What we mean by love

Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." … So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?  - Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a holiday, and I am lucky that many of my friends have spent the day sharing quotes and reflecting on King’s legacy of firm love in the service of justice. I am partial to the quote above, and thought of it when I woke up this morning. I can’t think of a better challenge than to be an extremist for love.

Never satisfied by soundbyte answers, I asked myself this morning "what does love mean?" What does it mean to be an extremist for love? Most people think of themselves as loving, most people think that they are doing the right thing. History fixates on the obviously horrific practitioners of hate, but most people are not that sort of extremist. And yet we, motivated by love, reach wildly different conclusions about how to act justly.

I just started learning a song cycle by Lori Laitman that I will be singing in a recital in April. The last song of the cycle has captivated me – it feels like it was written for my voice, and the poem, like all the poetry in the cycle, regularly moves me to tears (this complicates my learning process, to say the least). The poem, Pioneer Child’s Doll, begins: Here, child, is what we mean by love. 

The poet, Judith Sornberger, described her inspiration in an interview. She saw pioneer child’s doll in a Nebraska museum: The head of the doll was actually an old, beat-up bedpost. You know, the knob at the top of a bedpost. How hard up would you have to be able to love a doll with that kind of head?

Here, child, is what we mean by love:

a block head doll of coarse-grained wood,

eyes two knife-pricks, mouth a crooked stab.

As we are given to love land

that few would covet, where no tree

dares stand up to the sky,

So shall you love her whose grain sack skirt

covers not petticoats, but sticks

whose curls must be imagined in the wood.

And as we break the stubborn sod

of our backs to know what we

can be on this earth,

So by the sweat of your palm

on her brow will you bring

to her flat face a sheen.

We know that love can transform, and we know that we are in need of transformation. About 6 times a day I pray Ignatius’ prayer for generosity: “Lord, teach me to be generous…”. I pray to be loving, to be kind, to be patient, to be fortified and transformed, to be better. And these are the prayers I think of as selfless. Could I sacrifice my prayers and my love to transform others instead?

Could love be the willingness to look at an ugly doll and see something lovely? Could it be the determination to be devoted to that which others would throw away? Could it be beholding the beauty in others? We lament that the world needs transformation, but are the true acts of heroism to see the world and behold in it the possibility of goodness? Isn’t that why we still envision Dr. King’s dream?

Maybe it’s more self-centeredness to imagine that the world hinges on how I see it, that if I look on it with love it will meet my expectations. I’m not sure I know how to pray for anyone other than myself.  A self-emptying prayer that turns me inside out could be the loving extreme to which Dr. King exhorts me.  Perhaps I am called to an outward facing love that wills the other into grace.

Love, grace, God, prayer – these things are the types of wonderful mysteries that we could talk about for eternity and never explain or exhaust.  Dr. King set big, lofty goals that stretch us and our world. For me, it’s goal enough to try each day to discover more of what we mean by love.

The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Use Words When Necessary

I’m not really one for New Year’s Resolutions, but the one commitment I made to myself for the last calendar year was that I would write in a journal every night before I went to bed. It didn’t have to be long or profound. I figured that if I didn’t have something worth saying at the end of each day, then the day hadn’t been a success.

I have a hard time pinpointing why I write. On my best days it is because I think I have something to say, on my worst it is because I am desperate for someone to care what I have to say. When I look over my writing on this blog, I see a decline in the number of posts I have written, but an increase in focus: in other words, more of my posts have a point. I usually tell myself that if my post can’t fit one or more of the tabs I already have it’s too rambly to be shared. I need to know what I want to say.

When I was still cutting my teeth in singing, my performances must have been painful to watch. I was stone-faced, unexpressive, dead behind the eyes. I waffled between not knowing what I had to say and being terrified of saying it. If I tried to be expressive and failed, everyone would know I was a failure, and worse yet, everyone would know that I thought I was worth listening to. I was a moderately unhappy late -adolescent, and the idea of anyone knowing that I wanted to express myself was a terror beyond imagining.

As time has gone on I have made progress toward singing with a message, and I struggle to make that message into something I live all day. That we were created by a God who loves us and who is just as real as the suffering that smacks us in the face every day; that we owe something to each other; that duty and discipline are as important as liberty; that beauty matters; that learning has intrinsic value; that the intensity of our emotions is the key to our humanity; that life can be so much fun if you do it right: if that is what I want to say, am I living in a way that shares that all day long?

Like most of us, I fail too often in my attempts to make my actions match my heart. I do not do the good that I want but  I do the evil I do not want. (Rom 7:19) And so I turn to feeble words to get my point across, knowing that the words may help me find my heart and further help me live.

A Soul that Shouts

One occupational hazard for a church musician is that we rarely come across traditional hymns that are new to us: we’ve literally heard it all before. But just a few years ago I got the gift of a new Advent/Christmas hymn when I heard Gabriel’s Message for the first time. I like the tune (when it’s not done too slowly!), the refrain is catchy, and the poetry is above-average. When I got to church last weekend I was happy to find it on the song sheet.



Like many singers, I have the capacity - either enviable or regrettable - to sing on auto-pilot while thinking about any number of things (for instance, yesterday I discovered I could sing the entire Halleluiah Chorus from memory while deciding what to have for dinner). Last Sunday I found myself analyzing the text to Gabriel’s Message. “Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head/to me be as it pleaseth God, she said.” At the word "meek" I groaned, thankfully silently, since I was singing into a microphone.

“Mary was that mother mild.” “A Virgin pure both meek and mild/In Bethlehem brought forth her Child” “gentle Mary laid her child”… There are plenty of problems with the idea that all women will feel an unqualified affiliation with Mary, who is often presented as the only role model Christian women are allowed to have. There are even more problems with the relentless stereotyping of Mary as docile and tame. Do we really believe a shrinking violet would have had the nerve to do what she did?

This week we are hearing the Gospel readings from Luke 1, starting with the Annunciation on Monday and concluding with the Canticle of Zechariah. Today’s Gospel is Mary’s Magnificat, an unapologetically bold declaration of praise. This is a saint I can get behind. So with all due respect to late Romantic Marian piety, I’m taking Mary back.

The idea of an ideal woman as meek and submissive may seem like an anachronism, but we’ve kept her alive in our religious iconography, and I don’t think I’m alone in saying that I’m sick of it. Give me a role model who questions an angel, bravely says yes, deals with a life lived in the rumor mill, does some bossy maneuvering at a wedding to restock the bar, and proclaims God’s praise and promises. When my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord it doesn’t do so timidly - my soul shouts, and there’s a possibility that Mary’s did too.

Celebrating Christmas

One of the habits I nag my choirs about is singing too much consonant and not enough vowel on any particular word. It’s especially noticeable on words with the “s” sound: one song includes the phrase “this time” repeated on eighth notes, and results in a sputtering hiss upon which even my most sophisticated singers cannot improve.

I faced this challenge from the other side of the conductor’s podium this past weekend, when I had to try to make art out of singing the word “Christmas” over and over. At a certain point I admitted defeat, all the while wondering why I had never before noticed that this word gave choirs so much trouble.

Then I remembered that I conduct liturgical choirs, and we don’t sing about Christmas.

Now, before you get all “war on Christmas”, hear me out. I don’t celebrate Christmas. I celebrate the Nativity of the Lord, the Incarnation, the awesome generosity of a God who became human just like me. I celebrate these realities in the context of a larger year of grace that over the course of a turn of the earth tells the whole wonderful story of our salvation and looks forward to the salvation to come. I try to celebrate these things every day, and the liturgical calendar has given me special days to celebrate them, just in case I forget any part of the story.

When people huff and puff about people forgetting “the meaning of Christmas”, I have to laugh. There are plenty of people who celebrate Christmas by celebrating the celebration. It’s not a commemoration but a celebration, and that’s just how they like it. They didn’t forget anything, and our reminding them is not going to change them any more than their ignoring the origins of the feast would change my observance of the feast.

I sing songs that worship Christmas instead of Christ because it’s gig, and I frankly can’t see much harm in it. I am in the midst of celebrating Advent right now while half of the country is celebrating Christmas. If I could magically force them to wait until December 25th, would that make their celebration the same as my commemoration? We’re not celebrating the same thing.

This post sounds more “us vs. them” than I want to be, because in truth the line between us and them runs through every human heart. But I wish the people who try to fight the war on Christmas would accept that it has already been lost. The holiday has been transformed, and we are left to keep our Christmas as it suits us. We can be aggravated that the word was appropriated, but that is a bell that can’t be unrung. There are two Christmases now.

With every year that goes by I become a little more complacent, but I still maintain my subversive core. At this time of year, it doesn’t yearn to remind everyone that Christmas is about Jesus, or harangue consumers. But it thrills a little to know that I am keeping my Advent and Christmas seasons in my heart and in my faith community, even if the media and the world is suggesting something different. We can keep the traditions and hope that people will join us.

God so loved the world… Nothing anyone can do or say or know or forget or struggle with or insist upon can negate that or improve upon it. All I can do is create small spaces of grace where God can come again. Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in.

A Blessed Unrest

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.


No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. - Martha Graham

I have learned that my books of music tear in a certain place when I throw them aggravatedly across the practice room with my left hand (and for whatever reason, it’s always my left hand). Today during a coaching I added another volume to my collection with torn covers as a result of a minor tantrum.

Everything my coach asked me to do was met with discouraged resistance. “Find a higher resonance” I don’t know how. “Relax the breath” I’ve never been able to do that. “Use less pressure” I don’t know what that means. So after about fifteen minutes of hating the sound of my voice, I abandoned all pretense of maturity and threw my score across the room.

My patient coach was laughing at me, commenting that he had just finished congratulating me on winning an award, and I was still so down on myself that I could barely see straight. What could I say? The award, though an honor, hadn’t satisfied me, didn't mean I was singing as I should be. My last few practice sessions had been crap - I couldn’t sing in tune, couldn’t even out my vibrato, and sometimes couldn’t get through a phrase. What good does an award do me if I sound like garbage? I thought.

I know I don’t sound like garbage. Still, I always want to be better, which is probably not an uncommon desire among people who are already very good at something. Driving home from my coaching a delivery van from “Wacky Wings” rolled up next to me, and the driver gave a creepy stare. Rather than being unnerved I indulged one of my worst habits: Imagining life is easier for other people. “I bet he’s not hung up on evening out his coloratura”, I thought. More remarkable evidence of my emotional maturity.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be satisfied. It’s not that I don’t feel accomplishment: I go to bed most evenings happy about and thankful for all that has happened that day. Yet every night at bedtime I have even higher hopes for tomorrow. What would it be like not to be constantly pushing to improve?

As a teenager I had that quote from Martha Graham hanging above my bed, even though I didn’t really understand the last paragraph. Suddenly tonight, I do. I will live my whole life knowing I can always be just a little bit better, and knowing that improvement is the duty one owes to a gift.

Fear of being fast

Against all odds I made it out for a run after work today, running at dusk the route I usually run at dawn. Eager to get home for the evening, I pushed a little harder than usual, zipping along the well-lit streets that I jog when the sun isn’t out. As I turned along the harbor I marveled at the deep navy blue sky and water, both the unreal color you see in paintings, not in real life. I was having a nice run, was feeling good, and started to really push myself. I don’t run to be fast, so that was an unusual thing for me. I’ve always been slow, and I have enough things in my life that I work hard at that it has never occurred to me to work hard at getting faster.

This evening, inspired by warmer temperatures than I expected and a strong desire to get home, I ran much faster than usual. For once I felt my recalcitrant little body shift from a canter to a gallop, and I was amazed. Yet as soon as I did that I became hyper-vigilant, watching each crack in the sidewalk, checking over my shoulder. My heart was racing, and not from exertion. I was afraid.

My reaction to my fear was not surprise - I’ve always been one to ease on the brakes while cycling downhill, not convinced I’d remember the exhilaration of speed while I was having my chin stitched up. As I thought more about it, though, I was mildly baffled. Longtime readers have been regaled with stories of the wages of my recklessness. What made today different from other days that I ran carelessly until I fell?

Caution can be thrown to the wind, not so with fear. There can be something deeply frightening about an accomplishment - we fear we’ll be punished for success, or we won’t know what to do with what we’ve learned. I remember one of the first times I really opened up my voice and let it out the big sound I had inside. I had two thoughts. 1. “Well, I guess I’m not a soubrette” and 2. “What the heck am I going to do with this voice?”

Doing something you didn’t think you could do changes the landscape of your life. The parameters you thought were there prove imaginary, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to set new ones. We lament that our boundaries limit us, but how many of us are secretly comforted by the security of those boundaries? For me, at least, freedom is terrifying. If I had fallen down today, it would have been another funny story about something I’m bad at. It would have fit the narrative of my life. I’m still willing myself to accept the uneasiness that results when things go well.

Stage moms

I really need new headshots.

I keep putting off getting new ones until the magic day when my hair is trimmed, I've gotten enough sleep, my skin has stopped being weird, and I have the right outfit to wear.

On the train into NYC today, across from me were two girls. They boarded somewhere on the shoreline with their mothers, and took out binders that had their headshots slid into the clear pockets on the outside. My first emotional reaction was the familiar self-disgust I feel when someone who should have fewer survival resources than I do accomplishes a simple task that I have yet to master (yes, I feel that way a lot. A LOT.) They were teenagers, though, and were being pretty cute about agonizing about their 16-bar cuts, so I smiled to myself while I tried not to eavesdrop too obviously.

The mother of one of them was little more vocal and a little more vulgar, and she proceeded to harangue her daughter for her choice of 16-bars, criticize everyone the four women knew, and conclude by saying "your hair looks like sh*t" to her daughter as they exited the train. Charming.

I'm pretty sure my mom never told me my hair looked like sh*t. In fact, I'm pretty sure my mom never gave a sh*t what my hair looked like. I had the opposite of a stage mom. She and the rest of my family were always my biggest fans and continue to be, but they never bought into the myth that any sort of recognition or even success really matter. They made sure I knew how to tell a joke, do a crossword, push in my chair, enjoy a book. They never got me headshots.

In some ways, I paid for it. Whenever I was trying to really pass in music circles during high school or college there was a lot I didn't know. I missed out on some training I can't make up for (for instance, I'm sure both of the tweens across from me on the train are better dancers than I will ever be).

Still, I'll take it. Being perfect, being a star, is overrated. There are things I've lost and things I've gained because I didn't have an artsy upbringing. But what I have is better than what I can imagine.

The stranger in the mirror

With some reluctance I spent this holiday going down and back to New York for an audition, splitting the trip between the car and a train and a night at my parents’ house. This morning I got into the city with enough time to warm up, and I hustled uptown to the practice room I’d reserved in order to wake up my voice (my audition was before noon) and get myself settled a bit.


I tend to use warm-up rooms as dressing rooms as well, running some scales while I’m layering on more mascara, and sometimes even perching on a piano bench to hoist on some hose. The room I was in today was a little dark, so it is possible I put on way too much makeup, but there was a nice mirror taking up one entire wall that I used to make sure I was presentable.

After sprucing up and warming up, I started running my arias. I took advantage of the mirror, which I don’t always have in my practice spaces, to examine posture, tension, gestures, and the like. I stood across from myself in an expensive dress, fashionable sweater, cute heels, with my hair all fluffy and my face coated in paint. Even as I was singing I heard a voice speak in my ear so clearly that I was surprised not to see my own self saying it in the mirror. It was my own voice in my mind’s ear, and it was looking in the mirror and saying “Who is that?”

My reflection was everything it is supposed to be: pretty, chic, pulled together. I was more than presentable, and yet I’d never felt like more of an imposter in my whole life? I’m wild and spastic and out of touch. I wake up with unimaginably large hair. My clothes are covered with spills and full of tears. I don’t cut an impressive figure. Who was I trying to fool?

Which one of those is the myth? The sloppy spaz who always dressed and acted like a tomboy? The polished performer who has finally figured out how to use eye-makeup? Are neither of them myths? Can I be both?

I’ve written before how easy it is to feel out of place when trying to pass in professional music circles, and what a challenge it is to stay authentic while being your own brand. My guess is this is a challenge for everyone, not just singers or artists - how do we mature without losing who we were?

Is it somehow inauthentic to grow up? How much of a façade can I put up before I lose myself? Why does success make me feel like I am betraying someone?

There’s a photo I keep on my fridge because it reminds me of who I am - silly and wild and intense and honest, with a little food on my face. I need to remember that’s who I always am.

My voice is who I am?

This cold and rainy evening I was in the art museum at my alma mater, talking to current students about careers in the arts. There is nothing like being asked “how did you get to where you are?” over and over to get me thinking about that question: How did I get here? And being there with fellow alums - a few of whom I knew as an undergrad - had me thinking the whole way home about how different things were when I was a big musical fish in the wonderful humanistic pond of Boston College.


I have vague recollections of a time before my voice was a commodity. I hadn’t invested a ton of money in it, it wasn’t making me very much money, and I was still getting to know it. People told me my voice was beautiful and I believed them, and it was true. I enjoyed my beautiful voice and used it as often as I could.

If that romantically Edenic memory sounds ridiculous, there’s a reason for that. My relationship with my voice in late adolescence was not pure or innocent. Burdened with deep insecurity, part of me believed that people would only admire or want to be around me if they knew I could sing, and I saw that as the only way of drawing people to me. At the same time, though, I could see through the illusion that there is anything virtuous about having a gift I never asked for, and felt shamed for using a false virtue in hope of attracting people.

I still try to take time to just enjoy my voice, even though using my voice is work for me now. It’s a source of income and a big investment. I have been told a million things about it, and often spent more time picking it apart than celebrating it. I listen to my recordings so many times that I have no idea what they sound like anymore. In order to improve (and to appropriately market myself) I need to think about the things my voice doesn’t do well, and sometimes it causes more anxiety than joy.

At the same time that I have this preoccupation, I feel paradoxically free because I know that it is not what makes me who I am. My voice does not make me holy or lovable. It is an unexplainable blessing that I can never earn but that I do my best to serve. I don’t need to have people hear me or know that I have this particular skill because I know that at the most fundamental level it’s nothing special.

When I was an undergrad there was so much I didn’t know, for better and for worse. Because everyone’s journey is different, it doesn’t make much sense to share all of that at a career night. What I was able to share was that I wake up every day and do what I love. That I’ve never had a thing planned for my future and have just made the best decisions I can, day by day. That you need to work your tail off to make it, and you had better find other things that can give you joy because a career is never going to love you back.

My voice is who I am, and at the same time it’s not, and I can live with that.

Baruch atah Adonai

I spent the better part of the last 24 hours singing Yom Kippur services as a “ringer”in a temple choir. I also sang for Rosh Hashanah this year, and while I’d never suggest that this experience gives me any license to make claims about the Jewish liturgical life, I found (as I often do) that praying with a less-familiar religious group helped me to clarify my thoughts about worship.


I felt more at home at the High Holidays services than I have at many at services of Christian denominations. My guess is that this comfort has to do with two elements that were present in these Reform Jewish rites: focus on God and focus on community.

One would think that focus on God could go without saying when describing a worship service, but this is not always the case. This weekend there was no doubt on whom the focus lay. The assembly declared the attributes of God, the promises of God, God’s working in the world throughout history. Over and over we sang Baruch atah Adonai, blessing the One who has no need of blessing but who believe treasures our blessings. These blessings are seemingly frivolous, unneeded, but they are to us essential. Our souls exhaust themselves attempting to describe that which cannot be described and to praise that alone which can be praised.

While looking out to God the prayers of the liturgy also focused on the community, on the “us”. In my view, the best liturgy reminds those worshipping that we are an “us”, a group gathered in time and place, connected across time and place with those who also worship. Our “us” is not just a gathering of individuals but the intangible ties between people that create true communities.

If we focus on God and on “us“, there is little room left to focus on “me”. As indulgent as navel-gazing can be, if we truly seek salvation we cannot be looking inward. It is through others that virtue is expressed, that we respond to God’s call to live in grace. Worship is not a place for our personal devotion, even less a place to examine ourselves. I spend enough time focusing on myself.

These thoughts are incomplete, but since I’ve committed myself to academic study of liturgy it would be a bit anti-climactic to exhaust all my reflections on it in one blog post. I have no plans to change cult anytime soon, but things felt right today as joined another community in their worship. I find freedom in blessing the name of the Lord, setting aside any other concerns, remembering the appropriate object of my attention and expressing the praise I was created to express.

(NB: I really struggled with whether to use G_d or God when writing this post, or whether to use other titles in each reference I made to the Creator. Something feels icky about using Judaism as a springboard for my reflections and then tromping all over one of their customs, but I decided using G_d would just be too precious.)

Una sola, ma grande come il mare

When covering Musetta in La Boheme two summers ago, I easily watched Mimi die 40 times. Because the rehearsal process was so intense and private time was so scarce, every time the opening chords of Sono andati sounded I would turn into a total basket case, channeling every emotion that I didn’t have time or space to process, pretending it was grief for a fictional character. To this day I can’t make it through that moment of the fourth act without crying.




In the opening lines of the aria Mimi sings one of my favorite lines in all of opera: Ho tante cose che ti voglio dire, o una sola, ma grande come il mare. (There are many things that I would like to tell you, or one thing, but large as the ocean). Between Puccini’s melody, the way the vocal line descends amid the sparse orchestration, and the beauty of the poetry, that line simply tears me apart every time I hear it.

What is the one thing worth saying, that is as large as the ocean? Maybe it’s because I’m an over-emotional Italian, but I know the feeling of having something to say that is beyond words: a feeling that is deeper than feelings, that comes from our foundation. We long to express it - in art, in poetry, in music, in gesture, in prayer. There is something holy about that infinite expression.

I sometimes wonder if we try to define our God before we decide whether or not we believe in one. Rather that accept that there is something out there that is as large as the ocean, wholly integral to who we are and undeniable, we build a god and then decide if it suits us. One of the most liberating things I was ever told was that when my emotions run away with me, that is prayer. God is in the beautiful yearning that wants to share something too big to express. We don’t learn “about” God, using our reason to build a deity we can worship, but we find God in big beautiful spaces, and then start to name that God as we continue the encounter.

Similarly, I often wonder if we attempt to figure out what it is we want to say before we commit to saying it. As I write those words it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do (commonly referred to as “thinking before you speak”, an activity about which I know very little). But if there is truly something that is big as the ocean, and if we truly spend our whole lives exploring it, perhaps we should commit to sharing it even if we don’t know where that path will lead.

Sometimes when we start singing we don’t know what sounds are going to come out of our mouth, but we start anyway. What moves me so about Mimi’s moment in Sono andati is that she is saying what she wants - needs? - to say in her final moments, rather than ruminating on the depth of her emotion privately or keeping her truth under wraps. With her last breath she struggles to express the inexpressible: love. Although Puccini might not have put it there consciously, I find God in that moment, propelling devotion and affection toward our highest goal: sharing love and ourselves with other people.

Where I am, What I miss

I haven't posted much this week, mostly because I hate writing those "today I got up. Then I walked to the window. Then I ate a sandwich" play-by-play posts. We have been working so hard here and been so busy that I haven't had time for any of the Deep Thoughts that I take such pride in sharing on my blog.

In lieu of Deep Thoughts there has been plenty of Little Advances and Hard Work, which is why I am here. Masterclasses and coachings have kept us busy, and I have learned so much from watching my colleagues on stage. We sang a truly lovely concert in a botanic garden a few days ago. The setting was so beautiful it made up for all the challenges of singing outside.

Last night was the mainstage production of Carmen. We had guest artists singing principal roles who had also been the faculty this week, and all of the Young Artists sang in the chorus. Having just done the show a year ago with BOC, I really enjoyed spending more time with the score and the drama. The orchestra was rip-roaring, the principals were to die for, and the audience was thrilled.

There is something nice about getting out of the big cities. Last fall and winter I did a few gigs up in New Hampshire, and it was a completely different world. Everyone was so friendly, our venues fed us, and people said things like "you have the most beautiful voice I've ever heard!" You just don't find that audience warmth in the big cities.

Speaking of big cities I just walked away from my computer and left it unattended. Apparently in Colorado people don't steal things, which has been another bit of culture shock. When I wrote my earlier post entitled "all the doors are unlocked" I didn't realize how much of a theme that would be here.

Despite all its charms, I am ready to leave the middle of the country and head back to my beloved coast. In a few days I will fly out back to the land of fast walkers, rude drivers and blunt neighbors. Steamboat is charming and kind and picturesque, but I will take real over picturesque any day. I am glad there are people who cherish this place the same way that I cherish New England, whose 'real' doesn't include a gritty neighborhood and a can lady, or a Podunk hometown.

What I miss

Working hard

I often joke that as a brunette soprano of average height, the only thing that could every set me apart from the pack is my work ethic. I have never been afraid of hard work, as the saying goes, and I am generally happier when I am being productive than when I am overindulging in leisure.

In a masterclass this afternoon I was worked hard. I sang one of the arias I have been singing forever, and I tried to incorporate all of the notes that I have gotten on it all week - clean up some of the diction, focus the tone, and that perennial bit of wisdom: stand up straight. The opportunity that was pointed out to me today is one I have heard before and not worked hard enough at: to sing through the end of each phrase keeping breath support strong until the very end. The work doesn’t end when I have begun the phrase but when I have finished it.

Even though I love hard work, there is always a part of me that thinks “why can’t it be easier? I already work hard! I sacrifice so much for this, why does it always demand more?” When I reflect honestly on it, however, I can’t imagine not working so hard. In all areas of my life, I can’t imagine not always trying to improve in some way. In singing, in teaching, in being a friend, in virtue - the only sin is not trying to get better.

If I truly believe that what I am doing is good, that it is something I am meant to do and that serves the world, then it’s not work - it’s what I’m wired for. All the work we do to become who we are isn’t work when it is oriented toward our own success and completion. And all that we do, even if it has nothing to do with singing, or teaching, or whatever it is at which we are capable of excelling, makes us more who we are if we are willing to fight for this fundamental orientation toward growth.

Last night we had no rehearsals or coachings, and we all went to the home of a generous trustee who filled us with burgers and salads and snacks. We played volleyball and lay in hammocks, watched the sunset over a lake and sang around a fire pit. Being with others and growing in fellowship is as important an element of artistic growth as diligent practice in a tiny practice room. As the moon rose I was able to relax away from my own work ethic and allow my companions to guide me along in the path to better which I am always seeking.

Seeking Stillness

Understatement alert: I like to be the center of attention.

It’s a big temptation for me, when I’m with new groups of people as I have been this week, to really turn it on, becoming a caricature of myself rather than being my actual self. I get overstimulated by new people and can end up jumpy, restless, and not the person who I am when I am most grounded.

I have always wished I were the kind of person who could sit still, and I imagined stillness to be an act of inhibition, a willing of the self to subdue. I thought it was adding another layer on top of the spastic surface, making sure the layer was thick enough to hold me down.

When singing we often fill our performances with extra, stomping around the stage, gesticulating wildly, allowing our focus to sweep around the room and back, over and over. In the same way I often try to fill my life, making sure no moment is left empty, that I am always accomplishing or impressing or improving. I end up full - but as anyone who has ever eaten too much ice cream cake knows, full is not the same as satisfied.

Last night we sang in Wyoming. As we took the long drive back across Wyoming and Colorado, the stars bright and low on the horizon, I sat back in my seat, rested my head, and was still. It wasn’t an act of will but an act of core - everything about me was placid, and my needs weren’t crying out to be filled with chatter or attention.

The most confident singers are not the most histrionic, but the stillest. What great bravery it takes to strip away the flailing and wailing and just give our simplest offering, confident that what we offer will be enough. I long for that stripped-away stillness, that knows what is enough and is willing to let the rest go.

Day 2: The day I discovered that there are poorly attended concerts all over the country.

I couldn't help but think of my dear BOCers last night when we held an aria concert at the library and the performers outnumbered the singers. I have performed in (and, I add sheepishly, been responsible for promoting) a handful of poorly attended concerts. We set the date, and rehearse, and invite our friends and fans, and then...no one shows up. I can think of at least three BOC concerts that followed that trajectory, and I'm glad that I surround myself with people who can still put on a good show and laugh at how few people are in the audience.

Hearing all of these standard arias from my new colleagues always makes me think of the voices I know best which I have heard sing those arias before. Because I didn't go to music school for undergrad I never really had singer friends, and even when I was at conservatory I kept a lot of people at arms' length. But after 4 years of singing with many of the same people, getting to know their voices and their stories, some of my dearest friends are other opera singers. Even as I make new opera friends, I am still a little territorial on my old friends' behalf, jealously wanting to guard their signature arias from other people.

After the concert we planned some leisure time, so I offered to buy some wine if someone could drive me to the package store. My use of the New England colloquialism was met with blank stares, and someone asked "why would you need to buy boxes?" Once I translated into standard English and was driven to the store, I was relieved to hear that the clerk was from New Hampshire and had family in Boston. All tricked out in my concert dress and prom hair I must have been a sight. He offered a discount if I sang for him and I politely declined.

All the drawers are wide open, all the doors are unlocked

Apparently it is Monday.



My system is so thrown off from travel and change of scenery that I am not entirely sure what day it is, and I don’t think that really matters. The next few weeks involve going where I’m told when I’m told to.


I was surprised at how easily I jumped out of bed this morning when the alarm went off. Despite fears about altitude sickness I wanted to run the first morning I got here, so I drank lots of water, had a banana and tied up my running shoes, heading down the path towards the road in the still-cool morning. Luckily the road we are on isn’t too hilly, and I was able to run down the road and back without having to scale the side of the mountain.

I warmed up in the shower, which I absolutely hate to do because I feels like it bothers people around me. But we were told that our cabins were our warm-up spaces, and I wanted to give myself a proper warm up after last night’s middle-voice-less raggedy aria debacle. I was very relieved to hear that my voice still worked. I had been raspy the previous two days, and I am still paranoid enough to think that my voice is never coming back every time I can’t sing perfectly for an hour or two.


Coaching was exhausting. I have a few coaches back in Boston with whom I work, and they know me very well. To go in and work with a stranger changes the dynamic, because you are trying to reveal yourself to a new artist even as you are trying to work on character and phrasing. Working on something like Steal Me Sweet Thief, I felt like I was exposing everything about my voice - the most personal, sensitive thing about me - and trying to communicate deep need and longing - because that’s what the piece requires, all the while cognizant that we were only about twenty minutes past “Hi, my name is Margaret”. I guess that’s no different than in an audition, but in an audition you have that extra layer of competition (or is it antagonism?) to keep yourself from being so vulnerable.


Afternoon chorus rehearsals were very long, and I was ready for a bowl of soup, a nap, and a Fudgesicle. Unfortunately when I finished my nap and grabbed a Fudgesicle it was completely melted, and I, appropriately, had a meltdown myself. Now at least my roommates know what happens when you come between me and my delicious icy chocolate treats.


Sang Steal Me Sweet Thief one more time in the evening for a dress rehearsal for tomorrow night’s concert. Because people tend to hate Menotti I feel like I really need to sell it, and I get myself all worked up in to a lather about dying alone in order to find an appropriate emotional state. Good times, eh? But the more I sing (and the more I watch others sing) the more convinced I am that if you don’t need to lay down by the time you are done singing, you haven’t left enough out there. Go big or go home.

The will for adventure

Once upon a time there was a woman who loved to stay home. She knew that she should love adventure and sometimes she truly did, but most of the time she wanted access to the familiar, to sleep in her own bed, and to know where all the light switches were.

I inherited this homebody streak from a family member who shall remain nameless, and I also inherited the willpower to beat it when I know I should make an effort. That is why this morning I set out for Colorado for another “opera camp” experience like my trip to Novafeltria (documentation of which was the purpose for starting this blog in the first place).

That was two years ago, and it feels it. These past two years have been really transformative and maturing – but I didn’t start this post to talk about how old I feel. I’m still young enough to have been happy that my flight was out of Hartford this morning so my Mommy could drive me to the airport before dawn.

My enormous pink suitcase was overweight when I finally got to the front of the line (a line which I believe I saw an entire family cut – really?). I already had to pay a fee just to check the bag – and I’m not one to get all “airlines these days”, but I do find that a little annoying. The extra weight was going to result in another fee. They asked if I wanted to take out 7 pounds worth of stuff to get it under the limit. I looked at my already overstuffed shoulder bag I was carrying on, and I looked at the lock on the suitcase, and I thought of the cash back I get on my credit card and responded “No.” (Is that another sign of my age? My willingness to throw money at problems?) The clerk looked shocked. I said “It’s six in the morning, and I just want to get on the plane” as I handed over my Capital One card.

I had the dreaded middle seat on the flight to Dallas. The man on the aisle was very large, and I spent most of my time balancing myself so that I wouldn’t be in his space (which, of course, was my space). A screaming child was behind me and I battled through the early morning exhaustion only to land in the Central Time Zone - and then again in Mountain Time Zone - and have to battle through those same hours all over again.

A few folks on the 10 am flight from Dallas to Denver had brought their Chinese food on the plane. Another moment of ‘really?’ And I thought I was rude for having had an onion bagel in the terminal. The flight was uneventful (a few more screaming babies), and I landed in Denver about an hour before our rides were to pick us up.

I got pretty lucky with my car-mates on the four hour drive up to Steamboat. If there’s anything worse than spending two weeks at a program with people who irritate you, it’s spending four hours trapped in a car. The company was good, and we even enjoyed my family tradition of singing "On the Road Again". Despite a little altitude uneasiness when we were up particularly high, by the time we got to Steamboat I felt fine (despite having been up since 2:30 Mountain Time and only having eaten a bagel).

Check-in, dinner, were all the usual blend of mildly awkward introductions and asking where the towels are kept, and then we got to the best part of the evening: rehearsal for an arias concert. As tough as it is to have to sing on such little rest, it is nice to get that first see-and-be-seen sing-off out of the way. We got a very kind speech about not being nervous, and I sat back and thought “I’m not nervous at all”. I don’t think I would have made it this long if I were still affected by other peoples’ opinions of my voice. In the end, I sang like I was dehydrated and had been up all night - which was pretty much true. But my high notes were nice.

To wrap up the day someone was generous enough to drive to the grocery, where I stocked up on hummus and fudgcicles, the two things that have sustained me most of the summer. We also passed a neon bunny that looks like it’s on drugs.

The picture didn’t’ really come out, but that might actually suit the mood.  Nearly 24 hours after my adventure anxiously began, I am at a picnic table under bright stars in the mountains, and it all seems perfectly normal.

When I went to bed last night and even when I woke up this morning I didn’t really want to go, what with all the uncertainty, meeting new people, unfamiliar beds and light-switch-placements. But I have trained myself to swallow my anxiety and just get on the plane. Inside me there is one person who loves adventure and one who loves consistency, and I’ve learned to let the two battle it out.

I hope to post once a day as I did in Italia due anni fa. I had the same hesitation about sharing my travel plans then as I do now, and I refer back to my warnings to potential thieves that I wrote in my very first post on this blog. I would also add that my upstairs neighbor sent me off with a promise not to let anyone touch my sh*t. So watch yourselves.

The stairs I will fall down in the night.
Note their close proximity to the bedroom door.

If you're not outraged...

Once upon a time, like a lot of idealistic young people, I lived and died by the bumper-sticker creed “If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention”. After a little time and a lot of experience, my bumper sticker is more likely to read “if you’re not outraged, you’ve probably developed a good self-preservation mechanism”. It’s not to say that there isn’t still plenty in this world worthy of lament, but that most of it is not the result of nefarious individuals but of huge systems impervious to our outrage. As I discovered the first time I was crossed by Bank of America, sometimes there is no one responsible, and no one to be mad at, and the anger only hurts ourselves.

Even with individuals I find it hard to maintain anger. Like a goldfish fooled each time by the tapping on the glass, I can easily be won over by a pleasant exchange with someone, even if previous exchanges have been less than pleasant, and even if I am convinced that they are one of those rare nefarious individuals mentioned above. Perhaps it’s because I am so frequently in need of mercy and forgiveness myself, but I am usually pretty willing to start over again with someone even if they’ve irked me in the past.

A lot of people mention Jesus’ anger when they are trying to justify their own. That’s a nice idea, but come on, this is Jesus we’re talking about. Yes, he went recognizably bonkers over the money changers in the temple, but he was also the Son of God. I better be sure my motivations are as pure and my anger as righteous when I start flipping tables.

Is it called growing up? Is it called settling? Is it called getting over it, whatever it may be? I’m not sure. But because I am more willing to let things go now, I give even more attention to the handful of things I am not willing to let go. There are a few incidents in my history that I refuse to forgive or forget, the claws and barbs of which I refuse to release from my gut and my psyche. I have made a conscious decision to keep being angry about these, so they must matter.

One was being told in elementary school that I couldn’t be an altar server because I was a girl, and the other was being told in high school that I should quit singing because my voice wasn’t worth listening to. They involve such wildly different things, but to me they are so similar that I have almost conflated the two incidents into some epic thwarting, an unidentifiable outside voice telling me something about me that I knew was false.

The comment in high school was really crushing. Not only had I shaped a fair amount of my identity around my vocal talent, I also had the intuition to know that this was what I should be doing. Singing was who I was, and had been since long before I had any outside feedback that my voice was “good” or “pretty” or “sweet” or any of the other adjectives that get thrown around. Singing was something I had always done, and part of how I expressed myself. Whether my voice was pretty or sweet had nothing to do with the most important fact which was that my voice was mine.

The issue with altar serving raises whole issues of gender that I’m not sure I am ready to get into here. What I am willing to get into, and what should embarrass me more than it does, is that even as a child I had a strong and bizarre devotion to the liturgy and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. The same way that I will now read any book, attend any lecture, or take any class that has to do with liturgy, when I was a child I would take any opportunity to be involved. It was bad luck that I was in a parish (and perhaps a diocese? I’m not sure) that still prohibited “altar girls”, and I remember being so astounded that I couldn’t even be angry or upset.

One of my earliest memories is of someone at day care telling me that blue was “a boys’ color” and having my now-typical reaction of “that’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard”. I never believed there was anything ontologically different about me because of my gender. There was nothing I deserved or didn’t deserve, nothing I was capable or incapable of, simply because I was a girl. So to be told that this element of my identity that I truly believed to be inconsequential was going to affect another person’s decision about what I could do was an absurdity that passeth all understanding.

In retrospect, neither of these things was truly enraging, more dumbfounding: somebody thought they knew better than me about me, and that somebody was wrong. Everyone has things that they are wired for, and to have those natural inclinations denied or disparaged truly violates the natural order of things. I suppose I hang on to these insults and slights because I don’t want to forget what it is that makes me who I am. I don’t want to forget that no one can tell me what I am capable of or what my aspirations should be. It’s good to let things go, but equally good to know what we should hold onto, what's worth being mad about.



I have avoided putting a “gender” tag up on the blog for a while, because I don’t want to get into something so controversial. But maybe it’s time.

I will hold Your people in my heart

Earlier today I clicked on a link to a post titled “Ten worst hymns of all time”. Despite the flippant title I expected to read something examining texts, vocalism, needs of communities, and musicality. Unfortunately I found the same list of popular tunes that I’ve read 100 times before, followed by reader comments lamenting the good ol’ days when we sand Gregorian chant and Holy God, We Praise Thy Name (which happens to be one of my favorite hymns, although people taking issue with awkward lyrics in modern songs shouldn't then turn around and raise up a tune with the line 'Lo! the apostolic train angel choirs above are raising'). I should be clear my beef here is more with the comments and the idea of picking out the “worst hymns” than it is with the actual list (although the inclusion of Pescador de Hombres offends me).

Judging by their comments most of the readers could be called “traditional” or “conservative” (yes, labels are odious, but sometimes they are necessary) , and it is no surprise that they don’t like the St Louis Jesuits, and they don’t have much use for Marty Haugen and David Haas, either. I have always argued that post-conciliar American liturgical music is a mixed bag, and that it is going to take sometime to separate the wheat from the chaff. But despite picking out a handful of bad couplets as evidence that these pieces are on shaky theological ground, it’s obvious that most of these people just don’t like that particular genre of eighth-notey, hyper-melodic, G or D major, Haugen/Haas style jams.

There are plenty of pieces in that genre for which I don’t care either. My issues with these lists (and I have read plenty, and they are almost always similar) is that rather than addressing particular shortcomings in a way that could be constructive, they self-righteously vent about how much they hate a song or how tired they are of it. It’s worth noting that One Bread, One Body has too many held notes and not enough internal rhythm, that I Am the Bread of Life has as wide a range as the National Anthem, and that We Are Called would be much better in G. Pinpointing challenges in popular hymns helps us to be more prudent about their use (We Are Called only as a closing hymn rather than opening, One Bread One Body with an organist and singers capable of subdivision, I Am the Bread of Life in thick enough orchestration that people can switch octaves and not feel like they’re sticking out). But that’s not as much fun as being snarky.

The elephant in the room when we get kvetching about Here I Am, Lord, is that people really like that song. I know, some people really like smoking, too, even though it’s bad for them. But if something is a legitimate conduit of grace, we need to give some value to that. If we don’t, it means we don’t trust our fellow worshippers’ taste or spirituality. Almost every song on this list is deeply meaningful to many people, and none are so theologically or musically revolting that they are truly unacceptable for worship. Yet there are still scads of liturgists (and armchair liturgists) who see their role as protecting the people from themselves. I literally cannot find words to express how frustrated this makes me. If you do not value or trust your community you have no place leading it.

I often joke to my choirs that they make me like songs I don’t like, and they do this by filling them with life and art and prayer. There are a very few songs that are on my “absolutely not” list, and I’ll admit that it’s often more fun to criticize a piece I don’t like than to open myself to learning why it is meaningful to other people. Just because this is what I do for a living doesn’t mean I get to decide for everyone what their values should be. I can try to influence their taste and offer new examples of meaningful music, and I can make the best of the meaningful music that is not ideal. The people who worship beside me in any setting are my family in Christ, fellow heirs of the Reign of God. To love and listen to a community can be exhausting and aggravating, but I don’t do my job as a minister or a baptized person if I smugly blow off their consensus, experience, and wisdom.

Getting out of the way

A few years ago I sang with a musician who I really respect and who tells it like it is. At the end of my coaching he asked me “why do you sing like you think you’re worse than you are?”

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I just completed six days in an Institute for Arts and Worship. You would think, having spent nearly a week dealing with two of my favorite things that I would be writing prodigiously. Instead, I’ve found myself totally blocked. There are many new ideas bumping around in my head and not a lot of direction as to how to piece them all together.

One insight from the week that stuck with me was that there are many similarities between worship and art. Both require honesty, vulnerability, communication, and trust. Both are expressive and both can be a little bit radical.

There is a tendency to be fussy with our liturgical worship and prayer, dressing it up in inauthentic ways to feel as if we’ve prepared enough. I was relieved to hear John Bell, our keynote, announce that our worship should be free of gimmicks, as gimmickry is one of my biggest pet peeves in liturgical planning (and I’ve yet to find a diplomatic way to point it out when I see it). Much like in art, the nonsense we use to dress things up often ends up getting in the way of the Thing.

I, of all people, should know, master that I am of getting in the way. I have been working all month on Carmina Burana, a piece I find extremely difficult, and which, therefore, scares me to death. Practicing has been going well, but one movement was still giving me grief this week. I was singing scared, singing like I couldn’t do it, getting in my own way. Not only was I not making expressive art, I wasn’t even singing in tune. I dreaded going to the practice room, and my dread was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So after a week of being pushed and stretched a million ways through the workshops at this Institute, I decided to let it all hang out in the practice room, to decide what I wanted to say in this movement and just let it out. No thinking about technique or perfection or control. Lo and behold, it was pretty close to perfect.

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Why do we pray like we think we’re worse than we are? Are we afraid to let it all hang out, to cede control? Do we think that we won't be able to do it? Do we worry if we dig too deep to express ourselves most authentically that we’ll dig up something we – or God – can’t handle? We let our liturgies turn into variety shows – or morgues – rather than daring to be the Body of Christ gathered in prayer. If that gathering is not our goal, why bother?

Getting out of the way is challenging, especially when we are comfortable with our impediments. Fortunate are we that we don’t need self-conscious gimmicks or to become someone else in order to pray. All week I fought the good fight at this institute, listening to effusive enthusiasm from others about their prayer experiences in dance, improv, collage. My experiences were no doubt holy, but nothing to go home and write a poem about. I felt pressure to find my bliss in one of these less familiar prayer forms, and it was making me a little grumpy.

During our final worship together we sang one of the hymns that I know inside and out. I closed my eyes and sang my prayer with a confidence that I was offering my most honest worship. God met me there, when I was being most myself, rather than when I was trying on other guises. I trusted enough to sing and pray as I was, not believing I was worse (or better) than I am. I wasn’t in my own way, and as the singing ended I concluded just as the hymn did – lost in wonder, love, and praise.