I Walk with the King -- Alton H. Howard

 

Alton Howard had these words on his lips practically all of his life, and he could today undoubtedly say these words written in 1971 have reached their full flower. “I Walk with the King” was something Alton wanted to say about himself, but the way he lived and served in his community must have urged others to do the same. This was something that Jesus Christ’s closest associates, the Apostles, could have also said (See the 15^th Century artwork, Calling of the Apostles, by Domenico Ghirlandaio here.), though calling Him ‘king’ would have been a risky proposition; in fact, that issue of Jesus’ kingship was ultimately how His earthly enemies managed to have Him executed. His kingdom was a great offense and never made sense to some, and was the root of why they relegated Him to a grave, albeit only temporarily. But upon His resurrection, His kingdom did not remain a mystery, and indeed became a source of unquenchable power. It was something that reached – and still does today – people like Alton, and probably explains his life that had impact in so many different ways.

 

Can one accurately count the various ways and the number of people that Alton Howard’s journey with his Lord has affected? Jesus once made a stunning statement to the Apostles -- Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12). How would you feel if God-in-the-flesh told you that you would be outdoing Him someday? Go out and reach the world – that’s the charge that Jesus gave those remaining 11 (soon to be 12) Apostles at the conclusion of His earthly ministry. Perhaps Alton felt the same way, though the method he employed was reaching the world from his home in West Monroe, Louisiana. Alton was a born-and-bred Cajun state resident, and spent most of the eight decades-plus of his life there, including most notably as a church elder, music publisher, hymnist, founder of a church camp and international radio ministry, author, and multi-talented businessman. That’s more than enough for one lifetime! One source indicates that Alton’s published songbooks reached up to three million copies worldwide. How many people did the church in West Monroe, where he served faithfully as an elder for 40 years, ultimately touch? The same question could be asked regarding the church camp and radio ministry, as well the songs and the books that he wrote. One gets the impression that if Alton was walking with his king, that he must have worn out several pairs of shoes in the process! He had business savvy here on earth in so many ways, according to those who knew him, but the words of the song he composed in 1971 showed that that was only the stepping stone to another plane above this planet. ‘I walk with the King to heavenly land’ (v.1), Alton said poetically in the first line, and though his many ventures didn’t always last, one detects little regret about his life in what he wrote. He was an earthly entrepreneur, but the direction was vertical, a trajectory that made his life such a positive influence, as a signpost – indeed, with lots of posted signs wherever Alton journeyed! -- to the One he served.   

 

Not much more could be said about Alton Howard than has already been spelled out in several ways, even if we don’t know specifically what motivated his songwriting in 1971. You can read more about him via the links below. He was carrying out the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20), even as he lived and worked in southern Louisiana. Does that speak to the rest of us? You don’t have to go far from home to serve God and touch many others for Him. Alton was a living testimony to that approach. Some of us write blogs (yes!), or do many other things that transport our words, actions, and passions for God elsewhere, places where we may never go while inhabiting this earth. He can use you wherever you are. So, take a page out of Alton’s playbook, and get out there!

 

See following links for information on the composer:

 http://www.christianchronicle.org/article/songbook-publisher-entrepreneur-howard-dies-at-age-81?A=SearchResult&SearchID=2809510&ObjectID=4369268&ObjectType=35

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Books

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Hardy_Howard

 

See also “Our Garden of Song”, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.

 

See information on the artwork here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghirlandaio,_Domenico_-_Calling_of_the_Apostles_-_1481.jpg … This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. {{PD-1996}} – public domain in its source country on January 1, 1996 and in the United States.

Where Peace Like a River -- Alton Howard

 

Did he mean to say’When..’, instead? That’s what response you’ll get from your computer, when you try to search for Alton Hardy Howard’s "Where Peace Like a River” that he penned in 1977. You get the impression that Alton knew what he was doing when he wrote his words, especially in the first verse’s opening line. He certainly was aware of, and gave a nod toward the more well-known song about a peaceful river that begins with ‘When’. From his lifelong home-state of Louisiana, Alton was thinking of a place, indeed the same place for which his predecessor and author of the ‘When’ hymn was yearning. Had Alton suffered a grievous loss as his musical ancestor had, prompting a similar spontaneous purging of his soul’s anguish? 

 

The short answer is that we don’t know what spurred Alton Howard to compose three verses about a place with an environment like a peaceful river. Alton’s life led him down a variety of avenues, but they all led to the same destination. The biggest parts of Alton’s life, from the sources we can examine, were the Christian enterprises that he led – from a radio program, to a Christian camp, to a church he helped shepherd for decades, and to the music that he helped publish and promote. Most assuredly, we can surmise that Alton knew and had sung many times “When Peace Like a River”, by Horatio Spafford. Perhaps it was the 100-year anniversary of that song’s publication, in 1876, that sparked Alton’s imagination. Who couldn’t be moved by Spafford’s circumstances, the staggering loss of his four children in a ship’s accident in the Atlantic Ocean? From what we know of Alton’s life, at least a few of the ventures in which he engaged – including some business efforts, no doubt with a monetary cost -- were not successful, so was one or more of them cause for dejection in 1977? Horatio’s words regarding ‘sorrows like sea billows’ may have struck a nerve in Alton’s spirit, for his own poem’s first few words are nearly identical to Spafford’s – ‘sorrows like billows’. Something in Alton’s life was the source of some ‘despair’ (v.1), yet he doesn’t wallow in that state. He’s looking in the rearview mirror, in his mind’s eye, while in a place he expects will be a ‘city so fair’ (v.1). It’s a place of ‘sunshine’, and of a ‘fountain’ with ‘Calvary’ at the headwaters (vv.2,3). While Horatio dreamt of the day when the Lord would come to erase his life’s tragedy, Alton looked beyond, when he would be enjoying his inheritance.

 

 Alton Howard was awash in despair at times, too, though he chose not to emphasize that. He could imagine that the river, though peaceful, was also powerful. To be enveloped by such a stream was not just a way relieve the troubles of existence, but it was existence itself. It’s not a temporary bath, it’s where one resides. All the surroundings feed you, sustain you. We can hardly fathom such a place, since earthly life is mingled with struggle, and that is the only place any of us have ever been. So, was somebody communicating with Alton from another place, or was he merely wishfully letting his mind wander? Perhaps Alton allowed himself some dreaming, because it helped transform his present, and held the promise of transport, too. You and I don’t need more of everyday reality. Let’s live for what Alton could see.     

 

 

See following links for information on the composer:

 

http://www.christianchronicle.org/article/songbook-publisher-entrepreneur-howard-dies-at-age-81?A=SearchResult&SearchID=2809510&ObjectID=4369268&ObjectType=35

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Books

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Hardy_Howard

 

See also “Our Garden of Song”, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.

Wonderful He Is To Me -- Alton Howard

 

He was 46 years old in 1971, when he penned some words about his present and the future, and how what had happened in the past was still affecting his outlook. Alton Hardy Howard declared that “Wonderful He Is to Me”, not just because he felt very fortunate to be in a home he loved in West Monroe, Louisiana (see the map, highlighting it in northern LA’s Ouachita Parish), but because an even grander one with his Creator awaited. Could Alton have known that time would come some three and a half decades later? He’d had a pretty eventful life, even at this point when he chose some words to express the reason for his delight. Had he been purposely spared in a conflict early in his life, allowing Alton to pursue so many beneficial ventures subsequently? Read some more about Alton Howard, and consider a life well-lived.

 

Alton Howard’s upbringing undoubtedly played a big role in his development and the trajectory of his life’s pursuits. Church-going parents who loved to sing communicated volumes to Alton and his brothers and sisters. Could Alton’s service in World War II (he was a gunner in a B-26 bomber, serving in the US Air Force in France and Germany) also have helped galvanize his life’s purpose following his return from the war? Certainly, something spurred Alton into multiple endeavors to serve those around him, both near and far. From a variety of business activities to the church and some related appendages, Alton was the model of a leader in the West Monroe community. He just never sat still, it seems, playing the part of entrepreneur in no less than a dozen business efforts from the mid-1940s onward. Besides editing and publishing three hymnbooks, which included the handful of songs he wrote, Alton authored three other books, including one (Money Grow$ on Tree$: How to Make, Manage, and Master Money) that underscored the success story that was his life. But, nothing probably brought Alton more satisfaction than the music, Christian youth camp, and international radio gospel program he helped to establish near the end of his life, all while serving as a shepherd in the church he served for over 40 years. It’s almost as if, in 1971, he was reflecting on how blessed he’d become over the previous 25 years, and was pondering how to keep the ball rolling for the next 35 years. It wasn’t a mystery to Alton Howard – it seems that not many things were a mystery to him – how to continue. It’s right in the words he wrote in 1971. The One above was the source of all things great and best in Howard’s life, both temporally and eternally.

 

Alton exuded all the was good and prototypical in the Christian life he led. And, he knew who was foundational in that life – the One who came ‘from portals of glory’ (v.1); the One who ‘leadeth’, ‘speaks’, and ‘lifted’ (v.2); and the One with whom Alton could envision walking forever (v.3).  Alton knew ‘His riches and blessings’ (v.3) while on earth, but certainly expected them to be but a shadow of what was to come. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t limit his enterprising spirit to just one thing among all that he did. None of those things would last forever, Alton would have said, including his own flesh and blood. They were just special things to develop himself and those around him. All that Alton developed and helped make better was wonderful, you might say…’marvelous, wonderful, and glorious’ were not foreign to Alton. He just became really good at imitating the source of those adjectives.           

 

See following links for information on the composer:

 

http://www.christianchronicle.org/article/songbook-publisher-entrepreneur-howard-dies-at-age-81?A=SearchResult&SearchID=2809510&ObjectID=4369268&ObjectType=35

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Books

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_Hardy_Howard

 

See also “Our Garden of Song”, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.