Janet Jackson and Keeping with the Time
Yesterday, we went to a Janet Jackson concert for free, courtesy of a lawsuit by a well-known entertainment ticket supplier. Brooke was over the moon when she realized we had two redeemable vouchers to use and that Janet Jackson would be in town in a few days just a couple of towns over.
However, I’ll be honest: I appreciate Janet’s music, but I’m not the biggest fan. My relationship with her spans back to my days of working in the grocery store. Songs like Runaway and When I Think of You would play throughout the store. So, for me, hearing some of those songs last night brought the memories of a former life.
Brooke, on the other hand, grew up listening to Janet with her sister. Memories for her take her back to the rhythms of youthful days: getting ready for school, doing chores around the house, finishing up a homework assignment, putting on makeup to go out with friends.
We planted our lawn chairs down for this outdoor concert among quite the eclectic group of people. The venue was predominantly populated by people of color, but there were notable characters who’d come to enjoy the show, too. Younger men who, I’d wager, wouldn’t know a classic Janet song if it played on the radio; older women grouped together who looked like they might be having a “Mom’s Night Out”; couples with heavy metal band t-shirts on with faded tattoos on their arms. Everyone, regardless of background, was there to have a good time and listen to a talented woman share her life through her music.
As the sun went down and the stage lights came on, drapes of transparent screen fell from the rafters and we watched an opening video of current political issues displayed on the drapes: gun control and uncalled-for shootings of black people. The song, The Knowledge, began playing and Janet came on stage to the rousing applause of the audience.
Being exposed to decades of music at that moment, I really enjoyed what I heard (I’m a fan of 80s & 90s music in general), but I began noticing what was happening in that moment. Everybody was up and dancing along with the music; maybe not as good as Janet and her crew, but still dancing along to the beat. And in that moment, I thought of something I’d read recently by Frederick Buechner...
The medium of music is basically time, whereas the medium of painting is space. In a painting you put one thing next to another thing, put the blue background next to the red heart on the wall, and so on. But the musician doesn’t deal in space; he deals in time, one note follows another note the way one moment follows another the moment, the way tock follows tick. And I think that what the musician is trying to do is to say, Listen to time, pay attention to time, pay attention to the sounds and the silences of time. Experience the richness of time.
He then goes on to talk about the Chronos and Kairos of time: Chronos referring to the chronological: watch time, calendar time, time to eat, etc., and Kairos referring to the quality of time--it was a good time, a confusing time, a time to laugh. And what the musician essentially is trying to do is draw us in to pay attention to the Kairos of time.
I think this is why musical scores can either break or make a movie. Everyone knows the dun-dun bass notes of the movie, Jaws. When you hear those notes, you know the characters are going into a time to deal with the shark. When you hear the brass horns and the triumphant drum beat and your attention is focused on downtown Metropolis and the villain looks like he’s going to get away with it, you know that we are about to enter into a time of Superman thundering down to save the day.
So when Janet was singing and her crew was dancing to the beat of her music, and everyone else was swaying their hips and rocking their shoulders, what I heard her (and Buechner) saying was, “Listen to the sounds, listen to the music of your own life. Keep in step with it. Find the rhythm.”
I think that’s why in the last year or so, I’ve come to appreciate keeping with the Church calendar in my devotions and prayers: knowing there’s a season for Advent and Easter and Pentecost. There’s a season for birth and death and resurrection and power. There’s a rhythm to find ourselves. And there are seasons where it feels like nothing is happening and it’s ordinary, and we’re all just picking up our bags to spend another Thursday at the office.
The ‘pause’ provides the rhythm. If Janet had tried to sing all her songs using the same beat, it wouldn’t have been very enjoyable, even to me as someone who’s not as familiar with her work. But there are natural stops and pauses so that a new beat and a new rhythm can take place and a new moment can come along.
There were moments in the concert when there was no music playing. Janet would finish a song and just stand there with her hair blowing, her face filling the screens for what felt like two minutes before going on to the next song. People filled that silence with praise for her, but what I heard among the cheers and claps was, “Be okay with silence, too. The ‘stop’ in something is not an indictment of disapproval, but an opportunity to reflect in the moment and observe where you are.”
I think it’s okay if we stop and reflect to find our rhythm and listen to the music of our lives. If we are to grow and be healthy people, we need this more than we think.
