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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

Still Silly

by Broderick Barker

Though certain of my friends chide me for being old before my time -- indulging in a crotchety rejection of the active and varied joys of youth in favor of the sedentary and regular pleasures of age -- I am still a young man -- 26 this June. I am still given to a young man's sins -- lust, sloth, intemperance, anger -- as opposed to those more common to my elders -- pride, greed, bitterness.

Being young, I did not suffer what must have been the wrenching shift from the Tridentine to the current Ordo Missae . I cannot look back fondly on "the good old days," and certainly not on "the good old hymns." I am a Glory and Praise baby, a member of the generation raised on "Here I Am," "Though the Mountains May Fall," and "Be Not Afraid."

How to explain, then, my untaught antipathy for the hymns of my youth, especially when said hymns so clearly sought to appeal to the young? The guitars, the syncopation, the folksy words and music preaching brotherhood and love (as distinct from charity) -- they all mirrored, in a sad, "spiritualized" way, the pop music of the 60s and beyond. I liked pop music; I still do. But this wasn't good pop, and it wasn't good church music -- it was a mushy amalgamation of the two that resulted in something less than either. It was sentimental in a soppy way, instead of a touching way. It was, I decided as a teenager, silly. I still think so today.

Part of that silliness came from wild incongruity of it: the strumming guitars echoing in the Gothic grandeur of my hometown church, the trippy tunes thundering forth from our pipe organ, the wizened old women's voices straining after sentimental ballads like "On Eagle's Wings" or peppy anthems like "Blest Be The Lord." The music was crowbarred into the life of the congregation, even though it had nothing to do with them. Why? What did it signify? What good effect was intended? One bad effect was the shift from music as a prayerful sound floating overhead toward the altar, disposing the soul to contemplate the Lord we had gathered to meet, to music as an opportunity for performers to show their stuff. Besides cantors, I have seen pianos in the sanctuary, choir steps, and even bands, replete with electrical equipment. The whole thing begins to resemble a rock concert. And perhaps because of this, the audience/congregation has taken to applauding at the end of the performance/Mass. Gone are the days when Mom told me to exit the church quietly, out of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle. Gone, often, is the tabernacle.

Another incongruity, this one a matter of timing: while contemplating my sins prior to communion, I was almost always interrupted by the voice from the speaker -- "The communion hymn will be number 379, 'One Bread, One Body.' We will sing verses 1, 3, and 5." For years, I was undecided -- should I join in the communion hymn, singing, as some did, as I approached the altar, and then resuming when I returned to my pew? Or should I stay within myself, thinking about my sins, about the sacrament, about my soul? It was years before I decided that the single voice of the community was not needed at this point in the Mass, and held my tongue.

How to explain my early love for "old" hymns, though I did not yet recognize them as old? Every Holy Thursday, as the monstrance was paraded around the church and I sank into the Pange Lingua , I wondered why we didn't sing this lovely, haunting song more often. And though I understood the once-a-year use of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," sung at the beginning of every Easter Sunday Mass in my hometown parish, I longed for more hymns like it.

I loved hymns you could belt out, hymns that filled your chest as you sang them, hymns full of quarter notes and easy intervals, well-suited to large, untrained choirs. Hymns like "Holy Holy Holy," "Come Holy Ghost," "Praise to the Lord." Hymns full of glory and majesty and power -- words that struggle to mean anything in the modern soul, mine included. The music could be a help; instead, it still makes me feel silly. When it does, I sing because I believe participation is good, even if it is not pleasant. I have never gone silent, partly because I liked to sing, partly because I had the example of my father. Today, I suspect that his temperament was such that the music didn't affect him, and he always gave the kindest possible readings to the lyrics. He was headier than I am. Music goes straight to my gut and straight to my soul. It is the quickest way to elicit from me an interior response. It stirs my spirit, for good or ill. There's an overused but still accurate word for the effect of the good stuff -- uplifting. Tender or passionate or powerful, it's still uplifting. That's what I want out of my hymns.

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