If I were to confess to you truly, what kept me in the church as long as I was, there were two things. The religious experience I got from some pieces of choral music, and the participation in a genuine interest to improve the lives of all persons, and each person, the mutual search and struggle for a better life, society, and world. Did I wander astray because those two things have disappeared, or weakend? Not at all. And I am still very much in danger of being drawn back by those very things. I have just gone off into the wider world to see if I could find them (better expressed?) elsewhere. That is yet to be determined.
But, as I sit listening to Arvo Part's Litany, I am drawn back to that feeling, that religious experience of music. It is religious music that has kept me sane, I think. The psalmist, and thus the choral composer, guiding me down to the depths of my woe, and then lifting me up to hope once again. Always, the darkest depths, and then, the redirection to hope renewed. Alegri's Miserere, for example, or any requiem. (I was especially fond of Faure, Brahms, to a certain extent Mozart, although that was just good intense study music, rather than comfort to my woes, and even Rutter). Then, you might ask me, "but what about the line which says, "In sin hath my mother concieved me"? Does this not rouse your indignation as a woman?" Yes, of course, (which is why I prefer it in latin), but then, in some ways, how different is that from "Man that is born of woman, has but a short time to live, and is full of misery", or "All life is suffering"? To me, they are trying to express the same sentiment, however poorly worded. And yes, all life is suffering. And so, I suffer, and weep, and bemoan my sad existence, and hope for a better one, in this life, if that is indeed all that there is to us, or in some perfection beyond this reality, if we poor humans may taste of such a thing.