I didn’t go to church again today. I belong to the Mar Thomas Syrian Christian church; which is believed to have been founded by Saint Thomas (Mar Thoma), one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ, in the year AD52. The church’s headquarters are in Kerala, India, where my father and maternal grandfather came from.
I never liked going to the Mar Thoma church when I was young because many of the services – or at least parts of them – were in Malayalam, which I do not understand. It should be my mother tongue but instead my parents spoke to me only in English. (I probably know as much Malayalam as I do French or Spanish).
There are parts of the liturgy in my church, which we have to recite every week, which seemed like Greek to me (pun intended). All very archaic and irrelevant; it baffled me why so many people would just recite these prayers week after week without understanding them. It annoyed me further because much of the chanting was done in a melismatic fashion, which was more creepy than comforting. Coupled with incense burners and priests in strange costumes, the worship session was the furthest thing from what I associated being spiritual with.
Then came this song in the 80s, and I was blown away – the words “Kyrie Eleison” appear a lot in the liturgy I was forced to recite but never understood. Here in this 80s poprock song by the band Mister Mr, it suddenly made perfect sense. Something clicked.
hmmm... my next tattoo?
Kyrie Eleison is, in fact, Greek for “Lord have mercy”. I’ve just read the wikipedia entry for “Kyrie Eleison” and discovered that its a whole lot more than I ever knew, and the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Britten and Bernstein have all included Kyries in their masses.
Listening to Richard Page again (doesn’t he look so much like Sting here, and with the bass guitar too!), I am reminded why I fell in love with the song way back then. I guess it’s not about the words, or the fashion in which they are spoken, but the ideas behind them and the feelings they inspire. And once you get a glimpse of that meaning, you are humbled.
And while you’re relishing the vid… gosh! Make sure you take a good look at those 80s pants, shorts, jackets and hairstyles! And, Lord have mercy!
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