As Eagles Grow New Plumes
Music, art, and words in memory of the Girl Next Door
Borrowing a bit of demography and archaeology, my recent essay, “Religion and Killing,” argued that the benefits of organized religion have far outweighed the costs of religious strife to which critics often point. Today, I’ll offer a more intimate window into the origins of my thinking.
A recent memorial service for Susan Vaughan Henry, the literal Girl Next Door throughout my childhood, inspired me to compose a piece of music—“As Eagles Grow New Plumes: Hebrew Fanfare and Celtic Waltz,” based on Hebrew and English texts of Isaiah 40:31. To accompany the music, my wife (Alanna) produced a serenely kinetic painting—“They Shall Mount Up with Wings as Eagles”—in the style of sumi-e (Japanese ink painting).
The sections below briefly describe Susan’s nature, her affinity for that passage from Isaiah, the varying interpretations of the second of its four segments, how I turned it into music, and why Alanna’s painting bears a different name from the song. I’ll also describe Susan’s family—particularly her father—a gentle, scholarly Presbyterian minister who, more than anyone else, instilled in me a great appreciation for my own Judaism. Long after he and our synagogue’s rabbi passed from the scene, I learned that the two of them and one other neighborhood clergyman once acted together in the roughest years of Jim Crow to extend a warm hand across the racial divide that tore our town (Petersburg, Virginia) asunder. I’ll also explain why all these interwoven threads gave my composition its unlikely subtitle, “Hebrew Fanfare and Celtic Waltz.”
“AS EAGLES GROW NEW PLUMES (HEBREW FANFARE AND CELTIC WALTZ)”
Here’s my new composition (which is best heard through headphones). Details on the melody’s relationship with the Hebrew and English texts are explained below, along with a description of my choices in instrumentation and style.
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
I’m not sure whether this expression is well-known to readers outside of the U.S., so let me offer a brief introduction. As Dictionary.com puts it:
“The girl next door is a term used to describe a female archetype and fashion aesthetic which can range in terms of personal definition, but usually denotes a girl or woman who appeals to traditional or ‘all-American’ gender norms with the allure of purity, simplicity, and charm, with a natural, modest, or effortless beauty.”
Nothing could better describe my long-ago neighbor, who was nearly eight years my senior, but a dear friend throughout my formative years. As for my personal definition, I told her husband and son that:
“She was like a character out of a 1950s family television series—too sweet, too good, too kind, too smart, too funny to be real.”
In 1957, at the age of 3, I watched from my front porch as she moved into the house next door to ours, along with her father, mother, and two brothers. A flash of that moment remains as clearly in my mind as if it were yesterday. Her mother had the driest deadpan wit in town. Susan’s cerebral older brother went on to found the Virginia Endowment for the Humanities. Her younger brother, a merchant throughout his adult years, was the noblest and most likeable friend of my youth—and he retains those qualities to this day.
(For the first three years of my life, there were TWO beloved girls next door, who—as is the way with small towns—were also present at Susan’s memorial service.)
SUSAN AND ISAIAH 40:31
Susan was a Stephen Minister with her United Methodist Church in the village of Chester, Virginia. In this role, she counseled individuals in the course of personal crises—a role tailor-made for someone of her intelligence, eloquence, and empathy. In the course of her memorial service, the lead pastor, the REv. Nathan Decker, expounded at length on her particular attraction to Isaiah 40:31—a copy of which she kept on her bedstand.
The Bible provided for the service used the 2001 English Standard Version (ESV) text, where Isaiah 40:31 appears as follows.
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles;
They shall run and not be weary;
They shall walk and not faint.
This simple expression of faith is similar to the text from the 1611 King James Version (KJV) and, of relevance here, to the 1917 Jewish Publication Society (JPS) version, whose translation drew heavily from Christian texts.
FITTING MUSIC TO TEXT
Initially, I set out to write a piece to fit only the ancient Hebrew text, shown here:
which can be transliterated as :
v’-ko-YAY a-do-NAI ya-kha-LEE-fu KHO-akh
ya-a-LU AY-ver kan-sha-REEM
ya-RU-tzu v’lo yi-ga-U
yay-l’-KHU v’-lo yi-a-FU.
(Note: “kh” indicates a sound similar to the “ch” in the Scottish word “loch.”)
My original composition was only a spare French horn fanfare, with a “Biblical” sound to it—at least in an Otto Preminger sense of “Biblical.” Once finished, I thought it was too brief to stand alone. So I extended it by fitting a variation on the melody to an English translation—specifically the 1985 revised JPS Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). In that translation, a start-from-scratch linguistic effort, Isaiah 40:31 takes a very different turn in the second of the four segments.
But they who trust in THE LORD shall renew their strength,
As eagles grow new plumes;
They shall run and not grow weary,
They shall march and not grow faint.
“They shall mount up with wings like eagles” becomes “As eagles grow new plumes.” The ESV version suggests (to me, anyway) that faith in God makes us into metaphoric eagles. The JPS version suggests to me that we are already metaphoric eagles, for whom faith holds a transformative, restorative power. The JPS Bible explains this formulation as, “Alluding to a popular belief that eagles regain their youth when they molt”—a sentiment also reflected in Psalm 103:5:
“He satisfies you with good things in the prime of life, so that your life is renewed like the eagle’s.”
To my considerable surprise, the horn fanfare’s notes needed very little alteration to fit the contours of the English text. When I performed the piano portion, the cinematically Hebraic melody morphed into something more like a Celtic waltz, as one might hear at a Scottish ceilidh. I added in an accordion to accentuate this impression and a cello to add depth.
In the recording above, the first verse (the fanfare) fits the Hebrew text. The second verse fits the English text and retains the same key signature. The third verse repeats the melody of the second, but is lifted upwards by a perfect fourth—an eagle taking flight. The fourth verse returns to the Hebrew, lifted yet again by a perfect fourth—the eagle now brushing the clouds with its wings.
Susan’s family had deep ties to Scotland, so I thought it was fortuitous that a quasi-Hebraic melody morphed into something Gaelic. While the Vaughans were, I believe, of Welsh origin, Dr. Vaughan regularly exchanged pulpits with a minister at a Scottish church. After his wife’s far-too-early passing, he married a parishioner from his Scottish pulpit—who introduced scones and gentle Gaelic wisdom and charm to our neighborhood.
LOCAL HEROISM
Though he was Presbyterian and I was Jewish, Dr. Vaughan would become the paramount influence on my views on religion. I was quite fond of our rabbi, but he was a once- or twice-a-week figure, whom I generally saw in group settings. Dr. Vaughan was an everyday presence who spent endless one-on-one time mulling over the world with me. (When I was very young—8 or 9, perhaps—he was studying sacred texts in Ancient Greek and patiently taught me the Greek alphabet.)
A few days back, I wrote an essay—“Religion and Killing: Where an oft-repeated aphorism gets it all wrong”—in which I defy the commonly voiced notion that religion is responsible for most of the killings over history. Many of my peers developed a deep indifference toward and/or disdain for religion and people of faith—a mindset into which I never fell. I often quipped that people who voiced such sentiments had obviously never lived next-door to Bob Vaughan and his family. No, I am not a naif who saw one kindly clergymen as proof of the decency of organized religion. Rather, Dr. Vaughan served as a governor on my thinking. His presence always demanded—and demands still—that I examine the positives of religion as well as the negatives.
Some years after the deaths of Dr. Vaughan and of our rabbi, I discovered that both had been part of a trio of righteous clergyman during a time when bigotry against African Americans was both custom and law—and often vicious. In 2017, Rev. Grady Powell, perhaps Petersburg’s preeminent black clergyman (and father of a high school friend of mine), retired and moved away. In an interview at the time, he recalled his arrival in 1965:
“Throughout the years, Powell continued to work with all people and religions to foster understanding, as well as acceptance. In addition to the joint Thanksgiving service, Powell recalled attending a meeting of the Petersburg Ministerial Union, which was made up of religious leaders from around the city. At that time, in 1965, there were no black members of the union.
‘Three persons came out to welcome me: one was Boston Lackey, who was the pastor at Christ and Grace Episcopal Church: another was Robert Vaughan, who was the pastor at Second Presbyterian Church: the other was a rabbi named Solomon Jacobson [of Temple Brith Achim]. They all welcomed me, and that was wonderful at that time,’ said Powell.
Along these same lines, Powell was asked to preach at St. Joseph Catholic Church. He was the first Baptist preacher, and the first black preacher, to preach there. Powell noted that some members of both churches, including [his own] Gillfield [Baptist Church], were not okay with this. Even so, ‘that night, St. Joseph’s was overrun with people,’ said Powell.”
I was intimately acquainted with both Dr. Vaughan and with the Civil Rights struggles in my town—but I never knew that story. That’s unsurprising. Dr. Vaughan did not tell you of the good deeds he had done; he simply did them. And that sort of strength and modesty is how I think of his daughter, dear Susan of blessed memory. [I’ll close by noting that “of blessed memory,” is a traditional Jewish honorific for departed loved ones, but is also used among the people of Great Britain. The great Scottish novelist, Sir Walter Scott, for example, used the expression in his Quentin Durward.]
THE MIST COVERED MOUNTAINS / Chì mi na mòrbheanna
My new composition, presented in the essay above, features a piece in the form of a Celtic waltz. Here is my very favorite authentic Celtic waltz (in Ceilidh style), from my very favorite film—Mark Knopfler’s “The Mist-Covered Mountains” from Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero. A fair amount of the action takes place in a small church and features its wise, kindly, and counterintuitive Rev. Macpherson.
This video begins with the sound of ocean waves, so don’t be put off by the fact that the music doesn’t really dominate for the first minute-and-a-half or so. For Alanna and me, a highlight of our one-and-only trip to Scotland was sitting in a small Highlands pub, listening to a Gaelic band perform this piece.
When I ran marathons, friends would often quote to me, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." I often replied with the previous verse: "Even the youths shall faint and be weary and the young men shall utterly fall."
Beautiful throughout. Thank you.