Isn't the purpose of Holy Week for us to feel stomped? as Jesus was stomped? 'Cause that's what it does to me, more and more every year. I still have to work, after all, and it's the week before International Week (our major event of the year) so there's lots to do. But what I really want to be doing is lying face down in front of a cross somewhere.
Guess that's my cross to bear.
The music is a major key to how I experience it. Our choir is singing three movements from the Rutter Requiem: "Agnus Dei," "The Lord is my Shepherd" and "Out of the Deep" for Maundy Thursday. Thanks be that we are not singing at all on Good Friday - one of our very talented young ladies is singing a solo, Samuel Barber's "The Crucifixion." Then Saturday evening we have Easter Vigil, with lovely and uplifting music.
Something has happened to my musical ability in the past few years of singing with this choir. I've progressed, technically, beyond where I ever was in terms of vocal ability and also sight reading, ability to learn from rehearsal, etc. Not that I am any great shakes. But I am the girl who in high school, tried out for district choir every year, and never made it. I'm sure I never even came close! What I lacked in ability, I know I made up for in dedication....but there has always been something strangled in my voice that all the teachers and directors could not seem to help me get past. Body work and voice lessons combined over the past few years are changing it.
My younger sister, on the other hand, has a perfectly glorious voice, without trying. I always resented the hell out of that.
Anyway, all this is to say that the more work I put into the music and the better I am able to bring myself to it, the harder it is for me to stay centered, emotionally. It's my body getting involved, instead of just my head. And it is tough. I've seen this in the past year with the funerals for two wives of our clergy. It's not the performance/singing in worship that's so hard...it's the getting ready for it, and the decompressing afterward.
Did I mention that my birthday is on Maundy Thursday this year!? I'll be 42!
