When Kirby Pool was very young, she asked her mother, Saint Mark’s Episcopal priest Jayne Pool, what God was like. Jayne answered, “God is like everything.” And so began Kirby’s upbringing as a child of spiritual, intellectual and musical parents.
Jim and Jayne Pool met in high school, he being older by two years. Jayne saw Jim getting out of his Opal with a guitar case in his hand and knew right away that she needed to know him better. They became friends through Canterbury United Methodist Church’s youth program (MYF) with its caring leader Leon Precise. Jim and Jayne (and many others) were touched by Leon’s conviction, his sense of humor and the musical spirituality of MYF, and that experience set the stage for their own spiritual journey.
Jim left Mountain Brook for Davidson College in North Carolina in the mid-seventies, and he kept in touch with Jayne through the ancient art of letters. Both were contemplating some sort of spiritual vocation, but neither was certain what that meant or how that fit each other.
Through stops and starts—including a transfer to Birmingham-Southern where Jayne was studying religion—Jim applied and was accepted to Yale’s Divinity School. “I went sight unseen,” Jim says. “And from day one it felt like home.” And so Jayne followed suit. Jim adds, “Yale had several students like us with all kinds of questions, not sure what was going to come next. We had no master plan.”
True North
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” – Nelson Henderson
After graduating from Yale and moving back to Birmingham, Jayne was ordained in the Methodist church, yet she recalls, “I was in the process of discerning, convinced I could do ministry, but I did not see myself as a preacher.” In those days, there were very few female role models, so ordained women were mostly deacons or elders in the church. Both Jayne and Jim ended up back at Canterbury, and as Jim puts it, “when a husband and a wife are both working in the same ministry, your world can get small really quick.” Jim spent two years at Canterbury and while there read a book that changed his perspective, and his calling. Gideon’s Trumpet by Anthony Lewis describes the 1964 Supreme Court ruling that decided criminal defendants have the right to an attorney even if they can’t afford one. “In the book, the lawyer is using research and writing to help someone else, and I realized that was a better fit for me,” Jim says.
Having married in 1981 and established themselves in Birmingham, Jim commuted to the University of Alabama for three years until graduating law school. His interests took him in in the direction of regulatory issues in healthcare and tax exempt organizations. “That sounds arcane,” he says, “but I’m really just talking to people, helping them work through things. I’m not fighting for one side or the other. I’m just helping people who are trying to do the right thing.” Jim has been doing exactly that for the last 35 years at Maynard Nexsen, one of Birmingham’s top law firms.
The Road to Saint Marks
“Do not be afraid little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” – Luke 12:32
When Jayne was pregnant with their daughter Kirby, she and Jim decided to visit Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church on the Highlands, and just like Yale, “it felt like home.” That was the beginning of a nearly two-decade-long connection to the church with Rector’s Rusty Goldsmith and later Huey Gardner. As Jayne worked in the church, her supporters would often suggest that she would be good in the pulpit. So as a joke, and by way of encouragement, Jim bought Jayne a clergy shirt on clearance sale at the Advent bookstore. While it was a joke, Jayne was unable to get rid of it. “I put it up on the shelf in my closet. Then we moved to a different house, and I took it there too and put it on that shelf in the closet. Why wouldn’t I give it away to Goodwill or somebody?”
Jayne, who became ordained in the Episcopal church and received her Doctor of Ministry from Sewanee, was about to turn 50 and realized, “If I’m ever going to find my own church, I better do it now.” She heard about an opening at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church on Dennison Ave. St. Mark’s was established in 1891 as a Black Episcopal Congregation and a year later as a school with seven grades and 47 students. The church has been through many iterations led by spiritual, educational and civic leaders, and today Reverend Jayne ministers to a small group of devoted parishioners.
The Guitarist
“Can’t you feel that sun a-shinin’?” Bob Dylan
Jim Pool fell in love with the guitar at the age of seven. His mother was from the mountains of southwest Virginia, and his family spent time there each summer visiting antique stores. That’s where his parents bought Jim his first Harmony guitar for seven dollars. Jim’s earliest influences were the finger picking styles of Peter Yarrow and Paul Stokey of Peter Paul and Mary, and while Jim’s brother gravitated to electric guitar, Jim continued to hone his acoustic chops, ending up in the Alabama School of Fine Arts where well-known instructor and player David Walbert became a consistent and valued teacher. Jim has never used his music to make money, but it’s always been at the center of his spiritual life both as a writer and a player. His original instrumentals and playing style are in the Windom Hill, Leo Kottke vein. “One of the great pleasures of playing an instrument is discovering something new,” he says. “That’s where I find joy.”
A few years ago, Jim took a course called “The Yoga of Guitar” from an online musician named Josh Brill, a onetime Berkelee School of Music instructor. “Brill’s all about the spirituality of music, and of vibrations, Jim says, “so I started working with him.” Brill was supportive of Jim’s music and encouraged him to record his originals. Last year, Jayne was asked to officiate a wedding in Golden, Colorado, not too far from where Brill lives. Jim made the logical decision to record in Brill’s home studio, and the result of that collaboration is an album called Springtime with 12 instrumentals written by Jim and played on Brill’s Lowden 12 fret acoustic guitar. The album is on Spotify and Apple Music.
The title track, “Springtime” was written when Pool was 16, and it’s meant to express the joy of spring and of being young, alive and full of life. “Spring in Alabama is an incredibly wonderful yet short season,” Jim says “Titling this album Springtime kind of expresses both that fleeting idea of time and joy, so I just thought that was the right thing to name it.”
Endless Grace
“What is good is difficult, and what is difficult is rare.” Robert Capon
When Kirby was young, she asked her dad, “Would you be mad if I was not an Episcoplian when I grow up?” Jim responded, “of course not Kirby, but you’d be an Episcopalian.” And so Kirby Pool sums it with a gift from her parents, “They taught me to give others endless grace, because we never know what battles others might be facing.” Words to live by.
