A Music-Making Counter-Community
Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplas
Among the most elegant, wondrous prayers in The Book of Common Prayer is this one:
O God, the creator and preserver of all mankind, we humbly beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men; that thou wouldst be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for thy holy Church universal; that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to thy fatherly goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; that it may please thee to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer, 814-15)
The prayer includes petitions for “thy holy Church universal” and for all those “who are in any way afflicted or distressed in mind, body, or estate.” But the phrase that always brings me to a reflective pause is, “for all sorts and conditions of men.” The phrase sweeps across class, race, nation, and ethnic origin. And while gender could not have been on the horizon of Thomas Cramner, it can readily and properly be added to the catalogue, as this prayer is cast in patriarchal terms. The prayer recognizes that a wide variety of human persons have a wide variety of needs about which to pray; but it also recognizes that in the presence of “the creator and preserver of all mankind,” all of these different folk stand in common and shared need of providential care with the hope of “a happy issue” out of all affliction. It is a grand vision of shared humanity in its common vulnerability.
The phrasing of this prayer came to mind when my son, John, sent me an essay by Dave Hickey entitled, “Shining Hours/ Forgiving Rhyme.” It is from his collection entitled Air Guitar (1997). In this brief essay Hickey recalls a Saturday morning when he was eight or nine years old. He remembers that he and his dad, who was going to play music, were “decked out in jazz-dude apparel: penny loafers, khakis, and Hawaiian shirts with the tails out.” They picked up a family friend, Magda, “all gussied up, with her hair in a bun, wearing this black voile dress, a rhinestone pin, and little, rimless spectacles that I associate to this day with “looking European.” Then they picked up Diego with his bongo drums, “with his thin black mustache and his electric-blue, fitted shirt with bloused sleeves.” They were on their way to Ron’s house that was in this “redneck sub-division, in a ranch-style house with a post-oak in the lawn.” They were joined by Butch and Julius who were beboppers. When they arrived, Ron was “barefoot, wearing a sleeveless Marine Corps T-shirt and camouflage fatigues.”
This odd assemblage began to play, led by the clarinet of Dave’s father. The scene is observed in this way:
By this time, the room was very mellow and autumnal. Ruby light angled through the windows, glowing in the drifting strata of second-hand ganja as Ron counted off the song. He and Julius started along, insinuating the Duke’s sneaky, cosmopolitan shuffle. Then Magda laid down the rhythm signature. Butch and my dad came in, and played the song straight, flat out. Then they relaxed the tempo, moved back to the top and let Diego croon his way through the sublime economy of Johnny Mercer’s lyrics—calling up for all of us (even me) the ease and sweet sophistication of the Duke’s utopian Harlem, wherein we all dwelt at the moment (35).
Everyone shared the beat. Everyone got solo time. Everyone was responsible for a particular part. It all came together in an instant of limitless wellbeing. Hickey is able to see his dad “as the guy who could collect all these incongruous people around him and make sure everybody got their solos” (35). He observes that such a genre of art lacks any institutional guarantee and must “be selected by us.” It only flourishes in an atmosphere of generosity and agreement, and it yields acceptance and forgiveness. “Kindness, comedy, and forgiving tristesse are not the norm. They signify our little victories—and working toward democracy consists of nothing more or less than the daily accumulation of little victories whose uncommon loveliness we must, somehow, speak or show.” Hickey observes that such victories are not normal:
Normal for human creatures is, and always has been a condition of inarticulate, hopeless, never-ending pain, patriarchal oppression, boredom, and violence” (39).
But artists like Norman Rockwell and Johnny Mercer resist that normal, and show us in acute ways, “Hey! People are different. Get used to it” (40). It strikes me that Hickey’s scene is a performance of “all sorts and conditions of men [women],” bound together in affliction and in hope.
When I reflected on how it is that all sorts and conditions of men and women can come together and make music together, it may not surprise you that I was led to the Book of Revelation with its singing hosts. For all our misconstruals of the book, the Book of Revelation is a severe, unrestrained act of imagination that traces out a world that is alternative to the stratified world of the Roman Empire that has reduced everyone to a commodity, and that refuses the wondrous freedom and generosity of genuine community. This vision in the Book of Revelation is neither “other-worldly” escapism nor is it about life after death. It is rather an act of insistent imagination that competes with and resists the imposing world of Rome. (In our context, that world is now articulated through limitless capitalist greed and unrestrained white supremacy.)
What stands out for me in this alternatively imagined world is the oft-reiterated formula of John, the writer of the book:
You were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth (Revelation 5:9-10).
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice (7:9-10).
It was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation (13:7).
Then I saw another angel flying in midheaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation and tribe and language and people. He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water (14:6-7).
The waters that you saw, where the whore is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages (17:15).
This may strike you, dear reader, as excessive repetition for a brief blog. I can assure you that John did not find it excessively repetitious. He found it necessary and dramatically compelling to repeat the formula as many times as possible and to turn it in as many different directions as he could imagine for a variety of articulations. The phrase “peoples, languages and nations” recognizes the significant variations in humanity in all its differentiations, while at the same time its elemental commonality. All have in common the dread rule of Rome. All have in common the hope for something better than the rule of Rome. All belong inescapably to the rule of the Holy One who will, soon or late, ever again, override the humanity-suffocating rule of Rome. We can thus imagine a great company of vulnerable humanity coming to terms with the cosmic combat between Rome and the God bodied in the Lamb. John—and this varied assemblage—have no doubt about the outcome of that mighty struggle in which we are engaged. And so the whole company sings in confident doxology:
The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord
and of his Messiah,
and he will reign forever and ever (Revelation 11:15).
Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power to our God,
for his judgments are true and just;
he has judged the great whore who corrupted the earth with her fornication,
and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants (19:1-2).
These three articulations come together for me:
“all sorts and conditions of men and women” in the prayer;
the assemblage of jazz music makers with Dave and his dad, just south of Fort Worth; and
the great singing company around John anticipating the fall of Rome.
All of these are glimpses of a common humanity caught in affliction, gathered in hope, prepared to stage, in brief moments, an alternative world of wellbeing that is an act of defiance and hope. Thus the prayer is an act of hope for “a happy issue.” The jazz-making is a respite from a world of work and obligation. And the news from John is a refusal to let the rulers of this world have a last say about our common destiny. So consider:
the church is a community that regularly prays this prayer;
the church is regularly a potential host for jazz as the church was the original venue for good music that serves as an alternative to our unbearable “normalcy.” It may host jazz as a venue for the freedom of the gospel;
the church is the primary reader of these scriptural texts, even when they are badly misread.
The church is a host and practitioner of this alternative world of freedom, wellbeing and “a happy issue.” It invites “all sorts and conditions of men and women” around the news and around the “meal” and may, for an instant, embody the alternative world that is intended by the holy God.
Of course the church is summoned to be at the forefront of these moments of alternative community. It is the church that is called and dispatched to be embracive of every language, people, nation and tribe. It is the church that is to be the venue for making glad music whereby we may soar past our divisive ideologies and our mutual processes of excluding the other. It is the church that is to violate all of these old divisions and separatenesses of race, class, gender, nation, and national origin. Thus:
We are not divided, all one body we,
one in hope and doctrine,
one in charity. (Onward Christian Soldiers)
It is to be admitted that the church rarely performs this task with freedom and imagination. All too often the church is simply an echo of an imposed ideology, whether the false absolutes of conservatism, liberalism, white supremacy, capitalist greed, or whatever. But it need not be this way! It can be a community that refuses all such distortion, and that makes sure that every participant gets a solo part at the right time.
The gathering envisioned in the Book of Revelation is not “pie in the sky.” It is not the-end-of-the-world speculation. Rather, it is a script for an alternative here and now. This bold imagery of the saints is a defiance of Caesar and every other ideological absolute. At its best the church’s singing is not trite or innocent. It is subversive. It gives voice to a sub-version of reality that declares all dominant versions of reality are false. I reckon that Magda and her companions knew that very well, even if they could not articulate it. That is why their moments together were occasions of grace, freedom, and exuberance—an alternative world indeed!
Walter Brueggemann
May 2, 2023
