I’ve been told that when a choir sings together, their hearts begin to synchronize and beat together. There’s some kind of scientific explanation involving breathing at the same time, but I prefer to think that there is something powerfully unifying about the project of making music together. If you’ve ever been in a choir, you know it, too. You also miss it when it’s gone. Before coming to Ireland, all four House of Brigid fellows had been on a choir hiatus since college, and we were itching to get back into it. In fact, if you had asked me what I was most excited for, I would have said it was to be in the choirs at Newman Church. On the other hand, if you had asked me what I was most nervous for, I would have said that the uncertainty of living with three other people I have never met was at the top of my list. In my experience, living in community is one of the richest aspects of experiences like this, but also one of the most difficult.
As we have settled into our roles at the Newman Church, I’ve realized that our two defining activities—singing and intentional community—have a lot in common when done well. In a choir, everyone fills a niche in the sound. I am a soprano, which means I fill the highest part of the sound. Each voice part, high and low, adds something important to the mix, and the song is not complete unless each voice is doing their part. It’s also important to know which part you’re more suited to—I have a lower range for a soprano, so I sing as a second soprano, even though it means I’ll usually have a more difficult part than the first sopranos. My preference would be for the easier part, but I need to fill the role I’m actually more suited for, not just the one that is the most comfortable. Maybe I’m going too deep into this analogy, but you see where it’s going—living in an intentional community is often the same. Each person has a different set of gifts, and it takes everyone knowing and giving themselves in order to have the best harmony. Jaidin, Kevin, Mary Elizabeth, and I each bring something unique and important to the mix. One of the joys of getting to know the others in my community has been seeing the unique gifts that every person has, and learning how I can offer my own gifts to them.
Any choral singer will also tell you that there are times in a musical piece when one section sings more softly, or even is silent, in order to let another part shine. One thing about singers is that we love to be heard. Shocker, right? It takes a level of cooperation and humility to take a step back and let another part be the main focus. A good choir is used to this and has little issue with it, but a green chorister might feel slighted when told to sing more quietly. That kind of growing pain is expected in a chorister as well as in a community. In House of Brigid’s community, I’ve already been challenged in moments of patience and compromise. A community can’t survive without a level of give-and-take, and a lot of flexibility from all its members. A word that comes up again and again in a choir is “blend”—no one voice should stand out, but everyone works together to create a unified, beautiful sound. The challenge of “blend” in a community is to understand when it’s time to prioritize my own perceived need, and when to yield to someone else’s. No one should always try to blend in, becoming invisible; at the same time, no one person should stand out and always put their own good above the group’s. As a choir or a community practices intentionality, they begin to naturally find the balance without needing to think about it consciously anymore.
More than anything else, our choirs and our community are brought together by the shared mission of serving God. It’s always true (if trite) to say that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts in groups like these, but in our case the expression has an added depth of meaning. When two or more are gathered in His name, God is present in a particular way. When the House of Brigid gathers, whether as a part of the choirs or as our own community, we are working together for the greater glory of God. His presence among the members of both choirs and among the members of Teach Bhríde is palpable when we are working together well. We are unified by our shared mission, and even when we aren’t singing together, it really does feel like our hearts beat as one.
