Music Sunday
April 27, 2014 | Jordan Wiens, Don Klassen, Rosemary Slater

A series of reflections on music and faith...

Jordan Wiens
Why do I sing? It is a simple question and a complex question at the same time. The simple answer is it’s fun. Lately I’ve been contemplating the relationship between intellectualized faith and emotionalized faith. It is my understanding that music has a place in bridging the two.

The relationship between my continued desire to sing and its place in my theological views are the most interesting aspect of my singing history. For the past year or so I’ve been wrestling with what it means to have these two different kinds of faith. I’ve always been more interested in discovering and debating the existence of God, Jesus, and his plan for the world academically. This aspect of my faith has come naturally to me. However, the emotional side has not. Feeling God is something that I continue to try and understand. This is where music comes in.

I would argue that at its most fundamental meaning that music is composed as an emotional vector. The year before I started attending RJC the motto on the chorale shirts was “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.” It bridges the gap that exists between emotional and intellectual faith.  Music imparts different meanings to lyrics based on their part in the song. This careful and in some ways completely arbitrary construction is what keeps me coming back. Musical compositions sometimes have as much to say about a subject than study notes by expressing it in a profound way. The main example that comes to mind is the song How Deep the Father’s Love For Us. Lately I’ve been viewing people’s expressions to see how they react to it. Most people generally react the same because the music delivers the magnitude of the crucifixion to the listener in ways that reading it the story cannot.

At the start of this school year I was interested in learning ancient Greek and began meeting Patrick every two weeks to keep me on pace with my learning. However, the time has turned into so much more. It has been a place for debating the meaning of scripture, the impact of translation, the discussion of social issues, checking in with one another, and playing chess. Over the course of the year we have discussed many topics but I distinctly remember close to Christmas we were discussing how it was the playoffs for pastors. I can’t remember if it was Ron Schellenberg or Patrick that suggested it initially, but I liked the idea. Christmas is a time to for community and pastors play an important role in facilitating that. After the Good Friday service last week I made the suggestion that Holy Week is the musician’s playoffs. In a week when we experience an emotional rollercoaster nothing can quite put it all in perspective like music can.

The song I have chosen is “My Life Flows On” My grandfather Albert and grandmother Katie have been extremely supportive and inspirational to me and instrumental in my journey as a musician. On Albert’s head stone it reads “Life flows on in endless song.” Even though I only knew him for half of my life, this is an excellent motto for him and this line continues to shape my musical and faith journey.

Don Klaassen
When Patrick asked if I would say a few words about “Why I Sing” it required me to think about a question I had never contemplated before.  The best I can come up with is that singing is an attempt to join with others to communicate something to or about God that goes beyond the spoken word.  This past Christmas I had the privilege to sing in a performance of Handel’s Messiah with the Station Singers.  I have heard that music many times, both live and on recording, but had not had the opportunity to sing it before. There was something unique about being in the middle of and participating in that cauldron of sound.  Experiencing the telling the Gospel story in that way was an emotional experience.  To me, Messiah is the most beautiful and profound piece of chorale music, but not too far in second are the African-American spirituals.  The hope and faith these songs convey despite the horrible circumstances of slavery and oppression in which they originated is powerful stuff.  My most memorable and enjoyable times with RJC chorale were singing these songs.  I must admit that congregational singing does not always provide me with the same type of experience I’ve just talked about, but the goal remains the same and I do regard it as an essential part of any worship service. I am partial to the more traditional hymns with four part harmony, and in singing these songs I feel a connection to a community of faith, present and past, who have endeavoured to make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Rosemary Slater
Singing was very important for my father, so the winter I turned three, he tried to teach me to sing. Neither of us found it a very satisfactory experience. The following spring, on the school playground at recess time, the school girls taught me to sing "London Bridge is falling down". I was much relieved that I could now sing. Dad was very proud of my accomplishment, but mother was more concerned about my mispronunciation of the English words. We spoke only German at home, so the words were meaningless to me.

My father continued to be the most important reason I kept on singing. My parents were my only teachers for the first eight years of my school life. We sang every day in school, in English and in German, secular songs as well as religious songs. Melody and rhythm were more important to me than words. If I liked a song, I paid little attention to the words. That changed when my father taught me a song I was to sing to my mother. The essence of the song was that when I was grown up, I would do all her work while she would rest in an easy chair. At that point, I had some major reservations about the meaning of the words I was singing. Words had become important.

As young school children, we played singing games outside at recess, but as teenagers, we gathered in the cloakroom at recess to sing gospel songs in harmony. Recently, I attended the funeral of a former classmate who had been one of those teenage singers. When his grandchildren stood to sing a medley of his favorite songs, I realized they were all the songs we used to sing in that cloakroom at recess more than sixty years before. The words we had sung as teenagers had become part of us and had shaped our faith as adults. We had sung ourselves into faith.

My father was convinced everybody could sing and so, everybody did. In our village, radios were rare, television and electricity were non-existent and few people travelled. On weekends, the young people of the village gathered to play singing games.

Once a week, they met at school in the evening to sing in the choir that my father conducted. Singing was a major part of our entertainment and our primary social activity.My parents left that community as I was entering my teens and I found myself in an environment where singing no longer included everyone. It had become performance art. You had to be invited to  join the group or audition to prove you were good enough to belong. I was very shy and the trauma of being excluded in high school and later in Bible School stayed with me for a long time. It didn't stop me from continuing to sing. Others have told me of being told by a teacher to "mouth the words" instead of singing. As a result, they have been denied the satisfaction of a lifetime of singing in choirs and in the congregation because they thought they couldn't sing. I prefer my father's philosophy; we can all sing and make a joyful noise to the Lord.

One of the songbooks from which we sang regularly in elementary school was Der Kleine Sänger. As a child, the words I sang had little meaning, but over the years, those same words came to represent my philosophy of life. Because these songs are German, they would be meaningful to some of you but not to others. I will try to share with you what is important to me about these songs. A favorite song speaks of serenity and of trusting God to work out the circumstances of my life in a way that is best for me. Other songs invite me to have an inner calm and a happy heart and to be cheerful in the face of adversity. Songs asking for grace and strength to follow God's way and songs offering comfort and consolation in times of trouble are also favorites of mine. Some songs speak of the end of life and some songs praise nature. There is a song in praise of singing. For every circumstance of life there is a song to remind me that God is always with me. Since many of my favorite songs happen to be German, singing has helped me to retain my first language and through that, a connection with hundreds of cousins who live in Brazil.

A very special gift I received from a friend a few years ago was a CD of the Canzona choir singing the German hymns I grew up with. The gift is doubly precious because my friend still sings although he struggles with speech. Others have told me of parents lost in a brain fog of dementia who could sing along with all the words of the hymns they grew up with when all other contact with reality seemed obscured. As my husband lay dying, two years, ago, unable to speak or to move, we played hymns for him as a constant background and he was at peace. I love the song, "We shall go out with joy". When I go out one day, I hope to go with a song in my heart and in  my head and still singing.