Brief notes of thanks from Paula Rinehart and Lowrie Beacham
By Paula Rinehart
As Dave Stuntz’s ministry among us comes to a close, I wonder if I could offer a few reflections. I write, not as someone with musical background, or having sung in the choir, but just an average member holding down my respective pew. I’ve been a simple partaker of the musical feast set before us, week by week, through most of these years.
We trimmed our tree this week with Christmas music playing in the background and I was reminded again: there would be no Lessons and Carols this year. What a loss in a year of losses. But my second thought was, oh, how rich it’s been. How much beautiful music has been poured out upon us through the gifting and the faithfulness that Dave has brought to our worship together.
I think through the years of some of my favorite musical highlights. I’m sure you have your own list. I’ll always remember the men’s group who sang, “In the First Light.” And the Christmas that the Nicholson sisters gave us Andrew Petersen’s song, “Labor of Love.” Who can ever forget Jeremy Begbie and Elizabeth Gatewood ‘s piano and violin rendition of The Theme from Schindler’s List? (I drove back to Raleigh, turned around, and came back to hear it a second time). Or the piercing beauty of the choir’s rendition last Easter of the song, “You Are Loved? Or all the exquisite duets we have been enjoyed as Scott Kirby and his violin accompanied Dave at the piano?
Perhaps you find that the music ministry at Blacknall has shaped your spiritual life over these years. I know it’s shaped mine. So many Sundays I have come home and googled a song or hymn from the morning service and added it to my playlist. That music follows me around all week. The lyrics and melodies pop into my head at odd times, bringing conviction and comfort. When I sit in my bed in the morning reading my Bible, I find myself singing a hymn or song Dave has woven into our life together and I am lifted into another dimension. During the lockdown last spring, singing a hymn we have sung as a congregation was a tangible reminder that I was not alone.
So I write this as a way of saying thanks. I’m sure if we were in a large room with a microphone, you would have so much to add. We are all trying to find a way to say, thank you, Dave, for the way you let God move through you. Thank you for how ably you led us, week by week, in joining our voices with the unending praise in heaven. We could hear faint notes of that music in the distance because God has given you an ear to hear it so well now.
On the last Easter we were all together, Dave closed the service with the song, “We Will Feast in the House of Zion,” and honestly, it was so beautiful, so much of another world that I wondered if we were being prepared for something. The song seemed prophetic. Now at the close of a strange year that could get even stranger, and at the close Dave’s ministry here at Blacknall, I remember the words he brought us our last Easter together:
We will feast in the House of Zion
We will sing with our hearts restored.
He has done great things we will say together.
We will feast and weep no more.
By Lowrie Beacham
So, I was given the pleasant, impossible task of writing a—what? Eulogy? Remembrance? Appreciation? Of Dave Stuntz. Perhaps appreciation comes closest. But even so, where to start…and then I opened, read, and listened to the Advent message he sent out today; the choir that he has led, nurtured, coached for these nigh three decades, Lessons and Carols, “Do Not Be Afraid.” The music of course perfectly chosen, awesomely performed; but in the background, the chatter of the children, uncontrollably excited by Christmas. Many, most music directors would have turned and glared—or at least wanted to—and seethed. Not Dave. He is a man of limitless patience and love; for children, for the lost and lonely, for the elderly. This was merely the current example.
The elderly…Since the mind of man runneth not to the contrary, Dave has led, pastored, loved the Blacknall LC’s; the members between age 50 and 100; though most often the latter half of that span. In the beginning they were the Founders, the mill workers who built Blacknall, selling Brunswick Stew to buy bricks. Now they were retired; often forgotten, ignored by the new members who were their beneficiaries. But not by Dave: every Wednesday he would gather them in, sometimes collecting them himself in the church van, teaching a Bible lesson, loving on them, driving them on trips to see the leaves, to visit Ed Henegar; infinite patience and good humor. He listened to their memories—and remembered their stories to pass along, with love and hilarity, to the next and the next generation. As the membership changed, Dave visited the Founders as they grew ill, and weak, and died; he played for their funerals; and he carried on with those of us now joining that cohort, modifying his teaching to suit the audience, but always helpful, always encouraging. I resisted joining for two decades after I “qualified,” being in denial; my loss.
Then Dave the fisherman. If you want to catch fish—don’t go with Dave. The trout seem to be alerted he is coming, and go on a hunger strike, until his artificial flies depart the stream. If fish could laugh… Yet he continues, every year, ocean, pond, stream, every chance he gets. And people like me go with him; for sure not to catch fish, but to be there with him, to share the streams, the biker bars, the cigars, the laughter, all of it thanks to the tireless willingness of Dave to share what he loves with others.
Dave the “pastor.” In the past two decades, if you were sick, whether at home or in the hospital, there is a good chance that Dave would be one of the Blacknall staff to visit you, to transport you, to minister to you. Not part of his job description; just part of Dave. For good cause; Dave himself is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” There is said to be no greater sorrow than the loss of a child. Dave and Ann have “been there, done that”; and have the scars. He has lost an amazing brother he adored, slowly and with great pain, to cancer; he cared tirelessly for his aged and eventually dying father, traveling quietly and constantly to Baltimore to assist with this beloved but “difficult” man.
Speaking of sorrows: what must it be like for superb musician, to lose his hearing? I mourn enough my own loss, and all I do is listen for a wild turkey. For Dave, it was his livelihood, and is his passion. Technology can only help so much; the loss must be devastating; yet he will not complain, knowing what others are suffering around him. He once told me, when I asked how he could so easily play a song he’d only just heard, “It’s like walking, for me; you don’t need instruction, to walk to a new place. It’s like that.” If you say so, Dave; to me it’s magic.
And in the end, the music. It IS magic, magic for the soul. David played for Saul; Dave plays for us all. I’m sitting there picking apart the sermon like the Pharisee I am; and during Communion, Dave tiptoes into “All the Way, My Savior Leads Me”; and the critic retires, and the Lost Sheep desperately needing a Shepherd takes his place. Over and over. Me; others. Hundreds of others, a great multitude that no man can number, owing Dave Stuntz for the beauty he has brought into their lives; the high and lowly, through ages joined in tune. Thanks to Dave. Bless you; God knows you have blessed me!