Boxing Day

I almost did not practice the hymns for tomorrow.

Preparations for Christmas Eve dominated the week. Somehow, the idea lodged in my head that there were two days to prepare for Sunday.

Well, yes, if one counts Christmas Day. But that morning was devoted to the Mass for the day, wherein Ting Davidson played violin. I wrote of this last year; it was a delight to work with her again in similar manner. Someday soon, her collegiate studies will end and it is unknowable whether she will make it home for Christmas after that, or at least not with enough time or energy to play for a church service. That makes a day like yesterday all the more precious to me. She is a terrific musician.

I could have stayed through the afternoon and practiced. But my wife was at home, with a day off after too many days of “big box” retail work, too much overtime.

It was not until this morning that I realized that this day is Saturday, not Friday, and this day is all that I have.

Our service tomorrow is Christmas Lessons and Carols, “so that no one has to work very hard,” as one of the clergy said. Right: prelude, ten hymns, postlude. Not much work for anyone.

I had the church to myself all day except for the noontime Al-Anon group; it is Boxing Day, and no one is working unless they must. I was feeling more than a little resentful at the clergy, taking a day off and spending time with their families. “No one has to work very hard.” I worked about three hours on the voluntaries, glad that I had spent two hours on them Thursday morning when that evening’s services were more pressing.

I looked at the hymnal, bristling with the tape flags for tomorrow’s hymns. “Just leave it. You have some time tomorrow morning. If you can’t play 'While shepherds watched' and ‘Joy to the world’ by now, you might as well hang up your shoes.”

It was that close. Yes, I could play these hymns and carols without practice. The service would probably go just fine with what I call “plain vanilla” hymnody – straight-up hymn playing without creativity, without thought or any more than a minimum of preparation.

And, by just a tiny amount, the Kingdom of God would be degraded. The people would go home and go on with their lives. When next year rolls around, they might stay at home rather than coming out for the First Sunday after Christmas Day.

What it boils down to is that by not practicing, not doing my best, I would be Bearing False Witness. I would be acting as if the Nativity of Our Lord were not important. I wrote of this in another connection here:

In the morning, I woke and prayed and knew what had to be done. Yes, I could have decided not to do it. Who would have known? Would it have made a difference to anyone in the world that I had felt a sense of incompleteness about a painting? ...

But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. (Chaim Potok, “My Name is Asher Lev,” p. 328, quoted in the linked Music Box essay.)

I sighed, opened the hymnal, and started in on the first hymn, “Once in royal David’s city.” And, what do you know, once I got going, it was Good Work. It was clear whose voice that had been, telling me to “just leave it.” It was clear, also, what manner of spirit lay behind my resentment against the clergy for taking a day off. They have worked hard this week too, often dealing with thorny interpersonal issues that drain the life out of one's soul. That is the bread and butter of parish pastoral ministry, and it is much harder than sitting in a quiet church at the organ, practicing hymns. We must work together, and the Adversary (Hebrew: "ha-Satan") ever seeks to sow discord and resentment between us.

And if I think even for a moment that I have a tough job, I could trade places with my wife, who had an eight-hour shift at Customer Service and Returns on the day after Christmas.

Two and a half hours sufficed to work through the ten hymns. I am not doing anything new or dramatic, but I am using the stanza layouts that I have prepared in the past, and I could not have done so in tomorrow’s service without this day’s work.

The final hymn is one that summarizes the story: “The first Nowell.” I saw my notes that the Willcocks harmonization from the green “Carols for Choirs” is good for the final stanza, so I went downstairs and got it out of the stack from the other night’s music. It is good indeed, and needed about fifteen minutes of work to get the cobwebs brushed off, for I have not used it for several years. It will be a better ending for tomorrow’s service than a plain vanilla play-through, much better.

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord;
that hath made heaven and earth of nought,
and with his blood mankind hath bought.
Nowell, Nowell!
Born is the King of Israel.