IMPERFECT MELODY

The discipline of celebration

“… there is no art that could be put on the same level with music, since, except for theology [music] alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely, a calm and joyful disposition.” – Martin Luther (in a letter from 1530)

It was happening again. He was singing. It was 7:00 a.m. “Shut up,” I thought from my bedroom on the second floor. But my father carried on in his discipline of morning prayer—evidently, he had arrived at the hymn.

My father is deaf; he’s more than slightly deaf, though less deaf than stones are. As a result, he tended to bellow those morning prayer hymns. He missed a few notes, too. To my groggy teenage brain, his singing was tantamount to torture. Memory is a funny thing, though. With time I’ve come to appreciate my dad’s singing. I appreciate the doxology my mother would start around the dinner table (“Praise God from whom all blessings flow”), punctuating each line by bopping our poodle on the head with a napkin. I appreciate those nights my father tucked me in with “I want to walk as a child of the light.” My parents built these little disciplines of song—at the bottom, disciplines of celebration— into our home life. I’m grateful for that. In his book Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard describes the discipline of celebration as a habit in which “we come together with others who know God to eat and drink, to sing and dance, and to relate stories of God’s actions for our lives and our people.” Celebrations mark a time to gratefully enjoy the pleasing things we’ve been given, a time to step aside from work and striving. Willard isn’t overly sentimental or mushy about celebration. He recognizes that this discipline rejoices in God’s greatness and goodness even “in the midst of our suffering and terror.” We can find particular musical forms of communal celebration throughout Scripture and the Christian tradition. Innumerable angels surround the heavenly throne in Revelation and sing with full voices, “Worthy is the lamb that was slain.” Moses and Miriam lead the Israelites in a song of thanks for their deliverance from their oppression in Egypt, rejoicing with voice and tambourine. Dante’s polyphonic Paradise stands as a foil to the cacophony of the Inferno. Some of the greatest traditional spirituals originate from Black American slaves, the strength and beauty of whose praise is rendered all the more powerful by the atrocities they suffered.

Yet, musical forms of communal celebration have faded in our contemporary North American culture —this is true in a broad and secular sense, let alone the Christian discipline. I walk in a city of individuals living in little Spotify bubbles. Corporate pop drifts from speakers and bass booms from cars as drivers flex their way through Kensington Market. At large concerts we’re together (pandemics notwithstanding), but the dynamic is different, commercial. The audience participates, but not in the same way. Communal, musical celebration allows us to be present together, to better know each other, and to each contribute to the joy of creation. We can experience this by playing in a jam-band, going to local shows, or by singing in a choir. Christian celebration makes explicit that we’re present as equals before God, and that the joys of our creation flow from the Creator. With the arrival of COVID-19, many of the places where we typically enjoy the discipline were shuttered. Churches and summer camps, the two most powerful venues for worship in my youth, were closed down. Many weddings were postponed—vows and receptions aren’t made for Zoom.

In the pandemic swirl of emotion and uncertainty about things personal and political, I didn’t notice how much I missed being in the pews and singing alongside others. Not until my roommate broke out a guitar one day in late April. My other roommate got out his bass and they played “The Weight.” We all sang along on our front porch. To be together and to celebrate.

It’s been a while since those days of family songs around the table and before we slept. I’ve learned a little bit more about the suffering and terror that seem to dominate so much of the world, and better understand the particular struggles my parents faced while raising us.

So, with every passing year, those songs my parents sang, those ways they practised the discipline of celebration, become more impressive and important to me. To be together in body and to sing in celebration is a subtle but lasting good. It’s a discipline that reminds us of what and Whom to rejoice in.

I don’t resent dad’s morning bellowing anymore, either. I don’t fault him for imperfection. When it comes to God’s melody, we’re all a bit off—all more than slightly deaf, though not as bad as stones. What’s important is to celebrate anyway.

My mom called us all into the living room. “We need to fight,” she said. “For your dad.”

My dad looked defeated. He was worn out and discouraged—he looked so close to being gone. He was lost, frightened, no longer sure of who he was.

I had only recently gotten back from a long trip to Asia. I was still adjusting to being back home and had not fully caught up on how his anxiety was eating away at his sanity.

When it all began to sink in, there were days where I woke up repeatedly, terrified that today would be the day that he would do something dangerous and we would lose him. Helpless. I felt so helpless around my dad. Shame and guilt ate away at me. The voices in my head told me there was no way out. One voice screamed that his anxiety was my responsibility. Another told me that our family was going to be ripped to shreds through this.

“Just leave him be,” the voices said. “He can’t be helped anyway.”

Yet there was my mom, the one who suffered the most deeply, watching as the man she loved with her whole heart gave up. Still, she refused to give up hope. She wouldn’t let the evil one take away her husband, her marriage, or her family.

She gathered us in the living room, right by her late mother’s coffee table— beautifully and intricately carved with stories—she prayed fearlessly.

And as she prayed, my sister and I prayed too. As a family, we put our hands on our father and fought against the suicidal thoughts and the lies the evil one had planted in his mind telling him he was less than who Christ said he was—that somehow the gift of life was no longer worth having.

We prayed in a way we hadn’t in a long time. We prayed as the unit God made us to be.

And, we did so again and again. We still do, some days. My dad’s condition has improved significantly, and he’s been using his experience to come alongside friends and family walking through similar struggles. It can still be hard some days, but it’s been encouraging to see him turn first to prayer in those moments.

As we’ve moved forward since that day in the living room, our family has encountered a whole lot more change— graduations, broken relationships, weddings, new careers, and most recently, my mom’s cancer.

In the tension of joy and pain, this picture of prayer remains.

I encounter days of hope and love, followed by days of fear, especially during this pandemic. Fear that one of us might become a carrier of the virus and infect my mom, fear each time she has to head to the hospital for another appointment, and the list goes on. But I look at her each morning: Bible by her side, taking her day in stride, telling anyone and everyone she can about the goodness of God. Fasting from morning to evening on Fridays as she fights yet another battle on our behalf, and gathering us weekly to pray.

I’m reminded yet again to turn to Him and pray.

For healing, even when the doctors say it’ll never quite go away.

For peace, in the midst of what feels like never-ending chaos some days.

For joy, that hers may be here to stay. For faith, that mine will grow into even half of what He has made hers someday.

For love, to fill our hearts, our home, our space.

In tears and boldness, on my knees as I once saw her do, I pray. And now, as my new husband stands alongside me, we pray.

Every single day before we ate dinner, my family of six held hands and prayed together. My parents made a prayer schedule so that each of the four kids had a specific day when they led the family in prayer. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember, falling into the habit and carrying it with me even as I moved out. When I lived in a dorm during my first year at a Christian university, I used to reach out my hands before we ate dinner, forgetting that not everyone does that. Over the past three years living on my own, I’ve found communal prayer and hand-holding to bring peace and comfort to myself and those around me. While physical touch has become a taboo during the pandemic, there is still a spiritual intimacy achieved in praying with a group of people.

For most of my life, the only group prayer I did was at home. Praying with friends was awkward and seemingly unnecessary. It didn’t hit me that there was something special about communal prayer until Grade 8. I was at a friend’s house with some other girls working on a project. One of the girl’s parents were going through a divorce, and it had been very hard on her and her siblings. While we were working, the girl opened up to us about the struggles she had been going through and how it had been affecting her. The rest of us looked at each other and one offered to pray. We all held hands and offered quiet prayers to God to watch over this family. I’ll never forget that moment. When I came to university, I would walk down hallways and see groups of people huddled together, softly praying over one another on a regular basis. It was so strange to me because the only experience I had in communal prayer had been in private and in special circumstances—never out in public for everyone to see.

Then I started seeing it almost everywhere I went—in new churches I visited, in youth events, at summer jobs. And slowly I started to incorporate it into my life as well. While the first few attempts of public prayer were awkward and full of mumbled requests, it soon became easier and easier to offer to pray for someone I was talking with.

I even started to hold hands with people while praying with them. Because this aspect of prayer was so regular for me, I would often subconsciously hold out my hands for someone to grab before we prayed. In my first-year dorm at university, I got confused looks when I held out my hands to the girls around me. But after explaining the practice was something my family does, we all held hands and started to incorporate it into our dorm routines. To this day, I still instinctively hold out hands when I’m in a group prayer.

One of the main aspects of our relationship with God is intimacy. While this means intimacy with God, I believe that there is a certain intimacy that is needed with fellow believers which can be achieved partially through actions such as holding hands and communal prayer.

When you pray with people, a certain level of vulnerability is needed. You don’t always have the right words to say. Sometimes you fumble over words. It involves sharing hardships and trials. It’s a time of closeness between God, ourselves, and each other. Sometimes, it amazes me that a practice I’ve been doing since I was little could have such an impact on me. While hand-holding and communal prayer during meals can seem insignificant, I’ve found that many of my relationships have been shaped by carrying that practice into praying together and sharing in spiritual intimacy.

While the current health situation has limited gatherings and physical closeness, I urge you to still pray with friends, even if it’s through a Zoom meeting or phone call.

I’ve never really liked Father’s Day. It’s a day I deliberately tried to push aside for years. That’s because my dad and I never had a good relationship when I was growing up. He passed away five years ago, so now it’s too late to reconcile. I carried bitterness against him, even as I tried to forgive him. I still carry bitter memories to this day. Almost everyone who knows me knows Father’s Day is hard. It’s the one time my mask of composure falls apart on cue, like a lost little girl needing her daddy. Only that was, in my mind, the last thing I needed.

I began meeting with a pastor for spiritual and emotional support. It was so hard for me to explain to him the wounds still running red in my heart, especially when I didn’t understand why it still hurt so much. He was so compassionate, so kind, but I was scared it was too good to be true! Any minute, I rationalized, he’d decide I’m too much trouble or not know what to do with me, just as my dad had in the past. But this pastor informally adopted me as his “niece.” He invited me to his daughter’s 18th birthday party, which was the day before Father’s Day. Of course, I felt so honoured!

I tried so hard to be the tough brave woman I thought I should be. I had sent out a million texts wishing every dad I knew happy Father’s Day, and made cards out of construction paper and marker—they looked like a grade school art project.

But I didn’t realize just how hard that day would be for me. At the party, I received a message asking if I was okay. And I cracked. I could no longer hold back the tears and fled into a back room to cry, partly hoping my new “uncle” would find me.

He did, and we talked through my tears. He did his best to counsel my pain without taking away the credit it deserved. After all, this pain was real. Then, he shocked me by asking me to spend Father’s Day with him the next day! I couldn’t believe he’d want my company on a special day set aside for family. But he insisted, so I complied. After church, he brought me to his home—a place I’ve grown quite fond of. He had invited a couple of others of his adopted clan as well. That day, I learned something about Father’s Day. Some of us don’t have a reason to celebrate this day. Maybe we didn’t have a good relationship with our dad. Or maybe he died. Or maybe he ran off when you were young, the list can go on. But my uncle said something I still remind myself of: “Our earthly fathers are really more like foster fathers because our true Father is in Heaven. Give Him your Father’s Day.”

My uncle showed me a sense of compassion and kindness my father never did. I loved the way he spoke to me or tried to make me smile and laugh—which always worked. I felt peace and safety in his presence. These were all things I craved so much as a child. I may not have experienced them through my earthly father, but God has blessed me with an uncle who taught me about what a father was meant to be.

U“ nprecedented times” is the general term to describe the turn of events this year. Our normal has been disrupted and you may have more questions than answers. You may even question God’s sovereignty and justice, as I did, when my mother passed away from cancer on January 10 of this year.

Growing up, my mother was the anchor of faith in a household full of boys. Alongside my father, she supported her five boys, and in hindsight, I am grateful for her prayers. They protected me from a host of potential pitfalls. At home, I was taught about the Bible and godly principles from a young age, but I never thought the teaching was practical, which lead to my rebellion in adolescence and early young adulthood. I didn’t understand what it meant to live for Christ. As a result, I associated with the wrong crowds, ignored wise counsel, and lived a carefree life. I’ll never forget the night I defied my mother and went to a party without her consent. I was a junior in high school at the time, and a group of my peers decided to attend a party, even though the neighbourhood had a bad reputation. In my mind, the reward of meeting girls outweighed the risk of confrontation on unfamiliar ground. But after leaving the party with some friends, some hoodlums attempted to steal my wallet. I wasn’t going to let them off easy, so I resisted. In a flash, I felt cold steel rattle against my skull, knocking me out. Later, I found out that steel was a pistol. My face was badly injured that night but I thank God for preserving me.

When I got home, I expected the biggest scolding of my life. Instead, my mother consoled me with her supportive words and nursed my wounds. The events of that night marked a turning point inside me. It set the foundation for understanding who I am in my Heavenly Father’s eyes. Now, I realize that my mother’s show of grace is what God does for me every day. That is, He shows me mercy and guides me along the best path for my life.

As I began to mature in faith, I joined a local church and got baptized. However, I faced more challenges and obstacles than ever before. Still, every setback was an opportunity for me to witness God’s miracles of unfailing love, protection, and true freedom found in Jesus. I will admit, I still make plenty of mistakes, but I don’t need to be weighted by burdens because He carries my burdens. Even now, with life flipped upside down, I recall His faithfulness. Yes, it’s been a hard year, and I have cried many tears, but I know in whom I believe. My mom died at 50 years old, and until her last breath, she believed. Her faith is my faith and it is what has shaped me to be who I am today. Until my earthly death, I will run the race with perseverance and strength. I press on, toward the purpose for which I was born. To be ready, as Esther says, for such a time as this.

It all began in the summer of ‘69’ The birth of a star in the heart of Africa Momma dearest was fearless and gave glory to God

She stood strong and made sure her family turned away from wrong

Her children call her blessed and her husband a crown jewel

I remember, when I was a child, she helped me excel in school

She never gave up on her family, always prayed, and hoped for the best. Now no longer active in our lives, but she’ll always be missed.

Until the day I fulfill my heavenly mandate.

I will shine until the light of life burns out inside me

Then I will have shown the world what a star-child looks like

For Esther is the star that birthed the boy inside me

The boy became a man and the man don’t fully understand

The ways of God are beyond reason but nonetheless, I must stand

By the grace God’s given me I will adhere to His sovereign plans It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later—you were too good to be true

Thank God hope is alive in the One—Jesus Christ

Thank God for living testimony— the best gift of my life

The story of unwavering faith amid pain so deep

My mom was a fighter

My mom spoke the truth My mother radiated like a blossom in the mild spring sun

My mom was a joy and more pleasant than roses

My mom was so lovely and possessed inner beauty

My mom I will remember for the rest of my days—a shining star, a radiant light, my best friend

Forever in my heart

Je t’adore, Maman