Hope and glory

I woke up early on this day when the days begin to grow longer, and sat for a while in the glow of the Christmas tree lights as the sky brightened in the window behind me. Daytime will be just a little bit longer today, one day after the winter solstice. For now, at 7:15am on December 22, 2020, I'll let that be a sign for me of growing hope for a better world in 2021. Or, more realistically, of the presence of hope and grace even in sad and painful times. 

Easier said than done. Hope and grace are more easily felt in the early morning quiet than in the late afternoon, when the sun goes down too soon after too many hours of screens and stress and clamor. Of  trying to construct or reconstruct real human voices behind the black and white paragraphs of news or the endless strings of emails. 

I have felt at times like I am holding my breath through this pandemic. Or letting go and then quickly holding it again. Tears creep into my eyes and throat too easily these days, often cued by singing or memories of singing or trying to sing. I have been in church every Christmas of my entire life (with the possible exception of the year I was in first grade and didn't get to say my "piece" in the Christmas Eve service because I was sick). Christmas at home, without the familiar rituals of church-going, choir-singing, and family gatherings afterward will be tough. And Christmas without music-making -- dear God! When it comes to music, it's the making of it that matters most to me. 

I have spent very little time making music during this pandemic, but I am making hats. I think it's an even dozen, or will be when I finish the one I cast onto my knitting needles last night. I've also knit two sweaters, finished a third one, knit a couple pairs of socks and two lace shawls. There is no sound in knitting, but there is rhythm and sensation in the hands. The product does not float on air and then disappear. It lasts. I don't find tears welling up in my throat when I pick up my knitting. I find comfort there instead, and breath.

Oh, this post, more labored over than a reader could know. What meaning can be found in breath-holding, music-making, post-solstice sunrises, yarn and hope and grace? And why even try? These are dark days, even under a brightening winter sky. I've prayed this morning for peace for the dying.And prayed for grit and determination for the rest of us.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven," sang the angels, "and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” They lit up the night sky, those angels. Had the shepherds ceased to be "sore afraid" by then? Did their fear dissolve into wonder? Did the light in the sky illuminate their hearts, as the rising sun is now showing me the inner branches at the top of my Christmas tree? Did they find hope and grace in the morning light of the manger?

"Marshfield Christmas Dawn II" by docmartini is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Perfect rejoicing

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice." That's St. Paul, of course, writing to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 4) from prison. 

I can't hear that text and the verses that follow it without also hearing this 16th century English motet. It begins with an upward leap of a perfect fourth on the word "rejoice." 

Why a "perfect" fourth? It may be one of those things we were just told to accept in music theory class. There are major and minor seconds, thirds, sixth and sevenths, but fourths and fifths -- they may be augmented or diminished, but they are never major or minor. They're perfect, and one is the inversion of the other: C to F is a fourth, F to the C above is a fifth. And C to C, of course, is an octave (despite four and five adding up to nine, but that has something to do with counting the F twice. Which reminds me of certain math errors I've made while knitting in the round, or spacing buttonholes. Or something.) The fifth above is the second overtone, so there's another layer of math here, and then there's the thing where you're going from the dominant back home to the tonic. It's the "Here Comes the Bride" interval. It holds a certain majesty. 

(If you'd like to cite contrary examples in music, if a perfect fourth has an entirely different character for you, or you say it functions differently in some dissonant or atonal music of the early or late 20th century, well, that's your problem. Your sorry little problem. Excuse me.)

A few years ago, a visiting English choral clinician, Tim Brown, formerly of Clare College, Cambridge,  told our St. Matthew Passion rehearsal at my church that a singer could never sing a perfect fourth high enough. You had to aim high to get it exactly right -- to make it perfect in sound as well as in theory. That little piece of advice, offered as an aside to whatever it was he was trying to get us to do with the Bach, has stuck with me, so that when I see one of those things coming (or used to see one, when we could still sing in choirs) I aim high. Maybe with my eyebrows lifted, maybe -- and more to the point -- by making plenty of space to hold the sound, plenty of room for it to resonate brightly in exactly the perfect place. 

It makes perfect sense to me that a composer would set the word rejoice as a perfect, upward-moving fourth. It's a call, a sit up and pay attention gesture. It lifts spirits to say, to sing, "rejoice!"

Are there other instances of hymns and sacred songs rejoicing on a perfect fourth? In Advent hymnody there's "Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers." Tomorrow in our mid-week worship services we'll sing the Advent hymn "Awake, Awake and Greet the New Morn," with a dancing fourth on both "awakes." Other examples?  It's 9:30 at night and the hymnal's at the other end of the house. 

Paul rejoiced from prison and exhorted his readers to virtues beyond rejoicing, or perhaps rooted in rejoicing: gentleness and/or moderation (depending on translation); don't worry; pray and give thanks. Trust that the Lord is, in 16th century lingo,  "e'en at hand." 

And now I've thought of another hymn that begins with an upward leap of a perfect fourth: "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," which I think is one of the most beautiful tunes ever. 

Somewhere in time and space, Christ on the cross met Paul in prison, and Paul rejoiced. Christ meets us too, from that cross. Perfect rejoicing.