Ruptures, Contradictions, Self-Identity, and the Church in the Short Film“There was this Time”
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)
-E. E. Cummings
Ruptures and contradictions lie at the heart of my self-identity. I could not always admit this about myself. I held a fairly stable, if unexamined, idea of who I was. But when my mother died, my sense of self changed irrevocably. Self-identity takes shape at the intersection of origin, community, and personal experience. My mother, and the church in which she raised me, loom large at this intersection. Her death forced me to examine and break from some fundamental markers of my identity, and my efforts to grieve her loss led me to question my faith in God and the teachings of the church. The rupture between identity and origin that this experience caused made its way into a score I contributed to the amateur film “There was this Time.” The music expresses the tension I feel inside between my community of faith and my experience of loss, and how that tension has come to define me. To draw out the significance of these ruptures, I will take an auto-ethnographic approach to the score and consider how these internal tensions play out across the larger contradictions within the history and transmission of church music.
I never considered the formation of my identity to be worthy of reflection because I believed personal traits are fixed (this is who I am). Perhaps I have never needed to question my identity because I fade so easily into the backdrop of the dominant culture of Canadian society. I am the youngest child of a large, Anglo, middle-class, rural family. My social structures in which I participate relate exclusively to school, music, and church. I value community, an institution that “has always been central to the construction of group and individual identity,”[1] along with family and traditions.
The two most important formative influences in my life are the church and my mother, and both are intimately connected. I was always close with my mother. I shared my sorrows, desires, and successes with her daily. She was my emotional pillar and best friend. In retrospect, I realize that from a young age I constructed my identity around what I thought she expected of me, particularly in terms faith and the social norms of the church (Lord knows, some Christians love to judge)! I always sought her approval. The fear that she might be disappointed in me or reject me was a constant weight. I formed an identity through what Ric Knowles describes as a “performative…constitution of identities or subjectivities through ritual, habitual, or self-conscious behaviours.”[2]
My sense of origin was inextricably bound to my idea of the church. I am part of a tradition that traces all people back to a single person and place. First Adam in Eden, then Eve from his rib, and then came all the rest. Throughout history, people groups from various different cultures, religions, and ethnic backgrounds created elaborate myths and narratives to explain the precise moment when a particular agent (God) converged time and space (over the waters) to create being (Word). Theology aside, the collective spirit associated with shared origins serves as a method of identification among groups with similar beliefs and values. Robert Berman and Elena Makarova conclude that a person’s origins may serve as a “transmitter of collectively shared representations of history across generations.”[3] For me, the church represented a location that tethered me to the collective values of my community. Even as I traveled from my home, the feeling that I originated from that community “remain[ed] static.”[4] The belief in a universal origin filtered down into my personal experience. I have believed in God as far back as I can remember. Even now I feel that I love Him, although not without some complication.
The pressure that origin and community exerts on my identity did not occur to me until Julie Taylor’s Paper Tangos(1998) gave me a language to describe my experience. I feel, like her, that the ruptures and violences are “peeling back the gloss to expose disjunctures that in turn speak to broken links and broken lives.”[5] Three whirlwind weeks at the beginning of 2012 forced me to confront my version of Taylor’s violent ruptures. I took Mom to the hospital because she had a nagging cough, she was short of breath, and she was rapidly losing weight. I was with her in the emergency room when the chest x-rays indicated a large mass in her lung. I will never forget her facial expression as she looked up at the doctor in fear (dear Lord). From that moment, I received more bad news almost daily. The first pulmonary doctor said it was stage II lung cancer (in Your infinite mercy). The second pulmonary doctor said it was stage IVb lung cancer (hear my prayer). The first palliative care doctor said my mother’s life expectancy ranged from two weeks to four months (please, heal my Momma). The second palliative care doctor asked us if we wanted to sign a do not resuscitate order (please, Lord, don’t take her from me). The third palliative care doctor asked us if we wanted to donate some of her organs (Lord, I can’t live without her).
The loss of my mother triggered an intense sense of betrayal and doubt. My experience in the evangelical church led me to assume that suffering and sorrow were the exceptions in a life of joy lived in faith. The loss of my mother, whom I associated so closely with my feelings toward the church and God, put me in conflict with the expectation God (and the promise of Heaven) were the consolation of the faithful. I lost my mom and Heaven in the same moment. These ruptures fractured the static stability derived from my origins and put my identity into flux. Whereas origins may be static, identity fluctuates since it “may be compounded by various other memberships, both chosen (subjective) and imposed (objective).”[6]The tension between origin and identity is most pronounced when a person can choose freely to participate in any membership outside those groups determined by their particular origins. Personal experience heightens this tension because it focuses on the individual as a stand-alone entity outside the collective community. As experience accumulates, self-identity is refashioned to reflect the physical, psychological, and emotional state of the individual at that moment.
Edmonton amateur filmmaker, Nathan Davis, approached me to see if I would consider sharing my story by helping write, shoot, and compose music for a short film. “There was this Time” explores the psychological and emotional effects of death, suffering, and grief in conjunction with my personal engagement with and questioning of faith. The multi-layered narrative structure incorporates disjunctive clips that depict both flashbacks to moments of suffering and the emotional effects of grief. Interjected within these moments are dream-like visions that portray the unfilled anticipation of resurrection and reunion. This layered technique expresses the contradictory emotional states of hope, betrayal, and grief simultaneously.[7] The music adopts this approach by layering four stand-alone themes to convey the simultaneous representation of contradiction within my own identity. Two themes are original works and two are adapted from traditional, evangelical church hymns.
Communal music making plays a vital role in the evangelical church community. In my home church, one of the ushers would post the hymn numbers for that Sunday on an antique board mounted behind the podium. When the worship service began, the congregation opened their “Great Hymns of the Faith” hymnal and made “a joyful noise unto the Lord” with songs such as “Amazing Grace” or “Count your many Blessings.”[8] My early music education was informed by musical traditions in the church, by the church. I learned to read music and sing harmony by following along in the hymnal. Not coincidentally, my mom possessed a beautiful singing voice and often led worship. All of her children inherited her gift. On rare occasions, we would sing a song from the Maranatha chorus book. These songs, what mom called the 7-11 songs,[9] are identical to hymns in harmonic structure; however, to the older generation, choruses represented a significant break from the traditional, doctrinal significance of the hymns. The simple harmonic structure and poetic meaning of both hymns and praise music seeped into my soul and unequivocally influences the type of music I compose. The opening piano theme in the film derives from the introduction to a praise-and-worship song, “My Delight,” that I wrote for my mother before she died. The text for the original tune recalls Proverbs 8:30: “I was daily His delight.”[10] Like so many hymns and chorus texts, my song reiterates the emotional core of the evangelical faith: God’s love is constant regardless of the physical or emotional state of the singer/listener.[11] I originally wrote the song to be played with an upbeat, joyful tempo to reflect the sentiments of the text. In evangelical tradition, Christians are expected to be in a near-constant state of joy because God remains faithful and good despite our circumstances. Sorrows are thought of as interludes that will pass in the rediscovery of joy in the Lord. For the film, I wanted to emphasize the sorrow, to show that pain cannot always be overcome by doctrine. I slowed down the tempo and extended the phrase of the original tune to ironically turn a song that I had written to be a joyful consolation into something that expressed my mourning in the face of so many expectations of joy.
The church generally acknowledges the combination of textual sentiments and congregational song as transformative. Indeed, something powerful and reassuring occurs when a community expresses a shared conviction through singing together in unison. Christopher Small links this phenomenon to his concept of musicking. Small indicates that the act of music does not derive meaning merely from the song, but through the act of singing within a community. For Small, musicking
establishes…a set of relationships, and it is in those relationships that the meaning of the act lies. They are thought to be found not only between those organized sounds…but also between the people taking part…in the performance; and they model…ideal relationships as the participants in the performance imagine them to be: relationships between person and person, between individual and society, between humanity and the natural world and even perhaps the supernatural world.[12]
I chose the two hymns “Come Thou Fount” and “It is Well with My Soul” not only for their doctrinal statements on faith, but also for their ability to rouse the soul and uplift the community in the face of suffering. My church reserved these hymns for special moments; singing them was something of an event (usually a funeral). Robert Robinson composed “Come Thou Fount” in 1753 after his tumultuous conversion to Christianity. The hymn text reflects Christ’s enduring love and mercy, evenfor those who are “prone to wander” or reject the faith.[13] Traditionally, this hymn is sung in a brisk, joyful tempo. I chose the famous first two phrases to situate the juxtaposition between my intense personal grief and the communal acclamations of grace and mercy.[14] The second textual statement is from the fifth verse, which speaks of redemption through God’s grace.[15] My initial grief and anger after losing my mother, along with my subsequent lack of faith in Christ’s “mercy,” is reflected in the slow, somber, and somewhat unsettling arrangement of the original “Nettleton” tune. Those who are familiar with this hymn will recognize that at first, the melody adheres to the original tune up until cadential closure where the melody slips past the tonic to avoid resolution. I juxtaposed the closure of the original tune with the unhinged melodic line of the arrangement to musically portray the rupture in my self-identity, as I question Christ’s enduring love and faithfulness.
The second hymn I arranged, “It is Well with My Soul,” is an American-composed work with text by Horatio G. Spafford (1828-1888) and music by Philip Bliss. Spafford wrote the text while crossing the Atlantic to join his wife after a shipping disaster claimed the lives of his four children. The text depicts the contradiction between the profound grief experienced in loss and the uplifting promise that despite all suffering, “it is well with my soul.” I included the statement of this short phrase to juxtapose the unfulfilled statement of “Come thou Fount” with the hope and expectation that all is, indeed, well with my soul. I chose the most static, dirge-like part of the hymn (the first statement of the refrain is built on repeated notes) that clings to the moment of mournful suspension. I cut the refrain short to undercut the rousing affirmation that completes the chorus. I recorded this theme on a multi-track to recreate the “call-and-answer” phrasing popular in the congregational singing. The experience of participating in, and listening to others sing this particular portion of the hymn is extremely powerful. As the melody rises to the final grand declaration, “it is well with my soul,” there is a communal resolve as the poetic proclamation is fortified by unison voices. In recording a multi-track, I created an illusion of community and therefore destabilized the power of communal resolve. I am a single voice pleading for my soul to be well while I simultaneously portray my resentment in the inability to find consolation in the communal experience of the evangelical tradition.
Evangelical church hymns take part in a form of communal and personal appropriation. The overarching poetic message, coupled with the firm acclamation of multiple voices singing in communion, attempts to create a faith based primarily on the joy of being saved. In other words, the evangelical tradition leaves little room to question and it shortcuts the process of grieving. Well-meaning church members attempt to ease the suffering of experiencing loss with phrases such as “God is faithful” or “He knows best” or “She’s with Jesus now.” When I returned to work ten days after my mom died, my supervisor (with doe-eyes and huge smile) proclaimed that I would not need Kleenexes because my mom is in Heaven. I was irate and extremely hurt. My supervisor implied that my sorrow showed a lack of faith, and she made me feel ashamed for weeping. Evangelical hymns promote this attitude. I cannot reconcile the tension between my intense grief and how I am supposed to feel.
For me, God’s truth is not reflected in hymn text (or the church), but in the deeply personal thoughts I experienced in moments of intense grief. Shortly after mom died, I imagined that she came to me just to say that she is in my heart and I am in her heart, always and forever. This momentary invention of my imagination consoled me more than any “uplifting” hymn could. The dream scenes in the film reflect this tension between the joyful expectation of the church and my desire to grieve. An unaccompanied ethereal tune recorded with heavy reverb accompanies the dream scenes. Although this theme is simply stated, its power becomes more apparent in the conclusion of the film when all four themes overlap. My moment of consolation joins in the tension prompted by the church hymns. The new theme does not resolve the contradiction, but adds to it.
Violences erupt to create more violences. What began as a simple desire to be allowed to grieve turned into an examination the latent ideologies of my church tradition. When I was growing up, it never occurred to me that song choice pointed to a larger historical and cultural framework. Congregational singing is more than a mere community building enterprise because it “embeds an understanding of Christian religious identity within senses of regional, national, ethnic, generational or (trans)denominational belonging.”[16] Why do German hymns like “A Mighty Fortress” fit seamlessly within the Anglo-centric evangelical church? Jonathan Dueck suggests that Western church music is comprised of a pastiche of songs from both Europe and America,[17] and is therefore presented as ahistorical and transcultural. In this way, church music may be appropriated into various different communities and cultures through its continual state of replication and circulation. The evangelical church is situated within the dominant culture, a place of privilege that permits it to absorb anything it deems useful without acknowledging the act of appropriation. Dueck explains that Western church music is “tied to Euro-colonialism and to missions” and creates “unequal power relationships…sometimes to the displacement of local musical traditions.”[18] The dominant culture benefits from the ahistorical and transcultural quality of the tradition because it obscures historical process of consolidating power. Without this appropriation, membership in the dominant culture would appear less like destiny and more like a historical accident—or worse yet—the result of injustice. The hymnal, therefore, represents an eternal emblem of the ahistorical approach of the church, and the cultural appropriation of the congregational song highlights the tension between the long-forgotten interculturality and the hidden reality that this interculturality still exists in the church. In studying my identity, I unknowingly participate in the resistance or subversion of the Other.
The death of my mother forced me to confront and reexamine the external influences that shaped my self-identity. My faith in the church community tarnished every time I was reminded that grieving was only for those who do not trust God. But at the time, I was not sure I did trust God. I felt betrayed, unloved, and cheated. My God stole my best friend, and the only consolation I received was that she is in a heaven I now found it harder to believe in. And yet, I never stopped believing completely in God. I was wrought with contradictory emotions. The film and the score attempt to portray this inner conflict. Two violent ruptures emerged at the same moment, and I am still recovering.
[1] Simon Clark and Steve Garner, White Identities: A Critical Sociological Approach (London: Pluto Press, 2010), 153.
[2] Ric Knowles, Theatre and Interculturalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 4.
[3] Robert Berman and Elena Makarova, “Being George: I am now what I am right here,” (unpublished article, 2013), 1.
[4] Ibid., 6.
[5] Julie Taylor, Paper Tangos (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 69.
[6] Berman and Makarova, “Being George,” 6.
[7] Davis was concerned that portraying the loss of my mother might be too personal and he did not feel comfortable explicitly exposing my experience in that way. Rather, Davis opted to base the death narrative on losing a sibling. For the most part, the other events presented in the film—sickness in the night, driving to the hospital, and seeking comfort through prayer (with and without a rosary)—are all accurate.
[8] Ps. 100:1 (KJV)
[9] 7-11 songs refer to choruses with seven words sung eleven times. Praise songs became more prevalent in my church in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I always preferred the praise-and-worship songs to the hymns, because they appealed to the younger generation. It also helped that praise music incorporated exciting instruments like the electric guitar and drums whereas hymns were strictly accompanied by piano and electric organ.
[10] Prov. 8:30 (KJV)
[11] The words of the chorus are “you are My child, I lift you up, you are My favorite one./ You are My delight, the love of My life.” These lyrics convey the same sentiments found in almost every praise-and-worship song. Even the musical shape and vocal delivery follow the same trends.
[12] Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1998), 13.
[13] For more information on the history of this song, please see Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982), 51-53.
[14] “Come thou fount of every blessing/ tune my heart to sing thy grace./ Streams of mercy never ceasing/ call for songs of loudest praise.”
[15] “O that day when freed from sinning,/ I shall see Thy lovely face;/ Clothed in blood-washed linen,/ How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace.”
[16] Monique Ingalls, Carolyn Landau, and Tom Wagner, eds., “Prelude,” in Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013), 6.
[17] Jonathan Dueck, “Making Borrowed Songs: Mennonite Hymns, Appropriation and Media,” in Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013), 84.
[18] Ibid.
Bibliography
Berman, Robert, and Elena Makarova. “Being George: I Am Now What I Am Right Here.” Unpublished Article (2013).
Clark, Simon, and Steve Garner. White Identities: A Critical Sociological Approach. London: Pluto Press, 2010.
Davis, Nathan. There Was This Time. Short Film, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pB5rrV2ce8.
Dueck, Jonathan. “Making Borrowed Songs: Mennonite Hymns, Appropriation and Media.” In Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience, 83–98. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013.
Ingalls, Monique, Carolyn Landau, and Tom Wagner. “Prelude.” In Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience, 1–14. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013.
Knowles, Ric. Theatre and Interculturalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Osbeck, Kenneth W. 101 Hymn Stories. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1982.
Small, Christopher. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1998.
Taylor, Julie. Paper Tangos. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
