Hearing Glory- St. Anne's

Today I was hanging out at St. Anne's. How lucky am I- being able to just hang out in such places!

Anyway- I was admiring the way the light shines through the stone latticework windows, how the pillars are un-faced and have rugged seams in them, and the look of huge oak and black iron doors. There was an Italian (I think) tour group sitting in the pews (which, by the way, try to avoid them if possible- rare forms of torture calculated to keep tourists moving) in front of me. They were singing in Latin and enjoying the acoustics.

Remember St. Anne's? For those you who have been there it needs no explanation, but for those who haven't- you can practically sing three-part harmony with yourself because the notes echo around the dome so long. Very nice, as long as you stay on tune.

After a bit most of the group stopped singing. A few hadn't had enough and kept on going- a young man (in an exceptionally ugly hat), and sundry middle-agers with good voices. Fewer voices are really less confusing anyway, and I sat back in bliss to listen. How they sang! Controlled, slow Latin hymns with beautiful harmony. One exceptionally pure soprano would suddenly rise out of the steady flow of the harmony with a few notes of pure joy.

The young man with the ugly hat seemed particularly intent. He never got up and wandered around, and didn't even seem interested in looking around at the architecture. It wasn't until they all started to move out of the church that I saw why- he was walking down the center aisle arm-in-arm with an older man, and with a familiar rigid and focused gait.
He was blind.

As I watched him out the door I wondered what it must be like sight-see without being about to see, to tour and to need a guide for every step, to visit the Holy Land and not come home with a 1,000 photos to remember it by?

But what vividness some memories must hold- memories of sound, heat, the feel of the stones underfoot, the voices of people praying, singing, the Arabs on David's Street calling their wares.

No wonder he kept singing. All the rest could wander at will, and see, but oh how RICH that sound must have been for him!

Lucky man.