Thought for the Week: Joyful tidings
John Anderson reflects on joyful tidings
In a broadcast Good Friday meditation given by an ex-colleague I was surprised to hear him speaking about the way in which listening to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos had been the crucial factor in his recovery from a near fatal heart attack. He said that whenever he listened to them, on the Sony Walkman his son had given him, at whatever time of day or night, he could feel the atoms in his body rearranging themselves in response to the glorious order and freedom of Bach’s music. From the moment he began to listen to them his healing had begun…
Jo Farrow, 1994
Quaker faith & practice 21.38
A Friend had just read out the passage from Quaker faith & practice extolling the healing properties of music when recovering from a heart attack. I was not so much overwhelmed by a wave as threatened by an inexorable tide of grief: for I also have clapped out coronary arteries and have suffered heart attacks but, as someone profoundly deaf, music has long since ceased to be any solace to me. This kind of response to being suddenly reminded of a lack or loss is absolutely to be expected but, on this occasion, it was also a shot across the bows of my public persona.
Every April we hear (or don’t in my case) rhapsodic ministry or afterword on the beauty of snowdrops, crocuses and, yes, daffodils. I have speculated on the effect these effusions might have on someone completely blind (as indeed was a former member of our Meeting). It is not difficult to imagine many other circumstances where there is a disparity between the delight being expressed and the manner in which it is received.
We may have joy that we wish to share but also sadness which, much of the time, we would rather keep to ourselves. I remind myself that if I celebrate publicly the scholastic achievements of an offspring there may well be in my audience someone whose son is in the throes of heroin addiction; celebrating the ‘blessings’ of a marriage, say, or children and grandchildren as they come along, could be to rub salt in the wounds of others not so ‘blessed’. The same could be said of many other joyful events – successfully overcoming a life-threatening disease or the achievement of a lifelong ambition.
To put it crudely, most if not all such expressed joy is in its nature competitive: for success and gain can only be measured against a backdrop of some measure of failure or loss; recovery from an illness from which everybody recovers is hardly a noteworthy event. To put it another way – while we may think we rejoice with those who rejoice with us, sometimes, if not often, it may well be with those who are inwardly weeping.
If I have joyful tidings it is perfectly normal to want to tell the world. I need to remember, when I am bursting to share happy news, to think twice about the painful impact that sharing it might, possibly, have on someone else and, at least, to moderate my language and watch my delivery! It would be, of course, a policy of perfection (and a silly poor perfection at that) only to make such announcements if I was fully aware of all the circumstances in the lives of everyone present – not a likely circumstance in itself I think!
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