Lyrics and Scores

This title is kind of pretentious. I chose it just to remind myself of the topic at hand! The topic is beyond my field of expertise, but that does not necessarily keep me from pontificating about it. Music is one of my loves but I am quite untrained in the discipline of making it. I do recognize bass and treble cleffs, whole notes and quarter and half, and I can almost read time signatures. Not much. My wife, one daughter and two sons are musical and each quite unique in style and performance. I love the music they make; wish only they would do it together more regularly in my presence. I love singing both choral and contemporary, AND I can tell when music is good and when it’s bad, appropriate or inappropriate. Don’t ask me how. I just know.

Two days ago Verna and I attended a choral concert at Mount Royal University here in SW Calgary, of course because our daughter sings in one of the choirs. Kantorei Choral Festival it was called, apparently a first in Western Canada, this concert was at end of a week full of workshops, masterclasses and professional development opportunities featuring two world-renowned choral leaders and composers, Jake Runestad and Joshua Rist. What an occasion, what a wind-up, what inspiration! I am still pumped even with my lack of musical expertise, pumped probably because music did exactly what music is intended for. Music is the voice of the soul, or inner spirit (good or evil, my opinion). These guest conductors treated the choirs and all of us in the packed house to new stuff and also some old things eternally true.

In addition to the inspiration of choirs from across Alberta and a large boys choir from Laval, Quebec, I encountered some surprise content. For starters the world premier of Runestad’s Ritual was a song without words! Words also fail me trying to describe the piece, except to say how beautiful it was when two choirs sang like one, like one voice, as though the conductor himself had music coming out of his hands. The title and the incredible union of voice and volume and my experience of ritual in my faith practice was moving, to say the least. Equally inspiring, mysterious actually, was the closing finale sung by all Festival Choirs together - 380 voices - Joshua Rist’s world premier, I Will Walk You Home. Rist, tall and youthful, already having conducted several bouncy pieces (even one with that Rapper guy, KtheChosen) in introducing this number he spoke in a subdued manner, sharing quite personably some family pain – claiming his need to make music, something that just has to be done. Everybody in the audience knew it was a holy moment. There were many wet eyes as we listened to that final rendition.

The Christian faith as practiced in our denomination the Mennonites is almost coterminous with congregational singing. We are not known for brilliant preaching, but we know how to sing, or at least we used to. And depending on varying rifts and traditions, some acapella, some with organ and piano, some with songleaders, some without, and of course many pros and cons about singing ‘off the wall’ usually led by singing groups or worship bands. Even with today's full variety this denomination with its staid Swiss European Russian beginnings, now has two thirds of its membership in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. In these areas of recent growth, congregational singing also very important, but more akin to pow wows and dances than the beat or the harmonies still dominating the Caucasian scene.

For me this begs a fresh new question, and also simple continuation of some things already on my mind (eg. recent blog “Recognizing Saints", March 31)[i]. Not only life in the church, but in encounter with God who is beyond the traditions of any denomination, or beyond practice of the ancient Hebrews (including now Christians and Muslims), or of the Indigenous (including the drum, their heartbeat for worship). Fascinating about this concert in this secular non-sectarian setting was that even with minimal reference to God there was undeniable Presence, deep things which can only be musically expressed, fully endorsed by those with deep faith claims or perhaps deep faith needs, including the rendition with no lyrics at all! 😉 Fascinating.

Always  there are ‘progressives’ and ‘regressives’, whether secular, Christian, Muslim, in politics, or…?  I am reminded of many years ago when I was a college student, our Music Professor choir conductor par excellence was also a closet charismatic! Yes, conducting many many Bachs and Chopins and huge repertoire of long-haired college music, he also fed his inner spirit by hobnobbing in a christian fellowship which included speaking in tongues! Although not regular practice among fellow teachers and students, to me his worship choice signaled integrity, a teacher whose relationship with God went beyond the confines, restraint, sophistication of his profession. Today's many theological self descripts as evangelical, affirming, welcoming, social activists, traditionalists, etc are not really necessary when relationship with God is 'for real'. This now reminds me of the heartrending finale at Mount Royal the other evening.

Yes, God is beyond denominations and beyond the operable present faith traditions, and also beyond the music and the lyrics we write. Music is undeniably the language of the soul. And finally, yes finally even atop all this 'soulatary' inspiration, a finale even atop what we can create or experience here and now, is the Grand Finale as recorded in the book of Revelation.

¹¹ Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. ¹² In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
    to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
    and honor and glory and praise!” (Revelation 5:11-12)

---

[i] See also a very thoughtful recent edition Canadian Mennonite, Vol 27, no.5, beginning with Will Braun editorial, “Is the ban back?”

Good Friday Soup

My wife makes delicious soups – the kind that has spoiled the prime consumers, namely me and the kids. When I say spoil I mean that I lose appetite for any other. Would that be labeled as comfort food? Comfort foods carry a risk of feeding only the complacent, those satisfied with the familiar. Today it is Good Friday soup, a vegetarian sort of specialty with caraway and some other spices giving it a gentle unique flavor. Good Friday soup! Period. Enter a slight variation. This year Verna decided (and I agreed) that it would not make sense to cook up this specialty soup alongside some already-created very delicious and amply leftover chicken noodle soup! Also, this Friday noon it would be only the two of us and one of our daughters, who also loves chicken soup!

But it wasn’t Good Friday soup! We are such creatures of habit that I notice it bothered my wife a little bit; she can even start to feel guilty about stuff like this. 😏 All this now gets me thinking – yes my thinker again. It has nothing to do with soup, but … it does. How do we celebrate Good Friday? 

This year again we had a service together with the other churches of our Christian denomination in this city. It was a 'regular' occasion which threw a bit of a curve ball at all of us. After this service we all quietly and clearly knew we had gathered with a difference! The beginning had been as expected - lots of noisy happy hugs and greetings. We like each other and occasional get-togethers warrant lots of warm greetings. On this day, however, unlike previous years when the pianists and/or organists would be hard at it creating the preludes reaching up to high heaven, this time no music; just the noisy greetings.

Then a request for silence. In a simple instructive tone we were informed this would be a time of remembrance; no bulletin with worship order; only brief on-screen graphics and scriptures to lead us along. I was moved by this creativity, at first slightly taken aback by instructs onscreen like “Silence 3 minutes”, but in short order recognized the focused re-enactment of Jesus’ aloneness with a solitary soloist leading us “Were you there?” The suffering, the grief and guilt all occasioned on that day when Jesus died. It was ordered and quiet and choreographed for clarity and focus [Also an important visual to this retired preacher - seemingly good involvement of clergy and congregants of the participating churches]. I was moved by this a seeming promise of new style which will possibly move the church forward. After the scriptures and the silences and the appeal for money from our well known world relief organization, it concluded. We were dismissed with instructions to move quietly out of building, leaving only our offerings with the ushers.😔

Other than these somewhat brusque departure instructions I thought this had been good. Perhaps it's a feature of my creeping age, I really do not need all that foyer noise anyway. I walked out thoughtfully, appreciatively. And then I heard some protestations! What is the purpose of re-enactment? We cannot fully recreate the loneliness of Jesus on that fateful event, so why even try? This is not a movie or a drama. It is Good Friday. Is this not an occasion for prayers and anthems and proclamation? Yes, Good Friday is that, and how can we presume to do that well? Our re-enactments are only haptics at best. We dare not omit worship of Almighty God on this most somber day of the church year. My thinker remembers! I remember also my days of pastoral leadership many years ago; we also tried hard to be theologically correct even while giving believable understandable leadership on these corporate gatherings, and they also followed by critique. Some things do not change!

Back to my Good Friday soup. Like our traditional soup expected on a certain day, so I think it is with the liturgies or the hymns or prayers on certain occasions in certain ways. Some things one needs in order to experience a day the right way. Some things are optional. This was well tested for me during my years of long haul trucking following twenty plus years of service as a pastor. Especially significant/vulnerable to me were those holy occasions of Christmas and Easter. They lived in my faith consciousness as non-negotiables, a soul awareness that never went away. Even with fellow truckers and the traveling public ‘making weekend plans’, etc. I was always aware that for me the real occasion was a faith occasion, not just weekend plans - the founding occasions of my life (John 10:10). If not able to be in assembly (Hebrews 10:25) with brothers and sisters I could spent a whole day clocking up the miles to reach destination, while actually in worship mode, thinking of church services at home or occasionally catching a chapel or church along the way, either of evangelical or ecumenical stripe. Ironically in this frame of mind I would almost always encounter someone – a person of similar mindset, always a good reminder that God has ways of being present with us in any and all circumstances. Chicken noodle soup may serve as well as the Good Friday version.

Special weekends are special only for those in whom the specialness lives. So this year it's a new Good Friday service along with pro and con opinions. I am reminded of the yin yang of life. Given my churchy and my trucker years I know of holy and profane moments in my trucks and I know of them behind pulpits. My Good Friday is not dependent upon services done the way they used to be, nor dependent on new original imaginative modern haptics. 

Within my worship history and my soup preferences, I give thanks that the One who died also came alive in short order, and is available to me still as promised and still so very much needed. It is as Jesus said to his disciples looking ahead to the crucifixion, "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7 RSV). For Christian believers it is about new life in the name of the One who came among us and became so spectacularly available after resurrection. That is why the weekend is always in package. Death was so real and so terrible for Jesus and his bungling well intentioned disciples; also beginning of the greatest miracle of all time. He lives. He lives.