I keep trying to get out....

A few years back, a couple of cousins of mine were having dinner with one of their nephews, who works in the government.  They complained about how local school boards at the time were trying to get rid of the word 'Christmas' from the holiday pageants, and they also vented mightily on how disappointed they were in the trustees.  Their nephew spoke up and told them that it was an election year for the trustees, so why don't they use their vote to try and elect trustees who will support their stance?  He gave them a simple, practical suggestion:  Write to the candidates and say 'What is your stance on the wording of the midwinter holidays?' or words to that effect.  Ask the question but give them no hint as to the answer you want to hear.  Make them make a choice, take a stance in their answer (assuming they sent one) and then you will know which one to vote for.

But the Uncles hummed and hawed and found reasons not to do so.  It infuriated the nephew.  They'd rather complain than to try and do something, even something trivial, to fix the situation they were complaining about.

The other day someone invited me to join a group on Facebook entitled "Keep Your Hands Off Our Beloved Carols and Hymns."  Against my better judgement, I agreed to join.  I have been in the group for less than twenty four hours, and I have already annoyed people.  I want to do something about the situation, but they, like my cousins, just want to complain.

My problem is that I have joined such groups before, and they very quickly go down a rabbit hole. Just endless complaints, no sense of building something new, and a constant invocation of no one in particular who should do something, as in "They ought to do something."  But this is the Church.  There is no they, only us.  This blog started out as an effort to discuss Church music and to try and find ways to improve it.  In that, this blog was an unmitigated failure. I have by now largely abandoned it, posting only every month or so, and seldom discuss music any longer.  Why?  Simply put, there doesn't seem to be much point.  I continue my efforts at my church, but discussing the matter with people who'd rather just complain is a waste.

I put in a suggestion or two at this new FB group that perhaps we may wish to discuss practical measures that may be taken.  I posted links to several websites such as CPDL and IMSLP and Musica Sacra that publish traditional music and make it available for download free of charge.  I mention that there have been times when I, as a cantor, had no desire to sing anything in the hymnbooks, or I found nothing suitable in the parish hymnal, so I would photocopy some public domain hymns from older hymnals or simply print something off the web and hand those out to the congregation.  I got a pat on the back from someone, but no further suggestions.

And no one here seems to be interested in coming up with practical and workable suggestions as to how the issues in church music may be improved.  They are there to vent- and to vent stupidly, I might add- with people of a like mind.  That never ends well.  Negativity feeds negativity.  it crowds out hope and any other positive feelings.  We end up pouring nothing but hate on the works we don't like and even more hate on the strawmen we see behind these changes.

It might be useful if we could construct some arguments capable of persuading those who are in the middle, but they don't seem to be terribly interested in that.  Arguing in an echo chamber has that effect as well.  I pointed out to someone on the site that her statement of 'I don't like the new stuff, we should get rid of it,' is no more or less valid than ' I like it, we should keep it.'  As an argument it will get you nowhere in a hurry, but they accused me of being an infiltrator or something to their little group..  I tried mentioning some authorities and authoritative documents such as Tra La Solicitudine but that fell on deaf ears, as seemingly none of them had ever heard of it, and I doubt they would like what the document has to say about congregational singing in general.

There are resources out there that can allow you to expand the music program at the parishes, but no one is interested in that.  There are ways to argue that your point is the right one, and to practice how to persuade others, but no one is interested in that.  Complaining is easy, requires little effort, costs nothing.  Trying to do something about it- well, that's another matter entirely.