I announced a week ago the news regarding my upcoming move to another parish and the transition for this parish to a new pastor. As expected, this news was jarring to the community and throws us into a moment of transition. Rather than a regular reading I chose a familiar reading that many will recognize from the book of Ecclesiastes. It reminds us that there is a time for all things.
The joyous parts of our life and the most challenging all have a place in the texture of our existence. This does not mean that each has a particular purpose or that all of these are to be sought. It simply means that all of our experiences, good or bad, have been foreseen by God and that we always take hope in the knowledge that nothing that happens is a signal that the world has gone wrong.
I know we are in a somewhat visceral moment. Intricate ideas will be of less help than articulating felt experiences in the days and weeks ahead. I chose, as a piece of music today, one performed by our choir entitled “Eatnemen Vuelie.” It doesn’t translate too well, but that is sort of the point. Written by Frode Fjellheim, the piece marries a traditional joik of the Sámi people with the familiar hymn, “Fairest Lord Jesus.”
The Sámi people are a Finno-Ugric people. They are an indigenous people of Northeastern Europe, found today primarily in the northern parts of Finland, Sweden and Norway. A “joik” is a type of indigenous chant in which the words are used less to convey an articulate meaning and as more of a tonal “sound-poem.” It is the sound of the words and not their linguistic meaning that is set to music, not completely unlike a Buddhist chant on single syllables.
I hope that this piece allows your mind to wander and find its own language to describe the days in which we find ourselves as a parish transitioning out of pandemic and into new leadership all at the same time. Let us always keep one another in prayer, but especially in the coming weeks.
God Bless,
Fr. Pat