Contemplation on Fai Etaf-enf

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    If you love Coptic hymnology, then this is not for you. If you know this hymn, and love it, then this is not for you. Your own meditation and reflection is more than anyone else can offer you. But if you have ignored hymns, avoided them or (let’s be honest) flat out disliked them, then maybe today will be a first. Submit yourself for the next seven minutes to reading along and hearing (maybe for the first time) what lies underneath the surface of a Coptic hymn.
    The most basic appreciation that we can have for the hymns is the meaning of the words themselves. We can meditate solely on the simple words of Fai Etafenf and appreciate the weight of the Love of Christ in offering Himself on our behalf on the cross. One point that we can meditate on is that the hymn does not say “He who was offered up against His will” but rather “He who offered Himself up.” Christ prayed in Gesthemane for the cup to pass for Him, but in the end submitted Himself to the will of the Father for the good of mankind. If that is enough to chew on for now, then stop reading now and meditate on this while you listen to the hymn.
    If your attention is still wandering, then let us dig a little deeper into the actual hymnology. First let us define a term, “melisma,” that is common to many coptic hymns, meaning “a group of notes sung to one syllable of text.” This is a musical tool used often by classical composers like Handel (remember “Messiah” with the Hallelujah Chorus?) and has been popularized in modern gospel music by artists like Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Why melisma? It emphasizes a certain word or words to allow them to take a position of prominence in a song or hymn. It also allows the composer to create a mood or a feeling using the music; for example, we can listen to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and say “this is happy music” without really knowing what the funny German people are saying.
    In Fai Etafenf we hear the notes ascend, then descend, then ascend, then ascend some more and stay high. I know what you’re thinking “yeah, pretty much like every coptic hymn - it goes up, it goes down, it keeps going, and going - so what?” Well these ups and downs begin to take on some meaning when we pay attention to what is being said for these ups and downs. For example, when we say the word “epshoi” which literally means “up” we actually go up then down and then up again. Why? The author of this hymn is not around to tell us for sure but one contemplation is that Christ offered himself up by first leaving heaven (up), coming down to earth through the incarnation (down) and then offering himself up. We can hear that the lowest point of the hymn is actually during this word “up,” perhaps because of how low Christ had to go in order for him to offer himself up for us.
    When Christ was on the cross He gave up the spirit with the words “it is finished,” which we can connect to the the singing of the word “pistavros” (the cross). First of all, this is the musical climax of the whole hymn, in that it ascends without descending. It is the pinnacle of the hymn, just as it is the pinnacle of His Love for us. It is the end of the intensely melismatic portion of the hymn (the subsequent words are said rather quickly), which musically conveys that in the cross Christ completes the work of "becoming human" through sacrifice.
    To conclude, let us point out a simpler but still connected hymnological point - why do we sing to Christ 10 times a day “Thine is the power, glory and blessing” on a week where we know He will be crucified? The answer is in the paradox of the cross, that the ultimate perfection comes through weakness. We do not always see what God sees, and it may take us a lifetime to begin to truly understand. He sees the beauty of the flower in a completely different way, that maybe a botanist may partially understand more than we do. May we pray for God to increase our understanding so that we may have more of an appreciation for all the beautiful things He has created for us. 

uncertainty and #thedress

Last week's social media was dominated by a discussion of a dress that some people saw as white and gold, while others saw the same dress as blue and black. After the partisan fights have been fought and the dust has settled, we are left with some people incredulous that this got any attention at all, and others entranced by how interesting it is that something so simple can cause such a controversy. I find myself in the latter group. I don't think this debate is at all about the colors of a dress but rather how two people can see things differently and have both of them be absolutely correct ... sort of.

http://www.bgr.in/news/thedress-breaks-the-internet-which-color-is-it-really/

First of all, let me say I personally see #thedress as white and gold but I am well aware it is blue and black in real life. I have (don't judge me) tried to stare at the picture long enough to convince myself that I can't force my brain to see it as blue and black. This is different from other optical illusions which can only be seen one way at a time, but with some mental gymnastics the brain can be convinced to see it the other way. Therefore, there are two kinds of illusions: 1) fixed illusions that your brain is hard wired to see only one way, and 2) flexible illusions that you can only see one way at a time but you can bounce back and forth from one illusion to another. How does one even know that there is an illusion in the first place and then subsequently discern which type of illusion it is? Is it through someone else's advice or based on our own experience?

Most of us would not figure out that there is an illusion until someone points it out. One person looking at #thedress and saying it is white and gold is not a controversy. Even if that person later finds out the dress is really blue and black they will just say "oh it must have been the lighting or the exposure or the way the photo was processed." It's not until the second person looks at the same picture and says they see it differently that the first person questions her sanity and wonders "is the other person right, am I seeing things?" So the first person then starts to investigate and see why there is a discrepancy and figure out if there is an underlying truth. 

In our spiritual lives, there are many illusions. Some of these are fixed and others are flexible, but we as Christians believe that there is Truth behind every illusion. We do not claim to see this Truth perfectly, but rather see it dimly, for now, until we see our Creator face to Face (1 Cor 13:12). Until then we rely on the Wisdom of the Church to point out these illusions to us so that we can go out and see the Truth for ourselves. We are not (or at least should not) be asked to follow blindly. We should never hear "I don't care what you think you see, that dress is blue and black!" Rather, we should be told "I know that dress looks white and gold - I see it with my physical eyes the same way that you do - but I can tell you that behind the illusion there is a different reality." 

The most common complaint against Christianity is "how can you be so smug and sure that you are so right?" The irony is that true Christianity is apophatic, meaning we are quite comfortable saying that, while we are in this world, we will never know everything there is to know. What we do say we know about our relationship to God is experiential, reproducible and paradoxical. It is experiential in that In order to "see it" one must first try to experience God. If we do not seek a personal relationship with Him then there is no Christianity. It is reproducible in that God has promised that anyone who truly seeks Him will find Him, and this has been my personal experience that the genuine seeker of God is not disappointed. Finally it is paradoxical in that the Way does not always (in fact often does not) make rational sense. We become fools so that we may become wise. We accept blindness so we can see. Finally, we choose to die with Christ so we can live. If we have nobody to tell us there is a paradox then how are we to figure that out on our own? 

I love this dress controversy because it reinforces my discomfort with any absolute certainty. Anyone who appears to be sure of anything I think should be suspect even if you happen to agree with their point of view. By no means am I saying we should not have conviction. I am saying that we should say "I am sure that I see the dress as white and gold" and be open to correction if others have a different interpretation. If after hearing the other viewpoint we still feel the same way then we can go on in our conviction and maybe even a little more convinced, having weathered another storm of doubt. In the end, all will be made clear, and "the last will be first and the first will be last" (Matthew 20:16).