Powers of the Collective

And so, just like that, I became the "Music Director" at a Lutheran church.

Following the service today, the minister launched a humorous monologue about today being the birthday of Sarah (the woman who invited me earlier this year to become the church pianist/musician; she also belongs to the founding family of the church, chooses the hymns and writes my check each week, and performs a hundred other tasks to keep the church going) and, again, no treats on hand to commemorate the birthday of a church member.

There ensued a lively open discussion, including a consideration of no one even singing "Happy Birthday." The talk went on....and on....and, at last--I really could not help myself--I raised my voice and began singing. Everyone quickly joined in. Lots of smiling gazes cast toward me in my usual position beside the piano at the rear of the room.

Today was a day of especially acute spiritual clarity for me. I woke up with a compelling sense of having three eyes which persisted for some time after awaking. I am also reading A.S.Byatt's "A Whistling Woman" that chronicles among other things the formation of a religious or spiritual community. With her usual thoroughness, she includes a comprehensive description of the narrative on which the beliefs of the community are based.

As I listened to words uttered by minister and congregation at this Lutheran church today, I observed the commonalities between the fictional community and this one. The Old Testament reading was taken from Genesis 1 which is the complete retelling of how God created the world. In the Nicene Creed, which they stand and recite every week, they affirm the tenets of their faith.

I thought today about the necessity of words to sustain belief. The reiteration and repetition of the ideas that guide and shape it. Patriotism, etiquette, best practices in business and education:  all of them, like religion, require a underlying belief system to exist and persist. Belief is what humans do. It seems belief is an innate aspect of the human condition, no more possible to avoid than laughter or violence or ignorance.

A member with musicianship in her history and I have established rapport. She suffers visibly with ongoing distress in her back and knees. We spoke before service began about my father's upcoming back surgery. She must have mentioned it to the minister because "Alex' father" was among those lifted up during the General Prayer. I was touched by the gesture and noted an absence of annoyance or cynicism. These people, like all people were acting on their belief. Although I do not share the belief system, I perceived no threat in their action. I did not feel outnumbered and their prayer did not feel like intrusion.

The same musical woman approached me after service (and the singing Happy Birthday ritual) to thank and compliment me, as she has on numerous occasions, for my musical contribution to their services. "There is so much sensitivity in your playing," she said. "The music gives the words of the hymns more meaning."

I thanked her for the compliment and commended the generous courage it takes to give me feedback. In the especially clear psychic space of this day, I played with particular sensitivity today. For each of the musical ordinaries* I sought today to make the accompaniment express and enhance the texts. In each verse of the hymns, I suited the accompaniment to precisely fit the meaning and intent of the text.

And I accomplished this by setting aside my skepticism about Christian belief. Yesterday I posted again on FaceBook Buckminster Fuller's quote:

I had no fight with Christian belief today. I am a musician. I build with music. From the volume and the quality of their intonations -- and a few glances toward the back of the church during singing -- I had the distinct sense this morning that the music interrupted the rote singing of these hymns the members had sung for decades. Today they heard what they were singing.

There is no higher purpose to my musicianship than that it serve the awakening of human consciousness. If my musicianship helps bring focus and intention to what people are saying and doing, my work is well done.

Another member asked me today, in my role as the only person of color in the room, if I was familiar with a tradition in "Black churches" to hold up one index finger on occasions when they leave before the service is over. I was not. He said he'd learned of the tradition through an American-African employee this week and done some research. His findings uncovered several possible roots of the practice, one of them being that during slavery in the U.S. slaves were allowed to attend church but the needs of the master overrode this privilege:  a raised index finger indicated the master needed

you, work called, and you had to go.

I suggested that perhaps the practice is only observed in Southern churches and that's why I don't remember it from my childhood church in Indiana.

Although I've never witnessed this practice, it strikes me as possibly another instance of thought-less ritual based on unexamined belief. I see thought-less, unexamined belief as among the most dangerous features of human existence; the basis for war and strife, the root cause of many intractable social problems.

Driving home I chuckled. It is likely they are praying for my father without a conscious awareness that they believe in the power of prayer. In the absence of anything I perceive as definitive proof against group prayer, I will suspend opinionated belief. It may do some good.














*Ordinary
Those parts of the service that remain constant from week to week -- the Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis, Nicene Creed, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Composers have written complete musical settings using these texts. The parts of the service that change from week to week are called the propers.