I've mentioned somewhere before that I sing with a few choirs.  Make no mistake, though: I am no one's idea of a soloist.  (In fact, I sing so low that you might not be able to hear me!)  I blend extremely well, however, and this suits me just fine.  No pressure to do anything other than fill in the background, and plenty of opportunity to observe the audience reaction to the song.

Judging from the amount of praise we get after our performances, I think we do okay, even as our numbers dwindle, and we don't get around as much as we used to.  Often I hear people wondering aloud how we can stand up and perform like we do.  They wonder if our lives lend themselves to performing without a care in the world, or at least that's how we appear to them, anyway.  Speaking as an introvert with almost crippling stage fright, and way too many personal things going on to count, I'd like to offer at least a partial answer to that question.

In late 2001, gospel artist Kirk Franklin released a song called "Why We Sing".  It took it's chorus from an old hymn, "His Eye Is on the Sparrow", which talks about not being worried about how you are going to manage the things outside of your control currently going on in your life.  In the singing of this refrain, you discover the reason so many of us sing, even in the midst of the chaos going on around us:

"I sing because I'm happy,"

Right now, I have every right to be in the middle of a nervous breakdown.  One child completely unmotivated and making no progress, another having fairly serious socio-emotional issues, stagnant job mobility or opportunities, serious financial issues that might soon see me tossed out of my apartment despite starting a second job, and unless I am willing to pay a professional, damn near no one to talk to.  And I know for a fact that I am not the only one going through serious difficulties right now.  Yet, I can still say that I am happy.  Regular prayer gives me just  the release valve I need, right when I need it most.  Not prayer in the sense of asking that my issues be resolved for me, so much as venting, and grasping to understand at least some of it.  I have rarely not come away with the understanding that nothing is forever, not even issues.  One child will eventually find a direction, the other will grow out her issues, and even if the financial issues don't get worked out in enough time to save this place (bad decisions made out of desperation do come back to haunt you), this won't be the first time I've had to move during bad circumstances.  I am not the only person to have ever gone through these things, and people do understand.  I am not alone, although it might look that way from the outside.  My happiness is not based on a lack of want, so much as it is based on the knowledge that everything ends, good, bad or otherwise.  Which leads to:

"I sing because I'm free,"

We have an interesting concept of freedom here in the US.  We celebrate our own freedom while sometimes actively denying it to anyone who holds a different viewpoint from our own.  This is not true freedom in that you are creating a hate that will make it hard for the next person to exercise their freedom.  I speak here of the Christians that mistreat anyone they feel is beneath them, either because they are not a Christian at all, or they feel that that person is not Christian enough.  If your practice of Christianity involves condescension, or belittling someone else's beliefs or lack there of, here's a hint:  Christianity - You're doing it WRONG!  Christianity is not an ego driven quest to make everybody just like you, and our Constitutional right to freedom of religious practice extends to EVERYONE, including those who practice no religion whatsoever, as well as my progressive, feminist take on Christianity.  So long as no one is actively being hurt by any particular practice (or if they are being hurt, it is dealt with properly), our freedom to believe as we will is protected.  Freedom to worship when, where and however you choose is not a freedom  extended all over the world, and we deny it to one another at our peril, lest we lose the one thing we are denying to someone else.

"His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me"

This is a concept I know people have the most issues with and questions about.  The idea of an all knowing and all seeing Father in the sky.  I've always viewed this aspect in a metaphorical sense.  The world places a great deal of emphasis on the individual, and in the US especially, personal responsibility is both a buzzword, and an expletive, depending on the context it is used in.   This is the reason most people have a hard time dealing with anything outside of their control.  So when people need to reach out for understanding, especially when things go wrong, and occasionally when things mysteriously go right even when they had every reason to go catastrophically wrong, the idea behind Faith, the feeling that someone out there cares about you, can empathize with your struggles, and in some way will always be there for you, is a necessity that keeps some people together in the middle of situations that would crack someone else.  For some, this might be their only method of finding some sort of peace that the outside world is trying to deny them.  The plight of African American churches and congregations in the South, both during slavery and the civil rights movement comes to mind.  Why disturb them if for no other reason than people that were meant to be cowed into silence and cooperation with their own oppression were finding peace, comfort, and often the strength to continue fighting within them?

While I am specifically telling my own story above, I know at least some small portion of it will apply to everyone that sings in every choir across the nation, maybe even across the world.  We are far from perfect, and we find the strength to sing through all of our worst trials, because we know that in some church, somewhere, someone is waiting for something positive, some shred of encouragement, something that will help them keep on going through the next day, and we might, maybe, deliver that.  If we can help someone, even if it just momentarily brightens their day, we've done something right.  I've said that I'm no soloist, but I do have a few favorites that I can listen to repeatedly as there are just notes that they sing that really appeal to me: Brenda, Sharon, Inez (these are all Sopranos, BTW.  I sing soprano, so perhaps there is a bit of bias there!  :)  ) Tomi and Willa.  The songs we learn, I often find myself singing to myself for days on end, and often refer to them at times when I need peace or comfort, and sometimes, for celebration.

And that's the reason why I sing.

So it has not escaped anyone's attention that Easter Sunday falls on April 20th, or as stoners refer to the day, 4/20, this year.

Of course some good Christian pastors are all up in arms about the coincidence, loudly denouncing the use of what they consider a "gateway drug" from the pulpit.  Other pastors are using the day as a day to reach out to addicts to try and convert them from their use of marijuana with catchy sermon titles, inviting them to get high on Jesus.  I find this ridiculous and more than a tiny bit condescending.  Even as a Christian, I realize that just because I choose not to indulge in, ahem, herbal remedies, that doesn't make me a better person than those that do.

I suppose I noticed this because as an African American woman that wears dreadlocks, I am often mistaken for being a Rasta, a practitioner of the Rastafari lifestyle.  It is an entirely misunderstood practice, in that while the smoking of what they refer to as ganga as a part of their spiritual practices is an option, it's not an option that many Rastas choose to exercise.  They would prefer to stick to the tenants of not polluting their body with unnatural substances (they prefer natural, not processed foods), and keeping their minds clear.  Actually, the smoking of substances as a part of spiritual practice goes back much further than the early 1900's start of Rastafari.

The smoking of weed for the purpose of opening up one's mind to a higher power can be traced back to ancient Asia.  Ganga, in fact, the the Sanskrit word for the plant.  Indians introduced the plant to Asia in the 19th century when they were imported to Asia as cheap labor.  Early Native Americans smoked native plants for much the same reason.  The important thing to note, however, was that no one smoked for the purpose of getting high.  That was a western construct once the side effects of the weed became widely known.

What fascinates me is the thought of opening up one's mind in order to better discern divine influences.  Some Eastern religions teach the art of meditation, the purpose being the calming of your mind, in order to be more in tune with both the universe and the divine.    More fundamentalist Christian leaders would have their followers believe that you need to close your mind to anything that doesn't agree with the worldview you are being taught, never mind being more in tune with everything and everyone around you.  More progressive Christian leaders realize that most religious and spiritual practices have more in common than differences, and encourage certain practices, like meditation, because they know that a calm, open mind is extremely important to a focused, intentional prayer life.

If I learned anything from a short class I received on Comparative Religion, it's that people will search for enlightenment, answers to questions about the meaning of their lives and struggles, wherever they are using whatever means are available to them. For some this could mean prayer, for some meditation, and for some, yes it could be the smoking of herbs.  Which is wonderful, as when people are not allowed to search for answers to eternal questions, that inner turmoil can possible manifest itself externally as violence directed towards anybody they deem different than themselves.  Witness any war fought the world over for the freedom to practice one's religious preference.  I am all for the Freedom of Religion, as theorized in our constitution.  So long as you are not harming yourself (Really harming yourself, not as imagined by someone else.), harming anyone else, or forcing your beliefs on anyone else, search for the infinite in whatever way seems best to you.

Here's to your search for enlightenment.  However you choose to pursue it.