Reunion anecdotes

I mentioned in my previous post that I've been pulled into a portion of the planning activities for my high school class's 40th reunion.  Because it is a Catholic high school, they've decided to have a class mass, to take place at the banquet hall before the hors d'oeuvres appear and the bar opens.  A few of the committee members knew I was a deacon and asked me if I'd like to be a deacon for that mass.  I said I'd be happy to; but a few judicious inquiries on my part revealed that they probably needed help with music for the mass more than they needed a deacon.  So  I said I'd help with that.  I drove over to Rockford last night and we had a rehearsal, after which a group of us went to dinner.  A few reunion-related notes from that experience:

1. The committee thought it would be fun to do church music from our era (we graduated in 1979).  For my class, in that place and time, that means music from the original Glory and Praise paperback hymnals.  The committee conducted a Facebook poll of which songs (all St. Louis Jesuits songs) people remembered and liked.  The winners, most of which we subsequently decided to use, included "Blest Be The Lord", "Dwelling Place", "Be Not Afraid" and "Though the Mountains May Fall.".  I've been doing liturgical music in one way or another since I was in college in the early '80s, and I've played all those songs a million times; but, except for "Be Not Afraid", I don't think I've seen them used at mass since the early '90s.  But I still have the original St. Louis Jesuit collection books with the melody and guitar chords (a critical pianistic skill from that era being the ability to play piano from those lead sheets), and I dug them out of my archives.

And I have to say - playing that music at rehearsal last night was a blast.  Because I haven't heard the songs in a long time, they sounded fresh.  And they're good songs.  They're singable.  They've held up.

There was one song that was popular in the online poll, but which we elected not to use.  Its title is "You Are Near".  The first line is, "Yahweh, I know you are near."  A lot of Catholics loved that song back in the 70s and 80s.  But it isn't sung anymore - not only because St. Louis Jesuit songs have tended to fall into disuse, but because the lyric is problematic.  Specifically, Catholics have become more aware that to pronounce God's proper name is a discourtesy to Jews, at least some of whom object to pronouncing the name that was thought to be so holy that it couldn't be said aloud; the word "Adonai" ("Lord") was substituted whenever the Hebrew scriptures were recited.  So no more "I Lift Up My Soul", nor "You Are Near."

2.  A close friend of mine from high school, whom I hadn't done a good job of keeping in touch with since then, has come out at some point during the ensuing years.  He's married; I don't know whether he will bring his husband to the reunion.  He sang with us at the rehearsal last night (he has an amazing baritone voice), and came to dinner with as afterward.

He was picked on mercilessly in high school.  At least in our era, the students at this Catholic school were not very tolerant of young men who were suspected of being gay.  He was active in the theater, he studied dance, he was sensitive and kind of socially awkward - and I'm sure he struck a lot of my classmates as effeminate.

He's still sensitive, and sort of awkward in some ways (last night, he shared with the table a few anecdotes from our teenage friendship that I would have preferred not to be out there :-)), but he seems comfortable in his own skin, in a way that wasn't the case when we were teens.  He told me last night that he truly didn't realize he was gay when we were in high school.  He figured it out as a young man.  There is a sort of confidence and peace in him that, as I say, is not what I saw from him when we were in school.  I am happy for him.  Did I know he was gay?  I guess I suspected he might be.  But I had figured that, if he was gay, he might not trust me enough to tell me; I can only imagine what it would have taken someone, in that day and in that environment, to confide that to another person.  And at any rate, it seems it wasn't clear to him at that time.

He said a few things last night that illustrate that he's still not completely over the high school tormenting.  I'm not surprised; 10 years ago, he wasn't willing even to make an appearance at the reunion, even though he lives in town.  And in fact, there was at least one guy with us last night who, I am pretty sure, was one of his tormentors.  But that guy has mellowed over the years; life has a way of doing that.  I hope the sharp edges of my friend's hurt have sufficiently worn down that he'll be able to enjoy himself this weekend.

3.  I've mentioned before that pot smoking was pretty widespread among my high school-age cohort, and the conversation last night rolled around to that topic.  Legalized recreational marijuana use in Illinois recently was passed by the state legislature and signed by the governor.  So at dinner last night, I asked, "Let's see, it becomes legal, when, in June?"  Every single other person at the table responded, in unison, "January".  These are all respectable, more-than-middle-aged citizens.  But I take away, from that little incident, and from some other things that were cautiously mentioned in last night's conversation, that interest in the legalization of marijuana is pretty high among my contemporaries.  I think more people will be trying (or re-trying) it than is commonly supposed.  Not me; I have zero interest in being stoned.  I really would prefer that those whose bodies and minds are still developing - like those who were our age when many of us were partaking - are smarter than we were, and leave the stuff alone.  My private little theory is that the sensation of being stoned substitutes for some spiritual need that people have, a need for transformation, that could be addressed in healthier ways.