Approaching the Mystery of Being
Or "Why It's Fun to Dance at Weddings"
Annie Dillard once wrote a piece about guitar music at Mass, in which she defended it, using the reasoning, “Well, there’s no surefire way of reaching God, so why get mad at ways that are lame and insipid?”
Not the best reasoning, if you think about it.
Back when I was foolish enough to think that the Super Catholic Thing was something other than an expression of neurotic pathology, I got caught up in the Liturgy Wars. For those of you who aren’t Catholic, there are two modes of approaching God in public Catholic worship, one of which looks like this …
… and one that looks like this …
Can you find God in either place? Of course you can. You can find God everywhere.
But … it’s harder in an abandoned shopping mall. And it’s harder when the music is awful.
I once (foolishly, again) took a class on Religion at Webster University. The teacher asked the students if music brought them closer to God. “Oh yes!” they all exclaimed.
“Any kind of music?” he asked.
“Yes!” they chanted. “Any kind of music!”
I turned to the dark-haired 20-year-old sitting next to me. “What about rap music? What about Sir Mix-a-Lot’s ‘Baby Got Back’? Would that music bring you closer to God?”
“Oh yes!” he chirped, in all seriousness, his eyes glossing over with that Shiny Happy People look. “Even ‘Baby Got Back’!”
I am not making this up. That really happened.
… but, I mean, who am I to judge? In the words of the immortal Annie Dillard, “It’s hard to get to God, so why should we reject out-of-tune not-quite-folk-songs played on a guitar and sung in a weak falsetto by an eager young Catholic Church Lady in a denim jumper?”
But … in a way, she has a point. I mean, obviously she doesn’t - but if you squint, you can sort of see what she might be saying if she knew what the hell she was talking about. What she might be saying (and she’d be right at saying this) is that if your music, art or ritual were honestly an attempt at approaching the Mystery of Being, then any attempt would be laudable, even if not fully successful. If, on the other hand, your music, art or ritual is just an exercise in a kind of spiritual onanism (as it is in many Catholic Masses), then you won’t reach what you’re not reaching for.
Take weddings.
Weddings are ridiculous.
But they usually get what they are reaching for. They usually communicate the Mystery of Being - the awe of a love lasting even beyond this life.
Karen and I, on our anniversary on Saturday, went to the wedding of Emily, our daughter Kerry’s best friend. It was a really fun wedding - and it did what the Liturgy Wars all claim the Church won’t do and what Annie Dillard claims bad shopping-mall-inspired Mass music always does. It got us to - and even somewhat embodied - the Mystery of Being.
You had all the staple rituals …
The overpriced and somewhat cheesy venue
Bridesmaids and groomsmen walking down the aisle two-by-two
Everyone standing when the bride entered
The friend of the bride and groom officiating - some goofball with a mail order “ordination”
The ritual of waiting around outside until the room was switched from sanctuary to banquet hall
Free booze - and diet soda!
Wedding food - with the bride and groom first in the buffet line (but, for some reason, at this wedding there was no mostaccioli, which is de rigueur at St. Louis weddings, so much so that the absence of which is cause for annulment, should the archdiocesan tribunal get involved)
A toast by the somewhat inebriated and ill-prepared best man, with lots of bro-jokes thrown in and his buddies shouting frat boy encouragement from the audience
A much better toast by the maid of honor, reading verbatim from a sheet of paper
A great ad-libbed toast by the father of the bride. The money quote: “You think you’re marrying someone who will be with you for the rest of your life. But you’re really marrying someone you can’t live without. I know that from my own experience.”
Dancing like fools - in a good way - to the DJ’s music - late into the evening
As I told my friend Jordan the next day, “It was a lot of fun! There's something so human and normal about weddings, with all the silliness of mini-traditions undergirding something beautiful and holy. And then we all join in the dance!”
So, Annie Dillard and Sir Mix-a-Lot aside, the Mystery of Being is still there - and we approach it (and we approach Him) as we stumble along, the work of our worship awkwardly echoing the work of the cosmos that surrounds us.
And where you find love, there you find God.