In the Open

So I said goodbye to the boy and in simultaneous joy and relief I've said goodbye to another thing. It was a sort of fantasy I've harbored for way to long. You know the kind, shameful and inappropriate and the sort that threatens to ruin every joy that you've managed to acquire. That's the silver lining in it all. The boy helped me get over the fake thing while I was faced with the possibility of a real thing.

So I find myself in the open unnameable, where I don't know anything, but am asked to hope. I'm taking up a cross again and it hurts. I wonder if I can hold on to my own revelation that Jesus is in this insufferable open with me, the place where his heart resides. The fantasy took a lot of time and space to navigate, to keep it from actually poking its head into reality. But now I'm again in the space of total dependence, in total need of mercy for a real and holy thing to show up.

I know my track record for filling in that open space for latching on to something that I can name and handle and settle for. I find my heart pleading with myself and with God, "not again, not this time, not another few years of misguided, tainted hopes."

Last night I was naively hopeful that something holy and new would come along, but it was all thwarting and strain and me looking around asking "what's going on?" The words of the Pharisees I read yesterday, in that book I carry around with me, came to mind. "Didn't this man come from Galilee? Isn't the Christ suppose to come from David's family and from Bethlehem." They knew all about what was suppose to happen, they where so sure and in that sureness they where actually blinded to the real thing when it did come. I wonder if I am so sure I know that I am set up to keep missing it.

This morning I tried to relay the tension I was feeling to a friend. Someone who has never handled me in a way I like, but when you start to feel desperate even a smile your way can lead you into folly. I tried to relay that I had an odd and disappointing evening, that there was so much expectation on my end and then it was stopped over and over.

She came through the way she always does."Well we don't always get what we want," she said then left me there, as if that was the greatest truth in life. Momentarily I spiraled back into a lonely isolated feeling, still looking around for a commiserate companion, for some one who knows that the "valley of trouble is the door of hope," someone who knows that it's the same place where the devastated "will sing" again.

Breaking Through the Silence

On Saturday I sang at my friend Beth’s wedding. This time it was just me and the piano. This was the most naked performance I’ve done yet. It was back in Shove Chapel, that glorious stone, wood and stain glassed sanctuary. It echos in there. Sound bounces around on it’s own whim which has the effect of exaggerating the silence. Suddenly you hear things you don’t normally hear. Making any sound becomes an agreement to get noticed. You become careful with your movement. You don’t shift in your seat or clear your throat. When you walk you become inclined to tiptoe instead of clomping your feet.

The wedding guest were going to hear every sound I made or didn’t make. Not only because of acoustics, but if I backed away from a note or phrase there would be no other music or voice to cover what I missed. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that much responsibility for a song. Usually I am singing harmonies and you can get away with a lot when you aren’t carrying the melody of the song. You can drop phrases, or not sing a line you can even play around with the tempo of the phrases you sing and no one is necessarily going to notice that it’s a mistake, at least not in the style I usually sing in.

Now obviously if you’re the soloist you’re suppose to be noticed. It’s all about what's coming out of you. Earlier in the week I went to check the sound. I was a wreck. I heard my voice break the silence in that large and empty space and I became overpowered with the judgments that may be passed about my voice. Hence, I sang terribly, forgot the words and uncomfortably eked out the higher notes. I felt awful. I was disappointed. I knew I could do better. I’d heard myself do better. Would I forever be a nervous wreck and never get the song out of me that I knew I could get out of me?

I spent the week in an exercise of trying to get over it. I knew I could sing the songs, but the factor I could not practice was the nervousness that is only produced under pressure. So there was really nothing else I could do before then to change things.

Saturday morning arrived there was set up and another sound check and half the ceremony and then finally the piano began to play and it was time to open my mouth and fill the silence, not just to make sound in it, but to fill it with something meaningful and beautiful. I was shaking, but to my relief my voice was not. I could hear it out there filling the corners and bouncing around in the boat shaped rafters. Beth and Scott washed each others feet. I could see them full of delight for each other. I knew the words of the song meant something to them personally, so I sang for them. It felt like a sigh and the more I heard what I wanted to hear coming out of me the more I relaxed. It was good.

Afterward people looked at me sincerely and intently and told me so. Strangers walked across the room to tell me how beautiful it was. I could hear it in their voices and see it in their faces that the impact was good. My friends felt proud of me. I was happy. The inner world of my expectations and hopes met reality, a little taste of transcendence.

A voice as big as what's in my heart

Singing has been an adventure and obviously important to me considering it’s the theme around which I started writing this blog. I often want to say more about it, but find it hard to actually speak about in a meaningful way. But yesterday I had a break through, a moment when, in the words of my theme poem, “the veil began to lift.”

The strongest desire I have when I sing is that I get what's in there out there. I often feel that I fall short. It's not a bad feeling, just a longing that what's in my heart meets reality, that it's honest and life giving and that it's something the listener grabs a hold of and is moved by.

One thing that I've struggled with is getting volume out of my voice and still maintaining the purity of the tone. Months ago when I wrote about limitations with my voice this is what I was struggling with. My voice has a nice quality, but not a fullness of volume that is better for soloing.

But yesterday it happened. I don't know if it's just taken me a while to learn control and to gain strength or if it has more to do with running and having stronger lungs, but whatever the reason, it happened.

I was singing a song that we don't sing very often that has an echo part in it, which I didn't remember till we got to that part in the song. I hear in my head that there should be an echo and then oh yeah I should sing it! So I do. Typically I sing harmony and so my voice isn't usually out there by itself and suddenly it was. And I was so surprised that it just sailed out strongly and even felt like it meet the strength of the lead vocalist voice. Which usually when I hear my voice next to his feels pale. It was so exciting. I was so into it that I even varied the echo from the melody line. It was so fun! I finally felt like the strength of conviction that was in me was coming out of me. It was such a satisfying thing and made me feel grateful that I could do that.

Later the person I was singing with said he noticed how much stronger I sounded and had to look over and watch what I was doing ; ) It's nice to know it wasn't just me thinking that.

It was like that wonder filed moment a kid has when they realize that they don’t need the training wheels on their bike any more, dad has let go and they are riding on there own. I floated the rest of the day with the joy that I just may have a voice that's as big as what's in my heart.

The Wedding

First, thank you all for your kind and supportive comments and prayers for me in the last few days.

We actually got to rehearse all the music on Thursday night, which put many anxieties to rest.

The song I led was for the recessional at the end. So I had already sung harmonies on the other songs through the wedding. I was nice and warmed up and relaxed when I started singing. I felt confident. However, what I don't know is that my microphone is not working. I know some of you may think how could she not hear that, well the speakers for the audience are in front of the musicians and we don't hear what you hear.

I get through the first verse and chorus and I see the lady in the sound booth waving frantically and pointing at the mic. I get it, no one can hear me. Indignation rises in me, I look around and see that Mark who is playing mandolin has a mic. He's not using it, so I grab it. It's working and thank the lord at least some people heard me sing that song. The bride and groom didn't, but I think they were to happy to mind.

Mostly I'm feeling unaffected by it all at the moment even chuckling at the comedy of it and not taking myself to serriously.

Limitations

I've been facing limitations lately; limitations of time, energy, relationships and my own abilities.

At my job there are a lot of frustrating limitations. Today is Wednesday and I have to tell people that are looking for immediate help that they cannot talk to a counselor until Friday. I'm dreading every phone call today because there are bound to be a few really desperate people I will have to disappoint.

I'm coming up against limitations in relationships. The older everyone gets the harder it is to have access. In college everyone was together all the time, but now most people my age have husbands and children, everything must be planned and scheduled. Spontaneity is hard to come by and I confess I relied on spontaneity to form and maintain friendships. I have to work harder and make more intentional choices. It takes more time these day's for me to discover a person and find a rhythm in our friendship.

Last night at Bible study I was so tired that I hardly had the energy to engage anyone, but I wanted to be able to. I needed to get home and go to sleep, but I hadn't seen anyone for several weeks. I wound up staying longer than I planned talking to people afterwards, but feeling the tension of how unsatisfying the quality of my conversation was because I was so tired.

I'm feeling limitations in my abilities. I'm suppose to sing for a wedding this Sunday. I'm excited. I've been practicing the song, but I'm fearful that it won't sound good. It's work and I can feel the limitations of my voice. I'd like it to sound a certain way, but it doesn't. It's not bad, it's just not a certain thing that it seems might be more acceptable. I'm trying to drop the expectation and just sing from my heart, but it's getting buried in the struggle. I'd just like to be who I am and have that be enough. This feeling goes further than singing. Singing has a way of bringing up all my fears and insecurities. It's a vulnerable act to put your voice out in the world.

Wordless

Word

I, who live by words, am wordless when
I try my words in prayer. All language turns
To silence. Prayer will take my words and then
Reveal their emptiness. The stilled voice learns
To hold its peace, to listen with the heart
To silence that is joy, is adoration.
The self is shattered, all words torn apart
In this strange patterned time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,
And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
I leave, returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended.
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray. Amen

-Madeline L'Engle

Oh, thank you Madeline, you are a good friend. I've felt wordless lately, in prayer and worship, not because there is nothing to express, but there are just no names. Every word threatens to make what is Holy, a whore, cheap and sellable. Only aching or rocking or whispering His name will do. Words chase the glory away, chase away His moving in my spirit. Song comes closer, but I cannot abide ascribed words, I fall silent again.I long for new words, Oh Lord help me sing something new about you, something that has lay there all along waiting. Let me "return to language" and see again.

Sniffles

Well I have my second full blown cold this winter.

This does not bode well for singing.

Sniff, Sniff . . . . Ahchoo!

I Will Sing

Ok, I've caved. I'm a blogger now. And it looks like this could be a lot of fun except it's taken me two days to think of what to title this thing. I'm curious about how long it took you. I'm a slow cooker and prone to think to long about everything. Anyway, I will say a bit about the name as obliged to do in a first post.

I came across Mary Oliver, a poet, about six or seven years ago. She said things that made me feel known. She named the struggle I was in in a way that I understood. She seemed to lean hard into mystery and thought it was worth while. In the moment I was asking what my place and work in the world was, she told me what I wanted to believe was true that seeing and naming mysteries are the real work.

Here are her words :

I will sing for the veil that never lifts.
I will sing for the veil that begins, once in a life time maybe, to lift.
I will sing for the rent in the veil.
I will sing for what is in front of the veil, the floating light.
I will sing for what is behind the veil—light, light and more light.
This is the world and this is the work of the world.

It would be hard to unpack all the ways this spoke to me, but I held onto it for years. In my dark moments I would come back to this. When I felt myself of no consequence or thought I had made no contribution to the world, I would remember that struggling to name mysteries is what I wanted to do. I would remember that I had, at least, written my own poems that wrestled with things that were veiled, that there had been a handful of times when that writing and my sharing it had lifted veils for others and it was a great consolation.

However, I don't think I ever dreamed these words would be more than consolation. Recently I have seen that these words have actually been prophetic words for my life.

I never really sang, at least not for anyone. But about a year and a half ago the dreams in my life completely extinguished. I mean totally out. I didn't even have a far fetched fantasy in mind. What was I doing? I saw no way ahead and no happiness in the present. I knew two things though, the first was that God loved me. I know that's an often misunderstood phrase, over used and often trite sounding. But through a long season I'd really come to know it deep in my heart. Which leads me to the second thing I knew, which is that I loved God back. This and a deep frustration were all I had.

I thought something has to change. I should try something new. It doesn't have to be earth shattering, just something different than I've been doing week after week. I had been attending a midweek worship service. It was small and humble and I noticed an inconsistency with who would sing or play each week. I thought to myself there seems to be room, I think I can do that, it's not a show here so I think my small voice might be all right for this place. I think it could sound nice enough and not be offensive. I'll try out and see.

So I started singing.

And I was humbled that when I opened my mouth what came out wasn't all the frustration or anger or fear I was feeling, but the love I knew and the love I wanted to know more deeply.
I haven't stopped singing a year later and I'm still making song. Every time I sing I get to enter that mystery. I sing about the veil. I sing about what is in front of the veil and what is behind it.

What a gift. What a privilege to sing.

I love that it was a surprise too. It was something that I might have seen, but I didn't or couldn't. God's redemption was laying close by all along.