The tradition of BRH choir entails that each senior give a small speech—some parting words—at the spring banquet. Hesitant to face the reality of public speaking, and with a woeful lack of speechwriting time besides, given the demands of my thesis and coursework, I had pushed this responsibility from my mind. A problem for future Chris. And so, as the senior slideshow began, and one-by-one seniors stood to give their speeches, I still had naught prepared. I prayed to God for inspiration and for words, even as I was welcomed to the front—and the words came.
In my speech, I reflected loosely on plotholes, which are best described as a divine Chekovian gun. I believe that God is a master storyteller: on a grand, cosmic scale, yes, but also in each individual life. In my estimation, humans have free will, but our freely-made decisions are like broken phrases scribbled on the edge of a napkin or a three-word note archived in one’s phone. We may see our decisions right-here-and-right-now as being extraordinarily far-reaching and deterministic, when in reality they mean and influence very little on their own. I think of an anecdote of William James, describing a man under the influence of laughing gas:
“…whenever he was under, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: ‘A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.'” (Russell, The History of Western Philosophy, p. 123)
I have had nights where I brew together pride and ambition to concoct sweeping claims about the direction of my future: “I will become a Rhodes Scholar”, “I will become an astronaut”, and other unreasonable aspirations framed as decisions. In a hypothetical biopic, this would be the cinematic turning-point, a dramatic moment to put one on the path to changing their life or the world. These are the triumphs of a free will! And yet, these midnight decisions have had little, if any, effect on my life. When I look over my shoulder at the path I have walked thus far, it is always the small, innocuous decisions which cause a fork in the road. Collecting my scraps and notes like an accountant during tax season, God—with infinite wisdom and foresight—constructs my narrative arc. He authors twists I could never have seen coming, and I stand awed with how it all makes sense. The plotholes were never mistakes. They were left open, intentionally, to be reintroduced and tied together from innumerable scribbled notes, all with perfect narrative pacing. Surely, this is what the Apostle Paul means when he says,
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28, ESV)
It is no wonder that my attempts at self-authorship seem always to combust, for I lack the patient penmanship of God!
For my BRH banquet speech, I recounted my choir kid conversion story. Through high school and into my freshman year of college, I was a die-hard band kid. It was my impression that a natural rivalry existed between choir kids and band kids, and it was best that you were either one or the other. In retrospect, this impression was quite unfounded, as the skills of one are certainly transferrable to the other, and my own mother had been in both choir and band. Nonetheless, I could not have imagined myself ever being in choir, and it was only out of necessity that I challenged this long-held disposition.
In the Winter of 2020—the middle of the pandemic—the HRC Spiritual Life Committee, of which I was a part, was asked to hold its annual Lessons and Carols service virtually. This event includes both a choir and string ensemble composed of hall residents, who lead the carols. To preserve this aspect of the service, we asked participants to record themselves performing each carol, and we would assemble the videos into a virtual choir-orchestra. This asked a non-negligible commitment of time and energy from students already reeling in the challenges of a pandemic, and thus amplified a problem faced in years-past: finding men who sing. One among these brave few was my roommate, who I recruited to sing bass. However, as the recording deadline drew near, it became clear that he was too busy to participate—fair enough, but we desperately needed more bass voices.
It then dawned on me: I’m a guy! Thus, on a whim, I suited up in my Advent red-and-black and trekked to the music building, music binder in-hand. It took six hours of repeated takes—I was learning not only new harmonies but also how to sing, period—but I emerged triumphant, albeit with a dead voice. That, I believed, would be the extent of my choral career, but God had written in the footnotes, “Little did he know…“
See, it turned out that I had been hooked on choir. At a mutual friend’s birthday party the following summer, attended on a whim, I met the then-director of BRH Choir. With a shrug, he suggested that I try out for the choir. Apparently, many groups have a problem with attracting men to sing. It was a tantalizing suggestion, but I still had yet to think of myself as a vocalist, much less a capable one. The idea sat, a planted seed, until the start of the semester when I happened across a friend from my first-year physics class. Having recently learned that she was in BRH, I asked her for some more info—you guessed it—on a whim. Excitedly, she sent me the secretary’s contact information, and with some coaxing, I stood an audition. In retrospect, I feel it bold to have auditioned for BRH with no choral experience. BRH is no middling choir: it is a historic organization with 75 years of history, an estimable choral reputation, and several prominent alumni. It is, then, all the more God-breathed that I was let in!
Over the course of two years, I learned to love choir: the repertoire, the people, just singing! I joined the choir at my church, conducted the choir-orchestra (in-person) for HRC Lessons & Carols for two years following, and even became vice president of BRH, which I was originally so reluctant to audition for! How that purely-necessary night of recording carols rippled outward into a full and deep love of choral music is simply speckled with divine fingerprints.
As I prepare to enter into a gap year, I continue to reflect on the plotholes which God has already turned to such profound good in my life. Each is a reminder of His constancy in the face of uncertainty. I prepare graduate school applications, scour for jobs, and strike up projects knowing that my first-choice in any of these may not make it into God’s final draft—and I trust that my story will be all the better for it.