Fame or Famine

…their old familiar carols play…

Yesterday was a first for me. I’m no stranger to Christmas music – been singing it since I was a wee lad – but last night I accompanied my girlfriend to her church. Now, full disclosure here: by nature I am a Zen Buddhist, and the only reason I can say that I’m not a bad one is because there really aren’t any bad Buddhists (it kind of defeats the whole non-expectation thing). So I don’t go to any Christian denominations; the closest I’ve come to organized Zen is a partial sesshin I sat in on.

But I digress. The fact is, yesterday I went to a little Protestant church in Barneveld, WI to accompany her on guitar while she sang “The Coventry Carol”. There were other performers too – a piano/organ duet, Kimberly singing “Breath of Heaven” and our friend Jack who sang  “Mary Did You Know” and “Oh Holy Night.”

It’s that last that I really want to talk about. Jack’s a good guy, and very much a guy; he’s a martial arts instructor, owns his own school, and is built like a Mac truck. He’s also got a great clear baritone voice and an enthusiastic love of music. “Oh Holy Night” is one of my favorites, one that I’ve sung myself back when I was attending my parents’ church. When he got up to sing it, I closed my eyes, bowed my head – not in reverence to a deity, but in reverence to the song, and the offering of his skill and passion for music that he was gifting me with. I did it twice, in fact, since there were two services, one at 5pm for normal people, and one at 11pm for those devout enough to want to ring in Christmas at midnight (or those dating the devout, such as me).

My own part in this wasn’t just to please or impress my girlfriend (though it was fun seeing the expression on her face when she heard me singing the harmonies on the hymns).  No, it was my own offering, not to the Christian God but to the people there, sharing a small skill I have – a memorized classical guitar arrangement of “The Coventry Carol” – and both times I found myself not nervous (I hardly know these people; who cares if I mess up?) but more focused, trying to just stay with the sound of the strings, the Dm chords and the slide up to the A on the fifth fret with my pinkie…it was, dare I say, almost Zenlike.

I think that’s the point I’m trying to make with this post. My Christmas has been filled with music, both from people I barely know and gathered round the piano with my parents and sisters. And while I may not share their faith, I was still able to share a sense of the communal wonder of that transient beauty in the music, and smiled with pleasure as Kimberly’s daughter pulled the rope that rang the bell at 12:05am this morning (Pastor Bob let the second service run a little long). It wasn’t the birthday of my Lord, but it was a celebration of the beauty of music that can come from such beliefs – and for a change, I found that that was enough.

The bells didn’t reassure me that “The wrong shall fail, the right prevail” but it reassured me that there is connection, there is harmony, and there is a point to gathering in the cold dark of winter and lighting candles together against the darkness, and lifting voices against the silence.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

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