A voice speaks. A voice he's never heard.

I had an enthralling meeting with one of my teachers last week, to discuss spirituality and ritual in theater, and more specifically, trance. As I was talking about my experience with trance, describing the music that preceeded it, he stopped me to say, "Of course you're interested in this." Knowing that I'm into sound, music, voice, he thought, "Of course you're interested in trance and ritual," because, in the research he's done (which is extensive), a state of trance always has its genesis in sound. This was a huge "DUH!" moment for me. Sound is vital to religious experience. Duh. I'm the child of church musicians, why haven't I thought about this before? Duh, duh, duh.

I'm reading an essay called "Towards a Theology of Listening" about the idea of theosony - the study of God through sound. One of its points is that, in the creation story, sound preceeds sight.

Voice and Speech yesterday was particularly phenomenal and I found myself curious again as to why this obsession has come up. I don't fight it, I'm running with it, but it's not all clear yet. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, my non-studio days, I can be found at PHTS going through a full vocal warmup before my day starts. Ironically, I'm usually in a studio next door to one of the first year voice and speech classes. Today as I finished my warmup, I heard the first year class playing a game with consonants, one I remember playing first year, too. I stopped to listen, and a mysterious joy started welling up, because the sounds of that game seemed to be one of the most beautiful things I had heard. I still have not quite unpacked why, but I know it has to do with the following statement:

In the beginning was the Word.

The Word was with God, and the Word WAS God. The Word became flesh ad dwelt among us. Then the Word entered us through the fire of the Holy Spirit and we began to speak the Word. We began to speak God.

We can speak God.

This process is enshrouded with mystery and tainted by our own human imperfections. But to speak the God within us... what a call. The purification, the training and trials required for that, are daunting. But how beautiful would that voice be?