A necklace

The morning of the day my apartment was broken into I decided on a whim to take off the gold cross I had worn nearly every day since I was twelve and to put on a silly star-shaped necklace instead. That evening, when I noticed that all of my jewelry was gone, my first thought was "damn, I wish I had worn a different necklace today", because all of the ones that had meaning for me were probably already melted down (along with my class ring and the handful of other items I had of any value) and I was stuck with this dumb star choker with the gold plating chipping off.

Today I put that necklace on for the first time in almost a year. In a testament to my own irrationality, every time I looked at the thing I became angry at it, as if it was the fault of that necklace that so many things that had accrued meaning and experience over time had been taken from me. I wish I could say I have gained some perspective and insight about the triviality of objects, but I haven't really. I haven't taken my claddagh ring off in a year, because if anything happened to that I would probably give in to despair.

Notes on the tri

Training for a triathlon ranks with learning to play the bass clarinet and moving to New Bedford on the list of most impulsive decisions I have made. I knew this past summer I would be laying low in Boston, and I also knew that I had a nice bike I didn't use enough and a good friend who would remind me how to swim, so I went for it.

On Sunday I took the plunge, literally, into a beautiful lake in the middle of CT wearing a race-issued pink swim cap. The water was colder than I expected, and it took four solid minutes for my heart to stop racing enough that I could put my face in the water. Once I was able to, though, the swimming leg felt great. I had trained hard this summer for endurance (not giving much thought to speed) and was rewarded with a great swim in the race.

Something funny happened while I was swimming that hasn't happened in the dozen or so road races I have done since I started running again: I passed people. I distinctly remember thinking to myself "this is what it feels like to pass people in a race". Racing is usually an exercise in humility for me; that feeling was unfamiliar.

I got over it quickly. As I ran into transition I realized that I had made a mistake that I knew I would make: My sneakers were still tied from the last time I had worn them. That juvenile habit fills me with shame every time I kick my shoes off without untying them, and on Sunday I finally paid the price.

As it turns out some cyclists take riding very seriously. Thus, a lot of people passed me on the second leg of the race. I had spent more time on the bike this summer and greatly improved over the course of my training, but since most of my riding was through Lower Roxbury, I never really had a chance to train for speed. As I cruised back into the race site at the end of my race, some guy screamed at me "smile!" I really could have ran him over. I don't go to women's races so that I can still have men boss me around, thank you very much.

The run was miserable, as is to be expected. Apparently the definition of "flat" for a trail run is different from a road race, because the trail was not nearly as flat as had been promised. I also was not prepared for the aerobic fatigue I felt by the final stretch. Even though I run road races that take longer than the tri took, I don't think I had ever maintained such a high level of activity for as long as I had around mile 1 of the run when I really started to feel worn out.

I was happy to see my mom waiting for me when I crossed the finish line, and was not surprised at all that she teared up during our sweaty hug. After a free bagel and sandwich we got on the road (with a stop at Dunkin). I took the shower of a lifetime at my parents house and drove back to Boston, where I had to conduct at the 9 pm mass. By the offertory I could barely lift my arms.

Living with a new normal

On September 11th there seems to be some pressure to offer a weighty and profound reflections on what happened to our country 8 years ago. I’m afraid I don’t have much profundity to offer. I don’t know what this means for American history and American culture, for victims and survivors. However, today as I read and listened to the memories of friends and colleagues regarding where they were, how they found out, and what they did immediately afterward, I couldn’t help but think about those (blessedly few) moments in my life when everything changed suddenly and unexpectedly, and I was left living with a new normal.

It always annoys me when people tell me they won’t go to certain parts of the city (invariably those populated by minorities) because “people get killed there”, or imply that I shouldn’t live where I do because it’s not safe. People get killed everywhere, and we are never safe. Life has a mind of its own, and things come at us no matter what we have done to move toward the life we had planned. Marvelously, we adapt to our new normal, surviving what we think we could never endure.

My mother loves the couplet “God gave Noah the rainbow sign/no more water, fire next time”. We don’t ever know what’s coming. No gasmasks or triple locks or aloof attitudes keep us safe from the surprises of life. Don’t bother praying that you won’t break, because some blows break us no matter how strong we are. The grace is in the recovery, in the healing after the breaking. Maybe the best we can do is fortify our lives in a way that allows for the recovery: Get to know God in a way that helps us find holiness in the dark, surround ourselves with good people, know ourselves well enough to adjust ourselves to our new normal, be brave enough to ask for what we need.

There’s no way to predict the “fire next time”, but we can strengthen ourselves to survive the burning.

Singing notes is easy, singing from your heart is hard.

The first time that I traveled to Italy, in the Summer of 2000, I often went to morning mass and/or evening vespers at one of the local churches in Parma. One evening I arrived at San Giovanni Evangelista and parked myself in a pew just as the church ladies were handing out hymnbooks. One old woman in purple approached me and held the hymnal just out of arms reach as she said something to me in Italian I would never forget. It translated roughly to: “Are you going to sing? Then really sing!”

When I tuned in for Kennedy’s wake last weekend, I did not expect the most memorable quote of the evening to come from Brian Stokes Mitchell. Before he started singing “The Impossible Dream”, he told the group assembled that he would miss Ted Kennedy’s voice because of the joy and intensity he brought to his singing. “Singing notes is easy”, Mitchell stated. “Singing from your heart is hard.”

Anyone who tries to ‘make it’ as a singer knows that is an understatement. Even though we all know that the performances that thrill us are the ones that have something to say, it is so tempting just to play it safe. We don’t want to offend with our passion or our message, we don’t want to wear our heart on our sleeve, so we stick with the somewhat bland interpretations that we think will sell.

One of the common quips that you hear when someone is spending too much time practicing and not enough living is that “they don’t write a lot of operas about the inside of a practice room”. Perfect technique and hours of practice only get us so far, and eventually we have to bring our lives and our message to that technique and figure out how to say what we want to say.

I didn’t really understand that idea of a message until very recently, when I had one that informed my singing and that I finally thought was too important to ignore. Still, it’s scary to take a stand and to say something, especially in our society where opinions are a dime a dozen about things that don’t seem to matter (the quality of Jon and Kate’s parenting, ‘death panels’ in the health care bill that don’t actually exist), but holding fast to a belief in a more serious area (the sanctity of the human body, the importance of a worshipping community) can be like stepping on the third rail.

To go back to Kennedy, listening to reflections on his life I think that was one of his most attractive qualities: he stuck to a politically liberal message that emphasized care for the poor. He happened to be savvy enough to craft that message into something that would get him elected, but just having such a clear message caused him to stand out in contemporary politics.

In music and in life, singing from your heart is hard. I’m convinced it’s the only way to “really sing” as my elderly friend in purple admonished me nine years ago. Life’s too short to be bland, or to hide what we have to say because our message might cause people not to like us. If we are not honest about who we are what does the admiration of people mean? Just that we are crafty enough to fool people, and that we believe the truth is not admirable.

The Downside of Discretion

The downside of discretion is that it's hard to get credit for the things you don't say.

Readers who know me are probably shocked to hear that occasionally a thought comes into my head that I don't announce to the world. I think discretion is an under-practiced art, and those who make comments like "I have an opinion but I'll keep it to myself" do violence to the idea of actually keeping something to yourself.

That said, I would like it on the record that I have had scads of pithy (and to my mind, hysterical) comments about training this summer, particularly about the filth of the pool in which I have been swimming. The sliver of my brain that is able to process normal social cues tells me that these comments about pool cleanliness are gross and inappropriate and that I should keep them to myself. Deep down though, I know that they are funny.

I had to get that out. One week until the triathlon.

Funerals, Media, and God's People

My first inclination was to keep commentary on the Kennedy funeral to a minimum, mostly because it just seems tacky to Monday morning quarterback a Mass of Christian Burial. But I have spent the last few days surrounded by church types who all have an opinion, plus I am under strict orders to post tonight, so I’ll share my thoughts regardless. Between thoughts on the liturgy and reflections on the concepts of the liturgy as expressed by commentators and media, trying to even think about this has been so meta that I could be sick. Maybe writing will help sort it all out.

Obviously I was very interested in what was likely to be the most public display of Catholic ritual in recent memory. As I was running early Saturday morning (I had to squeeze in a long run before the coverage started), I thought to myself “Will people still think that Catholicism is supremely weird after this whole thing is over?”

Let’s start with what I know best: music. Both beautiful and disappointing. First, it was the one thing that the networks couldn’t seem to broadcast right. During the opening song I surfed all over the place trying to find a balance that didn’t include heaping portions of grating tenor. From what I could tell, words to the opening song were printed in the program, as it appeared people were singing along. I think it would have been powerful to hear the sound of the assembly. I also hope that choosing “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” will encourage some other folks to select that for their funeral, rather than schlock like One Bread One Body and Hail Mary: Gentle Woman (both of which I am singing for a funeral tomorrow).

I was horribly disappointed that the ordinary of the mass wasn’t sung. I’ll admit that there are two issues here. One is that modern American Catholicism does not have a suitably dignified mass setting. Observing the family and their familiarity with the liturgy, I know that they would have reflexively sung along with whatever mass parts the organist cued up. But do we really want Mass of Creation as the public face of Catholicism (nothing personal Marty)?

The second issue is the pervasive entertainment model of the liturgy. Assemblies become audiences, song leaders become soloists, and worship aids become programs. The very pieces of the liturgy that we all know inside and out, the words and melodies that pop out of our mouths without our even knowing it (like Mass of Creation – and even One Bread One Body) are the pieces that we are most willing to cut if we feel that things are going to run a little long. As if those four measures of intro on Haugen’s Sanctus are going to make or break a liturgy with three post-communion reflections and a twenty minute homily. The fact that the Song of Commendation wasn’t sung was the final blow to this lover of communal singing.

One idea that motivates me when ministering at funerals is that our liturgy gives us a glimpse of the eternal life that we hope and pray the departed is enjoying. There was beautiful, sublime music at the funeral on Saturday. Still, as hopeful as I am that Susan Graham and Placido Domingo will enter into the beatific vision when the time comes, their’s are not the voices I want next to me in the celestial choir. I want my mother switching octaves as the music demands. I want my brother jokingly singing JamBandforJesus music the way he does over the phone on Sunday nights. I want my father imitating my “howling”. And, for what it’s worth, I want a big honkin’ timpani roll each time we launch back into singing Holy Holy Holy. The funerals that give me the most hope are ones that are filled with the sound of the voices of God’s people.

A few comments on the media coverage, which I thought was respectful overall. It was perfect to keep the video cameras away from the communion procession; nothing has irked me more in the last few years than the politicization of the Eucharist. Brian Williams’ random editorializing during the Sign of Peace about its recent introduction into liturgical practice was somewhat amusing. Hearing Andrea Mitchell refer to the pall as the ‘fabric’ made my heart sink a little. If you insist on commentary on a religious event, it would be nice to have people who knew their stuff doing the commenting.

But in the end, this wasn’t just a religious event, and it was never going to be. A lot of newspapers sanitized the religious side of things, talking about the nice speakers and the beautiful “performances”. Still, there are some of us out there who are in on the secret, who know what the funeral Mass is about and know how noteworthy and admirable it is that a public person and his public family wanted this Catholic service. We are the ones who got a subversive rush when Cardinal Seán recited the Latin prayers before the censing of the casket. Religion is a piece of identity, and many of us who shared a religious identity with the Senator likely hoped to see even more of that identity shown off for all to see. I bet I’m not the only person who asked “Will people still think that Catholicism is supremely weird after this whole thing is over?” and then thought “I hope so”.