I love old people. That might sound strange considering that my last blog post (click here) focused on young people; nevertheless, my mom worked in long-term care for the first half of my childhood, and without a doubt, I have inherited her deep appreciation for the wisdom (and occasional wackiness) of my elders.
As a church musician, it’s convenient to love old people. After all, you encounter them a lot! For instance, I worked for a local congregation last year with a very high proportion of retirees, and I am still reflecting on what I learned from that experience. Most recently, I’ve been reflecting on how the older people in my life tend to repeat themselves, especially if they are experiencing memory loss, often linked to a dementia diagnosis. I love chatting with them, but sometimes I hear the same story several times—occasionally in the same conversation!
Forgetfulness and Repetition
While forgetfulness comes to all of us at every stage of life, it is most common among older people. Since I tend to believe that older people always have something to teach me, I have started to wonder what I might learn from their tendency to repeat themselves. Strangely, the answer started to come into focus when I was singing Christmas carols a few weeks ago. As I sang, I was struck by how deeply familiar the songs felt. The reality of repetition hit me: “I didn’t even realize that I needed these songs, but I do. They’re here for me this year, just like every year before this one.” Advent songs and Christmas carols bring a sense of comfort. I can appreciate that, and congregations can appreciate that. Repetition is not the enemy, especially not for the church musician who feels the burden of trying something new every Advent or Christmas season.
To be clear, when the older people in my life tell me the same stories over and over again, I am not always grateful. Do these stories bring me comfort like a Christmas carol, or does it feel like I’m wasting my time as I listen to a tale for the third (or fourth, or fifth) time? I am sometimes tempted to find a way to exit the conversation in frustration. On my better days, though, I linger long enough to let the repetition make an impression on me. I begin to ask myself:
- What do I hear at the heart of this story?
- What are the recurring themes, and how can I reflect on them instead of dismissing them or assuming that I’m already familiar with them?
- Are there details that I missed last time? What might they teach me if I pay attention?
- Am I resisting anything in this story? Is there something that I keep ignoring because I don’t want to hear it? Why is that the case, and what happens if I let down my guard?
Telling Stories Again…and Again
These are the kinds of questions that sometimes shape my interactions with older people, and it strikes me that I could apply them when singing Advent songs and Christmas carols. We are telling a very familiar story through the music of this season. Sometimes we find comfort through repeated engagement with the same material every year. At other times, it can feel trivial. Do we sing these songs so much that we empty them of meaning? Could we instead reframe these songs—as I seek to reframe my conversations with older people—as vessels through which God continually speaks?
In sum, as much as new music enriches our communities, we do well as church musicians to remember that our communities can also benefit from hearing the same Advent songs and Christmas carols over and over again. Furthermore, when we are sick of hearing, playing, or leading these songs, it is worth remembering that many of them are older than even the oldest people in our lives. That is not a reason to set them aside as much as it is a call to keep engaging with them. As we wrestle with songs and stories that seem redundant, repetitive, perhaps even irrelevant, we might call to mind Jacob’s words as he wrestled with God and make them our own: “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26b). May we trust that just as Jacob received his blessing at daybreak, we will be blessed by the songs and people animating our work in this season.
Mykayla Turner holds a Master of Sacred Music with a Liturgical Musicology concentration and a Master of Theological Studies. She obtained her A.C.C.M. in Piano Performance from Conservatory Canada. Currently, she is a PhD student in the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, ON. Apart from her academic work, she is an active church musician and liturgist. She also co-directs Ontario Mennonite Music Camp and chairs the team of volunteers who maintain Together in Worship, a curated collection of free worship resources from Anabaptist sources.
