February 11, 2010

Dust and Smudged Thumbprints

Posted in Uncategorized at 9:11 am by churchmusicman

One of the only disappointments I have had in moving to Wind Point is that it isn’t in the New York Times delivery area. I have spent most of the past 3 or 4 decades settling down with the Sunday New York Times—the Arts section, the Book section, and, oh yes, the fiendish Crossword Puzzle. The only downside, you could say, was the blackened smudges of ink residue on your fingers. The smudges were even more pronounced when I lived in New York only a few blocks from the Times building, often picking up an early edition on my way home from an evening of theater. The ink was fresh —conferring a New Yorker’s badge of sophisticated erudition (“I have already read the Times”). For a while the Times even sold special gloves that you could wear to read the paper, keeping your fingers smudge-free.  Even though a few years ago the Times started using a printing process that leaves no residue, ending the era of telltale marks, generations of Sunday New York Times readers came away with ink-smudged fingers. I feel connected to them.

This next thought may seem like a non sequitur, but bear with me. Hanging on the wall in my office at St. Anne’s is a 14^th century music manuscript from an antiphonary (a collection of psalms sung in the church’s liturgies at proscribed times). This text of this particular leaf is of Psalm 137, one of my favorite Psalms. It is a psalm that is used often during Lent, and its musical imagery intrigues me. The text reads, in part: By the rivers of Babylon — there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

I first came in touch with this psalm when I was the musical director in the early 70’s for one of the road companies of the musical Godspell. One of the songs in Godspell is a beautiful setting of Psalm 137, “On the Willows.” 500+ performances and the song still moves me. Maybe it’s because the words resonate with many musician’s feelings of “geek”-ishness or outsider-ness that is conferred by society at large. After all, being a musician for a living is not normal. It’s not a buttoned down “9 to 5” kind of job. So this song of exile seems to resonate with the societal exile that some musicians feel. (This is no longer an issue for me, but I think back to high school. . .) And the captors asking for songs certainly resonates with anyone who has had to play cocktail hour in a piano bar for half-inebriated patrons requesting Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” for the 23^rd time that night.

Back to the manuscript. . .  It is a beautiful example of a 700 year old manuscript. These hand illuminated pages were once bound in a rather large book—large because it originally was placed on a stand with 5 or 6 singers gathered around it and the print had to be large in the dimly lit sanctuaries of 7 centuries ago. It’s easy for me to imagine my musical ancestors sharing this book, singing the 14^th century “hymn of the day.” The thing that fascinates me most is the lower right-hand corner of the page. It is worn away and smudged with dirt from centuries of use. By touching that corner I can grasp a bit of spiritual connection with the hundreds of church musicians who have preceded me. Just as the smudged fingers of generations of New York Times readers connects me with them, so this smudged corner of a centuries old manuscript serves as witness to me on a personal level. Imagine the hundreds of musicians just doing their job, year after year, generation after generation. And I’m connected to them.

It’s like having a personalized “cloud of witnesses” that the writer of Hebrews posits in chapter 12: “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

What a fellowship is that “great cloud of witnesses.”  It is as if they are in the stands of a great arena and we are down on the track. They are cheering us on as we run the race of life. They have all successfully run the race and have received the crown of victory. They now urge us to run with perseverance (an apt metaphor in these days of the Winter Olympics, “the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.”)

There is power in connecting ourselves with this great cloud of witnesses. This dirt-smudged and worn manuscript in my office reminds me that I am not alone as I embark on another Lenten journey. In keeping Lent, a season celebrated by the church since the 4^th century, you and I are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses as we step into this liminal time and space. As you and I step through the threshold of another Lent, we experience a strengthening through the sacred tradition of wandering in the desert and of being transformed in the process. We come to grips with our exile, realizing that we wander in a foreign land, preparing for the trip home.

And it all starts with Ash Wednesday’s smudge of dirt. What may seem like an odd experience, the ashes on our foreheads help us remember what it means to be human, the stuff of “humus=dirt,”  “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The dust reminds us that we are a people in exile, that this is not our home, that heaven is where we’ll finally be at home.

Lent is a time to clear the plaque from our spiritual arteries, and remembering plays an important part. With the help of past generations of witnesses we can come to a clearer understanding of ourselves in the present. One historian put it this way:  The past is beauty. It is also burden. It is where we go, many of us, to remind ourselves who we are and even sometimes to find out.

And what a beautiful cloud! I remember Miriam who danced and sang, and David who played his harp, beginning the list that continues with Gregory I, Palestrina, Bach, and Handel, right down to Marty Haugen, David Haas and Suzanne Toolan.  With them cheering me on, and with eyes focused on Jesus, I can run the race with the prize of the victor’s crown at its end.

I still hold the verse I received at my confirmation 47 years ago in my heart: “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Not always faithful, sometimes stumbling in the race, with dirt-smudged hands, singing the Lord’s song in this foreign land—but the crown is there waiting for me. It’s been promised.

Its funny how contemplating dirty smudges—on fingers, vellum, or forehead—can lead to a clearer understanding of where we stand in our own life journey, a journey we all must walk.

I look forward to the journey this year, surrounded by the community of St. Anne’s. A composer friend of mine, John Angotti, wrote this lyric: 

On a journey together
We can fare any weather
Keeping Christ the center of our community.
On a journey together
We can make the world better
By forgiving and loving starting with you and me.

Makes sense.

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