Shake Rattle and Roll

Our choir director is a miracle worker. Our introit this week was an arrangement of a piece written in the 1500’s. Our anthem was a spiritual that included clapping. The ancient one wasn’t a huge stretch. But for white bread Presbyterians to actually ‘git down’, clapping, swaying, and singing like they meant it, with hearts tuned to joy rather than anxiety of getting the right note, now that’s rough. The miracle part of it is, WE PULLED IT OFF! The congregation almost fell off their pews.



Religion is strange bird. It lifts its hands toward a multi dimensional reality whose purposes transcend our understanding while it intersects with us in very specific and overt ways. Such intersections are fearsome. They demonstrate our limitation and show us glory, glory too much to categorize or express systematically. And yet we try. Thus, religion.



It’s hard to find ways of recalling and expressing bits and pieces of the glory. Song allows us to shake loose some of the clods of mortality and limitation. It lifts us and joins us in ways concepts and words can’t. But even music can become locked and limited by our refusal to open to the glory. It has little to do with genre. The soaring glory of Bach opens ways toward the ‘Other’ as effectively as the enthusiasm and rhythms of spirituals, but only if we let it. Few are willing to be touched by Bach. We’ve become jaded in our now.



But that can happen with any key. It is sad. The issue is to be willing, to be open. The issue is to sing, ‘Hallelujah’ with heart, mind, and soul. Yup, she’s a miracle worker. “All praises be to the Lord our God, He is wonderful.” Amen.