She would have us dance and sing

While I was in BC, Joan, the choir director at my parish and a really close family friend, passed away after a long fight with cancer.

I first met Joan when I was 14. I walked into church after a several-month hiatus, and Joan came half-running over to tell me how happy she was that I was back. We started chatting about converting (I wasn't Catholic yet). A week later, I showed up at choir practice, then I started RCIA, and the next thing I knew, I was seeing Joan two or three nights a week, and she became a really, really big part of my life. 

I can never really think of words which express Joan. What I most remember about her was how she loved people. While I've always been a reasonably good kid, I had some very over-dramatic and highly ungraceful moments throughout adolescence. Sometimes I was cranky, sometimes I was rude, sometimes (lots of the time) I thought I knew everything, and sometimes I was just a brat. While Joan would - gently - suggest from time to time that I shift a thought or a behaviour, never once did I wonder if she stopped loving me. She simply accepted my flaws, and loved me in spite of them. I think she pretty much loved everyone that way -  as they were, without conditions, all of the time. 

Joan was an inspired teacher. She could take the most challenging theological concept, and turn it into a story or an action or a prayer, and everyone in the room (which included children aged 5-12, and both teenaged and adult teachers) would take something meaningful away from it. I learned innumerable lessons from Joan, and the fullness of her influence is still revealing itself to me. I hope there's some of her joy in my smile, some of her peace in my prayers, some of her love in my hugs.

I have so many memories. I remember the whispered jokes we used to share over some of the drier homilies at mass throughout the years. I remember watching her sing a psalm once, and being moved to tears by how much of God's compassion she was able to portray in her singing. Or how she always knew to put out extra kleenex for me at funeral masses, even if I didn't know the deceased. Or how once, when her husband was giving me a guitar lesson and tried to explain to me how a given concept was mathematical, she stopped him and said "Jack, Jack, Jack. You don't tell Rena that something is mathematical. You tell her it's the next logical musical progression. Then she'll get it." I remember her baking and her hugs and her prayers.      

Joan loved Canticle of the Sun, a song which praises nature as something which connects humanity to all the different attributes of God. Really, really loved it. To the point that a bunch of the choir members stopped calling it Canticle of the Sun and just called it "Joan's song." As soon as summer approached, without fail, she would walk into choir practice, beaming, and proclaiming "I get to sing my song!" 

The last verse of the song states "Praise to our death, which makes our life real, the knowledge of loss that helps us to feel, the gift of yourself, your presence revealed to lead us home." It's beautiful, and it's true, and it felt right to sing it at her funeral as a goodbye. But as I sat at her funeral (with tears streaming down my face, and no extra kleenex this time), something else hit me.

The world feels a little darker, and a lot emptier without Joan in it. Of course we who knew her are mourning and grieving. It doesn't seem fair...and yet, if Joan could speak to us, I feel like she'd tell us to rejoice with her, because she's home with her Father. 

A three-song set called Today This Spring by composer Libby Larsen makes me think of Joan. One line reads as "she would have us dance and sing to celebrate the day." And through those moments, together with family and friends and a few strangers, in celebration of Joan's life, and in mourning for her death, I couldn't help but feel that while she wouldn't want us to deny our grief, she would, at the same time, want us to dance and sing in celebration as she goes to the Father.

So, welcome home, Joan. I miss you, and I'd give just about anything for another one of your amazing hugs and beautiful smiles. My mind and heart are all too aware that it hurts to be in this world without you. But the deeper, stiller, quiet part of me - that part of me that benefited from all your great teaching! - rejoices with you.

And I love you forever.

Happy October

It's a misty, damp, rainy day in the Valley. The air is crisp, the leaves are falling, and it's one of those days when it just feels so amazing to be inside with pumpkin chai tea, a good book, and some choral music to memorize.

It's October, the month of Thanksgiving Day. As such, I've been thinking about some of my attitudes towards life. I'd say I'm a fairly good person; I try really hard to do right by the world and the people around me. But, like the rest of the human race, I have my flaws. Two of them, I'm finding, go hand in hand: I spend a lot of my thoughts and energy on the past and future, instead of enjoying the present moment. And I waste a lot of my imagination on worrying.

When push comes to shove, I think both of these things come down to a lack of gratitude; to the fact that sometimes I forget to be thankful to God/the universe/call it what you will for all the good, beautiful things that fill my life. "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad." Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. THIS day; THIS moment!

When I look at each day, live in the moment as it comes, how could I not be grateful? I live in a nice apartment, in a beautiful part of the world., with awesome roommates who make me laugh and encourage me musically. I have a cupboard full of food I chose, a bureau full of clothes I like, and a pile of books I bought as a treat. I'm capable of reading for pleasure and for information. I get to spend most of my moments these days learning about music from incredible teachers, with a bunch of people who all love music as much as I do, and who believe in what I'm trying to accomplish. Who all genuinely seem to want to help me get there. Basically, it's my job right now to become the best musician and music scholar I'm capable of becoming. I don't think I could ask for something more amazing.

All that taken into consideration, what could I possibly have to worry about? How could I be anything BUT excited about the present moment?

I'm making it my personal mission to become a more grateful person this month. As part of that, every day in October, I'm going to post a picture on FaceBook of something I'm grateful for. You can find the album here.

Happy October, everyone!

Why Can't We Have Both?

Upon reading this post speculating on the ten worst hymns of all time, I have some mixed feelings.

I'm a practicing, active Catholic, and, therein, I suppose, church musician (however modestly so). I've sung in my church's choir for six years (and just had a very emotional final Sunday with them). While I'm quite liberal and ecumenical in my applications and interpretations of Catholic theology, my approach to liturgical music - its purposes, and the varying roles of the choir and the congregation - is perhaps a little stricter than most (and, paradoxically, more relaxed when it comes to quick tempos, percussion, and clapping. I was, after all, raised Protestant!).

After the Second Vatican Council, there was a huge movement to make the people active participants in the mass; responding, participating to the Word of God and the Eucharist. That movement has, I would argue, ceased to be a movement and rather become the cultural air that Catholics breathe. I do find that a thing of beauty - it creates community.

Outside of national anthems at varying gatherings, church services are one of the only places left of public, communal singing. Therefore, it is necessary that it include the people. But since it's one of the last strongholds of music education, I think it's also an exciting opportunity for musical education, exploration, and improvement.

Many of the hymns on the list are staples of my former church's musical repertoire. The songs are easy to sing, and can usually be learned (at least, I find) from one hearing. I'll admit that I like many of the songs and composers on the list. Haugen's Mass of Creation is stunning, "City of God," brings tears to my eyes, and "I am the Bread of Life" is one of my all-time favourite hymns. Many of the simple songs are beautiful in, and because of, their simplicity.

But when songs such as these - easily learned, frequently sung - are all  that is sung...I think there's a problem there. Because, in truth, I think the people we're trying to include by being simple and easy to follow, are actually bored of the repeated repertoire, the same thing week after week.

And these songs, while beautiful, only represent the last fifty years of liturgical music. It does seem foolish to ignore the hundreds upon hundreds of other years (during which were created some of the most glorious compositions in existence). And (my personal complaint) there's no Latin! Cutting out the linguistic and musical history of a celebration that, otherwise, hasn't really changed in two thousand years seems, to me, to distance post-Vatican II Catholics from their roots; their origins.

I'm not saying there should be a return to Latin polyphony as the mainstay of liturgical music - I'm a decent singer with a fair amount of education, and I'm doubtful of my ability to hack Latin polyphony at 9AM on a Sunday morning. But I think there is something to be said for stretching ourselves - in doing something a little more demanding, in singing, as Wesley put it, "lustily, and with good courage" a little higher or lower than we think we can.

This music is, after all, for God. And God deserves the best attempts we're able to give.