Imagine a church sanctuary at 3am. The chimes in the belfry ring quietly, slowly. The atmosphere is hushed and heavy with memory. The old church creaks and murmurs.

The piano evokes the hour, the chimes and the murmurs. The comforting sound of the low clarinet evokes the idea of sanctuary -- a safe place for a solitary soul on a dark night.

The piece affirms musical sanctuary, too: the consolation we find in music.

I hope you'll pause for six and a half minutes to listen to this piece. Clarinetist Tony Costa and pianist Phil Amalong play it so beautifully that I gave the name "Sanctuary at 3am" to the entire CD on which it is featured.

To hear Sanctuary at 3am, click on the link above.

If you want to follow the score while you listen, click the link to the PDF of the sheet music, also above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
January 5, 2013

🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶

A title, once assigned by the artist to an original work of art, doesn’t change. What changes is the world, in ways that can alter how a title is understood.

In 2000, writing a piece for clarinet and piano, I imagined a church sanctuary as it would seem and feel to a solitary visitor deep in the night.

The atmosphere is hushed and heavy with memory. The chimes in the belfry ring quietly, slowly. The old church creaks and murmurs.

At the beginning of the piece, the piano evokes the physical sanctuary -- the peculiar almost out-of-tune sound of chimes is written into the introduction -- while the clarinet, when it enters, evokes the idea of sanctuary: a safe place for a solitary soul on a dark night.

There is comfort here, the music says, and beauty, too. I think of our marvelous, much-loved sanctuary at Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church, here in Cincinnati. The maple-toned woodwork and the marvelous, brilliantly colored stained glass windows are breathtaking. Truly, it is one of the most spectacular interior spaces in the Queen City. I had precisely this sanctuary very much in mind when I wrote this piece titled “Sanctuary at 3 a.m.”

In the years since I assigned that title, the meaning of the word “sanctuary” has expanded. Some congregations have announced themselves as ‘sanctuary churches.’

Most churches have a designated, sacred area for worship, called a sanctuary. But for many undocumented immigrants, entire religious buildings have become a ‘sanctuary’ in the broadest sense.

As our country imposed harsher immigration policies, many congregations adopted “sanctuary church” programs to help and support undocumented immigrants in the community. Some offer temporary living space to immigrants facing deportation, providing them with additional time for their cases to process. If a church lacks physical space to house immigrants, it may provide other forms of sanctuary with laundry services, meals, doctor visits, prayer and companionship.

ICE agents typically avoid carrying out enforcement actions in what are deemed “sensitive locations” including places of worship.

The notion of ‘sanctuary’ now includes controversial ‘sanctuary cities,’ municipal areas that limit how much local law enforcement officials can comply with federal immigration authorities.

COVID, too, has altered and expanded our notion of sanctuary as we’ve strained to make our dwelling places into sanctuaries, places safe from infection.

As I sit my rocker, writing these words in the quiet of my garden, I sense that just beyond the little sanctuary Jo and I have made for ourselves, the world is raging “like an angry boar chafed with sweat.” I think of resurgent COVID, the devastating effects of climate change, increasing poverty, the rise of white supremacy groups, military folly, rising autocracies, wobbling democracies, the plight of refugees and of those who cannot escape tyranny -- these and a dozen other egregious issues crowd in upon me here in the sanctuary of my garden.

The meaning of the title of my little piece expands again; this moment in history might be described as “the 3 a.m. of the human race.”

I wish these things need not have happened in my time.

“So do all who live to see such times,” said Gandalf. “But that is not for them to decide. All we have to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given us.”

What to do?

How shall we find sanctuary for ourselves and our loved ones? How shall we offer sanctuary to one another?

One small way is to create and share things of beauty and inspiration and then to share them with our friends. After having written very little music in the past eight years, I’ve recently come up with a couple of new choral anthems and two sets of variations for solo cello.

Too, I’ve been happily at work all summer on a new book to be titled, “The Blue Rock,” a comic blend of fiction and non-fiction. I will give away copies to many of you this fall, mailing them to you or pressing them into your hands at church.

I hope you'll find sanctuary in listening to this piece.

To hear “Sanctuary at 3 a.m.” beautifully played by clarinetist Tony Costa and pianist Phil Amalong, click on the link above.
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/sowash_sanctuary.mp3

If you want to follow the score while you listen, click here to see a PDF of the sheet music:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/sanct_at_3a.m..pdf