ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
August 24, 2022
Guest Writer: Dr. Joel Plaag
A person of spirit may begin a prayer
in awe and trembling, saying within:
“Who am I, a creature made of earth,
to stand before the Almighty in prayer?”
Such a person speaks only a partial truth-
And does not know yet the higher truth:
The truth that all things,
Even the material world,
Are filled with God’s presence.
Only when you come to know
That you too contain God’s Presence –
Only then can you begin to pray.
– A Person of Spirit, adapted from Rabbi David Shlomo of Tulczyn (19th century)
I was asked to play piano next month out in Schulenberg and during our zoom meeting recently to go over the once-yearly high holy-day service I was asked if I knew any songs that would go well in the service. A melody came to mind. This song – a mournful melody from the middle of the service – haunted me again. The text, in Hebrew, says:
You support the falling, you heal the sick, free those in bondage, and keep your faith to them that sleep in the dust.
There are parts of the melody that move in a sequence – where a set of notes repeats, each group starting a little higher. There’s some dramatic flourishes and it ends with almost a chest-beating angst worthy of the most dramatic opera arias. The lights go down here, you’d be pardoned for thinking.
I loved that solo. I got to do it every year while I was living up in New Jersey. In connection with the organ, it was a conversation between us, except I wasn’t sure if “us” was the organist and I or God and I. The organ creeps up and down the minor scale while I bellow out my half-steps in a baritone voice meant to squeeze every ounce of emotion out. Teetering on the knife’s edge between good performance and emotional turmoil, I can only turn back at the last minute, sure that the words had been sent. Message received, Joel. Now go sing with everyone else.
I knew what they meant; seriously, I did. I’d read this stuff a thousand times before… heal the sick, free the captive, etc., etc., etc. But when faced with a musical phrase where I can squeeze out just one more millisecond of the penultimate note, knowing with an analytical love of music theory that everyone’s ear yearns for that final note, and knowing with my heart that I must hold that note just because I don’t really want to let it go just yet.
Prayers like this come from a deep place – more of an artistic yearning slightly assisted by technical stipulations; much like ropes on the side of the swimming pool lane.
This is what I love most about liturgy and music. I don’t have to invent it; I don’t have to write it – and heck, I don’t even have to know it. I just have to do it. A prayer like this is more of a sigh than a supplication. It is an urgent plea that comes from the deepest of places. The words, when matched with this melody, are meaningless because the the prayer is the music. The text takes a back seat. In this way, a common set of liturgies is a means to the end – the end being God, and the melodic contour being the key.
In prayer, we find a place, go down on our knees, and start with “Dear God,” and do our best to weave. But with enough threads from previous prayers, we can create building blocks to weave the prayer tapestry. But when we have music with the prayer, it changes from an utterance and request into a yearnful groan.
No one has ever asked why we sing in church.
In the hymn tune “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light,” by Kathleen Thomerson, the “chorus” part says:
In Him there is no darkness at all
The night and the day are both alike
The Lamb is the light of the City of God
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.
Text wise, it’s nice, but when paired with the melody and a surging bass line, those lines take on new meaning. They form a supportive rock filled with both major and minor chords, and use a little trick emphasized in composing textbooks: put the most important word on the highest note.
Lamb.
Thanks to the music we realize that the differing verses of the hymn are just set ups for these four lines. When we get to “In Him,” we feel like we’ve arrived at the message – at the prayer. The music tells us that this is the true message of the whole poem. And again, we didn’t have to create it; we didn’t have to find the words. We just have to listen and be guided by the notes.
When those melodies literally erupt from the greatest instrument ever created – the human voice – we mix them with those words, and suddenly that mundane passage of text we hear all the time becomes a devastating blow to our self-centric awareness in favor of the awareness that God is listening to everything we say.
