The Ascending Voice - Monday

The Ascending Voice, hosted by Pepperdine University was an international four-day festival devoted exclusively to a cappella music. It was designed for college, university, and church choir directors, as well as theologians, musicologists, church historians, singers, and the general public.

The Ascending Voice was of special interest to Mennonite, Eastern Orthodox, Reformed Presbyterian, and Church of Christ congregations, and other groups that maintain a cappella music traditions.

With the line up the folks at Pepperdine had put together for this conference, I knew right away I would love to be a part of it.

I headed out to Malibu, CA Monday morning to Pepperdine's beautiful campus. Well, I was expecting beautiful... To be honest I was a little bit surprised by my drive from LAX out to Malibu. I'm used to the appearance of big cities, but LA was exceedingly dirty. Trash was strewn along the side of the interstates, and it seemed the medians and highway roadsides had long been neglected by LA's Department of Transportation. Also, the morning I arrived was gray and drab which didn't help the view I was hoping for. Still, I was excited to arrive and eager to complete the registration process at the symposium. After finding the registration office I checked into my room, grabbed a pen and notebook and headed to the cafeteria for lunch. I ate a quick bite and walked over to Smothers Theatre for a plenary address by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Mrs. Mathewes-Green is a renown author and speaker who provided excellent insight into the Orthodox Christian faith practice, and shared some valuable insight into the relation of music to worship. The fact is, throughout history, the vast majority of Christians have been illiterate. Illiterate people and oral cultures rely on rhythmic sound to convey ideas and stories that are intended to be remembered and passed along. Music enables memorization, which is essential for passing information among those who do not read the written word.

That said, since our worship music is directed at God, music cannot be limited to a cognitive exercise of conveying information. Many christians have often had discussions of the balance between head vs. heart in our worship times. That is, we discuss how much of our worship is a cognitive exercise and how much of it is an expression of emotion. Mrs. Mathewes-Green makes the point that the head vs. heart is a false dichotomy. A large portion of our worship is taking comfort in the perception and experience of God's presence among His people.

The contemporary discussion about "experiencing God" in worship isn't exactly her point here. The Greek word "nous" speaks about our ability to notice God among us. We don't just think about God or try to mentally unpack and expand our meager knowledge of God, rather our souls perceive God's presence during our worship which enables us to praise Him more fully.

She argued that singing praises to God in an a cappella style allows us to connect even more deeply with God. The very act of our breathing during our singing is as if we are breathing in God who is all around us. "We praise him with nothing we have made, we praise him with creations he has made."

Wow. And that was just the opening plenary address...