On Sunday, CCM's Contemporary Christian group gave their annual performance. Ever since I discovered that this group existed, I've been eagerly awaiting this day. So despite the fact that it occurred at the end of my two weeks of crazy after a Mass for which I could barely stay awake, I hopped over after Mass.
A little known fact about me : I am a sucker for anyone who can make music, probably because I am so unmusical myself. It's like parallel parking -- I'm amazed every time it happens. And when people who are good at being musical are making music that is praising God, I basically get a little piece of heaven if I can sit in a corner and listen. Actually, I sat in the front, not a corner and sang (very softly so as not to bother the CCMers next to me) love songs to my God.
I also realized that night just how much Christian music has become a part of my life. Not just that I know the songs and can sing along to at least half of them, but the strong connection they have with other parts of my life. I went on a musical tour of the past five years of my life. Some of the more powerful examples:
One of the first songs they performed was "Indescribable." This song first entered my life during a retreat my sophomore year of college and reappeared annually as I served the retreat in various forms.
"Free to Be Me." When they started this song, I was transported to the Shnuck's parking lot in University City, St. Louis, sitting in our blue Toyota on a sunny evening making a grocery run after school. It was the first time I heard the words to this song, and they resonated : I too could not see God's plans for my life and was (and am) clumsy and incomplete when I act on my own and try to be perfect.
More recently, I have heard the song "Alive Again." I associate it with both the Encounters I teamed this year. Also, it has the wonderful line from Augustine, "Late have I loved you," which brought me back to buying and reading Confessions last year.
Finally, most powerfully, "Mighty to Save." My YouthWorks summer, we sang this song to death, and at the end I thought I would never be able to hear it again without cringing. Which was a shame, because I liked the song a lot at the beginning of the summer. I discovered that now at last I like it again. As soon as the chords started, I was sitting next to an overhead on the floor, our club "mood lighting" switched on, surrounded by a group of middle and high school kids. And somehow, those kids and the people we served in Carthage became connected to my kids and coworkers and Six Pack from last year, who are connected to my ministry this year.
I discovered on Sunday how to bilocate. Because even as I traveled back in time to different places of my life, the beauty of the right-now remained. Our incoming VP, smiling like an angel as she sings; our future music minister, praising God in song; our current music minister, holding the show together; the rest of the group, making music. And the crucifix and tabernacle, just to the side, reminding us all of the ultimate Beauty.
Is it odd that I recognize most of those songs?
ReplyDeleteActually, I am surprised! Is it from growing up, or friends, or just cultural knowledge?
ReplyDeleteThe liberal version of christianity I was raised in didn't involve that kind of music at all, and it isn't general cultural knowledge. In my later years at UD I spent a rather disturbing amount of time hanging out with various christians (including your sister and her roommate Amy), and attended a number of meetings of IV and Cru and such with them. I actually came to like some of the music, and now I sometimes listen to christian radio stations in the car. But don't tell any of my atheist friends that.
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