In small-town Ontario, it’s almost impossible not to grow up religious. In keeping with this eventuality, my parents hauled me (and, once they came along, my sisters) every Sunday through the doors of the Anglican church around the corner from our house.
I spent the first five years of my Christian life playing with xylophones in the nursery, the fiery Mrs. P from Scotland (knitter of the best socks around) my keeper under the eyes of God. From there I moved on to Sunday school, taught by my dad for a number of years, and around 14 was deemed fit to sit through the entire adult service. Hurrah.
I liked it, actually—and my favourite part was the songs. They always had been. When we were little my dad would bounce us to the beat on his knee, pretending to almost drop us in time with the rhythm. Our minister was a genius for picking catchy tunes and our entire congregation (at least 100 people) would belt it out at the top of our collective lungs. Some of the older ladies, who sounded like professionals to my untrained ears, would harmonize at certain points of particular songs. By unspoken agreement they marked out their own minute in the spotlight and stuck to it. To this day, certain songs sound incomplete without a key change in the third pew on the left, or a few extra notes added in from the seat at the very back.
At 15, I was singing these songs and reading the Bible cover to cover and trying really hard to pay attention to the whole sermon. Religion provided a framework through which to experience life, something I needed at the time. But I had always found the Bible-as-God’s-Word pretty hard to swallow. Turns out this is a crucial clause in the Christian contract. At 18 I was losing faith in the church; finally, my university encounter with philosophy killed what little I had left completely.
I can’t ever find what I’m looking for in church ideology again. That framework has been taken down. I can, however, be pulled outside of myself while listening to a favourite song. I can roll down the truck window on a sunny day and drive fast, friends or family in the backseats, belting out Bohemian Rhapsody. I can learn to sing acapella with only my sisters. I can forget to be self-conscious at an open mic when the whole crowd is singing. Whatever else, music is my line of continuity.
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