Star of “Dreamgirls” on Broadway, accompanying singer for Janet Jackson and Engelbert Humperdinck, Vanessa Townsell of the famed Episcopal Chorale Society, Inc. of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles was one of the featured soloists Saturday evening at St. John’s Cathedral for a wonderful service of Advent lessons, carols, and spirituals. She sang about the baby Jesus plus another baby she couldn’t have known about — one arriving soon in Kathy’s and my family.
Comprising voices from our diocese’s missions and parishes serving people of African descent, the chorale is usually under the direction of its founder, Canon Dr. Chas Cheatam, but he fell ill midday Saturday. Assistant music director Yalonda Peterson took up the baton for the service. As of Sunday afternoon, attended by his spouse, Lydia, Canon Chas was still in the hospital but feeling better.
Yalonda and the presider, the Rev. Guy Leemhuis, contended skillfully with the transition in leadership. Vanessa’s number, “Children, Go Where I Send Thee,” came near the end. I’d caught a bit of it in rehearsal. During the service, I happened to sit with Vanessa’s friend Carmen, a former dancer, so we were on tenterhooks together.
By the time Vanessa stepped to the mic for “Children, Go,” the congregation’s spirits were aloft on clouds of scripture and song. Enslaved people sang the song for generations. During Jim Crow times and at the height of the Depression, music researchers John and Alan Lomax recorded a version offered by incarcerated people in Atlanta. As a child, I learned it by heart from a Kingston Trio record:
Children, go where I send thee
How shall I send thee?
Well I’m going to send you ten by ten
Ten for the ten commandments
Nine for the nine who dressed so fine
Eight for the eight who stood at the gate
Seven for the seven who never got to heaven
Six for the six who never got fixed
Five for the gospel preachers
Four for the four who stood at the door
Three for the Hebrew children
Two for Paul and Silas
One for the little bitty baby
Was born, born, born in Bethlehem
And the Bethlehem miracle came early this year around our house. I’ve been humming this song for weeks, ever since elder daughter Valerie Passarella told us that she and Mark have decided to name their second child, due in early February, Silas Harvey Passarella. According to tradition a respected leader and teacher, Silas accompanied Paul on his second apostolic journey. Acts says he was with the great apostle when the earthquake broke them out of prison in Philippi. He also joined Paul in Corinth. Harvey is my father’s first and my middle name.
So when Vanessa and the chorale sang “two for Paul and Silas” last night, I made the victory sign back. Two for Silas and Harriet, his big sister! Adding all those extra syllables just changes how you sing it. Probably a sermon in that.
Canon Suzanne Edwards-Acton, co-convener of the Program Group on Black Ministry (the event’s sponsor, along with the H. Belfield Hannibal Union of Black Episcopalians), saw to a myriad of details, including helping coordinate a gumbo feast after the service. Our deacons were the Revs. Margaret Hudley McCauley and Dominique Nicolette Piper, who also joined the corps of lectors. The cathedral’s acting dean and priest in charge, the Very Rev. Anne Sawyer, welcomed us warmly. Sexton Hayden Santiago was his usual expert self.
Finally, my words of welcome:
“This time of year, during Advent and at Christmas, we hear the sacred story again, from the promise of the prophets to the good news of the nativity gospel, and we sing the sacred songs again, so that we of faith can again open our tender if sometimes hardened hearts to the truth at the heart of the universe – that Christ is alive, born at Bethlehem and reigning on high, and that the sovereign of love will return and throw a cloak of peace and justice over the whole creation.
“Whatever worries or scares us, whatever makes us anxious or grieves us, that’s not the final word. Because we know our destination, which is the realm of God, and we know our earthly work, which is to glorify God and care for God’s people, so that when the sovereign of love comes, we’ll be ready.”
