[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Two Musics

(Was supposed to get written last weekend; didn't happen because it wanted 
to wait for the final instalment.)

I had the choice, a week ago last Saturday, between two possible musical 
entertainments. One was a concert of late medieval and Renaissance sacred 
music, including a very early Mass, performed with passionate authenticity 
by a very good university chorus, dedicated to this sort of music and led 
by a noted scholar. I've heard them sing before, and I knew the concert 
would be excellent.

The other option was a backyard bonfire, held by my about-to-be next-door 
neighbours, Val and Stephen, at which there'd likely be some low-key guitar 
music and singing.

It was a no-brainer. It's not just that I'm fond of slightly burnt sausage; 
it's that I'm also a latent and totally unrepentant pyromaniac. And I 
almost never get a chance to indulge.

So I sat there happily poking the fire, getting wood smoke in my lungs and 
hair, nibbling my sausage and talking quietly with the others -- another 
couple from church also came by. And then someone handed me a guitar.

I am not much of a guitarist; I never was. I always get to the same level 
of just-barely adequacy and stick there. Some years ago, my younger sister 
gave me her beautiful Gibson Heritage guitar, which she couldn't play any 
longer (having lopped off a fingertip while chopping wood), and I did my 
best to live up to it, but I couldn't. So, in guilt, I recently sold it to 
someone who'd love it and play it as it deserved to be played.

That was before I learned that Stephen teaches guitar. Damn.

Now, in the scent of burning wood, I cradled his son's guitar and picked 
out a few tentative chords -- it's been some months since I'd laid finger 
to fret. On one side of me, Ken was doing some runs up and down the neck of 
his guitar; on the other, Stephen was fooling around with high-up chords. 
Suddenly, there was a musical structure between the two of them that I 
could drop right into. I didn't have to pick (always my bane!); I could 
just pluck chords, and if I missed a few, it didn't matter, because the 
guys were keeping the music going. I was just along for the ride.

We sometimes see community as being more like the concert model: we're 
supposed to sit back, admiring the performance without participating in it 
because, let's face it, we're not really good enough to be up there on 
stage -- and honestly, that's not false modesty; it's true. We aren't. I 
can't even read most theology; I get too easily baffled by abstract 
language. I know that my knowledge of Scripture is woefully inadequate, 
compared to the scholars' understanding. Most of us get utterly defeated by 
the specialist language -- soteriology, hermeneutics, eschatology. We're 
tempted to cede authority and autonomy to those in authority who know 
better than we do, and to sit in the pew, taking in the experts' performance.

But another part of me knows better, likely because preachers' kids are 
always all too aware of the fallibility of those in Holy Orders. Another 
part of me knows that community is more like the bunch of us sitting around 
the fire, noodling on guitars and quietly singing praise music, which 
certainly isn't as beautiful as the Renaissance stuff (and emphatically not 
as well performed) -- but it was *us*, not "them" and "us", and we softly 
singing praises because that's what we wanted to sing.

In this way of working, my imperfect, inexpert music was like a vulnerable 
thing slung between and supported by the sturdier, stronger music to left 
and right. It didn't matter that I can't play well, especially when I'm 
months out of practice. What mattered was that I was playing at all, and 
that my music did make a contribution to the whole soft smoky whole. And 
that whole was profoundly God-pleasing, because the lot of us had chosen to 
turn our music Godward. That's what Christian community could feel like.

My about-to-be neighbours have such bonfires often, and after I move, if it 
rains, we can adjourn to my roomy front porch and make music there.

A week after the bonfire, I stopped into the music store and made an 
impulse purchase. This morning, after church, Stephen checked out the new 
guitar, pronounced it good, and showed me the way I should have been 
holding my chording hand for the last dunno-how-many years. I have some bad 
habits to break, but that's manageable. He's given me some finger exercises 
too, and I am teaching myself to run a C-scale, getting more certain and 
faster with practice.

I'll never be as good as Doc Watson. I'll likely never even be as good as 
Stephen. But the others are there to carry me along, and I can add the best 
I can. Especially with some decent teaching.