Different Hallelujahs

In our last concert, my choir sang an arrangement of ‘Hallelujah’, originally by Leonard Cohen. The song has really done the rounds in the last few years, and I think it’s interesting that it seems to have touched so many people in secular society, given that so many of the lyrics refer to Biblical characters, and essentially, at least when I listen to it, the closeness to God that comes from prayer when feeling brokenhearted. I like the fact that it’s a song that (disregarding Jeff Buckley’s more radical interpretation of meaning….) spans from spiritual to secular, and that we sometimes treat our relationships with each other, as we do our relationship with God, wishing we could outshoot and outrun, when the going gets tough and we feel the need for space. When you love someone, you carry the burden of also knowing how to hurt them, and the promise that you will not do so, when voices are raised and opinions are opposed, and this is something I hear in this song, too. I remember first hearing it when I watched the film ‘Shrek’ years ago, before we had internet, and learning the lyrics by replaying and rewinding the same two minute segment, then bashing it out on my piano.  When I listen to it, I think about the different ‘hallelujahs’ I give up to God, as I go about my daily life, and wonder how He hears them in all their manifestations.

Hallelujah is a word with many voices but only one meaning. When I walked back recently from a meeting with the manager of the hospital I’m trying to source a patient library for, I felt more alive than I have done for a while – this is a project near to my heart, and seeing it grow whilst, a lot of the time, everything else seems to be collapsing round my ears, has really given me something to lean on. I was walking home in the sunshine, talking to God, thanking him for all the emails that had been replied to, the willingness of the hospital to hear me out, the patients who’d given me the idea in the first place, the shops who have given generously to us, all these things – excited enough that no doubt, if God (or actually, anyone, for that matter) had been standing beside me, there would have been some serious high-fiving going on, maybe even with the occasional whoop for joy. It’s these little positves that make me feel more hopeful that there is a life for me beyond this depression, and I am grateful that God gives me these reminders and promises that one day, the heaviness will leave me and I will feel myself again. Joyful Hallelujahs, voiced in mental capital letters (for me, at least) and at top speed and volume must be wonderful to hear, but perhaps, also a reminder to God (not He needs reminders like the rest of us…) that so often, we, I, am a fair-weather friend. It is easy to be thankful for the things God sends our way that feel so positive and meaningful. It’s harder to get down on our knees and be grateful for adversity.

There’s a line in a verse of the song not often included in more populist recordings that goes, ‘yet even now it’s all gone wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue, but Hallelujah’ which made me think that although we are told time and again that God hears all prayers, whether the sky feels full of Him, or empty, that perhaps it is the prayers that come in moments of desperation and utmost futility, that He cherishes the most; the prayers we say when we’ve given up belief that anyone’s even listening; the prayers we use as  flares in the night when we are drowning. Praising the Lord from the bottom of a dark well of seemingly endless hopelessness, is a tough thing to do. So often in the last few months, I’ve felt a lot more like quitting church, chucking out my Bible, burning journals, and forgetting the God I have come to follow, than getting down in the dirt and being thankful for lessons and learning. When I’m empty, I’ve felt a lot more like being angry and indignant, and giving up altogether, than remembering, in the cold black of depression, to continue to praise, continue to pray. Yet when I do (aside from the highly acute weeks when my grip on reality wasn’t exactly firm) I do feel close, and sometimes, comforted. It’s the smashed-up and broken-down hallelujahs, the end-of-the-road and bottom-of-the-mountain hallelujahs, that make me lean and learn. It’s when I don’t have a song in my heart to sing, or eyes sharp enough to glimpse the dawn, or hope strong enough even to get me through till morning, that those hallelujahs come into their own. It’s the whispered, not the shouted, hallelujahs, that I think God loves the most.

I’ve felt in the last few weeks that my mood is slipping down again, and am getting afraid – the more I came out of the depths of my depression, the more I’ve come to realise just how serious it really was, and that if things had been just a little different, I really might have not made it through. The thought of going back there is terrifying, and it’s hard to know how to best manage this feeling of unsteady ground. It feels kind of like standing and watching the sun go down, and being powerless to stop it – like watching a clock, and knowing, that time will continue to tick by, no matter what I do. I’m feeling numbed again, and cut-off, detached from the people around me, and hollow. Hollow – it doesn’t sound like it would be that bad a feeling, does it? And yet, the feeling of empty, unfilled, stifling space is so treacherous. When you’re so full of empty, there are few words left, except Hallelujah.

My favourite cover is by the London Community Gospel Choir, but that’s not on Youtube (though it is on spotify)- but this is a good standard one too, just incase you’ve somehow managed to miss the song (no judgement, if slight bemusement)