Fetching the Donkey

Holy Week is upon us in the world of church music. We begin the commemoration with traditional Palm Sunday activities, then move inexorably toward the darkness of the weekend, and culminate our observance with Easter's celebrations. As the leader of the worship planning for these heady events, my recognition of them is not over-spiritualized, for I am overwhelmed with the detailed planning necessary for the congregation to worship. In order for the average parishioner to have the opportunity to draw near to the stories of the final week of Jesus' earthly time, there must be invisible organization that facilitates the observance.

I have been thinking about how universal the need for organization seems to be, and how overlooked it is as an expression of "Christ-likeness." As I have revisited the gospel stories, a couple of episodes have drawn my attention in a new way.

In the first instance, Jesus is preparing to lead his entourage into Jerusalem for Passover. Peter has just reminded him that he and his colleagues have left everything to follow. James and John are jockeying for position, asking to be figuratively placed at Jesus' right and left hands. And Jesus has overruled his followers by stopping to ask a blind beggar what he wants. When he asks for his sight to be restored, Jesus tells him that his faith has made him whole, and he joins the entourage. I imagine the attention received by this beggar dismays Peter, James and John.

Then Jesus acts in a way I haven't thought about in my previous visits to this story. He announces that he has taken care of the transporation arrangements. He sends two of the disciples to fetch a donkey he has arranged to use in his entry into Jerusalem. While the disciples have been occupied with other things, the Lord has organized a live animal to use in his drama, in-keeping with prophecy. Anyone who has walked up Sixth Avenue in New York during the run of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular knows that the use of an animal in a drama calls for a lot of behind-the-scenes care and feeding. And although the disciples seem to be concerned with publicly demonstrating their great faith, Jesus alone has thought ahead and organized the activity so that the people watching the entry into Jerusalem get caught up in the drama, and do not see the invisible organization that took place in advance.

In another instance, the disciples have criticized their dinner at the home of Simon the Leper, questioning a woman who pours ointment on Jesus' head. But when it is time to plan their own Passover dinner, they leave it to Jesus to make the arrangements. It would seem logical for them to act as the event planners, for they carried the purse and knew the numbers. But the gospel story indicates that the planning was ironically left to Jesus, who was hours away from receiving a death sentence. We would find it ridiculous to ask a death row inmate to make the logistical arrangements for his last meal, but that is the position in which Jesus finds himself. Once again he acts as the organizer, telling the disciples where to go, and how to find the room he has prepared with furnishings and food.

Church choirs have a thorough knowledge of the need for organizing and preparing the elements of the story. Many hours of diligent work are represented in their three or four minutes of singing each Sunday. In addition to rehearsing, people work to collate their music and place it in their folders, to purchase that music months in advance, to move chairs and instruments and music stands, and many other tasks. In my experience, it has been rare for a dedicated choral singer to remind me of all they have given up in order to serve, or for singers to ask for a position of prominence before the congregation. It is common, however, for them to express a desire to organize and prepare so that they can do their best as an act of worship.

It is easy to observe Holy Week with no thought for the invisible organizers who make those events meaningful. Every church has ushers, flower arrangers, ordinance preparers, bulletin typers and musicians who work with great dedication. It is as if they are the large portion of the iceberg supporting below the water's surface, so that the tip of the iceberg can be visible to all who seek it.

In this year's Holy Week observance, I am expressing gratitude that in following Christ, there are those who remain unconcerned with what they have given up, or with their position at Jesus' right or left hand, but have followed Christ in his sacred task of organizing the elements needed for the vivid presentation of the story.

Musicians Without Borders

I have a device in my pocket that gives me instantaneous access to more information than was at the fingertips of President Clinton fifteen years ago. It also connects me with two billion people who carry similar devices. And this technological tool is an example of the fact that many of the presumptions with which I was trained no longer apply to my musical life.

When I was growing up in the seventies, and being educated in the eighties, the internet was yet to be created or named. We had libraries with card catalogues, and listened to vinyl recordings. Our professors, some of whom grew up in the forties, were reluctant to make the change to cassette tapes, and very suspicious of compact discs. And we were labeled and subscribed into distinct parts of the musical world. We were either "vocal" or "instrumental". Within those groups we were either "classical" or "pop", "marching" or "concert". And those groups were further stratified by voice type, pedagogical style, music education or performance emphasis, and other descriptors.

 

In one graduate school I attended, vocal music education students like me were expected to implicitly "declare" acceptance of a relatively new genre of choral music, the Show Choir. The resistance was fierce from the voice faculty, who demanded a similar declaration expressing loyalty to them. In another graduate school, you were known by your membership or non-membership in many different sub-groups, including strict loyalty to well-known professors, and strict repertoire guidelines.

 

Life in that pre-connected world was analogous to prairie farmland, punctuated only by fences, which separated the groups into their defined property lines, and silos, where the groups' resources were kept.

 

And the prairie of religious life, where I have spent large parts of my musical career, was among the most separated. The barbed-wire of theological conclusion kept neighbors distant, even unacknowledged. And the silos had inner chambers of decreasing size, so that the members of a group strove for inter-necine separation, always hoping to accomplish membership in smaller and smaller groups of purer and purer belief.


Musically, the analogy accurately describes the landscape. Church musicians held to firm positions regarding repertoire and liturgical practice, convinced that over the fence lay evil clothed in chord charts and amplification, or (from the other perspective) pipe organs and choir robes.


The smartphone in my pocket gives me the opportunity to lead a professional life without barbed wire. Thanks to connectedness, my last week included: communication with a friend in New York who was the harpist in the orchestra for hip-hop artist Jay-Z's performance in Carnegie Hall; attendance at a Show Choir competition where my daughter, a first-year music educator, had a group competing; meeting with one of the country's foremost Baroque violinists regarding a period instrument orchestra in Atlanta; and virtually coaching a local high school choir on French pronunciation. I was also able, thanks to the computing tools on my desk, to set several pieces of music for brass ensemble, string quartet and piano. And I was able to share some hymns I had written with other churches, along with their brass accompaniments.


And I was able to learn through those experiences of the enormous culture-changing impact of hip-hop music, and of its adoption of things from other parts of the musical world, like the orchestra in which my friend was playing. I was able to learn of the impressive stage presence and discipline of the singers in a Middle School show choir that surpassed the stage presence and discipline of many adult groups. I was able to learn about the exciting world of historically-informed performance, and refresh my knowledge of French. And I was able to hone my music-writing skill and get immediate feedback about it from other musicians. In every case, my work will benefit from what I observed in those trips beyond the fence.


Each of those opportunities would have been impossible to arrange or execute if I were insistent on living in the prairie of the past. Technology exists that can give us the excuse we have always needed to tear down our barbed-wire and interact with our neighbors. I can continue to strive for my desired standard of classical church music without expressing hyperbolic suspicion toward my neighbors who worship in a different way. My daughter can teach both classical and show choir music and skills to her students, and my friend can play the harp for multiple orchestras, if only we can understand that the silo doesn't serve us well.


Millions watched the tragic events that ended the life of a great artist last week, concluding with the four-hour funeral of Whitney Houston on Saturday. As we listened to the service, we heard one speaker who loved her as a singing actress, another who relished learning new songs with her, and others whose best memory of her included singing gospel music in church. It was an example, although tragic, of a life lived without debilitating boundaries.


All of us tend to feel protected and more clearly defined by living behind fences. But that life causes us to be disconnected people in the midst of a connected world. We are lesser for it. And the new, connected paradigm that causes us to view our neighbor's differences as enrichments rather than indictments, can enable us to remain relevant to the musical world.