(H)Ear-ring

I listened to a Spanish Renaissance Vespers this evening, courtesy of YouTube. Such gorgeous sound, both Latin words and Hispanic music, rolling and rolling. I close my eyes and just want to be in that same space of hearing, to become my ear, to be filled with that sound, that voice, to become what I hear.

If I ever had to make the awful choice between losing my sight or losing my hearing, I would let vision go and keep my ears open.

I have a vivid memory of one Sunday in August when I was maybe ten. We arrived late to the High Mass, so they sent us upstairs to sit in the back of the loft, behind the choir. The church was filled with people, the chanting of the priests, the choir's responses, the candlewax and the incense, the sweat, the heat, the boredom, the sunshine. And at one point, at Communion, I think, they sang Mozart's Ave Verum. Right in front of me. It wasn't the choir of King's College, but I think that was the first time I was ever transfixed.

Reminds me of Thomas Merton's words about chanting the Office:

So the bells rang and we opened the antiphoners
And the wrens and the larks flew up out of the pages.
Our thoughts became lambs. Our hearts swam like seas.

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