The Project - Day 29 & 30

I spend several hours each week with a church choir, ostensibly functioning as a soloist and section leader, although I can only lead as far as my section will follow. Which usually is not very far. For those unfamiliar with the culture, church choirs usually consist of volunteers that sing for weekly services. Usually members are predominantly female and the median age hovers between fifty and sixty. While I am sure there are exceptions, my current group is not among them.

As with most volunteer choruses, some folks are fairly musically skilled, former music teachers or music majors while some might not even read music, but (hopefully) have a decent enough ear that they can pick up their parts during rehearsals. While there are a few all-professional church choirs in major cities, the presence of experienced singers in a church group is usually limited to a few “ringers”, usually hired as section leaders or soloists. There are a number of reasons why churches do this. It can be because the choir is light in certain voice types--or missing them entirely. Sometimes it is just to provide leadership or to have a group of singers available for special music or solos. In some situations a church likes to have soloists or section leaders as a matter of status, usually in addition to professional instrumentalists, a resident organist and other trappings of high-church high-end music making.

My job is primarily to provide support to the soprano section, sing the occasional solo and perform with the other three section leaders as a quartet from time to time. I haven’t done this kind of work in a long time for a number of reasons. First, I don’t want to “work” at church. I’d rather just find a place to worship and sing because my spirit and not my checkbook urges me. Second, having to show up every single Sunday is an absolute grind, it means no family weekends away, unless i beg for time off and then feel guilty about it. Finally, I take very seriously the role of a church musician. I was raised in a tradition where the musicians (along with members of the congregation) are “ministers” and their contribution to the service is not a performance, but a worshipful part of the service and a ministry to the congregation.

Unfortunately that checkbook strongly urges me to keep my church job at this point and so I go. Some days I experience something that approaches the fellowship of community and college music makers from my past, the kind of camaraderie that comes from a wide range of people all working toward a common goal. Other days, such as the time a jealous church member kept scooting away, insisting I smelled like Chinese food (I had just showered before coming to rehearsal and not eaten a thing) or the time a little old lady cornered me and berated me for the “sin” of singing when I was not a confirmed Catholic, make me want to count the days until I have enough other work that I can happily put myself on a sub list and make my fond farewells.

Also, I miss the Protestant tradition of “open table”. It boggles my mind that I will be singing all of Holy Week and not once will I be able to take communion. This may not sound like much to someone who is not Christian, but it deeply affects me and the connection I feel (or don’t feel) to my religion. I respect the traditions and doctrine of the Catholic church, I have no desire to take communion there, but I often wish I had a job in a church closer to my own tradition.

Beyond all this though are more troubling moral issues. When I stopped working in churches ages ago, I swore I would never again work in a church where I could not bring my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and freely worship with them. Now I take a paycheck from a church that actively denies participation of women, not to mention homosexuals. Worse than that is the cover up of victimization of children, particularly this most recent unveiling of sexual abuse of deaf children, truly an evil, if there is any proper use for that word.

While I certainly have taken paychecks from corporations I didn’t believe in before now (law firm, anyone?) I am having a particularly difficult struggle with the current allegations of coverup and collusion regarding sexual abuse in the Catholic church. I have no doubt the people I work for and with are sickened by this situation as well and feel their own outrage, yet they have positive bonds to the church that I cannot share. For now, I keep working, I keep looking for other jobs and I pray for the victims of sexual abuse, those known and those still keeping their secrets.