“Oh friendless world, to you is the song!
All Heaven’s joy to you may belong!
You who are lonely, laden, forlorn —
Now unto you, A Savior is born!”
I’m chasing a feeling, really.
As I write, I’m in the lounge space of St. Thomas Aquinas Church and Catholic Student Center in Ames, Iowa. In the past week, I’ve been in Kearney and Omaha in Nebraska and Cincinnati. Tomorrow, I’m off to Kansas City and next week, Milwaukee. Before 2025 arrives, Chicago, Green Bay, Boston, New York. I’m fine with this — it’s my mission to live on the road, and it’s a privileged life. But, I’m also tired, missing my own bed, wondering where I am and how I got here (literally and existentially), a little under the weather and lonely.
The feeling I desire is in there somewhere, in my memory: sacred stillness and joyful hope in the midst of perpetual movement and low-level malaise.
***
I had auditioned for the choir because I needed an active, creative outlet to combat the trudge of philosophy studies — and, in spite of never singing choral music before, my mind and heart were suddenly and ceaselessly filled with organized song.
While rehearsing for the annual “Lessons and Carols,” which both opened our Advent season and closed the fall semester at Loyola University Chicago, we ran through “Carol of Joy,” which would serve as the musical apex of our service.
Our director, Dr. Kirsten Hedegaard — one of the most profound educators I’d ever met — paused us in our practice.
“I’m not sure you understand what we’re singing here,” she said with some urgency in her voice.
And she read:
Oh friendless world, to you is the song!
All Heaven’s joy to you may belong!
You who are lonely, laden, forlorn —
To you, A Savior is born!
The unsung words settled in our ears and hearts. “The words you are singing have the power to heal, to welcome, to inspire, to remind. So — sing it like you mean it.”
And we sang again, transformed — the way Sr. Mary Clarence helped transform the momentarily uninspired choir in “Sister Act 2” — and there it was: that feeling. That feeling that everything would be ok, that we needn’t feel alone or burdened any longer, that this moment of Christ’s arrival could release us from our fear.
The night of the service, the choir circled the congregation in the dark chapel, a halo of sound helping us settle into the welcome waiting of Advent. Handbells rang out at random like a windchime, causing gentle jolts of awareness in each of us as we chanted ancient words.
And when the performance came, there was no worry in us — the words had become true words. Jesus was, again, reminding us that he was with us.
***
And so here I am today, in a not-so-far away but still unfamiliar place, grateful for the memory of it — the memory of those words with that choir on that December night. The feeling can return, and does, when we allow it to enter us again. I can bring even my lonely, laden, forlorn self into this Advent season and witness the coming of Christ.
