Eric Wall

Friends,

Here we are in the midst of Easter: fifty days that begin liturgically at Holy Saturday’s sundown, when the Great Vigil of Easter unfolds with reading after reading, threading a grand tapestry of witness to God’s work. Here at Austin Seminary, one of our student chapel assistants brought her children to our Vigil (all three hours of it); she told us afterwards that when she asked her kids what they experienced, one of them said that they liked the way it told the story from the beginning. That response feels worth holding on to: a story told from the beginning.  Here we are in the midst of Easter: a story of new life, told from an against-all-odds beginning, not yet finished.

Told from the beginning, of course, by the women who were the first witnesses: witnesses whose First Day practices brought them to a place of ritual that became an Encounter. That Encounter was with new life, and while there is wonder and joy, the Biblical accounts are also full of tears, fears, disbelief, locked doors—a far cry from the fanfares and fortes common in our Easter worship. What music was in the souls of the women who first saw the risen Jesus?

Two works might kindle imagination. One is Indígena, a 1991 chamber work by Tania León, winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. It is astounding: hushed, loud, fierce, serene, energetic. It speaks and it demands hearing. It’s not hard to imagine that the women at the tomb felt—and spoke—in these ways during and after their Encounter. The other work is Ruth Crawford Seeger’s 1938 Andante for Strings. It is a four-minute kind of slow-burn de profundis: keening, yowling, bleak, agonized. The women probably knew music like this: approaching a tomb in grief, meeting Jesus with wonder and tears, speaking gospel to doubtful men, coming home from the tomb to a strutting, toxic, bellicose world and its oppressive, death-dealing grip.

In the midst of this Easter, I think of Hymn 7 in Glory to God: “Mothering God, You Gave Me Birth.” It is Jean Janzen’s luminous 1991 poetic rendering from the writings of Julian of Norwich, English anchoress of the Middle Ages. Carolyn Jennings’s wonderful tune, NORWICH, is not the only tune created for these words; but let us now praise the hymnal committee for choosing this one as the anchor for this text. What is it about this hymn, found in the hymnal’s Trinity section, yet possessing an Easter brightness and quietness? Maybe it’s the plainness of one-syllable words, soft and precise: bright, wind, rain, sun, grape, grain, arms, root, grow. Maybe it’s that tender, stately tune: a slow and elegant perichoresis (see Hymn 9 for more on that word). Maybe it’s the transcendent ending: until I flower, until I know. In the midst of this Easter—and these bleak days—God, with arms of patience, reaches to us. She tells us that flowering is not yet done.

This time of year, in our work in the church, past-present-future flowering may be on our minds. In the congregation I previously served and now at the seminary, I’ve always felt a certain something in this midst-of-Easter season—you probably do too. There’s the great exhale in recalling the past year’s journey: all the work and music and rehearsing and calendars and congregational life. There is also a freshly-quiet space, when what’s ahead seems to wait a bit, giving us time. We need this time, when there are more moderatos than allegros, more conversations than meetings; where the back-pocket, low-practice postlude is not merely enough but newly abundant; and where there is time for gratitude, breath, imagination. I hope that you are finding, in the midst of Easter’s Fifty Days, this space and time.

Speaking of what lies in store: there are less than fifty days till the Worship and Music Conference. If you’re not yet registered, let your fingers do the clicking on the PAM website. This year’s conference, “In the Stranger’s Guise,” is co-directed by Krista Wright and Marlon Hurst. The Montreat mountains await your voices – whether in-person or online, we hope to see you there!

Also in store: Sally Ann McKinsey’s work as the new editor of Call to Worship will bless our paths ahead. PAM’s Regions and partnerships, so tirelessly spearheaded by Kelly Abraham, aren’t just coming your way—they’re going to be where you are. And we’re thrilled to welcome officers to the PAM Board: President-Elect Emily Floyd, continuing Board Secretary Beth Parler, and Members-at-Large Kaitlyn Davros and Brian Lew. More flowering awaits PAM!

If, as part of looking ahead, you’re looking for summer reading, here are two suggestions (on my mind from use this past semester in a worship class). One is Sanctifying Art, by Deborah Sokolove—a wonderful exploration of art, faith, and liturgy. The other is by our beloved Kim Long: The Worshiping Body: the Art of Leading Worship. It’s written for pastors and presiders, which means that every church musician should read it. It’s about eyes and ears and mouth and hands and feet and heart—the musician’s equipment no less than the pastor’s.

So—as, against all odds, we live, move, and have being in these Easter days:

Let us now praise the voices and leaders whose eyes, ears, mouths, hands, feet, and hearts preach us the gospel of peace.

Let us now bless the presiders, musicians, ringers, children, youth, and all who’ll be at our conference.

Let us now celebrate the music we just finished and the music that yet needs practicing.

Let us now encourage each other in this precious work of worship.

Let us now pray for this weary world. 

And while we’re at it, let us now and above all else praise a Parenting, Uncle-ing, Aunt-ing, Rearing, Nursing, Table-Setting, Meal-Preparing, Tear-Wiping, Lullaby-Singing, Bed-Tucking, Dawn-Calling, Door-Knocking, Tough-Loving, World-Opening, Trans-cending God who promises new life for Easter’s Fifty Days—and the Fifty-First, and the Fifty-Second, and the Fifty-Third, and…

Peace,

Eric