CLOSER

In the 10 years I've been 'doing' Norway, not once did I not have sunny days in Oslo, and that in spite of occasional bad weather forecasts. And not once did I not dig the churches heavy style. Since the beginning, I've always fancied the idea that the whole of Norway is one big church, and that there really isn't anything you can do here other than worship, and get closer to the light. This was corroborated by Leonard Cohen last night, who, in a new song, decided to disclose the secret: that the Name must be blessed. Well, Leonard has been into worshipping for a long time, but as he sang this new one here, it was clear that the 'Norway thing' also got him. How he kneeled, suddenly, and with a different force and humility than in some of the previous songs! One could not be mistaken about why he did it. Today in another church, the New Yorkers rode the worshipping wave. The a cappella quartet, The New York Polyphony left us all breathless, and thinking that we really do need to live more lives. One is not enough for all that worshiping that we want to do, and worshipping through singing must be the only thing worth doing on this planet. As one of the singers put it, “it's next to impossible to escape the gravity of the flat keys.” Indeed.