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Hix in the City
Issue 20.3: State Fair
Posted: November 20, 2004

A Letter to the Columbia Gospel Choir

Jesus done Love That Singin'

Daya Ocher

Dear Columbia Gospel Choir,

My first Sunday here was the best. The sun was bright, the breeze was wispy and I had the most comfortable bed in the building. The morning couldn't get any better... or could it??

At the stroke of nine, just when I was really getting into my Talmudic dream, my heart beating quickly with the thought of Rosh Hashanah, I heard some music dancing magically through my window. Wearily, I lifted my head and awoke. Oh, how nice this was! Someone was serenading me! There was an awesome concert right outside my window! Fun! And it was an awesome concert... an awesome concert put on for our Lord Jesus. Or more precisely, your Lord Jesus. At that time I hadn't fully embraced Him yet, but it would only take a couple of hours.

You see, before that wonderful, life-affirming Sunday, I was an atheist Jew-a Jew by tradition (and facial structure and dream content) and an atheist from what I thought was common sense. Now, I clearly saw my mistake. If these delightful sounds could only come from the love of God, what the hell was I against? I was ready to take God on. Maybe even from the back.

It was you, the gospel choir right under my window, that made me change my mind. Your incessant chanting of the holy name of Christ and periodic break into gangster rap made me see my true, disgusting ways. It made me see whom my people had murdered so long ago: what only the truly sane, non-anti-Semitic mind of Mel Gibson could see so clearly. My people had killed the Lord but now it was time to let Him back into my life.

But don't get me wrong, I resisted at first. I scowled because you had woken me up. You had ended my wonderful dreams with your horrific chanting (horrific until I began to love it). I cursed you. But slowly, as the hours rolled on and nine o'clock changed to ten and ten eventually changed to two, I realized I was coming around. I wanted Jesus in me. To save my damned soul so I could get out there and sing and dance with my Christian friends. And maybe I could rap too. If only the Lord would grant me that talent.

By the time it turned three and it was the sixth hour of the best concert in history, I looked around my room and realized the folly of my stupid, heathen ways. I unboarded my windows, and put away the revolver I was going to use on you and later myself. I smiled serenely and knew that this forced sermon was just what I needed. That is, I needed a thorough raping of the religious kind, otherwise I would've gone to hell later. I needed someone to stuff their views down my throat, someone to be so loud in their religion that I could focus on nothing else. Now I realize that it was for my own good and I am thankful; there is no one who could've broken my Christian hymen as carefully and gently as you did.

So, this letter is to thank you, my dear, dear gospel choir, for perching yourselves right outside my fucking window for seven hours and singing your hearts out. Thank you for saving me from damnation. For helping me realize that it's a horrible idea to gather up 20 of my acquaintances and make a band that chiefly sings my original song "Jesus is an Asshole." For persuading me through your delicious voices and sweet rhymes that I shouldn't stand outside a church with said band and perform said song for days on end because, you know... that might offend someone. For being there for me when I needed you most-on that wonderful Sunday morning, when I felt my most Jewish. Thank you Columbia Gospel Choir and thank you Christ... and I'm sorry about before.

Love, Daya