by Fred Moleck
Anticipatory Joy
Last week I listed what I thought were unpleasant situations or even downright dangerous ones (smoke coming out of the blower room), which I called anticipatory grief.This type of grief isn’t life changing like a death vigil, but more like a “Good grief, Charlie Brown!” type of grief.
Sometimes it is a surprise. Sometimes it is an expectation—like going to that parish council meeting and the agenda topic is renovation of the music space.
What I would like to list today is the other side of anticipatory grief—anticipatory joy.
Anticipatory joy sometimes is a surprise based on possibility—a higher wedding stipend spontaneously given to you by the father of the bride even though you hinted to him during the rehearsal dinner.
Anticipatory joy sometimes comes after an extensive preparation experience—the tenor and the basses getting the right interval in Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus”after weeks of rehearsals.
Anticipatory joy is the guest presider at the 5:00 Christmas Eve Mass with 100,000 people present (75 percent of them under seven years old), who greeted everyone warmly after he put his Worship III hymnal on the shelf attached to the presider’s chair after singing the entrance hymn.
And whose homily of six minutes inspired and encouraged—the Bethlehem of Jesus’ birth and one’s birthplace.
Anticipatory joy is the visit of friends with whom you lost contact five years ago. The visit was announced by a phone call telling you that they are in town and asking whether they could stop by.
Anticipatory joy is watching the daily installment of another facet of the restoration of the St. Paul Cathedral Beckerath Organ in Pittsburgh—the façade pipes all shiny. (Please consult TableTalk of two weeks ago to see what I’m talking about.)
Anticipatory joy is squiring around a new NPM member at one of the conventions and watching her anticipatory joy being realized.
You see, they are not life changing joys but a tinkle of happiness and well-being that can improve one’s day or night.
They are not the lambasting joy of “Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium” of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphonybut the gentle nonintrusive joy of Dan Kantor’s “Night of Silence” being sung by a senior citizen chorale.
Anticipatory joy is having a weekly lunch with a friend who really, really likes his first year at being at university and tells me why.
Anticipatory joy is reading one of the replies to TableTalk sent by those of you who have taken time to communicate with me. Columnists are pleased, if not utterly joyful, to get fan mail.
If you look at the topical index in RitualSong you will find 105 entries under “Joy,” a good start to celebrate your joy, both anticipatory and realized.
I intend to sing a few of those today to celebrate my anticipatory joy made real.
May your anticipated joys become real and frequent.
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@comcast.net