Saturday, August 27, 2005
When I went to mass a few weeks ago, something interesting happened. I went to the
Sitting next to me in the pew was an older man. His hair was thinning quite a bit, so it was hard to tell just how old he was. I’d place him in his mid-50s, but he may have been a little older. He wore glasses and had shorts on—something you don’t normally see older adults with, at least not at a church service.
For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to attend a Catholic mass: 1) you should give it a shot some time 2) there is a lot of oral reciting, interspersed with singing, which, not surprisingly, is usually done by reciting. This is a crucial point, for without it, nothing that follows will seem as interesting.
So back to this gentleman next to me: He had a normal voice when he recited various prayers and spoke, but his singing was something else. I’ve never heard someone who was literally tone deaf, until this man started to sing. I could understand completely such a singing disability if his voice was somehow abnormal. In fact, given the careers of successful singers, a poor speaking voice can be turned into an asset once sung. (Think Dylan and Cocker.)
Think of your average person with a hearing disability. When they speak, they tend not to have tonal control because hearing is such an integral part of speaking. If you cover your ears and talk long enough, your voice will probably change noticeably to the people listening to you. This man sitting next to me sang as if he were deaf. AND, to top it off, he made sure to sing as loud as he could. Wow.
“Biting one’s lip” took on a whole new meaning. The adolescents behind me snickered, and I just kept looking down, up, left, but not to the right. The voice that would make dogs cry was to the right.
But my story does not end here. Nay, it only gets stranger…
During the communion procession (where every one eventually files out of the pew and head up for the Eucharist), there is a song. It tends to be one of a handful of songs, all very well known. At this point I hear sniffling from the right. Sniffling tear? Or sniffling allergies? Which one is it going to be? Am I going to hear tone deaf sneezing? Is that even possible?
He’s not just crying, he’s balling. He takes his glasses off to wipe his eyes, and I just want to reach over and give the guy a hug. Sometimes these communion songs can make people emotional, but it didn’t appear he knew this one since he had to look it up. But there he is, crying. And I’m thinking that this is one of my strangest church experiences.
This leads me into the larger point of this post. Henry David Thoreau, the misanthropic American writer, said that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I think that’s largely true. How many people are happy with their jobs? How many marriages end in divorce? Zoloft, anyone? And those are just a few things that make headlines of magazines and time-wasting websites.
We all suffer in life. Now that doesn’t mean we are all depressed. Depression seems to be more of a clinical, long-term sense of despair and longing. But sadness, loneliness, frustration, guilt, shame, etc. are a huge part of the human condition. Why are dramas so popular? Why is it Shakespeare's tragedies, rather than his comedies, that so often grab our attention? I think I've written on this topic in an earlier post. But seeing this man in church made me realize that even in a crowded house of God, we are so isolated from each other. We don't really know all of what is going on in one's life.
“And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” Aeschylus (525 BC —456 BC)
