Visceral reactions aren't always pretty, not in an old men anyway. I get 'em and I'm not always proud of 'em; but not being proud of 'em doesn't mean they don't come anyway--they're visceral, after all. No one asks them to show up.
I'll give you one. We're obligated to attend Christmas concerts every December. I sound like Scrooge, and I'm not; but there is a you-better-show-up thing in full operational mode because every other grandpa and grandma in a three-state region'll be there, for pity sake. What?--you don't love your grandkids?
'Course we do. Love 'em to death. And I wouldn't mind going to Christmas programs either if every other grandparent in the three-state regions wouldn't be there by the time we arrive. BUT THEY ARE. We've got to park a quarter-mile away. Listen, we're Dutch, which means cleanliness is next to Godliness, but so is being someplace ON TIME.
So what? Just about everybody else is Dutch too, which means we show up 20 minutes early, park halfway to South Dakota, and then walk forever, up hill, to get to the auditorium.
When I'm huffing and puffing, I tell myself the adulation we lay on our kids is akin to idolatry. Four-year-olds play soccer and hundreds lug lawn chairs out to watch. An elementary school puts on a Christmas show, and it's SRO in a space the St. Paul Symphony Orchestra or the Boston Brass couldn't fill in a month of Sundays.
I can get owly. Viscerals'll do that.
Then I get inside. Place is packed. Here and there stripes of open benches beckon, but somebody's saving that space. Hundreds, no thousands of people. Seriously. If you want a good seat, you should have come yesterday.
So last night was another, a Christmas music program featuring a couple hundred kids--pre-kindergarten to fourth grade, all of them darling, I might add, all of them sweet Yuletide angels. Nothing spectacular, not some extravaganza, just plain music, Christmas music.
And then, halfway through, something I would not have thought possible--The Messiah. That's right Handel. Okay, it was a pee-wee version, but it was, without a doubt, the masterpiece. Don't know if Handel would have approved, but if he had a grandson or daughter in the bunch, he would have been all smiles.
I was. Our grandson is a kid one of his great uncles or aunts from the Netherlands once described as "a serious little boy," a kid who can lost in Legos, who could live for days-on-end surrounded by nothing more than Transformers.
Second-grader. There he was amidst the throng, singing Handel. Second grade. Handel.
Imagine this, a couple hundred tiny kids in matching t-shirts walk on and proceed, many of them anyway, to wave to their grandparents a mile away in the auditorium. The director steps up, raises his hands. Silence. Then, just like that "And the glory of the Lord" fills an auditorium that's already overflowing by finding ample room in the wide open hearts of a loving and totally beguiled crowd.
Did those little kids know what they were singing? Sure. Did they know that what they performed was perhaps the most celebrated piece of music in the world, an oratorio created in just a few weeks in 1741? Did they know how blessed they were? What they know is they sang parts of the masterpiece, even the "Hallelujah Chorus" to a standing room only crowd that got to its feet and stood.
He's just a little boy on a wide stage with a hundred other little boys and girls, second graders and third and fourth. Together, they sang The Messiah. I'm not making this up.
It's Christmas, and the world sometimes feels genuinely enchanted because, in so many ways, the story we celebrate is so much bigger than we are. Last night, when I left that auditorium, what was visceral in me made me wipe away a tear because I couldn't help think that it's so good for him to know--for all of us to know--that we are very much part of something so much bigger than we are.
Listen to this. Last night, my eight-year-old grandson sang the "Hallelujah Chorus."
From The Messiah. I'm not kidding. Handel. My grandson.
The walk back to the car didn't take long at all--all of it downhill.
This morning I'm thankful--oh, so thankful--I went.
6 comments:
So glad you came. So thankful for our wonderful music teachers and a chance to work every day with children so loved generations will walk form South Dakota for them.
I normally leave my children's musical performances with some deal of relief, that it is over, and that I did my job by just being there. I left Tuesday night with a feeling of astonishment, that my ten-year old son had, not only sang The Messiah, but also sang it well. That our music teachers could get that many kids to come in together, to stop together, to sing many of the moving parts to the Messiah, was nothing short of masterful. Well done kids and well done Mr K and Mrs F! I wonder how many 2nd-4th graders we'll get to sing the Hallelujah Chorus with us on Christmas Morning at Bethel CRC.
I attended my 4th grade grandson's Christmas program as well, and yes got my steps in for the day, including climbing stairs, but it was so worth every step! Thank you teachers/directors and pianist (whose fingers were flying)! These children will remember these words to the "Messiah" the rest of their lives and will be able to join the choir to sing the "Hallelujah Chorus" wherever they are in the future. The enthusiasm and respect to their directors was exemplary. Thank you for this very special gift of music.
I love this! Quite a few years ago when I was teaching in De Motte, Indiana we taught the whole school that simplified version of the "Hallelujah Chorus." I am so glad that this is still being done. Kids CAN learn these songs and it is so worth the effort! Way to go!!!!
Thanks, Jim. Our Christian School in Guelph, Ontario, Canada also did the Messiah this year, and we had just enough students in the school to make a string orchestra to accompany the choir. It was spectacular. Nothing marks the moment of the divine invasion like Handel's music. Peter Schuurman
Goose pimples.
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