The Recovering Choir Director

Mark and Nick have made rich comments on Wednesday’s post, and has gotten me thinking.

Mark cites 1 Corinthians 13:11: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.” Mark follows: “God wants more from us than aesthetic enjoyment and constant variety. He wants us give up our pride and give up our will to be formed by Him.”

(As an aside, I’m sure we’ve all heard this passage many times at Catholic and Protestant weddings, but I’ve never heard a priest or minister instruct on this particular verse. Given the fact that too many marriages still end up in divorce, this verse alone would be the basis for a great sermon. Maybe I haven’t been to enough weddings, which isn’t a bad thing, since it indicates that, regardless of how prudent or promiscuous my acquaintances are, they at least realize the gravity of marriage and the folly of divorce. In any case, Melissa and I were thinking of Ephesians 5, Colossians 3 or something similarly “controversial” when we tie the knot. But back to the topic at hand.)

I agree wholeheartedly. Everyone involved in liturgical music leadership is first of all required to give up all childish things: attachment to a genre of music for base human reasons, anger towards those who hold opposing viewpoints, and all other forms of immaturity. In many parish settings this requires saintly courage. Because those involved in liturgical music will range from being attached to the latest from Joncas only because it sounds nice to having a bone to pick with the unintelligibility of Latin, from being attached to Byrd only because it sounds nice to having a bone to pick with anything other than Latin.

For a lot of people, embracing praise music may be their way of manifesting spiritual adulthood. For others like myself, embracing the ancient works may be a way of manifesting that same spiritual adulthood (in my case, adolescence). Should that be celebrated? Absolutely. Should it also be challenged? Also, absolutely. But with charity. If I’ve turned people off what Vatican II has asked and allowed by an uncharitable tone, surely I’ve become a clanging cymbal.

It was a challenge enough for me to admit as much. It will be another, greater challenge for me to continually admit it, while offering to share this knowledge and love of it for the love of God with others in a spirit of true offering.

I’ll have to get back Nick’s comments in the near future—not a cop-out, but in order to semi-intelligently engage them, I’ll have to think about them some more.

But to Nick, Mark and other lurkers—please comment more. Challenge me and each other. If my tone in the past has frightened you from doing so until now, merely because you don’t share my viewpoints, I say that I’ll try to change my tone. My viewpoints, maybe not so much, but I will try to understand where you’re coming from.

Use your words wisely, as I haven’t done so in the past. Do as I say, not as I’ve done! Now how disjointed was that post?