The inspiring Mary Oyer

Nurturing Spirit Through Song: The Life of Mary K. Oyer Rebecca Slough and Shirley Sprunger King, editors. Cascadia Publishing House, 2007.

No one who has had an encounter with Mary Oyer will easily forget it. Mine came at the 1985 MBBC/CMBC Church Music Seminar where she was the featured speaker/leader. Her expansive and fascinating knowledge of hymns and her way of teaching and leading them was worshipful, inspiring, and oh so alive!

Mary is from the (Old) Mennonite church (now merged with the General Conference Mennonites) and her sphere within the Mennonite world has been primarily within these groups. However, her influence, through lateral connections, has also been felt within Mennonite Brethren circles.

In this book, 15 contributors create a collage of her life and work thus far (she was born in 1923) in three ways: biography, tribute, and a brief anthology. The biographical section gives an understanding of how her upbringing, church, and education shaped her, and how her understandings changed through her experiences, particularly her travels and studies in Africa. We also get the sense of how her irrepressible gifts and talents kept bubbling up despite cultural and gender barriers.

The tributes all sing the same song: Mary shared freely of herself and inspired many into music studies and ministry.

In her writings, Mary is passionate and persuasive when talking about (fine) art and worship. She makes the case that beauty was created by God for us and that we shortchange ourselves if we don’t allow the artists among us to bring their gifts to worship. Among our MB churches, there are still some who are suspicious of those whose gifts are not word-oriented and so this might be a good “word” for us!

This book can be sampled and I would recommend it particularly for music and worship leaders.

Sara Jane Schmidt is a pianist/teacher in Winnipeg and lay music leader at River East MB Church.