“The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain.”  –From The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The summer I was sixteen I stood in the blasted out remains of Saint Michael’s Church at the summit of Glastonbury Tor. It was a small space confined by ancient stone and damp English air. And the acoustics were amazing. Along with fifteen other girls and a handful of men and women, I sang an athem in clean four-part harmony that reverberated off the walls of the of the blasted-open tower and sent it into the golden evening sky.

I was with my Episcopal Church’s Girls’ Choir on a three-week journey of song. Of lifting our voices in some of England’s and Wales’ most glorious cathedrals, but the sunset harmonics on that countryside hill stands out as one of the most holy experiences of my life. For all any passerby could tell, we…