We Became Her Choir

Lynne is the firstborn of the six siblings in my family. She took the lead on many things, including caring for us when Mom and Dad were both either at work or out of action for one tragic reason or another.

In addition to that, she was also trying to grow up during a difficult time in American history: the 1960’s. Lynne was old enough to understand what was going on around the world and within our family.

She was in her teens and couldn’t find lipstick to complement her skin color.

She saw war, assassinations, and race riots through a thirteen-channel black and white television.

She stood in the welfare food line with Mom and knew exactly why she was there and her friends were not.

Lynne endured a lot. She must have decided that if she also had to put up with the five of us, then she was going to make good use of the time.

So we became her choir.

Lynne and my oldest brother Marvin were members of their school’s Glee Club, a group of students who met to sing and perform. Lynne would teach us what they learned, and one Christmas season she taught us how to sing Do You Hear What I Hear?

Written in October of 1962, the song was a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It has a precious melody wrapped around words of hope.

Lynne worked long and hard with us, and she was serious about her goal. She loved that song. She would sing the words and then make sure we repeated them in tune, correctly and clearly. She had no sheet music. There was no need for it: Lynne, like the rest of us, could pick notes out of the air. She had memorized what she learned at Glee Club. The music poured out of her heart and straight into ours.

And the words! I traveled the journey as I sang: From the sky to the lamb to the boy to the king to the Child. The description of the star “with a tail as big as a kite” and the song “with a voice as big as the sea” made me shiver with wonder.

Lynne went beyond teaching us just the melody. Besides the echo, there was a line that sang counterpoint to the last verse of the carol. There are no words, just an “Ahhh…,” in a soft and lilting melody.

And so, we sang. We followed our leader as she waved her hands and moved us through each verse. We had no audience. Our choir made its offering to the bedroom walls.

Yet we sang our hearts out, despite the overhanging gloom that poverty brings, for our sister’s reward and the pure pleasure and escape that singing brings.

Here are the words to the song:

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
“Do you see what I see? (echo)
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see? (echo)
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite,
With a tail as big as a kite.”

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
“Do you hear what I hear? (echo)
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear? (echo)
A song, a song high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea,
With a voice as big as the sea.”

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
“Do you know what I know? (echo)
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know? (echo)
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold–
Let us bring him silver and gold,
Let us bring him silver and gold.”

Said the king to the people everywhere,
“Listen to what I say! (echo)
Pray for peace, people, everywhere,
Listen to what I say! (echo)
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light,
He will bring us goodness and light.”


“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). Matthew 1:23

Do You Hear What I Hear? lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne Baker, 1962. Click here for the original recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale.


The Sunset, the Symphony, and the Gift

I cannot recall anything I said or did that would cause my parents to think I wanted a Magnus electric chord organ.

Yet there it was, next to the Christmas tree, fully assembled, with my name on the gift tag. Brand new and with a bench.

All mine.

I had an ear for music, like everyone else in my family. But playing a keyboard?

Did a teacher mention something to my parents? There were pianos in classrooms back when I went to school. Maybe I had hopped up and tried to play the instrument, and a teacher caught something in my eye that she recognized.

It is a mystery. My parents didn’t have money to buy a luxury like an electric organ. Yet, somehow it came to be: a musical instrument that wasn’t a loaner I had to give back at the end of the school year.

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September Story of the Month: Telling Stories

During my childhood, it got to the point where my sweet relationship with my mother was broken due to her bad choices. I never stopped loving her, but, unfortunately, things with us were never again the same. She died 22 years ago, shortly after her 68th birthday (September 20). Questions I had for her were never answered. Apologies I craved from her were never received. 

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August Story of the Month: The Long Walk Home

As I drove through one of my childhood neighborhoods, I was surprised to find Hoit Gardens only four blocks from Milpas Street, the main street on the east side of my hometown. As a child, I thought it took for-e-ver to walk to Milpas from our house.

Driving those few blocks brought back a poignant memory.

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I Met an Angry Lady at the Check-out Line Today

Happy Anniversary, Angry Lady! Five years ago this month (July 2016), I posted on my previous website an encounter I had at a grocery store that became the most popular story that I have ever shared. The story took several weeks for me to write, so the original readers received the story in three parts. Here is the full story in one post.

Fran the Angry Lady. I met her at the check-out line. We had a conversation. This is our story.

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June Story of the Month: Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing

There are potato chips all over the rug, and I think about how brave Dad is not to care about the mess he’s making.

Crazy. I’m afraid to make Mom mad like that. She’d come and get at me behind my knees with a switch.

Dad’s not afraid. He’s taking his time on the Soul Express, that radio show he likes where the deejays yell and laugh and blow whistles all the time.

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We Don’t Want Perfect Fathers

We do not want,

should not expect,

and will never have

perfect fathers.

All we want is for them

to make their God-given responsibilities a priority:

to teach, guide,

protect, provide for,

and love in His ways

the children He has given to them.

I do not think that is too much for a child to ask.

I do think that is too much for a father to carry

on his own.

God’s plan is a wife; she, his treasured helper.

But the great submission of man

is to yield to and depend on

the Heavenly Father.

A father will never be perfect,

but he can look to the One who is.

Too often, a father will finally bend

when the sweat of death lies on his brow.

I saw my father’s release at that divine exchange:

too late for a child

but a gift tearfully received

by a long-suffering me.

We don’t want perfect fathers.

We only want them.


Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,

but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

(Father’s Day is celebrated in the United States every year on the third Sunday of June.)

A Seed in the Hand of God

Throughout Spring 2020, I was too concerned about COVID and my health to walk into the local gardening center. I ached for the day when I could roam the crowded and too narrow aisles once more. Never again would I complain about the long lines. And when I finally did go in for my Spring shopping spree a few months ago, I didn’t have a single thought of discontent. Though no one could tell, I was smiling behind my mask as I swiped my card through the machine because I purchased more items than were on my list, as usual.

Gardening is my special pleasure.

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A Teen’s Questions for Me After the George Floyd Tragedy

Last year, during the height of the George Floyd tragedy, our Facebook feeds were full of posts that expressed the anger, frustration, and guilt that people were feeling.

That was to be expected. However, I quickly grew weary of seeing it.

So I wrote a post:

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