Last night we went to a you-sing-it-Messiah. It was different from most as there were no professional soloists. The audience was sprinkled with members of a symphonic choir to help us all to stay with our chosen part, and the only rule was that we were asked to sing in the key written for the part we decided to sing (no basses singing the soprano part at a lower octave).
My kids look forward to this event for months in advance. My daughter loves befriending the kind older people who share her love of music, and my son loves chatting with anyone around him (this year he got help singing the bass part from a gentleman directly behind him who sang especially loudly when my son needed the coaching help, as last year my boy was an alto and I really don’t think his voice is done changing). My kids love the fact that it is a performance put on mostly by the audience. But this year something even more special happened that none of us had anticipated.
We arrived to the event and discovered that absolutely everyone there was friendly and outgoing and kind to each other. The area in which we live has been suffering from progressive hardening of hearts – people are mean and thoughtless on the road, in stores, and even to their neighbors in person and through social media channels. The slightest inconvenient fact can turn a conversation and many a neighbor and friend have made the transformation from amiable to Tolkein-ring-crazed golum in the blink of an eye when someone brings up the weather we are having, or that we are less than a month from Christmas. But here in this theater, I discovered a large group of kind people. Everyone greeted us happily when we found out seats, total strangers turning around to say good evening.
The conductor reinforced the friendly atmosphere with a pre-concert speech that included a praise of Handel and an even bigger praise for all servicemen in the history of our country who have kept us safe and allow us to gather on a Monday evening, generations after the Pearl Harbor attack, to sing through a piece that captures the whole liturgical year. There was no moral preening to be seen, just joy and hope and kindness.
And then the event began, with a chamber orchestra playing period instruments. The anxiety and fear for the decline of our society that has plagued the closets and hallways of my mind these last months melted from me.
We all stood, hardly using the plush seats in the auditorium for the next three hours. We sang. And sang. And sang. And, as my son declared at the intermission, we were not really just all singing. We were praying with music.
As I looked around I realized that here in this auditorium were people who clung to good and truth and justice and mercy. This was where I could find the civilization that is foundational to our country. It really is still here, even in the progressive part of the country I live in. Even when there is so much hate and anger outside on the streets and in my neighborhood. Even when many around me wish to ban the phrase, “Merry Christmas,” as hate speech. Even when up is down and right is wrong, especially in California these days.
In this building, and for this performance, up is up and that is where the conductor fixed his gaze as he praised the music and that is where we all directed our voices. And right is right and every one of those friendly people who looked us in the eye last night as we were leaving at the end of the event, patron and usher alike, and wished us, “Merry Christmas” and meant all that the phrase is meant to mean.
