Once again this year folks from around Cook County are being brought together by music. An orchestra is practicing. A choir is practicing. The fun of making music together and working on getting better at it fills several Monday evenings with music that keeps running through our minds the rest of the week. This week, we did something new: towards the end of practice the 80 singers circled around the inside of the church sanctuary and sang where we stood.
Our director asked that we intentionally stand “ungrouped”—so sopranos, altos, basses, and tenors stood amongst one another without pattern. As we nervously moved from our usual seats, many of us commented on how daunting this experiment was. Would the sound carry when we would be so far apart? Would each of us get off our parts and lose the ease of the altos singing together, basses together, sopranos together, tenors together? Would it all become just a mishmash? Would the music, that had been coming along well, just collapse in our uncertainty?
As we moved from sitting to standing, the formation of the group changed, but what stayed the same, was that we sang. And as we sang, we, the building and the very air itself, were encircled by sound.
I find myself wishing now that there was a way to capture sound in print, so that you could each hear what we heard!
Surrounded in sound, trying something new, letting the variations of sound mingle and reverberate into one another, we became more than what we thought we were.
Of course, not perfect, but it all still worked, and our singing moved from being notes and words into surprised rejoicing. We then switched from a song new to us this year to a song long familiar, and more nooks and crannies of sanctuary space and hearts were filled. We were surrounded, enclosed, contained in loveliness beyond our making.
Ah, the glory of the Lord! God who has made each person in that space, each voice, each note, each variation in ability, has also made music for us to employ and to be surrounded by. No wonder there are so many places in the Bible that music is mentioned, no wonder much of Sunday worship relies on music, no wonder so many images of eternal life with God include music, instruments, voices, choirs and song.
Until the concerts (7:30 p.m. on December 4 and 5) we’ll continue to gather in practice on Monday nights. We’ll also continue to spend time at home looking at music notes, practicing, humming, singing, playing away.
What happens as that happens? God is at work in the world, through musical instruments, voices, and words! It’s not that we have to find a perfect pitch (although that would be nice) or perfect rhythm (that too would add to the beauty)—it is that we are becoming enclosed in and surrounded by some of what God endows creation with, and we are allowing that to be made something new that enriches life and gives to our Creator our joy.
“Give earth of glimpse of heavenly bliss…the glory, the glory of the Lord, shall be revealed…this, this is Christ the King…behold your Lord, comes to you.”
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran of Hovland.
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