Singing and listening

It was around spring or summer of 1994 when, having left behind the pursuit of a career in church music, I ended up in…a church music job. Arriving at Florida State University for doctoral study in musicology, I could not immediately get the job on campus I wanted, and ended up falling back on my old experience to have even a pittance of income.

In this case the church was in a town so far south in south Georgia that it was almost in Florida, and thus not far from Tallahassee. The choir I was to direct consisted of about seven singers; singing even in three parts was a major challenge, and many Sunday “anthems” were sung in unison. The singers knew their limitations and coped with them without too much grief, and I was not under any particular pressure to perform miracles.

When looking for accessible songs during a period when one or two members would be away, I turned to some songs in the still-new-ish Presbyterian Hymnal (1990, hereafter PH90) that the congregation used. While not nearly as plentiful as in the denomination’s current hymnal, Glory to God, hymns of global origin were present in PH90 to a degree not previously seen in one of that denomination’s hymnals. It gave the choir something to sing that, in most cases, could be learned quickly; it counted as sacred song; it was new to them and to the congregation, and therefore offered the opportunity to introduce them for possible future congregational use; and it allowed me to feel like a teacher, which I was aiming to be at that point. 

A couple of those newly-introduced songs were introduced with no particular trouble or comment. It was time to introduce the Latin American representative in this series, the song “Lord, You Have Come to the Lakesore” (Tu has venido a la orilla), by Cesáreo Gabaráin, in an English translation by Gertrude Suppe, George Lockwood, and Raquel Achón, one of the several newly-introduced global songs in this particular hymnal and one quite different in style, I was pretty sure, than this congregation or choir had encountered yet.

After a couple of passes at the song, one of the ladies of the choir spoke up. Angular face, reduced version of standard Southern high hair, and something of a reputation as a church enforcer surrounded this woman, so I was prepared for what I had feared when I decided to run with this project. (What follows is my best attempt to recreate what she said; it has been around twenty-five years since then as of this writing, and I cannot claim my memory to be that precise, but it does capture the impact of her words.)

“I was shocked,” she said, “when we went through that second verse. I would never have imagined seeing the word ‘weapons’ in a hymnal, ever. I couldn’t imagine ever thinking of that idea (the phrase, given to the singer of the song, goes ‘in my boat there’s no money nor weapons’; it has been slightly modified in GtG) being something to sing about in a hymn.” Here it comes, I thought.

She did continue, but not as I feared. “But then I realized that of course I wouldn’t imagine such a thing. I’ve never really had to worry about that kind of violence in my life, not like has happened there (violence, particularly drug-related violence, in different countries in South and Central America had been a staple of the news for some years at that point). If I’d had to go through what people have had to go through there, that might very well have been on my mind even in my singing a song to Jesus. Maybe I’d want to say that my boat was a safe place for Jesus to be when I offered it to him.”

Well, that was unexpected, but she wasn’t through. “But then I thought that maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to assume that was something that only happened in other countries. There might be places in this country where violence is a part of life enough that it might be part of how somebody might respond to Jesus – not with a boat, I guess, but maybe wanting to welcome Jesus into their home and reassure that there were no guns there. I mean, even here there might be places in our little town where that might be a thing to think about.” (A couple of shooting deaths had in fact come across the headlines in this small town at that point.)

Finally she concluded, “It’s not something I would have thought about, but maybe I should. Maybe we all should. I guess this was a good song to sing.”

To this day, that remains the best experience I’ve ever had in trying to introduce a new song in any way to any part of a church.

This is what can happen when singing is joined to listening. It’s not guaranteed to happen by any means, but it can. Particularly for safe and privileged Christians in this country (most typically white Christians at that), the singing of global hymnody is about more that simply singing something new or checking off some presumed list of virtuous things to do in worship. It is about listening as much as it is about singing.

Many if not most folks in our congregations will not travel overseas. Of those who do, most of them will not travel in areas that might produce such a hymn. We simply don’t encounter many of the citizens of the world, particularly not the poorest or most oppressed, outside of the distorting glare of news headlines or political slander. We don’t know those experiences.

Singing one hymn won’t fix everything. Singing a bunch of global songs won’t fix everything. But if even one door is opened, even if one mind is challenged, even if one soul is opened to the realization that not all of the church experiences faith the way we do, and that it might behoove us to listen to the experiences, the fears, the hopes of our sisters and brothers in Christ, isn’t it worth it?

Isn’t it?

Singing can be listening, and singing and listening might just be a seed for understanding, or at least for wanting to understand. With its capacity for getting under our skin in a way that even the best sermons or lessons or studies can’t, maybe some of the songs we sing ought to offer this opportunity.

Sing, and listen.