The enduring legacy of Kurt Kaiser

It seems many U.S. high schools have -- for lack of a better term -- "Christian clubs." Even in my day, in the early to the mid-1970s, such groups had to meet before the school day actually began due to the understood separation of church and state.

There weren't a lot of us who met in the guidance counselor's overflow office before home room at West Allegheny High in Pennsylvania.

Fifty years on, it is not a simple matter to remember specific details, but as memory serves, someone would read a Bible passage, typically from the New Testament, and we'd talk about it for a couple of minutes. The conversation would quickly drift off to other topics; we were, after all, teenagers.

I remember certain faces, and not all the persons behind those countenances remain in this life.

Keith, Ron, Bill, Lynell, Dave, Tim, others. We lost Lynell last year.

My recollection of those days is mainly by way of mental snapshots and songs.

As to the latter, "Pass It On," was an early staple of contemporary Christian music.

Slow and plodding in cadence, the piece recalls sitting with other teens swaying back and forth -- sometimes in front of a campfire where S'mores were often made.

The lyrics were a complement to the nighttime scene.

"It only takes a spark to get a fire going.

And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing.

That's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it.

You spread the love to everyone, you want to pass it on."

The late Kurt Kaiser, Chicago-born son of German immigrants, wrote the song, arguably his best-known tune of more than 300 copyrighted compositions.

One of Kaiser's admirers characterized the musician's legacy this way:

"Kids would hear a song, have tears in their eyes and then whistle it the rest of their lives," said Baylor University's Terry York.

York is right.

As an older man drawing Social Security -- with Medicare looming large in life's windshield -- Kaiser's compositions still sometimes come to my mind unbidden.

As powerful as "Pass It On" was especially in my early life, another one of the Chicagoan's creations holds greater sway now.

Note the lyrics to this 1975 song, released during this columnist's senior year of high school.

"Oh, how He loves you and me.

Oh, how He loves you and me.

He gave his life, what more could He give?

Oh, how He loves you.

Oh, how He loves me.

Oh, how He loves you and me."

Ask your Echo Dot to play it for you sometime.

A simple song but not simplistic, a tune that summons to mind a memorable Bible text, taken from the epistles (letters) at the very end of the New Testament.

A former parishioner of mine, whose funeral I was privileged to officiate, told me the following verses from the brief letter of I John are all she needs to know about the Lord.

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

This is how God showed His love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love; not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (I John 4:8-11/New International Version)

I don't whistle but if you hear me humming sometime, it may be to one of Kaiser's songs about God's love -- which still lift my spirit and inspire hope in what is to come.