Can you hear the people sing?

What is looked for in us, as men, is another kind of glorifying, which depends on intention. How easy or how hard it may be for a whole choir to preserve that intention through all the discussions and decisions, all the corrections and the disappointments, all the temptations to pride, rivalry and ambition, which precede the performance of a great work, I (naturally) do not know. But it is on the intention that all depends. When it succeeds, I think the performers are the most enviable of men; privileged while mortals to honor God like angels and, for a few golden moments, to see spirit and flesh, delight and labour, skill and worship, the natural and the supernatural, all fused into that unity they would have had before the Fall.

~C.S. Lewis~

I've always loved choral music, both listening and performing, though only a mediocre singer myself, somehow, when combined with a hundred or a thousand other voices, something magical happens, something beyond the mere mathematical.  Back in the days of yore (the end of the last millennium) I was privileged to both hear and perform a little bit of sacred music in such a mass ensemble before it was henceforth banned from the public square, including my college's production of the 'Messiah' with over a thousand voices, and I must agree with the esteemed Mr. Lewis, it was indeed a foretaste of Heaven.  I've also seen (and sung) my share of secular music in such performances, which somehow pales by comparison, for in the end, what are we singing about and why?

There is just something beautiful and mysterious, glorious and deep, beyond the expression of words, but captured, however fleetingly, in the strains of mortal music.  'All that is not music is silence...' an intriguing description of Heaven by Lewis's character Screwtape (quoting George MacDonald).  That is perhaps what I love most about the Advent and Christmas seasons: our fickle attempts to capture the feeling, the wonder of the season musically, be it instrumental, vocal, or some combination thereof.  And it is perhaps the greatest tragedy of our modern age: the loss of that glorious heritage of music and its deeper meaning, without it, life seems drab and two dimensional, when it should be bursting with life and light and color and hinting at dimensions beyond our mortal comprehension.

No wonder people hate Christmas: when you are not allowed to play or sing anything in public that even hints at the deeper mysteries of the season, what is it but just another chance for materialism and over sentimentalization to flout themselves in the public square?  People throw up their hands in disgust and move on, more a Grinch or Scrooge than ever.  I certainly never felt inspired to sing the politically correct, socially acceptable songs approved by a certain choir instructor; they didn't mean anything to me or to anyone else, so why even bother, save to get a passing grade?  For fear of insulting someone, we are denying ourselves and our children some of the most beautiful music ever written.  Music as an art and a part of culture is a dying relic of bygone years.  Just listen to the radio and hear for yourself: everything sounds the same, there is no deeper meaning, little true passion, and even less talent.  Though the aforementioned Screwtape would approve (though strangely the Grinch would not), he's a huge proponent of noise: meaningless, distracting, annoying, mind-numbing noise! Which is the best that can be said for much of modern 'music.'

"Music and silence — how I detest them both! … no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise — Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile … We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in that direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress."  

~C.S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters."~

But there is a whole world of music out there, you may have to search for it, but it is well worth the hunt.  So be a rebel, dig into the past, discover forgotten gems from ancient days, remember what this season is actually about.  Discover the story that transcends space and time and reality as we know it, listen to it as told in perhaps the only language that can give it proper expression, then lift your voice and sing along, for here truly is the reason to sing!