I was taken with a story in the media today about the release tomorrow of a new film about the Belgian singing nun, Jeannine Deckers, who became an substance-addicted ex-nun and who eventually committed suicide in 1985. Everyone knows her most famous song when they hear it: Dominique. The story is tragic and this will be one film without a happy ending. If you want to get depressed, this is one for you. I’ll probably give it a miss.
But, driving south through some beautiful countryside this morning, my thoughts turned to other singing nuns. Julie Andrews appeared in my head, climbing every mountain, doh-ing a deer and refusing to go away. I nearly crashed when I couldn’t get ‘How do you solve a problem like Sharia’ out of my mind.
The I got onto Whoopie Goldberg in the Sister Act films and heard myself singing gospel songs on the A22 to Felbridge. How sad is that?
But, eventually I got to the pinnacle of the singing nuns hierarchy – although it doesn’t actually involve a nun. (OK, my mind runs in peculiar threads…) It is the scene in the fantastic film Airplane when the woman with the guitar comes through to the back of the plane where the young girl on a drip is lying in bed. The woman sings about life and joy and the unity of humanity while swinging her guitar and ripping out the child’s drip. Everyone is enjoying the song, oblivious to the dying child. Watch the clip below – very funny. (And, in case you are sensitive, it is (a) fiction and (b) the child didn’t die.)
I think the reason this one came to mind (and wouldn’t go away again for hours) is that it made me think about the church. (Great link, eh?) I sometimes worry that we get so engrossed in the ‘song’ that we simply don’t see (a) the pain around us and (b) how stupid we look singing our songs while being apparently ignorant of what is going on around us. Or is that unfair?
Perhaps it is unfair. I know too many churches where the commitment of clergy and people to the communities around them and the needs of the people within them is amazing. I have churches in my Episcopal Area where ordinary people (with extraordinarily good clergy leadership) get stuck in to the often thankless task of serving people at enormous personal cost. Why do they do it? Because, as Paul put it, ‘the love of Christ compels me’.
But this shouldn’t obscure the challenge of the prophets. Amos tells us not to sing songs of worship to a God of generosity and mercy if we then live (or order our society) in such a way that grace and mercy are denied. Such songs stink and God is not amused – so says Amos. And, it seems to me, the church has some way to go in understanding the need to reflect the generosity and mercy of God – within the church itself, let alone outside of it.
And now Julie Andrews is back in my brain singing ‘So long, farewell’…
April 30, 2009 at 8:50 am
Hi Nick
I found your piece really interesting. I’m a theatre education writer researching and writing an Education Pack for the new stage production of Sister Act in the West End. I’m doing a page on Singing Nuns: I’ve covered Hildegard von Bingen, Jeanne Deckers and Maria von Tapp but I’d forgotten the scene from Airplane. Having watched Sister Act in rehearsal I have to say, there is something extraordiary uplifting about praise in song (and I’m a practising Quaker!)
April 30, 2009 at 12:38 pm
someone once told me that for a lot of people if you end on a good hymn no one remembers the rest of the service. Go out on a high and satisfy everyone . I intend to be carried out of church to my burial to Of Fortuna from Carmina Burana, do you think it will make people forget what a mess I made of the rest of my life. But burial songs must be a whole nother post
April 30, 2009 at 2:54 pm
No, I don’t think it is unfair to say the church can sometimes be so pre-occupied with itself, that it forgets what’s going on just outside its doors.
I felt slightly uncomfortable at our recent APCM where everyone was happily congratulating each other on jobs well done. I thought o.k. but we need to be aware of the intense misery that can be encountered almost on our doorstep.
I had the feeling that being in church that evening was rather like being in a lifeboat – but the purpose of a lifeboat is to launch into dangerous waters to rescue others! (not stay safely in harbour).
Anne.