Containers 3: Music

This morning at church, the service was all music. Our Director of Music Ministry put together the service and it was quite...containing. The hymns were artfully arranged in such a way that led the congregation from a beginning point of celebration through meditative sensibility and into a deep moment of emotional confrontation/transformation . That moment was held, it was contained, by a song of forgiving lyrics and mournful yet optimistic melody.

I cried. A lot.

It helped that I arrived at the service with a powerful intensity of anger the likes of which I have not felt in a few months. That, paired with a recent drought of tears, and I was helpless. Like a lost child, I sat there in community and yet completely alone. I faced the musical Harrapan vessel with no clue. I was drawn by the vacuum of the container. I could not do other than empty that dammed flood and there I did do.

The service continued with music to heal those opened wounds and a few hymns later there we were, done and processed. I was not done yet, though, and had to continue my emptying elsewhere. Luckily, a spirit friend was available to hold me for that. She made me laugh a lot too. She was fasting for her third day and when she does that she gets very light and giggly. It was perfect.

The container of the service wasn't quite enough. While I am comfortable crying in public, it was not a complete comfort and I didn't get to the bawling I felt was due. I didn't want to upstage the service.

Oh yeah, my thesis, here I come baby.