I don't know if many of you know this but I sing in a Catholic choir. I know it's a strange concept, because I really have never known how to sing. I spent my childhood not knowing how to make my voice hit any note, but especially not a string of notes and have it sound good.
It all got started on Easter two years ago when I took Henriette to Easter mass with Gabe. She is a Catholic and hadn't been to mass the whole time she was with us. And Catholics are supposed to go to Mass at least once during the Easter season. So I was just helping her fill her obligations. She didn't want to go alone with Gabe, so I volunteered to go with her.
The service was beautiful, and I was impressed with the reverence of the children. I talked to Peter and we thought it would be a good opportunity, so we decided to divide up the kids and each take two to mass. One of us would go one week, and the other of us would go the other week. That way the kids could experience mass and we could keep them under control. The babies stayed home.
So a week or two later I went. By this time I had already been recruited for the building committee, so I was even more interested in going so I could see better what their needs were. So I took two kids, sat near the musicians towards the front, and enjoyed the service. I especially liked the music. It was upbeat, easy to sing (just a melody line, no complicated harmonies) and sounded good. Like any other Mormon would, I sang along with the congregation.
After mass was over, we went for coffee and doughnuts (don't worry, we skipped the coffee!) while we waited for Gabe to finish up. While there, the choir director came over, introduced himself, and asked if I would consider joining his choir. I was floored. I was trying to explain to him how limited my range was, how I'm not trained, etc. No one has ever asked me TO sing. Usually I'm asked NOT to sing. I explained I was LDS, etc. He didn't care. There are no religion requirements, I just can't take communion. I told him I'd think about it, and he told me where and when they meet for rehearsal and encouraged me to come join them.
I told Gabe about it, who laughed and said I could do what I want, but don't feel obligated. I told Peter, laughed it off, got ready for church, and went on with my day. Well, I kept having a nagging feeling that I was missing something, or something wasn't right. When I prayed about it, the thought of the choir kept coming to my mind. It got worse and worse throughout the day, and finally I asked Peter for a blessing. The thought of singing in front of people made me absolutely ill. I didn't want to do it, and I hoped that I would be told I was crazy, just making it up in my head, etc. But through that blessing, I came to understand that God not only wanted me to help them with the building committee, but with the choir as well, and he blessed me that I would be able to sing.
From that day on, I've been able to sing. My high note used to be a G above middle C. I can now easily hit the D above that. Liz tutored me and helped me improve my voice. Now I'm their lead female singer (which isn't hard as I'm usually the only one, or one of two or three). They hate it when I don't sing with them, and I'm an integral part of their choir.
I've been singing with them now at the 8:30 mass for 2 years (minus the 8 months I took off when Lisa was born and my church was at 9 AM). It has been tremendously helpful. I'm less uptight, I'm learning to wing it, these guys are a lot of fun to hang out with, I've made tons of new friends that I enjoy very much, I have a social life of sorts, and I'm even learning Spanish.
They put together a bilingual choir for celebrations such as midnight mass, Easter Vigil, etc. I'm in that as well. It's a challenge singing in Spanish, but the Mexican guys help us with our Spanish and we help them with their English and we all get a long really well.
So any way, back to the point of this post. Communion was on Tuesday all in Spanish, rehearsal was on Wednesday, and on Thursday was an additional Communion service that was bilingual. We had one day to put together Tuesday's program and perform it, and one day to put together Thursdays before we had to perform. It was chaos. Needless to say, the Mexican guys sang louder on Tuesday, and the English singers sang louder on Thursday, but it all worked out in the end. They're not as uptight about their music as we are, and if you survive it you did good. I love it when the standards are achievable!
Holy week was bad too. We had rehearsal Wednesday, sang Thursday, Gabe made me go to Good Friday Mass because I'd never seen that one before, We sang Easter Vigil (Saturday evening) and were back again for 8:30 mass on Sunday. In church 5 days, mass on 4. I was happy when that was over. Peter was too!
But as Peter jokes, the Holy time is almost over, they're headed into "non holy" time (or ordinary time) and so now things will start calming down and I'll just have the usual Wednesday rehearsal and Sunday morning mass.
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