Lent Day 33: Where do you find joy? Part 2: Entertainment

I really do love the PCUSA Daily Prayerbook. Members of committees and boards in the congregation I serve are used to me waving the book at them prior to reading a prayer to kick off or close a meeting. One of the things I particularly love about it is the way the days of the week are themed. For example, Thursday prayers mention the ministry of Word and Sacrament, the affection of our friends, and our call to love and care for one another... all things that connect with Maundy Thursday, a day (night) on which friends gathered around a table, a Sacrament was instituted, and Jesus exemplified love and caring as he washed his disciples' feet.

The themes of Saturday are related to weekend-things... ministries of music and the arts, time for rest and recreation, but also the burden of addiction (which so often becomes more visible in weekend activities). 

The prayers begin with expressions of gratitude. One of these is "those who enlighten and entertain."

I come from a family of artists and entertainers. Both my adult children have pursued careers in theater in various ways; their dad works with symphony orchestras. My partner helps people to adorn their homes with the art and photographs they love. Even I tried my hand (ever so briefly) at singing professionally when I was in my twenties. All of us place value on the arts and entertainment--not in the abstract, but in the specific ways artists, actors, musicians hold a mirror up to life--the good, the bad, and the ugly-- and show us our humanity, or lack thereof. My children and I love to experience a play or movie or TV show together, and then talk about it at length, in detail, analyzing the choices directors and actors make, sharing our excitement at the things that really pop for us, shaking our heads sadly at near misses.

So, I love all these things. And seeing them, taking them in, and then pulling them apart with those who experience them with me, is a real joy. 

Last night a friend and I shared dinner and then saw a great local production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," a play I have loved since my mom bought me the concept album when I was eleven. I was a Catholic schoolkid who was pretty into the rosary and Mary and wanted to be a nun now and then, so, suffice to say, this music / musical was a kind of emotional and spiritual explosion. I had never heard anybody talk about Jesus like Judas (who, let's admit, is the star of the show, title notwithstanding. It is his journey that we are following with rapt attention, and that makes sense. He stands in for us, in many ways.) 

The first words of the opening song are, "My mind is clearer now." 

And you know what? Because of the brilliance of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, my mind was clearer, in the sense that I got to witness a struggle with doubt (Judas') that had been presented to me one-dimensionally. I got to witness Jesus with all his humanity on view (which, let's be frank, isn't typically well-presented, no matter what our theology tells us about fully God/ fully human. I am happy to report that last night's Judas knocked it out of the park.). I got to witness various disciples and their points of view and political sympathies and limitations. No matter what you think of how Rice and Weber use the gospel of John (which is their main source), the presentation of the Jesus story here is a revelation. That revelation is: There is more than one way to look at this. Even if the rock opera doesn't move the needle on your theology one point, anyone who allows themselves to take this in is enriched by the beauty of someone taking a story and telling it through music and song.

All this is my reaction to the album. Imagine what happened to me when I saw the movie.

Here's what happened. My favorite song went from "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (which, today, isn't even one of my top five favorite songs from the show) to "Gethsemane (I Only Want to Say)." Why? because of Norman Jewison's brilliant direction which has Jesus climbing the Mount of Olives while he is singing to God, begging God to let him live.

I only want to say
if there is a way
take this cup away from me,
'cause I don't want to taste its poison,
feel it burn me.
I have changed.
I'm not as sure
as when we started...

This passage of scripture is generally called "the agony in the garden." Interestingly, this is one place where Rice / Weber depart significantly from John's gospel--Jesus is in agony in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In the gospel of John, he is not only resolved, but eerily eager to go to his death, which he calls his "glory."

Not here. Here, Rice / Weber embrace Jesus' humanity and fear (and the three synoptic tellings of this moment), and the climb is the embodiment of that. He is trying to reach out to God, climbing toward the invisible and, in this moment, silent Deity. He climbs higher and higher, his distress increasing with the altitude. At the apex of both his climb and the music ("Alright! I'll die!") the camera leaves the actor, Ted Neeley, and we see, instead, images of paintings of the crucifixion, as the time signature of the music jolts from 4/4 into 5/4, a rhythm that the listener feels in their body because, in that moment, it's so unexpected and off-balance. It heightens the horror. God either doesn't hear or won't respond.

I've never heard that song in the same way again. Now it slays me emotionally, all because a director and an actor and a production designer used the music and lyrics in a brilliant way to show us what agony looks like. It is imprinted on my soul.

This. Gives. Me. Joy. A well-made film or TV show, a well-produced play engages the senses, awakens the critical faculties, pierces the emotions, captures the viewer /listener, and gives them an experience they can't shake (and often, don't want to).

Here. You'll see what I mean. Entertainment like this gives me joy. What entertainment is flooding you with endorphins today?

 

Lent Day 32: Where do you find joy? Part 1: Music

I've noticed something in this late-stage pandemic time we are in--not to mention, for those of us of the clergy persuasion, this late-stage Lenten moment as we approach Holy Week. 

We are all looking for joy. We are using phrases like "comfort food" (and not only when referring to, you know, food). We are asking one another how we are doing, and it has me wondering: Where do you find joy these days? I know my daughter and I are making playlists on our phones titled things like "The Joy of Spring" and "Roll Credits" (as in, the movie's over, and you LOVED IT). 

I think I'll talk about music today. How I Find Joy In Music.

I am a musical omnivore. You will find me listening, in the same day, to Toto, Etta James, the Indigo Girls, Ella Fitzgerald, David Bowie, the Bright Wings Chorus, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Emmanuel Ax. (This represents a true, actual day.)

Recently I've been listening to a playlist called "Winter Comfort Music," which consists mostly of music from the Ted Lasso soundtrack. (Ted Lasso is another day. He gets an entire blogpost to himself, because of the joy that show has brought me.)

So, in the space of an hour I'll be listening to Lizzo singing "Juice," Bowie and Mercury singing "Under Pressure," Dusty Springfield singing "Wishing and Hoping" (which I forever will associate with the opening credits of "My Best Friend's Wedding," another long-standing source of joy), and a completely new to me offering, "Harmony Hall" by Vampire Weekend, which is on repeat these days. (Try it, you'll like it, I promise.)

I may be a bit of a weirdo, but a song doesn't have to be a happy song to make me happy. Take Toto. This week I've listened to "Hold the Line" roughly 27 times. It's definitely about a difficult/ complicated/ failing relationship. But it doesn't matter, because the opening percussive piano triplets, and then the heavy-metal-sounding guitar licks are designed to release endorphins. (For me, at least. I don't make the rules.) Same with "Harmony Hall"--I can't quite make out what the song is about, but, again, that piano bop that precedes the chorus each time just makes me dance, wherever I am. (I just looked the song up on Wikipedia--they say that the lyrics cause feelings of dread. That may be! But they don't bother me!)

Recently I heard my colleague Chris play the daylights out of my very favorite classical piano piece ever, Brahms' Intermezzo, Opus 118, No. 2. I've known the piece since I was in college, and I hadn't listened to it in a few years. But the first few very dearly familiar notes instantly sent joy surging through me...and I will concede, it's a melancholy-bordering-on-heartbroken kind of sound. But its luscious harmonies, and the path it travels from beginning to end are mesmerizing and glorious, and it simply makes me happy.

Sometimes, though, the perfect mesh of music and lyrics does make a big, big difference. An odd entry in the "it makes me happy" category has to be "There's a Wideness in God's Mercy," Episcopal Hymnal edition (Hymn tune St. Helena). I have never warmed to the one in the Presbyterian Hymnal (probably because I knew the other one first; primacy matters). It's a weird, off-kilter kind of melody, but kind of haunting. The other one sounds sing-songy to me, like a nursery rhyme, and doesn't seem to fit the lyrics AT ALL. But the switching time signatures, and the restlessness of the key signature, all convey to me exactly what the lyrics convey. God is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and that weirds us out and throws us off balance, as the song does. Listening to it has become a part of my daily prayer practice in Lent.

TL/DR, music gives me joy, and I put on repeat the things that are causing the endorphins to surge. Listen to two of my current faves below.

What music gives you joy?