35 year ago I came to Grafton and Drayton ND and became acquainted with Dawn Jensen. She, like my wife and I had attended Concordia St. Paul and had been active in music and still was. She was about to marry Rodney Rathmann. Dawn is a part of the “Schumacher clan” that we write about occasionally in this blog. Anyway she went on to marry Rodney, they moved to St. Louis and Rodney became an editor with Concordia Publishing House. Dawn became the music director at Christ Memorial Lutheran Church in St. Louis and has been doing so for 25 years.
On April 20 and 21 the church celebrated her 25 years of ministry, led by the senior Pastor, Rev. Greg Smith who served with me on the Board of LCMS World Relief and Human Care. The Associate Pastor at Christ Memorial is the Rev. Jeff Cloeter, who is the son of Rev. Paul Cloeter in Sauk Rapids and another class mate of mine. Dawns accomplishments were publicized and a wonderful worship service of thanksgiving was celebrated. You can read about that in other places.
In my conversations with Dawn over the years I am always amazed at the depth of her theological understanding of hymns and choral music. Her deep love and knowledge of music is evident, but she is also able to be deeply moved by simple songs and hymns that are sung with a humble thankfulness to God. The words of Luther come to my mind………….
“I, Doctor Martin Luther, wish all lovers of the unshackled art of music grace and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ!
I truly desire that all Christians would love and regard as worthy the lovely gift of music, which is a precious, worthy, and costly treasure given to mankind by God.
The riches of music are so excellent and so precious that words fail me whenever I attempt to discuss and describe them…. In summa, next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits…
Our dear fathers and prophets did not desire without reason that music be always used in the churches. Hence, we have so many songs and psalms.
This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God.
However, when man’s natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace.
A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”
– Martin Luther
Thanks Dawn for 25 years of sharing the precious gift that has been given to man for the “express purpsose of praising and extolling God”.
