"What does it mean to 'pre-board'? Do you get on before you get on?" - George Carlin

Because I didn't get the painting done last week I plan to do it tomorrow and Tuesday. That puts a bit of a time crunch in Tuesday's schedule because of a lunch meeting, so this afternoon I spent a couple of hours sanding fenders and doors to have everything completely prepped when the time comes.

I typically listen to Pandora through my iPad and Bluetooth speaker while I'm working out there, and today picked my "Traditional Gospel" channel. A more descriptive title would be Black Gospel Music. Think: Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Mavis Staples, The Fairfield Four, LA Mass Choir....

(If you want to hear some of what I'm talking about - and you do whether you realize it or not - enter any of those into YouTube and give a listen. Maybe in the order I listed them.)

As I sanded and listened I was reminded of something that happened when I was a pastor in West Michigan.

During a stretch when we didn't have any live musicians (or dead ones for that matter) we sang along with recorded music for our congregational singing, and I chose a song from my personal music library to play while the offering was being taken.

One Sunday after church one of the old Dutch men - at this point you should know that as a group they're not known for being socially progressive - asked me why I so often chose Black music. (To his credit, that's the word he used.)

I told him that when White people learned to sing like that I'd give them more play.

African-American gospel music has an energy rarely heard from White musicians. It comes from deep inside and carries an urgency you can't miss. (Did you listen to any of those groups up there?)

Black gospel has some technical features that contribute to that intensity. When I sang in a choir in CA the guest conductor, brought in to lead a medley of Spirituals, told us we needed to concentrate on the consonants, one of the keys to the energy of Black gospel. As a high school choir member and in college I was taught to focus on the vowels, and we were coached on how they should be pronounced when singing. Listen to Traditional Gospel and the way it stresses consonants. Energy!

As I listen to that music I wonder if they believe what they're singing, or are involved in a commercial enterprise and live lives that bely the lyrics. That energy can be a cultural phenomenon only.
But I believe the lyrics. And when they sing those gospel songs, many of which I grew up hearing in my very White, Scandinavian church, I feel that intensity down inside of me.
If I can't sing like that (and I can't) I can listen to them sing like that and feel it inside of me.