Beyond the seven towns, beyond the seven parishes, there was a community that served God and the people by playing and singing. The most important man in the community, the first musician and at the same time the conductor of all the musicians, was the worship leader. The story begins when the old leader announced his departure and a new one was appointed in his place. His name was Barnabas.
Barnaba had every predisposition for this position. He had undergone many years of musical training, but he also had innate talent and an expensive, excellent instrument which he cared for according to luthier recommendations. He also worked regularly on his voice. He practised songs that the community knew, sought out new songs and arranged them, and even composed his own. He took regular lessons to improve his already virtuosic skills. There was no one better to fulfil the task entrusted to him – of this everyone in the community was certain, as was the local parish priest, who was proud of him. What is more, Barnabas’ wife Barbara could also sing beautifully. Her clear mezzo-soprano was something that everyone in the community couldn’t help admiring, unless they themselves were deaf as a stump. She was also a major influence on the overall music of the ensemble. At every worship, she embellished the melodic line of the songs with fine ornaments. Her gently ascending glissando lifted the listeners up to the heavens, and her concluding vibrato left the listeners trembling for a long time. Barbara and Barnabas thus make a unique couple, but even so, they did not become worship leaders together, which may have been significant in its implications for the story as a whole, but let’s keep quiet about that in the meantime by putting a pause here.
Although everything favoured Barnabas to make the worships stand at the highest level it was not that easy. It is well known, the musicians were not a perfectly harmonised orchestra. As some came into the ensemble, others left for personal reasons. Some showed up for rehearsals and some did not. Some had musical knowledge, others were amateurs. Some instruments were too quiet, others too loud. Some had a lot of enthusiasm for playing and others had… too much enthusiasm and it was difficult to control them without disturbing the other musicians. It’s just the way it is, between players, that the less skilled they are, the louder they want to show off. There were therefore plenty of problems. In a word, being the concert master of this assemblage was not an easily digestible porridge, but rather a heavy piece of the band leader’s daily dry bread. However, all this did not deter Barnaba until certain events in the life of the group he led.
Well, once someone heard a false sound while playing, but kept it to themselves. Then someone else heard it and looked around significantly. When the false sounds started to appear more frequently, the musicians could no longer keep quiet. At first among themselves, and later on in the community, there was more and more talk about the fact that a musician was not playing cleanly. The matter also reached Barnabas, who tried to listen more closely to what was actually being heard. The situation was becoming increasingly tense, as despite their efforts, they could not find the source of the disturbing disharmonic tones. In private, one of the artists warned another not to get involved, because there was supposedly something wrong with the band. Someone else ostentatiously withdrew from playing first fiddle. Everyone got caught up in a web of suspicion, accusation, manipulation, hurt and forgiveness and apologies for wrongly made insinuations. One musician, offended to the core by an innocent remark, walked away slamming the door in the process. The others thought that this would solve the problem definitively, but in the meantime they started to play more quietly and carefully. They lost the content of playing con spirito (with spirit), con passione (with passion), vigoroso (with vigour), risoluto (resolutely), piena voce (in full voice). Gone were the magnificent solos that happened to be played con fuoco (with fire) under the influence of the Holy Spirit, which, after all, you don’t get in studio controlled conditions.
The band’s music was fading away regardless of all the efforts made by Barnaba, and perhaps these efforts even accelerated the process. Barnaba himself no longer knew where dissonance was played and where the right note was. He had already lost all spontaneity and joy. He could not cooperate with the rest of the performers. At the musicians’ meetings, he kept asking what could be done so that this sepulchral murmur would not appear again. For his ostinato doloroso, for this persistent and painful chatter his interlocutors plugged their ears. Complicating matters was the fact that Barnaba’s wife was a member of the band. Barbara was quietly or even outright accused of being a sing falsely, and yet she was the leading voice in the line-up.
In the end, it came to a situation where all the artists realised that they were faced with only two choices. They could watch as more players left for other bands and the desire to play completely died down in those who remained. Or they could have suggested to Barnaba that he should resign if he can’t get the team back together. After all, he himself has not found out for so long what is really the cause of this cacophonous impotence that has reached the band. The precise mechanism that he once was has become, over the last few years, a disorderly, shapeless, gelatinous musical mass – a cold and bitter sonic jelly. The people of the parish no longer wanted to listen to it and stopped coming to the masses for worship.
After another – it seemed – falsehood, after another argument about this seemingly false sound, after another fermenting allusions, suspicions, accusations, manipulations and forgiveness… Barnaba announced his resignation. He sensed that if he didn’t then the other musicians would leave on their own. Officially, of course, he did not hold a grudge against anyone, but after all, he announced it in the context of recent events which sounded unconvincing. He hid a grudge in his heart that he was not supported by the others, a grudge that was quite justified, but was it their fault that their hands were already fainting from the chronic exhaustion of this tension of nerves they felt over controlling themselves? It was impossible to breathe in such an atmosphere, let alone act fraternally. It would appear, therefore, that the blame was shared. The simplest and perhaps fairest thing to do with this statement would be to write Fine and end there. After all, who or what was the cause of this collapse of the band? We can raise questions, we can float hypotheses, we can carry out an entire investigation, but is it possible to find an answer to this question?
Perhaps the root cause of the problems was the decision for Barnaba to be the leader himself, as I mentioned at the beginning. If Barbara had been co-leader of the ensemble with him her situation would have been clear, and so many of the other soloists looked on with an envious eye as Barbara was singled out by Barnaba, for on more than one occasion he entrusted her with the most beautiful songs. Many have claimed that he is downright deaf to her lapse and bravura over-interpretations. To make matters worse, Barbara, indeed somewhat barbaric in her character, was not liked at all in the ensemble. There was no denying that she did not have at least one single friend from the heart. But was this somehow her fault? After all, everyone has some vices.
Perhaps the explanation for the whole conundrum is not in the people. Maybe it was simply a faulty piece of equipment, not for the first time, a damaged cable or a faulty dibox socket? Or was it external interference from the devil that tore into this infernally complicated mixer? Many raised the spectator’s voice that this was all part of a spiritual battle and called on everyone to pray more together. To this, others argued that it was a convenient excuse for failing to see their own laziness and the shortcomings of the workshop by not turning up for the communal supplication dates set by Barnabas.
Another hypothesis was that perhaps the worship harmony had changed over the years, the way they played had changed. Music, like any other art, is subject to change, to new fashions to follow or to accept being left behind. It is difficult to explain this to someone not familiar with the principles of consonances and intervals, but I will try no less. It is possible that while some musicians were playing the old-fashioned triads, others – without even knowing what they were doing – were already playing septim, non or augmented chords. In a word, they were playing richer sets of notes – composed of four or five different notes – or of notes shifted in relation to each other. It was impossible to look at everyone’s hands, and inevitably the riddle of dissonant tones must have remained unsolved.
There is also a completely different explanation, which many readers will probably scornfully describe as the deux ex machina of the whole story: Perhaps it was God’s will! It all happened in order to fulfil some divine intention that no one could know or understand. So man, the devil or God was the author of the false notes – it does not matter in the least! All that matters is the result. The only thing that matters is the spiritual path that, it is to be trusted, all were led in an unknown direction. For if it were not for the Logos, it would all make no sense at all. It would only be a mutual enjoyment of playing pretty notes in the key of minor or major – creating music that is apparently only authentic, but in fact spiritually false, because it is empty.
So the question to which this story leads us is not: who played dissonantly? This is not a detective story but a spiritual story. This most important question is: can we play… con amore? Are we able to play with love? If there is no love in us then there can be no Unity either. Without it, each of us becomes just a clanging copper, a dead cymbal – yes, an instrument perfectly tuned according to an equal temperament, but one that does not stir any deep values in those who listen. They listen to this cymbal when it sounds, but when its reverberation dies down nothing remains in the listeners afterwards.
So it is not musical skill that is the issue here, but the art of loving in which we all need to exercise ourselves. Especially for those who want to lead others on gospel paths. One can possess almost everything – talents, skills, commitment, equipment – but without love we are nothing. And one cannot love God without loving people. Some of us seem to be beginners in this art, others seem to be masters, but why judge anyone? And how are we supposed to do that? Each of us has to find out for himself how much of his inner self is still humming impurely, how many strings he has to tune in order not to let the sound of love in him be drowned out by anything.
The inquisitive reader will ask: What happened to the band after this leader’s resignation severed that Gordian knot emotionally entangling all the musicians? Did Barnabas and Barbara’s departure heal the ensemble and did it return to its former normalcy, unfettered by suspicion of falsehood? Or, without such great leadership, did the orchestra disintegrate completely and the musicians scatter to the surrounding Renewal in Spirit communities? Possibly, on the contrary, new, hitherto dormant talents were born in the place of Barnabas and Barbara, and the band was rewarded with even more adoring applause than in the old days? Who knows, after all, Barnabas and Barbara themselves in a different place may have found new tasks and experiences they had not even dared to dream of before?
So that we can hear the answer to the above questions I, the author of this tale, now put down my pen and hand it over to someone more clever. He’s an author with a capital ‘A’. A creator like no one else, experienced and professional in his craft. Whatever one may say about him – for he is reticent and secretive, and likes to put off his work until it is too late, so that he can be reminded of his most famous number, his magnum opus, which would have been impossible without the resurrection of the protagonist – one must nevertheless admit that imperfection is an alien trait to him. So whatever the continuation of the story may be, it cannot be poorly composed. So let us arm ourselves with patience and give Him a free hand. Unlike us, He knows. He knows everything.
Chorzów, 10.03.2024 The Third Sunday of Advent: Joy to the World