This year, I (Orin) have been posting on Facebook the little doodles that my parish Children’s Choir creates in their music while we are rehearsing.
As I’ve looked through the music which is turned in, in addition to unicorns, flowers, and other odd scribbles, I also look for signs that they are paying attention during rehearsal – they’ve marked a dynamic for a phrase, or where or where not to breathe, or how long to hold a note, etc.
In addition to speaking of the musical elements of a piece, we do spend a little time speaking about the text of a piece, what it means, why we are singing it, and other facets. So, I was heartened a few days ago that one singer chose to doodle on this text we had spoken about briefly, on this piece the choir sang on Holy Thursday night a couple weeks ago. They were not only paying attention to me and how we worked on the music of the piece, but on the text too, putting these core words of our faith, taught to us by Jesus Christ himself, in their hearts and souls as well.
When Christ – or his ministers in the here and now – teach us, are we listening with only our ears, or our brains, or are we listening to Christ with our hearts and souls as well?
We have found out since Monday that much of the structure as well as precious pieces of art, relics, the organ, the windows, and so much more survived, after the worst was rightly feared. There is much to clean up of course, and much to rebuild — years and years worth of effort will be needed to restore the magnificent building.