I Haven't Told You What I Didn't Hear

My previous blog Rachel EM in JerusalEM was a way of communicating my experience traveling in the Holy Land with friends and family. Though I no longer manage that blog, I still have so many more stories to share. There is so much you haven't heard. Perhaps this is the moment to share this, which came to mind today.


St. Anne's Basilica is a cathedral in East Jerusalem, inside the Old City, that lies adjacent to the ancient "pool of Bethesda" mentioned in the New Testament. Built to honor Mary's mother (Christ's grandmother,) it is a crusader era church without its trimmings, essentially down to bare-bones architecture.

I remember it as the best place I sang in Jerusalem; this was the chapel with the best acoustics.

Whenever my study group toured a cathedral my teacher directed my class of 40 students to sing a familiar hymn of our faith called "I am a child of god." I was grateful that my teacher did this, because I dearly love to sing and because there is much to be gained from singing a hymn with a group of friends. However, when you see over 50 cathedrals in a month, the novelty of singing the same hymn over and over can begin to wear for a few people and the song may be sung a little more slowly, a little more off-key, and a little less wholeheartedly.

Hopefully you can imagine the cacophany of a large group half-heartedly singing an off-key hymn at dirge pace, especially in a cathedral with lofty stone ceilings and no tapestries on the walls to absorb the sound. Echoes tend to blend together and it isn't pretty. Perhaps I was more sensitive to the noise that day; my patience for it felt exceptionally thin.

I can't explain why I lingered in the knave as 98% of my class had already abandoned the building to begin wandering the pool of Bethesda. But I remained inside for a good two minutes in silence, leaning against a pillar near the front and thinking about how much work it must have been for crusaders to quarry the limestone, square it off, polish it, and place each stone so carefully. As I pondered the soldier's devotion I was approached by Tasha Antoniak, a friend with a gift for playing complex piano solos.

"Great acoustics, aren't they?" she asked, gesturing toward the ceiling with her eyes.
My whispered response was just one syllable. "Yes."
"Your clear voice would sound lovely here," she murmured. "Will you sing?"

I'll feel the effect of her words until the day I die. Will you sing? Her question seemed to beckon me to remembering the glories of the eternal; a personal invitation to express my appreciation for the goodness of god. As if an angel, knowing what I felt in my heart, asked if I would but open my mouth to communicate in the surest way a man can-- with song. Will you sing? I felt then that I must choose to sing for the rest of my life; how can I keep from singing? Her stare lingering in my thoughts, Tasha heard me stammer the words, "all right." What she didn't hear was the call to attention her words had made me feel.

Knowing the echo the vaulted ceilings were going to give, I planned to choose something haunting that would spin in the basilica between phrases. Settling on "O Come O Come Immanuel," I opened my mouth to sing my favorite verse

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the Law
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

and though I've had the song memorized since high school I for some reason couldn't recall the words. Instead I used the more familar first verse, and in hindsight I find that it was more appropriate.

At this point there were only a handful of people in the chapel, perhaps six, and I was a bit self conscious about singing a solo. What if my pitch droops or I choke? Nevertheless I took a breath and chanted in prayer

O come, O come, Immanuel!
Come ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Rather than end on a lower note, I took the more dramatic option of an ascending crescendo. Gratefully an angel guided my voice to the rafters and a pure soprano tone reverberated for a bit. Tasha hugged me and went outside; I followed her into warm sunshine but remained slightly apart from the group, not feeling particularly social.

Being inside Jerusalem and singing that song was a moment I shall never forget because the words I sang were not the words I heard as I sang them. I heard words of a mourning Israel, held captive by their grief until a time to come when they would shout their rejoicings; the time when their God would be with them. Immanuel comes from two Hebrew words: "El," which means God, and "Im-ma-nu," which means 'with us'. Together Immanuel means "with us is God."

The words I didn't audibly hear testified to me of the unbreakable faith of the Jews; that a time to rejoice is approaching, for God will be with them--and that he is coming.

I have since learned that the song "O Come O Come Immanuel" was written in the 12th century and is a crusader hymn. So when I consider my experience in St. Anne's, built around the same time the song was written, I smile and think how appropriate.