Page 7 - Moravian Messenger May 2020

The Pilgrimage of a Lifetime
Country Music is very popular in Northern Ireland and Ronnie Harper's life time desire was to visit Nashville, Tennessee. Ronnie and Lorna are members at Gracehill Moravian Church
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© Sr Lorna Harper
providing hot food in the mornings and showers and clean clothes at the weekend. Community workers wearing yellow T-shirts could be seen on the streets administering help and advice to the homeless. We know that crime was prevalent and the police were visible, however we never witnessed anything but warmth and kindness.
Unfortunately, we never managed to attend a church service but we did notice all denominations represented throughout Nashville. We would have loved to have been able to visit a Moravian church while in America but they were all too far away from us on this occasion.
We went shopping in a huge shopping mall which was a real experience. It took us the best
I have always loved country music especially American country music. There are many different sounds in American country music including Bluegrass and Honky-Tonk with my particular favourite being The Bakersfield sound and Meryl E Haggard my favourite artist. He had a troubled childhood but managed to turn his life around and developed a successful country music career. He wrote songs about
his life and the working class and indeed was always a bit of a political rebel. One of my favourite songs is 'Sing me back home'. Meryle Haggard sadly died in 2016 and is survived by his three sons who also write and perform country music. Alan Jackson who sings gospel as well as country music is another one of my favourites and one of his best albums being Precious Memories.
I realised my life time ambition
at the end of last year when I
visited Nashville Tennessee,
considered by many to be the
home of country music. This
was a wonderful experience
from start to finish. I was able
to see for myself the museums
of country music and also
experienced live country music
daily as we enjoyed our meals
in the local restaurants. This was
such a treat and it gave me great pleasure to share it with my family. We started to soak up the culture from the moment we landed. After sampling a few coffee houses we decided that Dunnes was the best and we visited it every morning to enjoy muffins and Danish pastries like no others we have tasted. The owner of the coffee house was very friendly and by the end of our stay he would shout at us when we entered that our table was free. Close to our hotel there was a war museum and peaceful spaces outside to enjoy.
We visited the Johnny Cash museum and the country music hall of fame and ventured out on a trip down the river on General Jacksons showboat. Nashville is steeped in history and there were many sites to visit where battles were fought throughout the American Civil War. We visited one small plantation and had an insight into the history of that family and how events had shaped their lives and how it led to the development of the Tennessee Zoo. The plantation had been owned by two sisters before it was donated to the Tennessee state for the Zoo. They had returned from Cuba where they had left with their father years earlier where he started a successful cement business,
however in the communist revolution of Fidel Castro they lost their home and business and had to return to Tennessee to the family home.
Like all big cities Nashville has a large homeless community who were visible throughout the main part of town. Nashville church community had a strong support network for them
part of the afternoon just to walk around it. Here I purchased a cowboy hat which I carried home with extreme care. I couldn't resist attending a house building show which I saw advertised. I appreciated all the huge pickup trucks which were everywhere we went and they kept getting bigger and better.
The real highlight of our trip was going to the famous Grand Old Oprey concert where Vince Gill was headlining and the Oakridge Boys were one of his supporting artists. Vince Gill is married to Amy Grant who is a gospel singer and I am familiar with their music. The lyrics of country songs are always about true life events and some are very funny whilst others trigger real emotion. I listen to country music daily
and have watched so many concerts which were filmed in this venue so it was such a treat to actually get to visit it.
We are truly thankful for this special time and we made so many memories.
Br Ronnie Harper