Lent Day 40: Holy Saturday and the Harrowing of Hell

"Christ in Limbo" by Fra Angelico, c. 1430.

When I was a child, Holy Saturday was very much "in-between time." Lent was not over--the self-denials and disciplines that made up the life of faith in our household were very much in place until after the Easter Vigil. * 

But something had shifted. The experience of Good Friday worship (which, for us, included the Stations of the Cross, complete with incense and Gregorian chant) had moved us into and, to a certain extent, through the grief which is ritualized in Holy Week observances. I remember walks on the boardwalk with my mother, the soothing sound of the ocean always a sign to me that something bigger was happening than I could ever understand or control.

As an adult I encountered other ways of thinking about Holy Saturday. Many years ago my friend Yvonne preached one of the Seven Last Words on Good Friday, and her meditation was entirely about Christ in his tomb. She envisioned it as a womb--that something was gestating, something would be born--but we could only, so far, see death.

Later still, I encountered the theology of the Harrowing of Hell. Merriam-Webster defines "harrow" as "a cultivating tool with spikes, teeth, or discs, and used primarily for breaking up and smoothing the soil." This makes sense in terms of the usual use of the word today: "...a harrowing experience," something that digs at you, roils you. But in the theological usage, it refers to Christ's descent into hell (or limbo, or whatever the land of the dead might be) to bring salvation to souls stuck there from the beginning of time.

This is problematic theology, to say the least. That God would create human beings with a finite lifespan and subject them to unavoidable eternities of torment (or even a neutral holding pen for millennium upon millennium) prior to salvation... I'm not buying it. This is the kind of thing that gives rise to crazy assertions like "Moses was a Christian," because he must have been because otherwise God would never have let him into heaven.

Bollocks.

And yet, Good Friday does matter. It is important. It's important to us. 

Rev. Daniel Brereton (@RevDaniel), a wonderful Twitter colleague, posted this on Good Friday:

Jesus didn't go to the cross to change God's mind about us, but to change our mind about God.

In the crucifixion Jesus demonstrates for us the nature of God's love for us--a love that gives extravagantly, gives its very life, that experiences what we experience, that suffers with us, that doesn't leave us alone in our suffering and grief. 

Another wonderful online colleague, Rev. Maren Tirabassi (https://www.facebook.com/maren.tirabassi), imagined Jesus in the underworld on Holy Saturday, preaching the Good News to our favorite biblical heroes, heroines, antiheroes and antiheroines. And there is something here about the kindness and tenderness of God's love for us that moves me beyond the unfathomable theology of the harrowing to remind me, in the words of Rickie Lee Jones, 

...there is no sorrow heaven cannot heal
a fire within, no cross, no crown...

Here is Maren's poem.

Prayer for an Illumination of the Harrowing by Maren Tirabassi

God, I can just see them there
listening to Jesus preach
that mighty Saturday sermon –

Sarah and Hagar leaning in to each other
on a dusty old pew.

Ruth is hand in hand with both
Boaz and Mahlon,
like children at a Sunday school picnic,
but she has eyes only for Naomi.

Absalom with his amazing hair,
untangled from the oak tree,

desalinated Lot’s wife, Ham, Bilhah,
Rahab with her red cord, 

Cyrus of Persia,
and a prostitute’s baby whose true home
was Solomon’s judgment call --

they are next to John the Baptist,
who hasn’t been gone that long.

We see David and Jonathan,

Elijah reunited with the widow
he liked so well,

Saul, Samuel and the witch,
an eternal triangle,

Miriam and Moses’ wife not quite BFFs --
but no room for prejudice in hell.

Most of them have names
we do not know and never will –

but they were some daddy’s baby,
some grandma’s pride --
best at the hundred yard dash
through the Red Sea,
singing psalms, stamping grapes,
playing whales-and-jonahs
till they were called in
for a bedtime story of long ago.

They are all listening
like the people we love who have died,
hearts hanging on his every word,
like their death depends on it.

Whatever my concept of this day is, it is good to be reminded of signs that something bigger is happening than I could ever understand or control.

Whatever your concept of this day is: be gentle with yourself. Grief can be a lifetime project, and it may need your attention today. And enjoy this song. It really is the right song for Holy Saturday.

* Easter Vigil was the first mass of Easter. Observed now in many Christian denominations--including Presbyterians-- it is a service that takes place on Saturday night, in which the first flame of the resurrection is kindled. It told the story of salvation through a series of readings beginning with the story of disobedience in the garden, ending with Magdalene encountering the Lord in another garden.

Lent Day 39: Good Friday and Grief

A busy day yesterday didn't permit me time to post, and I am sorry for that. Here's the meditation I shared during our Maundy Thursday worship; the video of the service is available here.

Now we come to the Friday we call "Good," a concept that can be hard to explain to people who don't know our religion well, but do understand that this is the day our prophet/ the one we believe to have a connection with God unlike any other human being was put to death. A brutal death. 

Crucifixion was the epitome of Rome's brutality. Though our Christian scriptures describe a process that took three hours, it was much more common for it to take days. The bodies of the crucified were left on the crosses until the scavenger birds picked their bones clean. The unremitting cruelty of it, the torture the victims underwent, was a feature, as they say, and not a bug. Rome designed it this way, because it was the penalty for ultimate crime. the worst possible crime, in their eyes: insurrection. For Rome, those who dared to claim power in opposition to Rome, or whose political activities might undermine Rome in any way. were the criminals deserving of the worst punishment. 

Jesus' crime was a political one, though Christians love to claim otherwise. We love to say that Jesus was not political. His execution states that he was. The inscription the procurator had attached to the cross stated "The King of the Jews." This was the problem. This was the crime: not even, necessarily, that he claimed the title, but that others claimed it for him.

Every year we observe this week and we re-enact these steps:

Palm Sunday, a day of promise and joy, a day when the idea of Jesus as King might just fly.

Maundy Thursday, a night when Jesus knows his death is imminent. Jesus gathers those he loves and knows best, and he knows one of them is about to hand him over. The grief begins here, with the knowledge of betrayal. It is no wonder that Jesus intones, "Remember me."

On Good Friday our grief comes into full bloom. Tonight the church I serve will host a Tenebrae, the Service of the Lengthening Shadows, as we read seven passages of scripture detailing the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. As the service begins, we see a large candelabra with seven lit candles. After each passage is read, a candle is extinguished. The fullness of the grief is expressed with the tolling of a bell, with the church in deep shadow, almost darkness.

Today is a day (and yesterday was, too) when we might notice our grief. Grief about and within the Jesus story, of course. But other grief as well. Grief calls up grief--new losses or even ritualized losses, as we have in Holy Week, remind us, unearth, and air afresh even our most ancient sorrows. (I have just spent nearly an hour talking about the primal wound of adoption.) 

As everyone has grief of some kind or other, whether old or new, this is a day and time to be gentle with ourselves. If grief rises up, respect it. Honor it. Cherish it as the evidence of love--even complicated love--it surely is.

Today's devotional card from A Sanctified Art reads, 

On the
worst
days of
our lives,
we are
not alone.

Whatever your faith tells you about this day and what it means--the salvific action, the rescue of humanity, a downer before we get to the fun of Sunday--I always come back to this: In Jesus God showed the fullest possibly solidarity with humanity, the fullest possible communion with us. There is no pain we can feel that God was not willing to participate in, not as our punisher, but as a suffering sibling.

On the worst days of our lives, we are not alone. God is with us. 

Lent Day 37: Wednesday in Holy Week: Anointing and Discipleship

Wednesday in Holy Week is known as "Spy Wednesday," something I learned at college when given a book of poetry by the poet, Francis Sullivan. It was called "Spy Wednesday's Kind," and examined, among other things, the urge to betrayal. 

It is on Wednesday that Judas makes his move, approaching the authorities, making a play to hand Jesus over to them. But he is prompted to do this--in the gospels of John and Matthew as well as Mark--by an extraordinary act of devotion and witness: Jesus is anointed by an unnamed woman. (My sermon on John's version can be found here.)

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way?  For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her.  But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”
~Mark 14:3-9, NRSV

There is no long introduction to the action; it happens in a single verse, without fanfare. I imagine Mark wants to convey how startling this moment was.

Part of this is how quickly it happens.

Another part of this is the woman's anonymity. We don't know whether she was a member of Simon's household, or whether she was one of the women who followed Jesus and supported his ministry. She is a cipher, and perhaps that is intentional. Perhaps the evangelist wants us to be able to imagine anyone doing this. Perhaps they want us to be able to imagine ourselves.

A single verse for the action--breaking an alabaster jar open, pouring the ointment on Jesus' head. Anointing him as a king might be anointed, or a prophet, or a priest. (Two of the evangelists have the woman anointing Jesus' head; the other two have her anointing his feet.)

A single verse for the anointing. Then, the rest of the story, devoted to angry opposition. Identified only as "some who were there," it's clear that more than one person was angry. They very reasonably point out that this was an extravagant action--in their mind, a waste of money. A denarius is a Roman coin that represents a day's wages for a day-laborer. In other words, this is nearly a year's wages for the working poor of Jesus' day, now trickling down Jesus' back, and into his ears, and getting on his clothing, and perhaps the pillows on which he is reclining. 

Wouldn't it have been better spent on the poor?

Jesus has his eyes on the poor, as well as his healing hands and the bread he breaks and shares with them on a regular basis. Jesus has what liberation theologians have called "a preferential option for the poor," and, reading the beatitudes, it's hard to disagree with that understanding. "Blessed" are the poor, maybe because they will never labor under the delusion that they can buy their way into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus sees them, as I blogged yesterday, these people who are largely invisible to the rest of us, and from whom we often have an urge to turn away. 

But Jesus doesn't turn away from them, and it irks him to hear them used in this argument. 

If Jesus sees the poor clearly, then, in this action of anointing, the unnamed woman sees Jesus clearly. I think she may be one of his followers: by his interpretation of her actions, she has been listening to him. By this time in Mark's gospel Jesus has predicted his own death three times. The disciples--the male disciples--have tried not to hear this, done the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and singing, "la la la la la."

But, Jesus says, "She has anointed me for my burial." She sees Jesus. She has heard Jesus. She understands what he is saying. She believes him. And the only thing that makes sense to her is to honor his conviction that this is happening. 

She has done what she could. She has been his witness, and has engaged in a prophetic action of affirming his mission. 

We can both care for the poor and honor Jesus' mission. We don't have to choose between this. in fact, caring for the poor is honoring Jesus' mission. We can do both.

The unnamed woman has done what she could, and Jesus predicts this blogpost. Wherever the good news is proclaimed, in this whole world, this story will be told in remembrance of her.

She has done what she could. So may we all.

Mary Magdalene by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, 1877.
No, no gospel says that she anointed Jesus.
But this is the 1500-year-old tradition.
So that's what the paintings are titled.

Lent Day 36: Tuesday in Holy Week: A Living Parable

The Poor Widow, Maarten de Vos, 1602 *

Tuesday of Holy Week encompasses nearly three chapters of the gospel of Mark. There is much to choose from.  Let's meditate upon the story we call "The Widow's Mite." Scripture can be found here.

If you'd asked, I'm not sure I could have told you that this moment in Jesus' ministry takes place during Holy Week, but here it is, tucked in among his complaints about the religious authorities, his predictions of the Temple's destruction, and what sound an awful lot like apocalyptic musings. (Spoiler was there all along: a portion of this is called "the little apocalypse.")

The scene begins with a bitter complaint against the scribes--a passage that always makes this religious-figure-wearing-a-long-robe-while-reading-it cringe just a little. We do like our robes, I'm not gonna lie.

Jesus says, 

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Jesus condemns religious leaders who enrich themselves, and in the process bankrupt those who have little to begin with. This passage transfers seamlessly to late 20th-early 21st century American Christianity; just substitute "televangelists" for "scribes" and you're good to go.

This is the essential background for understanding what happens next. Jesus seats himself near the treasury, so that he can see who gives and how much. And to be sure, lots of money is being ostentatiously given by wealthy patrons of the Temple. Then, a poor widow--see above--puts in two small copper coins.

For years I read Jesus' words as words of praise of the widow--"She gave all she had." I preached sermons containing meaningful stories of people with very little who managed to give generously. My favorite was about a guy who lived on the money he got from collecting recyclable cans, who still gave the youth group $20 towards their can drive. "He gave us 400 cans," I said, as I preached this story from the heart.

Now I'm pretty sure I got that terribly, terribly wrong. Now, I hear the echo of "devouring widows' houses" in Jesus' remarks about the poor widow. Now, I hear Jesus' voice thick with tears, because he knows the widow is literally sacrificing herself on the altar of someone else's greed, and it sickens him.

Now I think of the widow as a living parable, not about her own generosity, but about the greed that demands it of her, in the name of her faith, in the name of piety. Now, I believe Jesus is angry about it. And he's right.

If you have a moment, look at the image of the poor widow. See if you can spot her. She's dimly lit, in darkness, because we would really rather not see her. But that's what Jesus does; he sees people. He sees those the rest of us turn away from. 

Maarten de Vos got it in 1602. He understood exactly what this parable is about. 

We know who will receive the greater condemnation.

* Image: Vos, Maarten de, 1532-1603. Poor Widow, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56664 [retrieved April 12, 2022]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maerten_de_Vos_-_The_poor_widow.jpg. Used with permission.

Lent Day 35: Monday in Holy Week: The Fig Tree

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
     But you have made it a den of robbers.”

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.  And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

~Mark 11:15-19

The gospel of Mark provides a pretty clear day-by-day description of Jesus' comings and goings in the days after Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem. Mark's gospel is the earliest in the canon of scripture, closest in time to the earthly ministry of Jesus. Mark places the cleansing of the Temple on Monday.

This must have been a shocking event for the people of Jerusalem. The people loved and revered the Temple. It was considered God's literal home on earth. They supported it with their offerings.

But it appears that Jesus sees the practices of buying and selling in the Temple as a worldly presence in what should be an other-worldly place, pure and dedicated only to the worship of God. 

Recently a member of the congregation I served expressed discomfort with the fact that she was selling homemade jam in the back of the church. Was this akin to the presence of the buyers and sellers in the Temple? The proceeds were going to the One Great Hour of Sharing offering, which supports the Presbyterian Hunger Program, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, and the program for the Self-Development of People. I assured her that her motives meant everything.

But surely the motives of the people selling animals for worship and changing unacceptable Roman coin for the Temple currency are also worth considering? The Temple was a place for sacrifices-- that was its purpose-- sacrifices designed and believed to make right the relationships between God and God's people. It's interesting to note that the seats for those who traded doves were overturned. Doves were the acceptable offerings of the poor, who could not afford the larger animals required.

In the next chapter of Mark, Jesus accuses the Temple authorities of stealing from the people, and he specifically names poor widows as those who are harmed, as their "houses are devoured" by those in charge. 

Context is everything, of course. And verses before and after the cleansing of the Temple concern a fig tree.

On the following day [Monday], when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it...

...In the morning [Tuesday] as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 

~Mark 11:12-14, 20-21

When a story is broken up, with another story disrupting it, we think of it as a "sandwich story;" scholars call it an inclusio. The story that makes up the "bread" of the sandwich is definitely related to the story that makes up the filling.

Jesus comes upon a fig tree, and he is hungry, but the fig has no fruit to offer. In what seems like a fit of pique, he curses it. The next day, as he and his disciples pass by, they can see that the curse has taken effect. 

What does it all mean? Does the biblical adage, "By their fruits you shall know them" apply? By enclosing the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple with a story about a fig tree that doesn't live up to its purpose, is the evangelist offering commentary on Jesus' attitude toward the Temple? That by its fruits we can see that it is not living up to its purpose?

We Christians have two thousand years of death-dealing anti-semitism to account for--to atone for, to make reparations for. Despite the plain text of the Christian Testament, we must be cautious when interpreting what can amount to anti-semitism in our texts. The text about the cleansing above (as well as the one I read aloud in church yesterday) attributes deadly motives to the Temple authorities. Millions of Jews have been murdered for the past two thousand years in outrage over such allegations.

Was the Temple not living up to its highest purposes? Maybe a better question is: is the church living up to its highest purposes? By our fruits, will people know that we intend to share the love of God as we see it reflected in Jesus Christ? If any word we write or preach or teach leads anyone to consider Jews less-than or no longer embraced by God as God's people, we are utterly failing, and we are a fig tree that ought to be cursed.

Maybe the best response to a text that seems to critique a place or manner of worship is to look at our own places and manner of worship. Are we bearing good fruit? Do our worship and witness convey the essential truth, that God is love?

"Tree of Hope" by Julie Leuthold *

* Leuthold, Julie. Tree of Hope, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57033 [retrieved April 11, 2022]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/julieleuthold/7521645058 - Julie.

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?