Every Pitch and Timbre

by Cindy Kuzma

My favorite part of Christmas has got to be the singing. There’s no other time of year when there are so many songs we all know by heart filling the airwaves and the city streets and the TV ads. And when we gather at the church Advent party and sing the hymns together—well, it’s nothing short of breathtaking.

The time-worn melodies give us the chance to do what the choir does every week, but that the rest of us only occasionally bravely attempt: to harmonize. It’s a beautiful thing to find a part that isn’t in the spotlight, but that brings breadth and depth to the tune. My low voice finds new strength when I can pick the alto line out of a lofty aria like “Angels We Have Heard on High.” And when I can close my eyes and sing along, without even needing to consult the hymnal, the music reaches through my body and comes not from my mouth but from my soul.

It’s a lesson worth remembering the year round, I think. God calls us each to fill our own role, sing our own part, and the beauty of a place like Holy Covenant is its openness to every pitch and timbre. We don’t have to belt out the descant in the Christmas cantata to have a voice worth hearing—and in fact, if we aim for the bass notes but miss the mark, it doesn’t diminish the resonance. It’s our collective voices that bring meaning to the song, the season, and to life. May our community continue to sing the notes of our souls as loud as we can this Advent and on into the New Year.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Advent Devotional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.