Carol's Musical Easter Reflection: Easter Sunday | Sinai to Canaan, Pt. 1

"Sinai to Canaan, pt. 1" by Chris Thile

For some reason, I can't embed the video I want. So, click the link to listen to the song!

If you have started to listen to the song, you have realized that there are no words! That's right, I'm challengin' y'all to stretch your music appreciation muscles. You can do it. I believe that each and every one of you can listen to a 7 minute and 24 second song without any words. I believe in you. Also, Easter Sunday is nearly over. You are thinking to yourself, "Carol, how could you wait this long to give us your Easter reflection? The masses are clamoring for it!" Well...

Happy Easter to you! Alleluia Alleluia! Like most of you I celebrated by hosting friends at my apartment. That means I had lots to do today besides write - like cleaning. We all know my house isn't naturally clean. Easter is a celebration of phenomenal proportions. Alleluia is our acclamation and our adjective; it is the only word appropriate for the joy that bursts with the knowledge that our God lives. From here I could go on a lot of tangents, but one of the reasons I chose this song is that sometimes the best expressions of ourselves do not use words. Anyone who has studied linguistics knows the limitations of English, and therefore the limitations of any language. Language is representative and therefore never completely accurate.

So my presentation to you is this song, which from the title implies a journey. (there is also a pt. 2, I highly recommend it) I think it gives a wonderful journey through the Easter story. From here on, I will use time indicators to let you know where in the song I am referring. We can go on together.

START
"...Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb." (today's Gospel, from John)

This section of the song is soft and quiet and a little trepidatious. Every account of the resurrection starts with women going to his tomb early in the morning. They are sad, they are going with the burden of anointing the body of their teacher. And then they arrive and the stone is rolled back and no one is around. What could it mean? They go back to the men who are just as mystified as they are. The music starts to get a more hopeful quality after a couple minutes; "For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead." They had to feel something stirring, though. Something like the feeling you get when you know something is about to happen. You don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but you know it's coming. 

3:05

"Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went away quickly from the tomb,fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce the news to his disciples." (tomorrow's Gospel, from Matthew)

Doesn't this section sound like joyful running? Though it's not really a dancing song, this section always makes me want to get up and dance. It only gets stronger as it goes - the other disciples meet the risen Jesus and the group grows who know he is alive. JESUS IS RISEN! Run joyfully! Tell all! I don't know if you get this feeling, but I look over my last few sentences and they seem trite. They are words that have been spoken so many times that when I repeat them they mean less. Thank goodness for music, amirite?

6:14

"Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” (Wednesday's Gospel, from Luke)

The song ends a little bittersweet, with the same motif as the beginning. It's definitely hopeful, but subdued and with a few notes of indecision. The disciples were left with a strong now what? feeling. Many wanted to believe, but let's face it, the story is ridiculous, nevermind it was told by a bunch of women. Risen from the dead? What does that even mean? That's not something people do. That kind of power, over life and death, is terrifying. If it's true, what does this mean about their dear friend and teacher? And what are they supposed to do? 

So here at the tail end of Easter Sunday, I leave you with that question. We've eaten our ham, drank our wine, gone to church for four days in a row. We feel good because Easter gives you warm fuzzies and if the weather was anything like it was here near you it was impossible not to smile. If we really believe the Easter story, we really believe our God is a living God, one who conquered death for the love of us, what do we do now?

Carol's Triduum Music Reflection #3: Holy Saturday | Wait

"Wait" by Alexi Murdoch

I think the connection between this song and Holy Saturday is obvious from the title. Holy Saturday is, after all, the day of waiting. The disciples were waiting to find out what happened next. Even though Jesus told them he was coming back several times, those of us who work with humans know they are terrible listeners.

I've always been fascinated by Holy Saturday, mostly because it gets overlooked and I'm a sucker for the underdog. In terms of Johnson's mission, being in Holy Saturday is that liminal space between your suffering and your resurrection. Between being hurt and being free. You could think of it like physical therapy after an injury - you're well, but not yet completely back on your feet. Johnson told the story of this sculptor and his piece "Shattered but Still Whole." That is a Holy Saturday sculpture.

The image of the tomb comes to my mind. There you are, back to life, but not yet ready to roll the stone away and step outside. You could be waiting for someone to roll that stone away for you, or you could be working up the courage to push it back yourself. I find myself living in this space pretty often. It takes a lot of bravery to step into the sun. If you find yourself in this space, ask yourself why you are there. Are you afraid of what's out there? Or are you waiting patiently until you are healthy enough to move on?

Murdoch's song has a beautiful litany of why he is in this space: "And If I stumble, and if I stall / And if I slip now, and if I should fall / And if I can't be, all that I could be..." Aren't we often afraid to step out of the tomb for fear that we can't be all that we can be? Or, all that we were before? After all, going through a Good Friday changes, transforms you. It can be scary accepting that you might be different. Jesus was very different after the resurrection. He had a functioning, human body like before but he was different enough his disciples did not recognize him on the road to Emmaus. Different enough to retain holes in his hands and appear in locked rooms. I imagine this transformation was bittersweet for Jesus. He had conquered death and saved all of humanity in a matter of hours, but maybe he sat in the tomb wondering if his friends would still love him this way. If they would still be able to joke around a campfire. If children would still want to run to him.

If you haven't noticed in these reflections, I keep pushing the idea of community. I am Catholic, after all - community is the basis of most of our theology. Holy Saturday can't be alone. Being alone in that space has to be unbearable; the disciples waited with each other. Jesus waited with his Father, who was closer to him than ever. We wait with close friends, family, spouses, the people we don't lie to on the internet. The end of Murdoch's song is a plea for community: "Will you wait for me?" Will you wait with me?

Tonight is liturgically the best night of the whole calendar. All the best things about ritual are brought together: movement, sights, sounds, smells, textures. We get the huge Easter candle dipped in the water, the marriage of fire and water, the passing of light and fire to each other, processing around the church, welcoming new brothers and sisters to the community. Oil, water, fire, smoke, fragrance, music, light, high drama - opening the tomb. We wait together, in anticipation, feeling "on the verge of some great truth."

Carol's Music Triduum Reflection #2: Good Friday | Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way)

"Am I the Only One (Who's Ever Felt this Way)" by the Dixie Chicks

Oh yes, the Dixie Chicks. This is from their first album, and "Wide Open Spaces" notwithstanding it is probably the best of the collection. Some of those songs don't hold up sixteen years later. However, this one I still rock out to; it has a permanent place on my "Angry Apple Cider" playlist.

When I listen to this song I feel anger, desperation, loneliness, sadness - the emotions of Good Friday. I will grant you this song is definitely about lost romantic love, but no matter what the reasons for our heartbreak haven't we all looked in the mirror and said, "one more smile's all I can fake?" If you draw a line from Gethsemane to Golgotha, Jesus holds all those emotions inside as each step he takes leads to destruction.

Going back to the parish mission, Johnson's words about Good Friday were to help us recognize our own Good Fridays and to see why we would call them "Good." The reason why songs about heartbreak are so loved is because it's an emotion everyone has experienced. People have let us down, have lied, have done physical or emotional violence to us. Loved ones have died. We've received news of the worst kind. We've sat on the floor of our kitchen crying at 2 a.m. because that's the only logical option... maybe that last one's just me, but I doubt it.

Jesus had plenty of these moments; sweating blood in the garden, falling the first, second and third times, killed by people he would have loved had he been given the chance. We all isolate ourselves in our misery. While Jesus trusted God he still felt alone, abandoned by his dearest friends. It's always when we feel most alone that we most need someone there, right?

Thank goodness for Jesus and country music, or that loneliness would never go away. Jesus has walked that terrifying, lonely, grasping path and walks all our terrifying, lonely, grasping paths with us. There is no good in suffering but when it draws us together. We can trust Jesus with our pain because he's been there. One of the great things about music is the communal aspect. We love certain songs because they express emotions we can't on our own - and that means that the composer felt those things. Everyone who buys that song on iTunes feels them, too. I won't lie to y'all, my Good Friday song is probably always going to be a country song. In the words of Xander Harris, "I'm going to listen to country music. The music of pain."

Carol's Music Triduum Reflection #1 :: Holy Thursday | You Got the Love

"You Got the Love" by Florence and the Machine

If you've heard me talk about Florence and the Machine before, you know that I am convinced that she writes her songs about the Sacraments. If you remember, "Dog Days are Over" was last year's Easter song, as it is definitely about the Paschal mystery. Then, "Shake It Out" (Reconciliation) came out, followed by "What the Water Gave Me." I'll grant you it's a stretch, but with a title like that how could it not be about Baptism? I tried to make "Kiss with a Fist" about Confirmation, since back in the day the bishop would slap you, but I don't think it works. Hey, no metaphor is perfect.

So today I bring you "You Got the Love," which is obviously about Eucharist. The Eucharist is a Sacrament of Initiation, but unlike the other two (Baptism and Confirmation) you can receive it every day if you so choose. Sacraments of Initiation pull you into the church community; the love and support found there is all yours for the taking! (That's why it's called Communion) They envelop us in the signs of God's love on Earth.

Let's get back to the song. It starts and ends with "Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air... Sometimes I feel like saying 'Lord, I just don't care'" And sometimes we do. Look at the verses - she's saying she often has bouts of despair where everything seems wrong and she's drowning in misery. We all have days, weeks, months like that. It seems the only feasible option is to give up.

At this year's parish mission where I work our speaker was Dr. Terry Nelson Johnson. He asked us to define our lives in terms of the Paschal Mystery - am I feeling Holy Thursday today? Going through that was Good Friday for me... etc. For Holy Thursday he defined it in terms of hunger and feeding. What feeds us? What are we hungry for? The woman in the song is hungry for comfort and love. (Who isn't? I mean, I'm on OkCupid for goodness's sake) Fortunately, she knows where to get it.

Love is of course the point of the Paschal Mystery, but it is showed in a special way today. We have the kind of love that causes a man to wash his disciples' feet. The kind of love it takes to change the diaper of a mewling baby or vacant parent. The kind of love it takes to walk into certain death. The kind of love it takes to commit completely to another person.

I cannot remember the quote now nor can I find it on a quick Google search, but one of my professors brought it up in class one day: that one of the great tragedies of our lives is that we cannot love God as much as God loves us. And we can't, it's impossible. That could be sad thought or it could bring an incredible amount of comfort - that there is an unimaginable amount of love freely given to us at any time. On this night of love and service, Jesus institutes the Eucharist. A physical meal that is viscerally his love. We can receive it everyday.

"When food is gone you are my daily meal / When friends are gone I know my Saviour's love is real / You know it's real" We DO know it's real - isn't that what we say about the Eucharist? That's it is REALLY the Body and Blood of Jesus? We hunger for God's love and it's not easy to always see or feel it. We have to come back and come back and come back. So you can be initiated again and again by eating this meal, this sign of love. After all, God's "got the love I need to see me through."

Not Really Past

I've had an interesting past couple days, centered around my friend who has decided he's currently Jewish. (I know he'll protest to that statement, but c'mon, two weeks ago he was Catholic. A few months ago, Mormon. He tends to flip around among them.) I don't have any problems switching religions if that is where your spiritual journey leads you, I want to make that clear. I just have to give him a hard time.

Yesterday, we visited the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie together. It was an intense experience for both of us. For him, who has relatives who died and survived the camps, I can only guess the impact of what we saw and learned there. I can tell you I felt compelled to comfort a lot. For me, the experience was... horrifying. It's hard to imagine the kind of institutional and insidious hate that led to mass murder, and the fact that there are parts of the world where genocide still exists. All of us can think of a person in our lives who would have been a target of the Nazis. And we are also left with the question: Would I have fought this horrifying injustice? Or would I have taken the nationalistic feel-good propaganda at face value and turned away from the truth? It's a scary and uncomfortable question, but one worth asking.

This morning I attended Torah study with the same friend. It was a beautiful experience. I was struck, like every time I study Judaism or the Hebrew Bible, how we as Catholics ripped off so much from the Jewish tradition. Of course, I don't think it's "ripping off," but reverencing the tradition we evolved from, the tradition our Savior loved and practiced, and the tradition established by our Creator, Adonai, YHWH. The first forty minutes of study was chanting in Hebrew, largely from psalms and prophets. (I have to say, my Hebrew was not too shabby. I mumbled a lot, but surprisingly little for a goy like me) It reminded me of praying liturgy of the hours in a community where the psalms are chanted. There were even a few prayers in common, though it was hard for me to keep up with chanting the Hebrew and reading the English translations.

We then read from Leviticus and did some reading of commentary and discussion. It was fantastic - I can't say anything we read or talked about goes against any Christian theology I know. In fact, it was just fun to put my head back in that academic scripture commentary space again. We even drank grape juice and broke bread. Then we ended with some more chanting. In case you're curious, I highly recommend listening to a little Hebrew chant sometime; it's much more melodic than our Gregorian form.

It's comforting to me that we have so much in common. One of the things I love about Catholicism is the long tradition - sure, our Mass has evolved over time, but the essentials are the same as the house churches that met before Christianity was the king's religion. To experience something that goes even further back but no less important to our salvation history brings the past forward. I feel connected. The God of our fathers, our mothers, walking with them and with us. The group I was with was in anticipation of Passover, and I was in anticipation of Holy Week. Our holiest of weeks are still the same week, and both are about liberation. That's the kind of connection I can sink my teeth into.

Last Year's Musical Reflections

A couple years ago, I started the tradition of making Triduum and Easter musical reflections and posting them to my Facebook page. (this past year I also did an Advent one for each week) This year, I'm going to post them both places. I thought I would kick off by re-posting my reflections from last year. Yes, I know I haven't posted anything in a long time. I hope you all still enjoy it!

Carol's Musical Triduum Reflection #1: Holy Thursday | Jealous of the Moon

While taking in the sad and hopeful tone of this song, listen to the lyrics and meditate on the person of Jesus. Tonight he gave his dearest friends the gift of the Eucharist, and they could not understand what he was trying to say. They would deny him and run away. In Jesus' darkest hour, pleading with God, his friends would fall asleep. Today and tomorrow we see Jesus at both his most human. At the bridge of the song, listen as though Jesus is speaking those words to you: "Why don't you call me, I can save you. Together we'll find a god we can pray to, that will take you by the hand." Jesus can save you. He can help you find a god to pray to - the same One he prayed to in the garden. Jesus has been in the dark place when all friends seem gone or useless and the future is terrifying. I always think of the sorrow in ALW's interpretation of the quote from Luke: "Judas, must you betray me with a kiss?" (JCS) When have you been afraid of the future? When have you been frustrated or betrayed by the people who care about you? When have you denied the truth to live in something more comfortable? What does the gift of the Eucharist mean to you?

*Remember, of course, that Nickel Creek didn't write this song about Holy Thursday. If you try to apply every word with a specific meaning, you'll just confuse yourself. No metaphor is perfect.

Carol's Musical Triduum Reflection #2: Good Friday | Man in Black

It's Good Friday. We're fasting, and giving that money to feed others. We're abstaining from meat in solidarity with those who live without every day. At service today we venerate the cross and chant our intentions. On this day more than most others we connect the death of Jesus with the suffering of the world. Our rituals make the day more present to us. Here we bring our sufferings to the cross. I'm not going to pretend to give the meaning of Christ's suffering or of anyone's suffering in this humble little reflection; there is no way I can give answers. I don't have them. But today, instead of finding distractions or justifications for our pains and deaths and the suffering in our lives and around the world, let's look it in the face. Let's do what Jesus did who could have easily gotten out of a grisly death but decided to face it to make the world better. In the song, JR is making us look. We have created so much to distract us from the dirty, the unpleasant. Every once and a while, we have to embrace the messiness and pain of death. "But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back, up front there ought to be a man in black." There's Jesus on the cross, up front, in black, reminding us of those we ignore. How do we distract ourselves from seeing what we need to see? What is the hardest thing to look at for you? What can we do to make it better?

Carol's Musical Triduum Reflection #3: Holy Saturday | The Weary Kind (sorry so late!)

Tonight is our longest, most sacred liturgy. I just had the pleasure of singing in our excellent choir for it. It is full of drama and theatrics and intense spiritual statements of who we are as Christians. Before all that drama, however, is a whole day of waiting. I think of the disciples, confused, afraid, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Their beloved leader is dead and buried. They are supposed to be in the midst of their holiest of days and yet they cannot enjoy their rituals. For those of us who know the story, we are waiting with baited breath. The day has a feel like the few hours before dawn when darkness and quietness envelops everything. We wait and prepare. The disciples' waiting was filled with fear and uncertainty. Our waiting is full of anticipation. We have waited so long and waded through the dreariness of life to get to the resurrection moment. This kind of waiting takes endurance. "This ain't no place for the weary kind, this ain't no place to loose your mind. This ain't no place to fall behind. Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try." What are you waiting for? What does the resurrection bring you? What is worth waiting for?

Carol's Easter Musical Reflection: Easter Sunday | The Dog Days are Over

My advice? Play the video and dance to the song. Then come back and read this reflection and play the song again. While I struggled picking songs for the Triduum, particularly Friday, this one was a no-brainer. I am inclined just to put the lyrics up here and let you all go. But let's look at the first lines: "Happiness hit her like a train on the track ... no turning back" For the women who went to the tomb they were told their messiah was risen. What an astounding, unbelievable announcement! To be filled with even the strangest hope after everything good died! One of my favorite things about this song is that there is a point when you think it is over. It fades out, there is a pause, and then it starts up rejoicing again. There is a surprise that carries the song further. Today is a surprise of the best kind. Today is Christmas morning and a birthday party and your lover giving you flowers all in one. "The strife is o'er, the battle done!" "The dog days are over! The dog days are all done! The horses are coming so you better run!" And those women, blessed with the message, did run. They ran back to their friends and told them the good news: our Josh is alive! Of course, no one believed them, so they all started to run to find out for themselves. This is good news! Don't walk or crawl to share it! Run! "Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father, run for you children for your sisters and brothers!" Leave it all behind and rejoice as you run! What is worth dancing for? What is worth being excited? How have you been, in the words of C.S. Lewis, surprised by joy?