beginning to hear the song

it is dark, and a bit cold this march-going-into-april saturday night on a hill called slane, on the banks of the river boyne. in the darknesss patrick strikes the steel to flint and ignites the new fire, from which he lights a large candle. holding it high enough to be seen on all the irish hills around, he sings, "the light of christ." walking into the crowd, some of whom have gathered to see if he would really challenge the high king of tara with claims of a higher king, he sings "the light of christ" again, a note higher. once more he will sing "the light of christ," another note higher, and share the fire with all the candles brought by the crowd. a young deacon at his side starts the lessons of the vigil, singing, "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. and the earth was without form, and void, and the spirit of the lord hovered on the face of the water. and god separated the darkness from the light, and god saw that the light was good, and the evening and the morning were the first day."

in the creed we sing, "we believe in one god, . . . creator of heaven and earth." the greek word we english as creator is poeton, poet, and of course greek poems are sung. so we believe that god the father almighty sang the heaven and the earth into being. and in most times and places the story of god that we call the bible has been sung as well. before there were printed texts, the melodies made the words more easily memorable. still today in the orthodox church there simple tones to which to sing the words; for the major feasts there are special tones.

after hearing scripture sung, any other way of hearing it is literally prosaic. most of the church sings the holy story, whether in coptic or syriac or greek or latin, and even in english. can you read the fortieth chapter of isaiah, "comfort ye my people," without hearing handle's melody?

if scripture is a song, what kind of song is it? a look at the huge red volume with which i introduced this essay would suggest it is not a simple song. rather it is more like a great wagnerian opera whose many themes weave together or sing against each other to make the magnum opus. the whole work may look complicated, but there are simple melodies within it, melodies that repeat and vary throughout. we have already heard one of the melodies, the melody of light. if we are going to think of the bible as a huge ring of operatic music, it will be especially important to pay attention to the overture, in which we may expect to hear all of the important melodies introduced. the overture is the first eleven chapters of genesis.