Hymns in Periodical Literature
Smith, William S. "Why Do People Sing?" Worship 86, no. 5 (September 2012) 419 436.William Smith considers the appropriateness of singing lament in worship, a topic that has been widely discussed over the past twenty five years, particularly in the wake of 9/11. I respectfully disagree with his conclusion that lament should not be sung because he only explores the biblical basis for his argument, ignoring tradition, reason, and experience.Smith begins by stating that "[m]ost frequently people in the Bible sing in response to what they perceive to be divine activity on their behalf (420) Often this divine activity is seen as "[perception of God's favor" which "leads to joy, and joy to song" (420) Therefore, "the Lord, acting in history, gives reason, occasion, for singing" (420) These occasions for singing often occur in worship and Smith states that "[j]oyful worship requires joyful song" (422).Liturgy, however, needs a balance of both joy and lament. As Don Saliers points out, when this balance is not kept, worship is not honest, and we are dishonest with God and each other Worship Come to Its Senses, 48) Too often our liturgy does not allow space for the difficult work of lament, confession, and forgiveness, allowing for what Saliers describes as "a great gulf between our liturgies and our lives" (Saliers, 58) This work is daunting because it "requires hearing and receiving the truth about ourselves and the world" (Saliers, 56) Sometimes the truth is hard to hear, and it is easier to avoid it by singing joyful songs and ignoring the injustices of the suffering and oppressed in the world. Just as Smith wants joyful songs for joyful worship, we also need lamenting songs for lamenting worship to help us face hard truths.In the section "Sorrow does not sing," Smith disagrees with Paul Westermeyer "[s]orrow also inevitably breaks into song" when he says "[a]ny song, however, will have to wait. Song can no more carry this kind of emotional freight than can speech" (428) Smith contends, instead, that when things go wrong people pray and weep rather than sing (428 29) He goes on to argue that "[s]inging requires of us volition and control; grief renders people passive and out of control" (429) To claim that we cannot sing in our grief because we might not be fully in control of our emotions seems to be an attempt to take the messiness out worship. In worship we bring the totality of ourselves before God, and that includes every emotion and aspect of our lives, no matter how messy they may be.I find it ironic that Smith calls his section "Sorrow does not sing," as it echoes W.E.B. DuBois' 1903 essay on the spirituals "Of the Sorrow Songs." The spirituals are one of the most powerful examples we have of sung lament, born out of crushing human experience. As James Cone writes, DuBois called the spirituals "sorrow songs, because they were 'the music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways'" The Spirituals and the Blues, 13) Clearly, sorrow did sing, not only for those who endured slavery, but for those who continued to endure the prejudice of racism and segregation.In the section "'Lament' is not 'song'" Smith claims "[t]he link that we have discovered between song and joy inclines us to think that a 'lament' psalm would never be sung" (429) After arguing that lament psalms were not historically sung, Smith tries to maintain a clear dichotomy between song/joy and lament/grief which I strongly disagree with (430 31) While Smith argues for an either/or paradigm, I would argue for both/and. Saliers points to Gail Ramshaw who reminds us that praise and lament are inextricably intertwined: "Praise opens the door for lament, lament always turns back to praise" (Saliers, 56) Walter Brueggemann also offers the biblical insight that in order to move to new beginnings we must first embrace endings, which often include a mix of lament and joy: "The riddle and insight of biblical faith is the awareness that only anguish leads to life, only grieving leads to joy, and only embraced endings permit new beginnings" (The Prophetic Imagination, 56)