My Allelujah Chorus

On a lovely Easter morning, my family spent an hour in my husband's childhood church, listening to a minister who looked quite a bit like Christopher Walken. Despite that, he still had plenty of charm and smarts about him. It was a very nice service--good music, good messages and a series of congregational responses that were oddly reminiscent of my Catholic upbringing. I liked nearly everything about it.

. . . but I did struggle a bit with the minister's message to the children. In it, he mentioned the item they'd tucked away in a chest six weeks earlier. Completely clueless while he cracked open a series of nested eggs, I kept wondering what they'd tucked away on some dreary February morning. Candy?! Cigarettes?! An issue of Rolling Stone?! Eventually, the drum roll. And then--Voila'! (yes, I finally figured out how to spell that word!). Inside that last egg? Nothing but air.

I wasn't disappointed by the air so much as I was by the word that again was allowed to float up from it--"Allelujah!"

Despite 50 years on this earth--most of them spent in near-regular attendance at a church--until two years ago, I had never heard of this practice of putting away our allelujahs during Lent. As much as I respect the good folks who practice this omission, I cannot honor the practice myself.

Frankly, there is too much beauty, too much joy, in this world for me to ignore it. I can nary withhold a spontaneous "allelujah" any more than I can manage to stay silent during the chorus of "YMCA." Some things reside deep in our bones.

Joy, for instance.

Perhaps I'm a spiritual infant, still enjoying the simple swaddling cloth of my understanding. But I can't imagine a God that would purse His or Her lips at the sound of love seeping from a person's mouth.

Had I taken an allelujah-free pledge this past Lent, silence would have marked some otherwise terrific moments. Like the first time I heard the Carolina Wren, returned from a long winter's vacation. Or the time when Eric introduced me to the irresistible beats and rhythm of "Tightrope." Had I been forced into silence, my inner "allelujahs" would have cried out in protest, stifled as my East High Trivia team pulled off a victory, thanks to someone's obscure knowledge about the "Good Times" cast. And I'm pretty sure I would have suffered an embolism had I not been able to laugh when a group of students and I relished a rotten pun.

True, I've got infinite areas for self improvement, but I believe that God is glad for the laughter and joy that regularly seep from me. They are a part of me. Three hundred and sixty five days a year.

And, for that, I say Allelujah!