Where is thy sting?

The Minnesota State Sacred Harp Convention was held this past weekend. Attendance was less than some past years, but the quality of the singing was excellent, as usual. There was a good number of first-time singers at the singing school conducted by Bruce Rye on Friday evening. I'm afraid, though, that he left many of them overwhelmed since he jumped into singing almost right away, with too little instruction. But his energy and passion was infectious. I was impressed by how he taught without a book in his hand -- he simply called out the tunes he wanted by number and sang them -- including shapes -- by heart. (And a good thing since the book he was carrying was the 1936 edition, not the 1991 revision we use.)

In addition to the reliable visitors from Chicago and St. Louis, there were several visitors from the United Kingdom -- mostly from Derby, as far as I could tell -- who we were very happy to have with us.

I had been asked a couple of weeks ago to give the memorial lesson, a time before dinner on Sunday when we remember singers who have died since the last convention or who are sick or shut-in. The custom is for a singer to say a few words, read the names, and lead a song in their memory. I put quite a lot of thought into what to say, mainly because brevity is encouraged and because I wanted to avoid being overly sentimental, which sometimes happens. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be, and ended up with two entirely different texts and not sure which one to use.

But then, on the Monday morning before the convention, the 93-year old mother-in-law of a favorite local singer died. She had welcomed us to sing in her home several times, and some local singers sang at her funeral. (I was unable to attend.) Then, we learned that the family emergency for which a singer from Portland, Oregon, had had to leave on Saturday afternoon was the impending death of her infant niece. So much of what I had prepared seemed inadequate all of a sudden, and I had to let go of my prepared remarks and let the spirit lead me.

As the morning progressed, every one of the seven songs that I had chosen to sing for the lesson had been used. (I'm not sure whether the rule against singing the same song twice in he same day applies generally to the memorial lesson, but I was advised not to use a song that had been taken.) During the break immediately before the lesson, the co-chair asked me if I had noticed how so many sad songs had been led that morning. It was as if all of us were being moved by the same thoughts.

When the time came, I spoke from the heart. Here's a rough idea of what I ended up saying (or think I remember saying) :

When Christine asked me to prepare the memorial lesson for today, a phrase came to me: There is no such thing as “Sacred Harp singing.” There is only people who sing Sacred Harp.

But that seemed a pretty thin reed to support a memorial lesson, so I began to think about how Sacred Harp singing, especially at a convention like this, is a kind of Brigadoon experience, a reality that exists for a short time every once in a while, largely invisible to non-participants, during which we singers experience life in a different, deeper way than usual, after which we return to our mundane lives until the next time.

I was going to talk about what we experience when we sing is a reality that transcends time and space during which we are present spiritually with those who have gone before and will come after, as it is and will be in heaven.

But on last Monday morning, Death made a personal visit to our community of singers here in Minnesota and took our sister, Helen Stevens, mother-in-law of our chairwoman Christine. And yesterday, our friend from Portland had to leave early for a family emergency, which was the impending death of her infant niece.

While I believe with all my heart that Sacred Harp singing creates the experience of life eternal in the company of all who sing, have sung, or will sing this music, I realized that talking like that can sound an awful lot like cheap grace, as if we’re wishing death away too easily without counting its cost. We need to remember that our brother Death is here with us at every singing we have, ready to take any one of us.

But we don’t shrink. We give Death his seat, but refuse to cower. We recognize his existence, but we deny his sovereignty. We will each die, but that is all we will do for Death; we are not on his payroll, as Edna St. Vincent Millay put it.

And so I returned to the first inspiration I had for this lesson: There is no such thing as Sacred Harp singing. There is only people who sing Sacred Harp. It is the people who matter. We aren’t here because of the shape of the notes, the structure of the melodies and harmonies, the poetry of the texts, or even dinner on the grounds. Those things are important in their own way, but are incidental. What is essential is the actual men and women – past, present, and future – whom God calls together to sing this music.

And so we take this time to remember those men and women who are now singing from the benches in back of us, invisible to our eyes. Each of them was loved by someone in this room, and their passing has brought the grief of love as we sang earlier.

As I read the names of singers and those loved by singers who have died since we last met, please say a silent prayer of gratitude for the love they gave us and for the comfort and solace of those who loved them who grieve their passing.

I then read the names, a little more slowly and deliberatly than is usually done, putting just a moment or two of silence between each one. It felt very reverent and real.

We then sang 566, Hebron:

Thus far the Lord hath led me on,
Thus far His pow'r prolonged my days;
And ev'ry ev'ning shall make known
Some fresh memorials of His grace.

Much of my time has run to waste,
And I, perhaps, am near my home.
But He forgives my follies past,
And gives me strength for days to come.

I lay my body down to sleep,
Peace is the pillow for my head;
While well-appointed angels keep
Their watchful stations 'round my bed.

2006 Minnesota State Convention
Town Hall, Historic Murphy's Landing
Shakopee, Minnesota
9-24-2006

And now, for someting completely different, from the Department of Invincibility

[W]e were not created to be safe. We were created to be invincible.

Awake my Soul

The much-talked about documentary Awake my Soul arrived yesteday, and it is beautiful. Anyone who is interested in what this Sacred Harp stuff is all about could hardly find a better introduction. Experienced singers will enjoy seeing old friends (including the magnificently whiskered brother of a favorite Quaker blogger friend of ours).

I was especially taken with the interviews with Raymond Hamrick, who I've not met but whose compositions I love to sing. (Especially this one, which came to him in a dream that he describes in the film.) He had presence and dignity, and a gentle accent, that reminded me of Pete Seeger.

The DVD is 75 minutes long, giving it enough time to introduce many aspects of the tradition: origins and history, musical theory, interviews with contemporary singers, dinner on the grounds, and lots of well-recorded singing. I recommend it without reservation.

More Crossan: Universal v Particular

Here is another fascinating -- and to me enlightening -- quote from Crossan memoir. It comes near the end of chapter 4.

In context, he is explaining his idea that the Christian Trinity -- Father, Son, Holy Spirit -- correlates to comparative religion understanding of the "structure" of the Holy which includes the categories of metaphoric (God, or the Holy, can be comprehended only through metaphor -- God as Father is a metaphor), Locality (the Son places the Holy here on Earth, in history, among the People), and Particularity (the fact that the metaphor and locale are recognized by believers, but not by non-believers). He then writes:

That mystery of particularity closes the Trinitarian loop, and here the best analogy to divine faith is human love. You must experience faith or love as if it could not be otherwise. Imagine this. I wake up tomorrow morning next to my wife and say, "If I had not met you, fallen in love with you, and married you, I would probably have met someone else, fallen in love with her, married, her, an be waking up next to her this morning." That would be a very imprudent way to start my day, yet it is probably true. It is also unspeakably crude in its denial of human particularity. Or imagine this. A young couple have just lost their firstborn child and I tell them, "Don't worry. You can always have another one." That, too, is unspeakably cruel in its denial of human particularity. So also, then, with your religion: you must experience it as if no alternative were even possible. But at the back of your mind, you must also recognize that alternatives are always present. Particularity is not relativity, not the belief that anything goes or that everything is the same, but the acceptance that our humanity, at its deepest moments and profoundest depths, is individual and specific.

For individuals, groups, and communities this metaphoric and that locality, this seeing-as and that seeing-where, seem absolutely true, and all other possibilities seem but heresy, apostasy, infidelity -- mistake at best and treason at worst. Whether through genetic or ethnic occasions, personal or cultural drives, psychological or social forces, this metaphoric and this locality are experienced as choosing us rather than our choosing them. I do not say (although I know it is true): "I might have been a Muslim or a Hindu, but I was born in Ireland and so I'm a Roman Catholic Christian." Particularity, too, is part of the structure of the Holy, and it is only through it that metaphoric and locality act upon us.

pp 105-06

I've long had the sense that the relationship of a person to his or her church community is analogous to one's relationship with a spouse or partner, but haven't been able to put it into words as well as he has.

What fascinates me about this is the notion that "this metaphoric and this locality are experienced as [my emphasis] choosing us rather than our choosing them," as if it could not be otherwise, even while knowing at a different level that it might have been.

This certainly is what it feels like to me -- Christianity (or was it Christ?) chose me at birth through being born to my particular parents. (Would anyone say it was my "choice" of parents??) Though I experimented some with other religions while a youth, in my deepest soul I have always known that I belonged to the Christian (but not necessarily the Lutheran) community -- over time and space -- and so eventually stopped denying the alternative possibility and have since tried to learn how to be most useful and faithful to that community.

To the extent that I can say that I chose to be a Quaker kind of Christian (or a liberal member of that family), I can give lots of reasons, but in reality -- to me, in other words -- it feels that I was drawn inexorably to it, no more my "choice" than a fish "chooses" the bait that reels it from one world to another.

If this is true (and I think it is), then it seems impossible to be "religious" in a general sense (though one may have a predisposition to think about religious things), any more than one can be a "lover" in a general sense (though you may have an amorous temperament). You need a religious community --this one, not just any one -- just as you need a lover -- this one, not just any one.

The implication seems to be a variation on the "think globally, act locally" idea. If we believe it is worthwhile being Quakers, we must preach the Gospel as understood it as Friends -- with our words as well as our lives -- without apologizing for our evangelism. But at the same time we must remember that we are one of many ways, some of which may be equally authentic and effectual. (I'm not willing to say they all are, or even most.) We show that we know this latter to be true by the way in which we do the former, avoiding the twin traps of fundamentalism and pseudo-universalism.

(There's more in the Crossan book which I'm finding strangely captivating, including a discussion that I may summarize later of the distinction between "universal or functional" and "patronal or influential" societies.)

Reading John Dominac Crossan's memior

A Friend lent me her copy of John Dominic Crossan's memior, It's a Long Way from Tipperary thinking I might like it. I read some of his writing about the Holocaust many years ago but I haven't been very interested in the Jesus Seminar stuff, so I wasn't sure whether I'd like the book. But I am enjoying it quite a lot.

Here are two quotes that made me go "Aha!"

When I read, in the New Testament, that Jesus called God "Father" or when I hear, in a seminar, that my colleague can believe in God only as "Father," I recognize that my own early experiences filter that title into a very different consciousness. It is not, on the one hand, just a general distaste for patriarchal hierarchy and the delusion that God must be, literally or metaphorically, male rather than female, father rather than mother. If, in fact, you want a parent metaphor for God, I think father is much more appropriate than mother. It is the mother who is publicaly knowable, visibly provable, and legally certifiable. You do not need faith to know a mother. You need faith to know a father, because he is known only on the mother's word and sometimes not even that (at least in the days before DNA testing).

p. 37

Writing about his younger years studying for the priesthood and being taught that the vow meant "no personal possessions and that all things were held in common. What you were given was for your use (ad usum) and not for your possession":

The vow of poverty is not about poverty, but about community. It does not mean personal destitution, but communal possession. It is, actually, a subdivision of the vow of obedience.

p. 63