I was on a mission to preserve who I was, the same mission I had been on since my college days at The University of Texas in Austin. My days of searching for absolution, for forgiveness for being who I was, who I had always been, had to be over or I would be lost to a place where the flames of hell licking around me might never be extinguished. I resigned as the music and youth director of the State Street Baptist Church in Cayce in the Bicentennial Year of 1976, the year my fifty-one-year-old father died from cancer.

My life with Janie ended messily, and I will regret forever my role in that painful separation for which there were no excuses to be made, no pardon to be found. To quote a country and western song, Hey, won’t you play another somebody done somebody wrong song? I did her wrong, much more than just lyrics to a song. Janie went back to seminary when our relationship finally shattered, this time in Louisville, Kentucky to another Southern Baptist institution where she graduated with a master’s degree in religious education and church music.

We maintained our friendship over time and distance through infrequent phone calls, rare letters, brief visits when she came back to see friends here in South Carolina. In 1982, Janie realized a lifelong dream of serving God as a foreign missionary and was appointed by the Southern Baptist Mission Board to Zambia in Africa. She would go to the ends of the earth to find that place where her faith became visible to herself. On December 3^rd, 1982, Janie wrote me a letter that gave insight to her life there. In her typically forthright manner, she described the struggles and contradictions that plagued her in those early months, the same ones that continued to haunt her for the next twenty years. She carried her songs and her faith across continents and over time to find her way home. Africa is my home, she once told me. My heart and soul are with the people there.

     “I’m so thankful for such a clear sense of calling. It’s all that has kept me here, at first. I really love Lusaka (Zambia), and I’m feeling very at home, most of the time. I’ve been homesick some, and I’ve been afraid. Armed robbery is a real problem. I have bars on my windows and doors, a dog, a night guard, and a wall around my house! At first, all those things just scared me more! But I’m feeling comfortable now…

The music here is wonderful, Sheila. They sing 3-part harmony, with drums and shakers as their only accompaniment. No music – they couldn’t read it if they had it. You’ll love it when you hear it. I’ll send you a tape sometime...”

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Janie’s birthday was June 4th., a day I remember every year to celebrate a remarkable woman whose music was the cornerstone of her faith in herself and all those she loved. I owe Janie for many good musical memories, but the greatest gift she gave me was bringing me to Columbia where I have remained for fifty years. I hope somewhere she’s singing in a touring choir with someone she loves.

 album we made when we came to Columbia – probably 1974 

(I was 28, Janie was 27) 

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