My earliest encounter with the true power of the word ALLELUIA was when I was a child—vulnerable, smitten, and swollen with pride and joy. These praise words were my mother’s—for me not Handel. They almost swallowed my own.
I was eight years old and quite smitten with our music teacher, herself well chested and with a voice like a military Sergeant’s summoning his troops to line up for a war. Everyone stood at attention and was ready to hoist guns to march into war. That’s how ready I felt when Miss Ball signaled us girls, all in pleated navy blue serge uniforms—sacks—to stand at attention.
Still, all of this uniformed ugliness suddenly became holy as our whole music class rose almost at once, at attention and ready to sing our hearts out—not for our school, our uniformed conformity, or Miss Ball, but for The Lord God. That part was okay with me because I had already met this “Lord God” in a book that told me God listened and picked up even “weeny sounds” all over the earth.
Nevertheless, this choral Alleluia was far from “weeny”. We had over-rehearsed this one for weeks, stretching our small mouths widely open, and making sure our tongues gently touched—no clicking—the back of our front teeth, even if one were missing. “Not the lips, girls. NO lisping!” And no “h” sound, just ah!” We rehearsed all this for weeks because we were, she told us, “angels”—just for that one performance of course.
On the magic night itself our parents and school officials would all be in the audience. I prayed my mother wouldn’t clap or stand up in the wrong places, or shout for joy just for me.
On alleluia-with-no-h night, we all assembled and lined up on bleachers, steady and ready, as if praising God was some kind of sport and we were cheerleaders.
True enough that night—and still.
