Wednesday, January 19, 2011

worst sound EVER...

a church full of old and middle-aged women belting their heart out on the refrains of "Be not afraid" and "Here I am Lord."
Even if I didn't dislike those songs in particular, the sound of 100+ old ladies singing as loud as they can is pretty awful...

(It's funny how the sound is imprinted in my memory. Even at this moment I can recall in detail how it sounded. I literally cringed at the swell of singing that occured at the onset of those refrains. Maybe it was just one person who was singing loudly in particularly, but still...*shudder.* It was like...yelling. or croaking.)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

it seems to me that "women of a certain age" have a couple things going on. One is that there is a certain assertiveness about their place. As their children get older and if their Christian identity is not really strong, women can feel a loss of significance and then become over-aggressive in situations where they can be in the limelight in order to compensate. Perhaps this assertion would be offensive to some people, but it is my personal observation...
It can also happen that when they feel they are making a point, ANYONE can become a little unruly.
And because of the way women's brains are structured, when they remember things, they often re-experience the feelings associated with the thing they are remembering. This causes an emotional rush; a deep feeling that can manifest itself in physical expressions. So all these factors can lend themselves to an out of control expression. This is not to excuse the aggression, but helps to see why being rooted in one's Christian identity is so important both for the significance it gives to our self understanding and also that authentic Christian practice may bear the fruit of virtue in our life.

Anonymous said...

so it's really true... women are more emotional than men?? =)

Anonymous said...

Fr.G, is that you in the first comment? lol

Mara Joy said...

hmmm...do you think you've EVER read the line "Perhaps this assertion would be offensive to some people, but it is my personal observation..." (or similar) in certain parish publications before?