Singing With Our Own Voices

This beautiful American folk song, "Shenandoah" provides an ideal vehicle for the vocal talents of David Daniels, an operatic countertenor. Daniels and other men who sing in what is more typically the female vocal range have the power to create uniquely beautiful tones - sounds that soothe and heal, comfort and encourage.

Although singing outside the normative masculine range probably wouldn't conform with what the Pope and others think of as a properly masculine thing to do*, Daniels and other singers like him show with their lives what a beautiful thing it is to sing - whether literally or metaphorically - with the voice God gave us.

With hope in the God who loves us and transcends our narrow fears,

Padre Chuck

*Ironically, the papacy has traditionally been a supporter of the fine arts, including vocal music in which men sing outside of the current Pope's implied notions of a properly masculine range.