Catherine can outsing an entire choir

I was not the only Copeland in performance mode yesterday. Check out Catherine and Caroline in their feature performance of "Jesus Boy" at last night's church service.


I didn't realize that the "loud kid" was my Catherine until the end. Caroline gets tired of the performance about 60 seconds into it . . she leaves to go look at the manger scene behind the choir and then comes in for the big finish. Maybe she didn't like the middle part of the song.

Claire wasn't present during the performance . . . stage fright. She did a fine job of it later that night (at home).

But why?

The girls ask the question "but why?" after nearly every answer these days. Today, that question was asked again:

Me: Girls, time to get dressed!
Claire: But why?

I realized I didn't have a good answer, so we've been in our pajamas all day . . . and it feels so good.

Halloween 2006

Show and Tell:

Caroline and Uncle Russell:



Claire and Friend:



Catherine Enthralled with Halloween:



Neighborhood Ghost:

Sickness attacks next Copeland

Well, the second child and third member of the Copeland household just came down with the latest bug circling Birmingham. It started with Catherine, moved to wife Leigh, and now lies with Claire.

Caroline and I, with the superior O negative blood, have resisted the latest plague.

Or does our fate lie waiting, about 2:30 into our incredible performance of Bach's first motet?

Three proverbs

Three proverbs for today, friends:

• A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.
• Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.
• There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.

Frustrations pass, friends. Speaking while you are frustrated can cause a lot of pain and ruin friendships.

Blogs and facebooks and myspace's can be tools for great fun and communication but they are also dangerous: they preserve your words and magnify your feelings. I try to be careful with my blog and use it to promote good things and not bad . . . life is much better that way. If you need to work out your frustrations by writing, by all means, do it! But why tell everyone and stir up strife?

Quote from T. Roosevelt

Our pastor had a great sermon Sunday--just a great service overall. He had this quote by Theodore Roosevelt in the bulletin:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

The words really spoke to me then . . . maybe they will mean something to you.

MLK: If I Can Help Somebody

2011 UPDATE:  This is a post I made six years ago - and although I no longer work at UAB I still remember the choir that sang this marvelous arrangement by the great Ray Liebau.  You can now purchase the piece here on Mr. Liebau's website and listen to it on YouTube - but not by the Ole Miss Concert Singers - but by the Raffles Chorale, conducted by Mr Toh Ban Sheng in 2008 at the World Youth Choral Festival in Singapore.

In my happiest year as an instructor at the University of Mississippi, the choir sang a song arranged by Ray Liebau called "If I Can Help Somebody." The words were from a hymn quoted in one of the last speeches Martin Luther King ever gave.

We honor the great Martin Luther King today. Below is a portion of the speech he gave that night, with the hymn quoted in its context. There is a link to an Ole Miss recording of the arrangement, but it is rather large, so be forwarned.

If I Can Help Somebody (source of the sermon)

The words of Dr. King:

Every now and then I guess we all think realistically (Yes, sir) about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes)

I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)

I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)

And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that's all I want to say.

If I can help somebody as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,
If I can show somebody he's traveling wrong,
Then my living will not be in vain.
If I can do my duty as a Christian ought,
If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,
If I can spread the message as the master taught,
Then my living will not be in vain.

Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, (Yes) not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.

Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, on 4 February 1968. MLKEC.