Dear friends,
What a beautiful day in Lincoln, and I look forward to a beautiful evening with you all tomorrow. A friend of mine from Birmingham, MI, where I lived before coming here has been out to visit us a few times over the last year. Her experiences with the Lincoln community and, particularly, with the amazing people from our First-Plymouth Choir, have led her to decide to retire here in Nebraska. Today she begins her drive westward, and she plans to be with us in rehearsal tomorrow night as the newest member of the Plymouth Choir. Some of you already know Jennifer, but I am certain that all the rest of you will enjoy coming to know her in the coming months and years.
It occurs to me that whenever someone new comes among us, our choir can never be the same again. A choir is not a closed, consistent entity. It is always a work in progress, a journey in process, an evolution of possibility. There is a dynamic rhythm to the heartbeat of a church choir family. Each week we come to choir from a variety of individual worlds, with different concerns and challenges. Some of us come after an exhausting, stressful day at the office. Others come from a fun, pleasant time with family or friends. Sometimes we come because we need someone to lean on, and we can feel God's presence in the music and in the people that surround us. Sometimes we come because we know someone else will need to lean on us, and we are anxious to return a blessing we have been given. Sometimes, once we get here and sing, a new piece opens our hearts to hear God's voice in a new way. Sometimes singing a beloved piece again reminds us of someone we loved singing with or a time in our lives when we were more peaceful and whole. While no moment can ever be recreated, music can often transport us to well beyond ever-- to a sacred, holy place where there is endless grace and unceasing love. Those moments come and go, the people who sing with us continually change, and we each change all the time as well. We don't look the same as we did ten years ago, and our voice doesn't probably sound the same either. With singing and art, there is really no destination where we ever arrive. There is an unending, fluid, gracious, full journey of unceasing possibility (which is, honestly, sometimes painful, unexpected, treacherous, and can even seem hopeless).
Some of you have come to share your concerns about how we are faring musically and vocally the last few weeks. We have had more trouble than usual creating space for the voices around us, unifying our sound with common purpose and passionate clarity, sharing pitch and breath and space and tone. We have seemed collectively disoriented and distracted, and the usual 'up' our spirits feel from the thrill of singing has experienced an uncomfortable pinch of anxiety somehow. We had seemed to be on such a steady pace of continual growth, steadily building skills and evolving on-going-ly in positive, holistic ways. Some of you are asking me why this happens, how this happens, and what we can do about it. Maybe this is one of those burdens we have to give up to a higher power...but I can at least offer some ideas from my very mortal perspective:
It would be easy to get back together tomorrow expecting that we will probably go out of tune within the first bar of our a cappella piece as we did this past Sunday. It would be easy to come back together tomorrow and expect that singing with impeccable diction is too difficult when we are just having trouble making a good sound together (and besides, the person next to me is not going to do it right anyways...). It would be easy for me or Jeremy to get frustrated and say, "What's wrong with you people?" and for us to yell you into tune (or, as happens sadly in many places, out of the room)! It would be easy for us all to figure out whom to blame that we are not unified and whole. It would be easy to think we are only as good as we have been most recently and that there is something and someone to blame that doing the right thing is now more difficult and more laden with obstacles than usual. As usual, though, it's not what's easiest that is best..!
It will be wonderful when we get back together tomorrow and realize that our whole life of singing has prepared us to make the most beautiful possible sound when we take in our next low, cleansing breath and to give sound from our being back to the world. It will be wonderful when we get back together tomorrow, find our new seats in the choir room, and begin to share pitch and space and hope with our new choir neighbors. It will be wonderful to get back together tomorrow and to expect that someone will be there who needs to lean on us and that someone will be there to lean on. It will be wonderful when we get back together and treasure the gift of music-- a gift we both give and receive. It will be wonderful to be together, and to be fully present-- body, mind, spirit, voice-- to do the holy work we've been given. It will be wonderful to be a new choir on a new day. It will be wonderful to expect the best of ourselves and to lovingly encourage the best in everyone around us. Every day is a new creation. ENDLESS grace. Even when we are out of tune, we are loved. Because we are loved, there is always a chance to be in tune. : )
It will be wonderful to see you tomorrow. Thanks be to God for Wednesday night and for the sanctuary that each of you brings and that each of us receives from being the Plymouth Choir.
Grace and peace,
TT
