Voices Raised in Song

Choirs have followed me everywhere this Christmas season. On my daily commute, I listened to the beauty of the Choir of King’s College. Their music is an amazing celebration of faith, beauty, and worship. It all just brings me to tears, especially their version of “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

Then, during the most frenzied of my shopping trips to the mall, I was stopped by a live choir. There they were, these real life people with serene faces amidst all this chaos, singing “Joy to World.” I just stopped mid-stride, forgot my rush and my stress and took in their beautiful sounds, their message of wonder.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, the choir at our church lit up the service with more beautiful hymns. As always, my favorite part of this service comes after communion, when the lights all dim and the choir leads us in “Silent Night.” My daughter E held my hand and I sat in the pew and wept. Holy night, indeed.

There is something magical and so touching to me about the sound of a choir. The way all these voices join together and create not just music but something more powerful, more beautiful. They create something sacred.

This passage from the book The Elegance of the Hedgehog is the perfect testament to that feeling of sacredness that surrounds me when I hear a choir:

“Every time, it’s a miracle. Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is full of vulgarity and triviality and consequence and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size and there’s this life we’re struggling through, full of shouting and tears and laughter and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck – it all disappears when the choir begins to sing. Everyday life banishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion…

Every time, the same thing, I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself but sometimes it gets close; I can hardly keep myself from sobbing. So much, too much, emotion at once, it’s too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I’m no longer myself, I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong.

And I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everday life instead of being an exceptional moment during a choir. In the end, I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song.”