My Musical Odyssey, Part III: Get on Board
Gospel took me by surprise. When I first arrived in Dallas to enroll in seminary, my plan was to do a double major in sacred music and theology. For some reason, though, it had never occurred to me that it might be a good idea to check out the program I was going to be entering before I actually moved myself and most of my possessions into a dorm room. I'd gone to Illinois sight unseen, and that had worked out reasonably well, so why should I treat my seminary choice any differently? The answer, of course, is that I wasn't even in the program that led me to choose this school over any other Methodist seminary in the United States. I'd gotten into the Master of Divinity program without a hitch, but that was a course of study I could've taken anywhere else. If I wanted to earn a Master of Sacred Music, my choices were limited to SMU and Boston. Boston misplaced my application, so that left SMU. Just getting into the MDiv didn't mean I could be an MSM, as well; f...