Amazing Grace

Earlier this week, I received an invitation to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Patriotic Celebration (not only a patriotic program, but an impressive nod to the Choir's spectacular 100 year recording history) with some lovely friends.  Admittedly, I'm a fan of the MoTab.  They're massive in number.  They're an incredibly fine-tuned ensemble.  They're fabulous and they make honest music with deeply felt convictions.  I love!

I quite enjoyed the beginning numbers, humming along with "It's a Grand Night for Singing" and "Seventy-Six Trombones" and standing up with everybody else in the LDS Conference Center after the Choir's signature rousing rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."  I was pleased and informed by the well-crafted audio-visual presentation sandwiched in between musical numbers, chronicling MoTab's history as an ensemble always at the cutting edge of new recording technology.  And yes, I did, in fact, tickle the elbows and knees (my way of expressing--in as least an audible, yet still as Nic-ly a way as possible--my sheer glee at the quality of the music) of the friends sitting on either side of my seat.

I was not, however, ready for the profound emotional and spiritual shift I would experience during this Mack Wilberg arrangement of "Amazing Grace."



It's a beautiful hymn on its own, but Wilberg's treatment of the musical material is stunning.  I sat, my soul in my ear, analyzing Wilberg's supreme use of suspensions and lingering non-harmonic tones, his exceptional use of harmonic and orchestral color and, most especially, the way he employs the same notes in the bass (also known as a pedal tone) throughout all three verses--

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

The Lord has promised good to me.
His word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

He repeats the refrain "We've no less days to sing God's praise/ Than when we've first begun" and this is the only occasion in the entire setting of the hymn that the bass notes actually change.  It's an incredible way to inspire reflection in the listener, taking them by reverent surprise, as it were, with this shift from a major key to a minor one (happens at 5:17).  We, as listeners, don't realize how steady this bass note has been--grounding us in consistent and comfortable harmonies--until it gets somehow shifted. 

I took the moment to muse a bit about that pedal tone.  I thought, It's kind of a symbol of God's presence in our lives.  We don't always notice He's there; a  situation changes and our sense of life's harmony is abruptly challenged and we want, like all musical resolution, to find our tonic resolution.  Get back to Home.

Then I started thinking about that choir.  Over three hundred voices uniting to create one, perfect lovely sound, "to sing God's praise," or, as I've always mistakenly heard it "to see God's face."  Kind of whoa.

Then I imagined all the voices of all people, rising with whatever sort of energy sparks a prayer to God's ears.  What a choir that must be.  To me, it would be overwhelming cacaphony, because I don't know how to listen to that, but God does.  I think He hears us like we hear music.

Then I wondered if I were a consonant or dissonant "sound" to Him.  I began to worry about the worth of my voice in God's ear.  It's an old worry.  If I'm honest, it's a current worry, too:  I've allowed myself (out of some personal necessity) to become careless in my concern with regard to active participation of my faith.  I thought, I realize, according to the ecclesiastic regulation of things as they are in the church, I'm not "worthy;" but does that really mean I'm not of worth to God?

I listened to the sublime resolution Wilberg creates in the end of his arrangement of "Amazing Grace," but I didn't feel any sort of similar consonance in my mind or heart.  I spent the next numbers chewing on that question regarding my value in God's eye.  Weighing my worth inside my mind, I didn't listen to much of President Monson's remarks.

The choir closed with one of Mormondom's (and one of my own) most cherished hymns, "Come, Come Ye Saints."



I have never heard more comforting words than tonight's "All is well."  It was almost as if God was telling me not to worry too much.  He still loves me.  He's proud of my successes and is always there, the pedal tone keeping steady under everything else.

"Don't fret, Nic:  All is well."  What a bit of amazing grace.