St. John, Apostle and Evangelist

This is from the archives of my old LiveJournal, drawn (and slightly adapted) from two postings in December 2008 that mostly dealt with other matters:

The Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John is appointed for the third set of Eucharistic lessons for Christmas, and for the First Sunday after Christmas Day. It is how Christmas appears after long reflection – not the surprise of hearing the song of Angels, or running to the manger, or the darker tales soon to be heard from St. Matthew, but an attempt, long after the fact, to put into words what it all means.

I can imagine St. John, now far advanced in years, struggling to catch in words what the Spirit has shown him as the proper way to begin his account, so unlike the other Gospels that he surely knew: words about the Word, the Logos, the “brightness of (God's) glory, and the express image of his person” as the writer of Hebrews says (1:3), and the manifestation of God's love, as in the Matins lesson for Christmas Day from First John (4:7-16). “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. . . . full of grace and truth.”

It is too good to be true. But it is, nonetheless, true. It, or rather He, is Himself the Truth, come among us.

Since today is his feast day, here is my uneducated layman's theory about the origins of the Gospel according to St. John. I presume that the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles (and, less certainly, the Apocalypse) are by John, son of Zebedee, the “beloved disciple,” and that the Gospel faithfully recounts the historical deeds, “signs,” and teachings of Jesus, as do the synoptic Gospels. Differences in detail between John and the Synoptics do not strike me as problematic; I think the differences are the point of the whole enterprise. I do not see any reason to suppose a different author of the Fourth Gospel, other than the perversity of the modern liberal Biblical scholars (nineteenth century and onwards) who must find a way to deconstruct everything.

St. John was, by tradition, young during the ministry of Jesus. Again by tradition, he lived to a very old age, perhaps in Ephesus. By his last years, the synoptic Gospels were in circulation. I can imagine him reading them, and thinking “Yes. This is all well and good. But what about. . . .” What about the miracle at Cana? The discussion with Nicodemus? That day by the well in Samaria? The raising of Lazarus? Or the Last Supper – they recorded the bare facts, but what about all the things that Jesus said that night? How could they leave that out? And Mary Magdalene at the tomb on Easter morning? And that morning when he was on the shore, and said to Peter “Feed my sheep?”

I can imagine all of this nagging at John, year after year, in the way that the Spirit often does with us when we resist doing something that we should. “Maybe I ought to write some of this down,” he thinks. And so, finally, he does. He sees little need to cover the ground that the Synoptics covered, and when he does, he goes out of his way to give it the way he remembers it, especially when it differs from the way they wrote it; he assumes that readers of his account will have theirs at hand, and will gain a fuller understanding of what happened, and what it meant, from the differences in the accounts. He is presenting only enough to help people believe (20:30-31). He is not attempting to tell the complete story; it cannot be done. For, as he says, “there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” (21:25)

An aside: I take the absence of a Johannine account of the Nativity as a support for Luke's account. According to tradition, John shared his household with the one person who knew more about these events than any other, one who had "kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart"(Luke 2:19). If John had reason to think that Luke (or for that matter Matthew) were wrong, he would have probably given his own version, or rather, a version that was more concerned with detail than John 1:1-18. As it stands, his silence on this implies agreement. [If St. John the Divine is the same as the Apostle and Evangelist, one might take Revelation 12 as an account of the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt, as well as a comment on the woman whom he had taken into his household as his mother: "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Verse 4 can easily be compared with Matthew 2:13-18]

As to how all of this results in divinely inspired Holy Scripture, and (apart from its other virtues) a masterpiece of the world's literature from the hand of an uneducated fisher-of-men, I do not know, understand, or dare to conjecture, beyond noting Acts 4:13:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.


I cannot imagine life without the Gospel according to St. John. I can easier imagine life without sun or moon.

Christmas Day: Hang on, and enjoy the ride

On this day earth shall ring
With the song children sing
to the Lord, Christ our King,
born on earth to save us;
him the Father gave us.
Ideo-o-o, Ideo-o-o-
Ideo gloria in excelsis Deo!

Pencilled into my score is the admonition “LH bench.” This means to hang on to the bench with my left hand in order to get through this hymn with right hand and feet. We have it in our hymnal with its tune Personent hodie in the arrangement by Gustav Holst, and we sing it most every year on Christmas Day in the morning. The descending scale in D major which opens the piece is challenging, and the pedal part continues to bounce along through the hymn. Often as not, I miss quite a few of the notes.

It is enormous fun.

I was wrong in my previous entry when I claimed that December 25 is just another work day. How can it be, when it is our Lord's Nativity?

Sing, O sing, this blessed morn,
unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is giv'n,
God himself comes down from heav'n
Sing, O sing, this blessed morn,
Jesus Christ today is born.

Sure, there is work to be done. Once I finish my bread, cheese, and tea (I eat and drink it as I write these words) I must get back on the bench and prepare for tomorrow. I am playing settings of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen and Antioch (Joy to the World) by Kenton Coe and Emma Lou Diemer, and both need one more solid workout; it should take me about an hour. They are worth it; there is, for example, a special moment in the K. Coe where, after a pages-long buildup, we get to the refrain:

O tidings of comfort and joy!

It is glorious, worthy of these words of grace. Not many people play this music (the K. Coe setting), which is unpublished; I am pleased and honored that I am one of them.

It is not just another work day, for after the Nativity, work can never be the same. It is no longer the curse laid upon Adam and his sons, for in Christ, Duty and Delight become one, as my teacher Erik Routley liked to say.

No more let sins or sorrows grow,
Or thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

We had interesting services last night and today. At the early Christmas Eve service, two of our youth choir alumnae were back to sing with us. J. and her brother got here first, and when M. came in, J. leapt up, ran to the back of the room, and hugged her as if they had been apart for months, these two friends. As indeed they have. I almost burst into tears just to see it.

At one point in the hymns, I made a howler of a mistake, playing a chord from a different key than the one we were in. Y., one of our trebles, gave me a quizzical look: “Where did THAT come from?” All I could do was laugh, and be glad that someone was paying attention. She is an intelligent and talented girl, and whatever she does in life, it is likely to be good. I am glad for such people in the choir. Later on at the end of my postlude, her little brother came up and gave me their Christmas present; a chocolate-covered pretzel and a box of English Breakfast Tea.

Our big anthem, “Hope for Resolution” (which the RSCM readers of these pages will know), went well. I worked hard on the accompaniment after playing it badly last year, and did better this time, as did they. I wish we had the drums – I had a good lead this year on a drummer, but he and his family went to Minneapolis for the holidays. We have a good drummer in the choir, E., but we needed him to sing rather than drum. We had four fine young choirmen in the back row on tenor and bass, and they acquitted themselves well. I am proud of them, and find it hard to believe that they are so grown up.

The early Christmas service is the near-exact analogue to our normal Sunday “contemporary” service. It has become our largest Christmas Eve service by far, more than double the size of the Midnight Mass. This, in turn, is analogous to our Sunday Choral Eucharist, with choir and organ. A decade ago, the Midnight service packed the church; now, there are lots of empty seats, and the early service is the one with a capacity crowd. I am always sad about this, increasingly so as the Midnight service continues its decline. Would that all three services had capacity crowds. But (at midnight) the adult choir sang very well, and our instrumental group, “The (mostly) Brass Quintet,” going without their horn player who had slid off into a snowdrift on the way into town, added the dignity that only a (mostly) brass group can. Their fanfares for “O come, all ye faithful” and “Hark, the herald angels sing” were all that they should be, and their playing of the Schubert Sanctus (from the German Mass: S-130 in the Episcopal hymnal) and Stille Nacht were sublime. Missing the horn, they had to cancel their half hour of prelude music. I can attest that they were well prepared, for I heard most of their Thursday evening rehearsal.

This morning's Mass for Christmas Day is the analogue of our “eight-o'clock” spoken service. We had well over two hundred at the “contemporary” service last night, and about one hundred at the Midnight service; this morning's congregation numbered twenty-nine. But the priest was our distinguished Fr. H., who genuflects at the Words of Institution and says the Agnus Dei even though we aren't supposed to in this parish for anything except a Rite One service. I thought he was going to launch us into the Confession and Absolution, also notably absent from our services during the Twelve Days. There was certainly a long pause at that point, and I think he was considering the possibility. There are advantages to being old enough to not care what anyone thinks.

It was a happy and good service with the no-nonsense feel of a good Anglican eight-o'clock liturgy.

And now, back to work:

Oh, may thy house be mine abode,
And all my work be praise....

....
To those who read these pages, my grateful thanks and greetings. May all of you have a most blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Remind me why we are doing this

After describing his insanely busy schedule for Christmas Eve and the following two days, one of my musical colleagues wrote: “Remind me why we are doing this.”

Most years, I start to sense the answer to that question during our annual Advent Lessons and Carols service. It is the choir's only big event of the year, and a service I greatly enjoy from the first planning stages to the execution of it. The choir sang very well, and I played tolerably well. But not even the singing of “Joy to the world” as the final hymn could do it for me this year.

If not then, perhaps it would be when the Daily Office lessons get around to the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke, after the Fourth Sunday of Advent. This is always a high point in the liturgical year for me; we have by then traversed much of Advent, heard much about our need for a Savior, and at last the Story comes to it: “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth....”

I can deal with Advent. It is a time that requires discipline, more in its way than Lent. And this has been a good Advent; necessity has improved some of my work habits (though at the expense of some other things, such as writing in this Music Box). It has resulted in better organ playing in the services, and fewer important tasks left undone. I have been “purify[ing] my conscience” of much that is slovenly “that when [he] cometh he may find in [me] a mansion prepared for himself” more so this year than in any year that I can recall.

But in my efforts to lead a disciplined life, I often become too busy for Christmas, at least in any form that most people would recognize. December 25 is just another work day, and a hard one, for it comes on the heels of too many late nights, too little sleep, and is followed this year by another long day, a Sunday. I love the Daily Office lessons, and the return of the Te Deum at Matins, and I sing the Gloria in Excelsis for myself, since we do not get to do it in the Eucharist. And perhaps this is enough. But I find myself battling that deadly foe, Envy. Other people take time off, even members of the church staff; I can't, not if I am to play the Canonic Variations on "Vom Himmel hoch" for Evensong on January 2 and be ready for choir rehearsals on January 5. Other people have family and friends. Other people have wonderful, perfect Christmases full of love and happiness.

So, “remind me why we are doing this.”

-- After reading this morning of the Annunciation, followed by St. Mary rising with haste to go into the hill country of Judea, a passage that continues with the Magnificat, I did a workout at the organ of the Magnificat from Stanford in A, for tonight's choir rehearsal. The sheer infectious joy of this setting, combined with memories of the morning's reading, was enough to undo even a Scrooge like me. The first Christmas was neither leisurely nor pleasant for Our Lady, yet she sings Magnificat and the undoing of the old world of sin and death. Can I not fulfill my office as Organist to participate in her song, and enable others as well?

-- In the midst of this, two little children of the parish and their mother came in. The children presented me with a pint jar of cranberry-orange relish, which, they told me, they had made. The little girl, whom I expect to join choir when she is old enough, gave me a thorough listing of ingredients.

-- After Stanford, I started on “Hark, the herald angels sing,” in the arrangement by Willcocks found in Carols for Choirs, complete with the big optional fanfare at the beginning and the descant setting for the final stanza. That did it; I was so overcome that I could hardly play to the end.

Hail, the heav'n-born prince of peace!
Hail, the Sun of righteousness!
Ris'n with healing in his wings,
Light and life to all he brings!

Even to me.

Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee. (BCP p. 53)

Today is the final day of the two-year Daily Office Lectionary cycle. Fittingly, we have been reading the final books of the Old Testament: Malachi last week and Zechariah this week. Were it my choice, I would have reversed the two in order to end with the final verses of Malachi:

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:4-6)

Was Malachi moved to write such words, perhaps sensing that this was the end -- there would be no more prophetic writings? They make a stirring conclusion to the Old Testament, and look forward to “Elias, which was for to come” (Matthew 11:14), as well as the “Sun of righteousness, aris[ing] with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2), both of them hundreds of years in the future.

How is one to take the prophetic writings? Our Lord took them seriously, repeatedly applying them to himself. The long tradition of Christian thought from St. Paul and the other apostles right through into the nineteenth century did the same. Modern scholarship is more likely to discount the possibility of any mystical meanings. Everything refers to the contemporary circumstances in which the prophets wrote, whether addressed directly or veiled in symbolic language. Such value as the old prophecies might have is limited to the prophets’ perception of the spiritual issues at stake in their time and place, and potential resonance with later times and places. All supposed references to a future Messiah are, of course, wishful thinking. Or they are propaganda to give hope to an oppressed people, much like (in this view) the Revelation of St. John the Divine. It is all comfortably removed from any serious application to our lives in the twenty-first century, cut asunder from the Gospels, the life of Christ, and the ongoing life of the Church.

Following this approach, our Lord must have been delusional to apply these ancient prophecies to himself -- if he ever did in the first place. Perhaps they were pasted in by the “early Christian communities” who supposedly created the Gospel accounts, choosing fragments of the sayings and actions of “Rabbi Jesus” that suited their immediate purposes and larding them over with pious fabrication.


In the Lectionary, we are given a full reading of Malachi, but only get about half of Zechariah. We spend a week -- this week now concluding -- reading from chapter nine to the end. The first eight chapters are represented by one fragment, Zechariah 1:7-17, appointed for Monday of the week closest to October 26 (Proper 25, Year One). His contemporary Haggai -- whose book is admittedly short -- gets just one day: Sunday of the week just mentioned, 1:1--2:9. [The word of the LORD came to both prophets in the second year of Darius (Haggai 1:1 and Zechariah 1:1). Malachi is probably about two generations later, contemporary with Nehemiah.]

All three of these prophets do indeed speak of their own time. Their pressing concerns are the post-exilic rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, the re-establishment of Levitical and priestly ministry, the support thereof through tithes and offerings, and the spiritual condition of the community: people, priest and Levites all.

But intermingled with all this are statements that must have leaped out to John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus, as they leap out to us two millennia later:

Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. (Zechariah 9:9)

Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered... (Zechariah 12:7)

... and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of his covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 3:1)

And there is the recurring image, here in Zechariah as well as the latter part of Ezekiel, and most of all at the end of the Revelation:

And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. (Zechariah 14:8 -- c.f. Ezekiel 47, Revelation 22:1-2)

Doubtless the liberals would say that St. John the Divine’s overactive imagination dredged up these Old Testament passages from his subconscious. I prefer to think that the Author considered it important enough to say three times, in the hand of three different witnesses.

It seems to me that a passage such as Zechariah 9:9 is paradigmatic of how prophecies are fulfilled. When the time is right, something happens in the plain light of day, and those who know the prophecy see it with sudden awareness, an awareness that most often overturns their world: “So that is what he was talking about!”


The book of the prophet Zechariah, especially its first eight chapters, is as much of a mixture of straightforward ethical teaching alongside wild and often incomprehensible visions as one can find in all of Scripture. I love the vision of the angel with the horses “among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom” (1:7-21); the measuring line (chapter 2); Joshua the high priest, who foreshadows the greater High Priest who is to come: “my servant the BRANCH” (3:8); the two olive trees, their branches emptying golden oil directly into the candlestick (chapter 4; c.f. Revelation 11:4); the “flying roll” and two women with “wings like the wings of a stork” in chapter 5, and the four chariots and mountains of brass in chapter 6.

Whew!!!!

I believe that the genuine prophets (for there have ever been many false prophets), the ones whose writings we have in the Old Testament, faithfully presented the word of the LORD as it came to them. It was not simply their imagination, or their clever political and social commentary; it was exactly what they claimed -- the “word of the LORD.” I suspect that some of it was as strange to them as it sometimes seems to us. And I suspect that they knew that there was more to it than what they could comprehend, even as they wrote it, words and visions that would not be clear until some future generation.

And I heard, but understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end. (Daniel 12:8-9)

Trailing Edge Technology

Tomorrow, I am sending an old friend to the recycling bin at the landfill. It is a Hewlett-Packard Vectra HM Computer, approximately fifteen years old. It has a Pentium I processor running at 75 MHz, and was a fine machine for its day.

I had two of them, purchased at the local university surplus shop for $5 each; I got the second one for spare parts. I combined the memory SIMMs from the two machines, adding yet more from an older Dell that I had been using (an Intel 486 machine, which had also been an old friend) and putting the two hard drives in the one case. Thus customized, it had 96 MB of memory, one 500 Mbyte drive and one 4 Gbyte drive, plus drives for CD-ROM and 3.5” floppy disks. There are no USB ports. I ran it with the Windows 95 operating system, and Lotus SmartSuite office software. It did everything a computer should do, though it took its sweet time about it. The boot routine was especially slow because it checked all 96 MB of memory, taking three or four minutes. I would start it up, go fix a cup of tea, and come back.

In some ways it was better than the modern computers. The case is solid, well-constructed, made to last. None of the internal components were made in China, so far as I can tell; most of them are from Japan with a few from the U.S.A., as hard as that is to believe. I used it for about six years and it never gave me the slightest trouble.

But time marches on. The Official Music Office Computer, a Dell Dimension with Pentium IV processor, was the oldest and slowest on the church network. Recently, they upgraded to Windows 7, and discovered that the network would no longer work with my lonely Windows XP machine attached – and my machine would not handle Windows 7. (We skipped over Windows Vista, thank goodness.) So, while I was out in West Virginia last month, my computer was replaced by the second-oldest machine, the one that used to be in the secretary's office, a Dell Optiplex 755. Chris, the wonderful computer person who handles such things for the church, told me I could have the old machine for my very own.

My “new” Pentium IV has moved across to my desk and is now offline, not hooked up to anything but the electrical outlet. But unlike the old HP Vectra, it has its problems. There are two optical drives, a CD-RW and a DVD. Neither of them work nowadays, and haven't for some time. Nor do they respond to cleaning, or any other troubleshooting that I have been able to attempt.

Thus, I took it apart this afternoon to fix it up a bit. I had purchased a shiny new DVD-RW drive to install, but once I got into it, I learned that the perfectly good method of connecting drives which has been used for years is now obsolete; the new drive has a different connector, and if I am going to use it, I must purchase an adapter board. I will look into this tomorrow at the retailer. Mind you, this “obsolete” computer is only six years old, built in 2004.

So, I took the CD drive (read-only) from the HP Vectra and put it in the Pentium IV. It is fifteen years old, has seen heavy use, and works like a charm, albeit slowly. “Made in Japan,” the label on the drive says. I am also using the HP keyboard, which is heavy and solid. I have three of these, again from the surplus shop – free when purchasing a computer or $3 otherwise, back in those days; serial keyboards, all.

I am hard on keyboards because I eat while I write. I get bread crumbs and peanut butter in them, spill tea on them, and much more. I have gone through several Dell keyboards over the years, but have never yet managed to kill one of these HP beauties. One of them has the letters worn off the keys, but it still works.

Or it would if they still made computers with a port for a serial keyboard. The New Official Music Office Machine does not have one: USB only. It comes with a miserable little black keyboard which I hate. The keys are too small, they have the light and insubstantial feel of a laptop, and my hands cramp after only a few minutes of work, to say nothing of everything feeling wrong. And I bet that the first time I spill a cup of tea on it, it will be history. “Made in China,” the label on the bottom says.

Nonetheless, I have to admit that (a) the New Official Machine is fast, (b) all the drives work (though it does not have a floppy drive; I pulled the one out of the HP Vectra, and may install it if I can get permission – and if they haven't gone and “improved” the connectors on those like they have on the DVDs), and (c ) Windows 7 is not too bad as operating systems go. It seems to work, which cannot always be said for Microsoft products.

So my Very Own Dell Dimension Pentium 4 is on my desk, and I will use it for everything that matters to me, such as my databases of anthems and journal articles. Its predecessor, a Pentium III Dell (another surplus shop computer, $35 this time – prices for new computers go down, but surplus prices seem to go up) is going on the floor as a backup. And the old backup, the HP Vectra, has to go out the door.

I will miss it. I booted it one last time today to confirm that I had no data on it. It still works perfectly, or it did until I started pulling drives out of it.

At least I have a few bits remaining from the Old Days – the Vectra CD drive, in light tan, contrasts very nicely with the dark grey of the Pentium 4. The HP keyboard (also in light tan) is hooked up to it, along with an Epson dot matrix printer – it, likewise, works like a charm after what must be twenty-five years of use and is cheaper per page than the inkjet printers. I still use a genuine original equipment IBM PS-2 mouse. It has never needed a bit of attention beyond cleaning (and not much of that; it is layered with years of grime).

And I have a lifetime supply of 3.5” floppy disks.

odds and ends

I carried off several things from my mother's house. Most are of a practical nature, such as her Tupperware kitchen storage containers, two pounds of pinto beans, three pounds of white rice, and a five-pound bag of Martha White Corn Meal. A few have more of a lasting connection:

- A treadle sewing machine that had been my great-grandmother's; this was the only significant item. Mrs. C. was bemused when I arrived home with it, observing that "it needs a lot of work," but she put it in our bedroom beside her grandmother's sewing cabinet.

- A long-handled scythe that my grandfather used to mow hay. It, too, would need a lot of work, being rusty and dull, and the century-old handle (hickory? ash?) might not be up to regular use. But there it is, sitting in our storage unit. I have absolutely no practical use for it.

- A walking stick. On the last full day that I was there, I undertook a little task that had nagged at me for a couple of years; a sapling (Juglans nigra) had grown up through the branches of the apple tree, and with neglect was now some twelve or fourteen feet tall. I sawed it down, and decided that the bottom part of it would make a fine walking stick, straight for five feet with a nice crook at the top where I trimmed off the branches. Being black walnut, it will be sturdy. It has character, reminding me of Gandalf's staff and, much more than that, reminding me of the soil from which it grew. It, too, sits in our storage unit.

Several books:

- A Bible, in the Authorized King James Version, large print with the words of Jesus in red. It is fairly new; I gave it to Mother perhaps ten or fifteen years ago and it is not heavily used (though neither is it un-used). She wrote what she could recall of our family tree in the front pages of it. I am reaching the age where a large-print Bible will be welcome, so I have made this my principal Bible for home use, adding her death to the list of dates and names. Someday mine will join them.

- A Girl Scout Handbook from the 1930's, which she used in starting and leading a Scout troop; I alluded to this in the previous entry. In those days, the Girl Scout and Boy Scout handbooks were considerably more useful than their modern equivalents, where safety and political correctness rule.

- A book of poetry. When I visited her in August, she wanted her "old book of poems." She described it, but I could not find it in the house, nor could my sister. Mother had forgotten to add that it was no longer a "book," but a collection of loose pages in a plain manila envelope. We found it while cleaning out the house, too late for Mother to have for a final visit with these verses as she had desired. Many carry handwritten dates from her early teens, probably memorization assignments. It tends toward eighteenth and nineteenth century authors now out of fashion, such as Whittier, Emerson, Riley, and Longfellow, plus many whose names are entirely unknown to me. Of nineteenth century American poets whose popularity has remained, there is but little: one by Poe, one by Whitman ("O Captain, my Captain") and nothing by Emily Dickinson. There is a fair amount of Burns, a handful of snippets from Shakespeare such as the Soliloquy from "Hamlet," and a selection of political documents at the end: the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, and the Ten Commandments (which, in those days, were considered as foundational of American thought as these other documents). The book is, as mentioned, entirely fallen to pieces.

So should every worthwhile book be, by the time it has accompanied us through a lifetime.

a Sabbath, and the end of days

Sunday, October 17: a Sabbath

I determined to observe the Lord's Day as would a normal Christian not in the employ of the church. I laid aside all work and cares, attended the Presbyterian church near our home, and sat with Mother for several shifts. She, too, seemed to rest quietly, though she seemed more distant than the previous day.

The Presbyterian service was solidly mainline Protestant, lasting precisely one hour from 11:00 to noon, with about seventy persons present. There was a children's handchime group and an adult choir of nine singers, including the minister. There was a decent electronic organ, a baby grand piano, and competent musicians to play them. It was a staid, genteel service, a far cry from the Baptist church I visited in August, and a reminder why I am not a Presbyterian. But it was good to worship with these people.

Through most of my fortnight in West Virginia, the weather was splendid: day after day of clear blue skies, sunshine, and shirtsleeve temperatures. I fell into the rhythm of singing Evensong in the back yard, in "choir" opposite the large oak tree (Q. palustris), glorious in the late afternoon sun in its fall colors.

Sixty-plus years ago, my parents bought this property: two vacant lots later augmented by two more behind them, which had been logged over at some point leaving scrub trees and brush. My Father cleared it away with his brush hook and axe, but Mother made him spare this sapling, saying it would be a fine tree. Now in its full maturity, it dominates the yard, towering over the other trees in the half-acre at the back given over to woods and English ivy, perhaps a dozen or score of trees grown up over these six decades. I will miss it terribly, more than anything else connected with home. As a child, I used to talk to it and hug it -- in those days I could easily reach around it. Now its trunk is too large to encompass, and I have laid aside tree-hugging in any literal sense. But on this Lord's Day I pronounced a blessing on it, marking it with the sign of the cross. We are unlikely to meet again, this Q. palustris and I, unless it be in some forest beyond mortal ken.

Monday, October 19: the Feast of St. Luke

The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years: yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone. (Ps. 90:10)

I took the first shift. As soon as I saw her, it was clear that after fourscore years and fifteen, this was the end of days. Her lips were blue; her feet freezing cold even though her forehead was hot with fever (102 degrees); she struggled to breathe. Over the course of an hour, her respiration rate rose from the mid-thirties to nearly sixty; her pulse was rapid and increasingly irregular. The nurses let me call my sister from the nurses' station. On this day, we would not stray far from her side.

But the room remained cramped, too small for both my sister and I. When she arrived, we again took turns staying by Mother, a half-hour or forty-five minutes at a time. In between times, we went outside, sitting on the porch or walking on a path around a county park adjacent to the nursing home.

Thus it was that Kathy was with her when she died. I knew as soon as I walked in, from the way the nurses looked at me. One of them told me before I got to the room. Kathy was inside, crying. But Mother was at rest, pale and calm after this day of struggle.

For much of the day, her eyes were open, the first time in many days. I do not know if she was aware of us, but I cast aside all concern for her roommate (who they eventually moved somewhere else for the day), and read Scripture to her, and Psalms. It occurred to me finally that I could sing. Church musician that I am, I should have thought of this long before. I sang what I could remember of several hymns, and three plainsong settings of the Kyrie eleison, which seemed the most appropriate of all. Standing over her, stroking her hair, and singing to her, it was remarkably like singing a lullaby to a feverish child, as she probably did for me.

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An Obituary

N.I.H. departed this life on the Feast of St. Luke, 2010, aged ninety-five.

A farm girl, she was the second of two sisters, "the one who was supposed to be a boy," as she related in later years. Tall, bookish, awkward, and fearsomely intelligent, she was no match for her sister, who married into the leading family of the district. In contrast, N. seemed destined for spinsterhood.

After graduating from high school at age sixteen, she attended Marshall University at the height of the Great Depression. She returned to her high school as a teacher of mathematics, living at home with her father and grandmother.

In the fateful year 1942, on a romantic whim she rode off with her handsome rascal of a boyfriend, a sometime coal miner five years her junior, to Bristol, Tennessee, the nearest place where they could be married without a waiting period. After a quickie wedding before a justice of a peace who specialized in such and a weekend in a hotel near the train station, it was off to war. They later managed a better honeymoon near the camp where he was stationed -- he had been in the Army since 1939, figuring it to be a better life than the mines, and was now a mess sergeant busy with feeding the flood of new recruits following Pearl Harbor. He eventually shipped out to North Africa, and was part of the fighting in Sicily and Italy. After their honeymoon, N. joined the Navy. She was part of a cryptography team that sought to break the code used by the Japanese Navy; they trained her in weather, and she (and others) compared the encoded weather reports broadcast to the fleet with the actual weather, looking for patterns. She said that in all those years, she had only one idea that was of any help.

After the war, her husband went to college on the G.I. Bill. They wanted to live "back home" near their families, but there was no work, so they moved to a larger town in the next county. They bought land on the edge of town, built a house (he, his brother, and their father, all of them skilled at carpentry and building trades), and had children.

N.'s husband died in 1975. She prospered as a widow, living a quiet and thrifty life at home, growing reclusive as family and friends passed away, one by one. She walked, gardened, canned, and read books, thoroughly content to be alone.

As the decades passed, she grew increasingly frail. At the age of ninety-three, she moved to an assisted-living facility. She made new friends and enjoyed her life, comparing it to being "with the girls back at Marshall."

N. lived a simple life, and accomplished little that anyone would consider special or outstanding. She did not work outside the home after her children came; she rarely travelled, hardly leaving her home town in her final decades. But through the long years, she maintained the values of thrift and industry that she knew were important, even when all around her was given over to waste and extravagance.

As a schoolteacher in the 1930's, she started a Girl Scout troop, the first in that part of the state. The values she lived and taught in Scouting were at one time widely held in society; they are no longer. She and others of her generation, the ones who knew the realities of Depression and World War, had much to teach us. Now they are gone, and it is up to us.

O Almighty God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, who by a voice from heaven didst proclaim, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: Multiply, we beseech thee, to those who rest in Jesus the manifold blessings of thy love, that the good work which thou didst begin in them may be made perfect unto the day of Jesus Christ. And of thy mercy, O heavenly Father, grant that we, who now serve thee on earth, may at last, together with them, be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; for the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 486)

"In the midst of life..."

In the midst of life we are in death;
of whom then may we seek for succor,
but of thee, O Lord,
who for our sins art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty,
O holy and most merciful Savior,
deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts;
shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer;
but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty,
O holy and merciful Savior,
thou most worthy Judge eternal.
Suffer us not at our last hour,
through any pains of death, to fall from thee.
(BCP p. 484)

Sunday and Monday: October 10 and 11

“You'd better come right away,” my sister said. “I don't think she'll last more than another day or two.” Kathy, my sister, had been trying for several hours to contact me. I was at the church, Sunday services complete, tying up loose ends. Our mother had suffered a stroke several days previous, and I had already planned to leave for home Monday morning, to arrive midday Tuesday. Mother had been stable as late as Saturday, but her condition deteriorated overnight, leading to my sister's anxious efforts to contact me. Now I would have to leave immediately. But I had not packed, and our apartment was a quarter-hour's drive in the wrong direction. By the time I got home, my wife had done most of my packing. She loaded the Honda as I ate some lentils and rice. It was 4:30 before I was rolling.

Haste or not, I stopped for Evensong, singing it at a deserted roadside park in northern Missouri. The sun was behind thickening clouds, but the thin crescent of the new moon peeked through the clouds during the Magnificat. I munched on a chunk of bread and an apple as I drove on, traversing St. Louis and the Mississippi crossing well into the night and rolling on into Illinois. I slept for a few hours at a rest area and pressed on, stopping for Matins and fuel, eating the rest of my bread and cheese as Indiana and Kentucky rolled by.

Hardly twenty miles from home, the traffic slowed to a crawl, then a full stop. There was a truck accident ahead, blocking the highway. Eventually they got one lane open, and we all crawled forward in stop-and-go fashion. At last I was home, in twenty-five hours' time, a record time for a trip I have made many times. My sister was waiting, impatient for my arrival. But there was, after all, no need for haste; Mother's condition had stabilized. We headed out for the hospital.

Monday evening and Tuesday: October 11 and 12

“Mother, I'm here. It's me.” She opened her eyes and perhaps was aware of me. Or perhaps not.

On Wednesday, I had again been unavailable when Kathy wanted me; my wife tracked me down in adult choir rehearsal by calling J.'s cell phone. My sister, who had the medical rights,was being pressed to have a feeding tube installed to see if Mother might improve. In accordance with the promises Mother had extracted from both of us, Kathy at first refused, the doctor responding with “How can you do this, and watch your mother starve to death?” At this, Kathy started trying to reach me for my opinion. The idea was to install the tube “just for a few days” in hopes that she would improve enough to go to a nursing home and, my sister thought, perhaps begin rehabilitation and regain the ability to swallow. I agreed with Kathy's decision to go ahead with the feeding tube; we both regretted it later, and we bear the guilt of betraying our Mother.

Perhaps because of the food and the IV fluids, Mother was now in a stable condition, her vital signs strong and steady – though paralyzed and unconscious, living in her worst nightmare. And it was clear that she could survive indefinitely in this state. The physician had gotten his way.

Through the entire process, we rarely encountered any physicians. One of them stuck his head in Mother's room once while I was there and spoke with me for a total of five seconds. Kathy interacted with him hardly any more than that except for the time when he was laying guilt on her about the feeding tube, long enough to pressure her into agreement. Despite his lack of interest in the patient and her family, I have no doubt that he will collect the lion's share of payments from Medicare and private insurance.

Physicians roam the hospital corridors like demigods, demanding complete subservience from the nurses and other staff. Despite appearances, I believe that many of them mean well. I think that they would like to have more time to interact with patients and families, or at least evaluate and treat patients without Medicare and the insurance companies watching over their shoulder and the specter of malpractice suits always in the background. To be fair to our specific physician, he was of Indian descent, living in a prejudiced small town -- one of the "foreign doctors" about whom Mother frequently complained. It must be a difficult existence, and he can be forgiven for his haughty demeanor; I suspect that he despises the community and all of the unwashed and ignorant hicks who are his patients as thoroughly as they despise him.

Thank heavens for Nurses, and their assistants. They were the ones who cared for Mother, and they were unfailingly excellent, except for the Hospice personnel.

Much of Tuesday was devoted to waiting for them. The Hospice case manager made an appointment with us for 11:00; she appeared about noon. The nurse who performed the admittance evaluation said she'd show up about 2:00; it was 5:30 when she arrived. Neither of these ladies had the courtesy to call Kathy's cell phone to tell her that they were running late.

In my innocence, I thought that Hospice was a work of mercy, involving volunteers and supported by donations. Not so; they are simply another corporate vulture gnawing at the carcass of the American medical system, having found a niche by living on the 100% Medicare reimbursements for Hospice care. When I finally returned to the Midwest, my wife said that her parents wanted to make a memorial donation to Hospice. I said “Not Hospice. They can give a donation anywhere else, but not to them.”

But for all my griping, I am grateful to these gatekeepers of death for admitting our Mother to Hospice, which stopped the feedings and IV's and provided morphine for pain. That was well worth the day of waiting. [Edited to add: After reading this, M.W., whose mother died not long ago, told me that Hospice was wonderful in caring for her. I am glad that my family's experience with Hospice was not the way it is everywhere.]

Wednesday through Saturday: October 13 through 16

They moved her to a nursing home on Thursday. At the hospital, I had read poetry to her for hours, and quietly sung Evensong in her room, on the chance that she might hear it. At the nursing home, she was in a double room and I did not wish to disturb her roommate. In any event, Mother grew increasingly more distant and was probably beyond hearing anything I said.

My father died suddenly. For various reasons, I was far away and absent when my other relatives of that generation died. This was my first experience of sitting with someone, day after day, as they shed all earthly bonds. The nursing home room was cramped, so my sister and I took turns, an hour or so at a time through the day, leaving her alone for hours at a stretch as we ate meals at home and worked at the task of clearing the house of sixty years of Mother's life therein.

Aside from the Psalter, the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was less helpful than I expected, at least in any obvious way. There are prayers for the sick, but they presume a recovery. There is a “Ministration at the Time of Death,” but it is in cheesy Rite Two language, mostly dumbed down from the Great Litany. This latter in its proper form (page 147) was better. Several of the Additional Prayers at the end of the Rite One burial service (page 487) are excellent, as is the Anthem “In the midst of life we are in death”(page 484, quoted at the beginning of this post). Silence, with only my breath-prayer (“Deo gratias”) was good. Best of all was the Ave Maria; I wished for a Rosary.

Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

I thought much about the intercessions of Our Lady for her children at the hour of their death, beginning with her own Son. On that day when the universe hung in the balance, it may be that her prayers were heard by the Father, as well as the Son.

St. Francis, and the End of the World

Today was "St. Francis Sunday" in our parish (and, I suspect, many others), complete with the blessing of animals. This rankles me, for Sunday is a Feast of Our Lord, not of any of his servants [c.f. BCP p. 16]. I am further rankled by the romantic caricature of Francis that we encounter on such a day -- a sweet and gentle little friar who preaches to birds, wrote a beautiful little prayer, is Environmentally Conscious, and loves puppies and kittens. We hear little of Lady Poverty, and nothing of the Stigmata.

Despite all this, I was moved by one of the hymns, in the context of a service emphasizing environmental issues:

Were the world to end tomorrow,
would we plant a tree today?
Would we till the soil of loving,
kneel to work and rise to pray?
....
Born into the brittle morning
of that final earthy day,
would we be intent on seeing
Christ in others on our way?
(from "A hymn on not giving up," by Fred Kaan. Copyright 1989, Hope Publishing Company)


I believe that we have run out of Last Chances. Even if we were to somehow magically all begin living responsible and energy-efficient lives tomorrow, I think that we have already pushed the environment over the edge. As a result, the collapse of civilization seems likely at some point in this century, with a significant decline in world population through plague, pestilence, famine, and war. At the end of one of the services where we sang this hymn and in light of such thoughts, I improvised a little postlude on it, a prayer.

Today's preacher, quoting a book by Thomas Berry pretty much blamed the whole mess on Christianity, especially the "pie in the sky" version of it which I espouse, involving some form of eternal life with God. This, we are told, devalues the natural world in which we live and makes us more likely to pillage it. I will say only that there is no lack of blame to go around, and it is more the fruit of the atheistic materialism which has too often been espoused by those of us who call ourselves Christians, as well as those whose God is their belly.

The "pie in the sky" (or better, the Hope of Glory) is precisely how we can continue the struggle. No matter how bad it gets, even if we succeed in killing everything on earth (ourselves included), we are not in the end tied to this world.

"Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to cleave to those that shall abide..." (the Collect for the Sunday closest to September 21: BCP p. 182)

This is not a cop-out. Rather than giving us license to continue in our profligate ways, it should cause us to fear God. We shall certainly stand before him and give account, an account which must include what we have done to this green Earth and all that dwells therein. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God."

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A week ago, we admitted six new Choristers to the youth choir, most of them seven or eight years of age. They took it seriously, as they ought:

Minister: As a member of the choir, will you do your best to help the people worship God?
New Chorister: I will.

For some of them, this is a Life Vocation. It is my task to help them in it, a ministry that will likely take many of them down paths I cannot imagine, and (if they keep on singing and helping people worship God, and believe and act upon the things they sing and learn) do as much as anything to help preserve this Earth and the people and other creatures who inhabit it.

In doing this, I am "planting trees."

Further thoughts on the nature of Holy Scripture

While the Bible is a Story, we must not press the analogy too far. That path leads to the Liberals, who seem to consider the whole thing a collection of pious fables, no different than any other of a score of "sacred books" -- inspiring, with moral teachings from which we can choose at our pleasure, but with no basis in reality. But the Bible is different from the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Book of Mormon, and all the rest; it is based in sober, factual history.

One cannot take this too far, either. It would be too much to presume that the Creation took place in six literal twenty-four hour days, precisely as described in Genesis 1 (and ignoring the differing account in Genesis 2).

I think that Genesis 12 is a key transition between the distant past, based on oral transmission through many generations and brought into its current form by Moses or some other writer(s), and a more recent time wherein the stories have not passed through so many generations. I have no doubt that the succeeding chapters provide a faithful portrait of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God who called them to be his own people, through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed.

Some bits of the Story, old and more recent, are more important to the "plot" than others. For example, I would not bet my life on the factuality of Joshua 10:12-14. But I would, and have, on I Corinthians 15:1-8.

This Story, as Tolkien said in the passage quoted last time, has entered the primary reality in which we live. The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. Many details are uncertain, because the stories as we have them are attempts to convey in words the inexpressible. It is difficult to harmonize the accounts of the Four Gospels; at the least, they differ in detail, often drastically so. But behind these stories, as well as the other stories of the Old and New Testaments, is plain sober reality. There was a day, a genuine historical day every bit as real as this day in which I sit at my computer and write this essay, wherein the children of Israel "saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore" (Exodus 14:30). There was another day not long after when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, a real place that is still with us, bearing two tables of stone written by the hand of God.

And, preeminently, there was a day, a Sunday, when Mary Magdalene and others saw the risen Lord Jesus Christ, whom they knew to be dead. They had seen him die, and there was no doubt. And now, there was no doubt that he was alive, in plain fact.

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
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From The Two Towers; Samwise Gamgee is speaking:
"The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?"

"I wonder," said Frodo. "But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to."

"No sir, of course not. . . [Sam recounts part of the tale of Beren and the Silmaril as an example] "Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! Don't the great tales never end?"

"No, they never end as tales," said Frodo. "But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended."


The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, has for some time been using his weekly General Audience in the square of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to speak about some of the saints of the church. He began the series, as one might expect, with St. Peter, and then the other Apostles, and other New Testament figures. From there, he continued with Clement of Rome and other post-Apostolic Christians, and has moved onward through the centuries to (at present) the late Middle Ages. The series continues.

The saints are the bridge between the New Testament and our own time. In every generation, there have been those who have served the Lord, known to us and unknown. And in them, the Story has continued.

Now, after all these thousands of years, it is our turn. What will they say of us when our time is done? More to the point, what will the Author say?

The Holy Bible, in the Authorized Version (KJV)

I will attempt to list some books that have meant much to me in the sidebar of the Music Box, and describe them here; as they are added, they may be found by the label "books" in the sidebar. I have already written of the Book of Common Prayer; now, the Bible.

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"Oh, how I love your law!
all the day long it is in my mind." (Psalm 119:97)

Psalm 119 is, if anything, too short. One hundred and seventy-six verses, from Aleph to Taw, cannot begin to tell the wonders of the law, or more broadly speaking, the word of God. I say one of the eight-verse stanzas each day with the Midday Office, besides its appearance in the normal round of Matins and Evensong. I always delight in this Psalm, all the more with each passing month. This delight is a microcosm of my delight in the larger story, the Old and New Testaments (and the Apocrypha) in their grand sweep from the Beginning to the End. The Bible is an untidy collection of writings, contradicting itself repeatedly. It is full of bizarre and seemingly trivial detail, as I recounted in my essay on Leviticus. It has moments of the most profound beauty, and the utmost darkness and terror. There are stories of heroic deeds, of military victories (and defeats). There are tales of abject failure, of apostasy, of betrayal. There are moments when in the darkness, light shines, a light which cannot be quenched. There is poetry, songs that have endured for millennia. It contains the wisdom of the ages, the holy Law of the LORD, the words and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And it is, from beginning to end, true. These words have been tried in the fire and have not been found wanting.

I must quote at length from J.R.R. Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories," wherein he alludes to the Biblical record as a special kind of Story:

"I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction . . . the Gospels [and I would add, all of Scripture] contain a fairystory, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels— artistic, beautiful, and moving: "mythical" in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe [a "happy ending," though the word conveys more than that, as Tolkien explains in the essay]. But this story has entered History and the primary world. . . . The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the "inner consistency of reality." There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.

"It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be "primarily" true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed. It is not difficult, for one is not called upon to try and conceive anything of a quality unknown. The joy would have exactly the same quality, if not the same degree, as the joy which the "turn" in a fairy-story gives: such joy has the very taste of primary truth. (Otherwise its name would not be joy.) It looks forward (or backward: the direction in this regard is unimportant) to the Great Eucatastrophe. The Christian joy, the Gloria, is of the same kind; but it is preeminently (infinitely, if our capacity were not finite) high and joyous. But this story is supreme; and it is true. Art has been verified. God is the Lord, of angels, and of men— of elves. Legend and History have met and fused."

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Biblical translation requires at least two skills. It requires knowledge of the original languages: Hebrew and Aramaic, Greek. And it require knowledge of the target language. It is in this latter skill that the modern translations -- anything later than the "old" Revised Standard Version -- fall short. The scholars who composed the NRSV, the NIV, the NEB, the Jerusalem Bible, and similar versions probably know the old languages at least as well as the seventeenth century scholars of the AV. They certainly have better source documents, though I am not aware of any differences of content between the AV and the new versions that amount to more than trivialities. But they do not know English as well as William Tyndale, Lancelot Andrewes, and the others whose work is in the pages of the AV. The modern translators may have a clear idea of what the original language says, but too often they cannot find the English words and grammar to express it precisely and poetically.

Samuel Johnson, from the Preface to his Dictionary:

"I have studiously endeavored to collect examples and authorities from the writers before the restoration, whose works I regard as the wells of English undefiled, as the pure sources of genuine diction. . . . From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance."

I would submit that Johnson remains correct: the English from the time of Elizabeth I to the Restoration is better than that of any period since. The English of our current age, from about 1960 onward, is perhaps the most depraved of all.

Precision of language and poetics is not a small thing. It is only through language that the Scriptures communicate anything at all to us. If the language is clumsy, communication is hindered. If the language is careful and precise, and at the same time beautiful, what is read is more likely to be understood and remembered. Because it is Story, the manner of its telling is significant. The precision with which the Biblical authors tell their stories, down to the individual words, is astounding. There is hardly a detail that does not, in some way, contribute to the telling. Some of this will necessarily be lost in translation, but as much as possible of the sense of the original must be conveyed in the target language. I believe that the Authorized Version succeeds in this better than any other English translation.

Nonetheless, one can learn from the variety of approaches to the text found in the many English translations. My one study Bible is an Oxford Annotated NRSV, and it is of great value to me. I consult the New English Bible from time to time, and the "old" RSV. The Jerusalem Bible is good, too; I am less fond of the NIV, but many people prefer it. I rather like the old Phillips translation at times as something of a paraphrase.

The RSV and NRSV share one characteristic that I like very much: footnotes. When there are alternative readings for a word in various manuscripts, or alternative ways of translating a word, it often gives them in the footnote. Or one might find something like this: "Meaning of Heb. uncertain," which is indeed the case for a number of passages. I appreciate them saying so. When there are names which are meaningful for the passage, it gives their meaning: an example is at Hosea 1:4-8 and 2:22-23, where the names Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi are the point of the passage. The KJV gives the names in chapter one when Hosea names his children, but at 2:22-23, it gives the English translation, not the names, and one misses part of the connection between these two passages. The NRSV gives the names in both places, with their translation in footnotes; this is superior.

The KJV does something that, in turn, I wish other translations would do: when there are words or short phrases which are the translators' suggestions for filling in what is implied in the original, they put them in italics. This is especially valuable in the O.T., when the Hebrew is often elliptic in comparison to English. Sometimes the translators supplied entire phrases, and one can question whether they did rightly or not; by rendering the supplied text in italics, the reader can figure it out for himself. An example of this is at I John 2:23: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also."


The Bible in any translation is better than any other book under the sun. It does us no good if we do not read it. But if we do, it is an unfailing guide, a "light upon [our] path" (Ps. 119:105). It is open to the simplest person; it is a fount of wisdom to the wisest and most subtle of scholars. But it remains a closed book to any who do not approach it in faith.

"Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting lift, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." [Collect for the Sunday closest to November 16: BCP p. 184]

Archbishop and Pope

In the upstairs hall of our church, there is a photograph of the Most Reverend and Right Honorable Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, with a handwritten note of greeting to our parish inscribed on it. This photograph from the Archbishop gives me hope, especially on bad days in the parish. It reminds me that my little bit of work in this place is in communion with the much larger work of Anglicans in places of infinite variety around the world, large and small.

I am glad that Rowan and Benedict, the Bishop of Rome, have become, to all appearances, personal friends, with a shared recognition of their task of Christian witness in an unbelieving world. I hold both of them in high regard, and wish them God's grace and blessings in all that they undertake.

In this light, the Pope's recent visit to Great Britain was for me a source of unalloyed joy, culminating in the Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey on Friday. Here is the Order of Service; it is worthy of examination as a window into what must have been a splendid occasion.

Some impressions:

- One does not often have an Order of Procession like this (page 8), including the sixth-century illuminated Gospel book brought to Canterbury by its first Archbishop, and concluding with the Pope and Archbishop and their chaplains, all entering to "Christ is made the sure foundation" to the tune Westminster Abbey, in the building for which it was named and where its composer was Organist.

- I am glad that we Anglicans presented ourselves at our best: Choral Evensong in one of the great churches of the world. The service of Choral Evensong, with the musical repertoire that has developed for it, is the unique gift of the Anglican Communion to Christendom.

- The musical selections could not have been better, from the list of organ voluntaries before the service (page 4) and the anthems by Byrd, Stanford and Tallis (page 6-7) to the hymns and Psalm, and Stanford in A for the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and Duruflé's Ubi caritas as the Anthem, topped off with Bach's Komm, heiliger Geist as the first of two concluding voluntaries. We have sung some of this music in our parish choir, and I have played some of the voluntaries; this music is thoroughly representative of our tradition.

- The Service was a reminder that the Choral Office is ecumenical in a way that the Holy Eucharist cannot be. We differ on many things, but we can pray together, and sing together.

- The address given by the Holy Father was an inspiration to me. Using the processional hymn as a springboard, he spoke of Christ as the source of all Christian unity:

"Our commitment to Christian unity is born of nothing less than our faith in Christ, in this Christ, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. It is the reality of Christ's person, his saving work and above all the historical fact of his resurrection, which is the content of the apostolic kerygma and those credal formulas which, beginning in the New Testament itself, have guaranteed the integrity of its transmission. The Church's unity, in a word, can never be other than a unity in the apostolic faith, in the faith entrusted to each new member of the Body of Christ during the rite of Baptism. It is this faith which unites us to the Lord, makes us sharers in his Holy Spirit, and thus, even now, sharers in the life of the Blessed Trinity, the model of the Church's koinonia here below. . . ."

"Fidelity to the word of God, precisely because it is a true word, demands of us an obedience which leads us together to a deeper understanding of the Lord's will, an obedience which must be free of intellectual conformism or facile accommodation to the spirit of the age. This is the word of encouragement which I wish to leave with you this evening, and I do so in fidelity to my ministry as the Bishop of Rome and the Successor of Saint Peter, charged with a particular care for the unity of Christ's flock."

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In perusing the Holy Father's other speeches during his visit, I found this, in his address to the people of St. Peter's Residence, a home for the elderly in London:

"Those of us who live many years are given a marvellous chance to deepen our awareness of the mystery of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity. . . . [O]ur physical capacities are often diminished; and yet these times may well be among the most spiritually fruitful years of our lives. These years are an opportunity to remember in affectionate prayer all those whom we have cherished in this life, and to place all that we have personally been and done before the mercy and tenderness of God. This will surely be a great spiritual comfort and enable us to discover anew his love and goodness all the days of our life."

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In our little parish church, far removed from Westminster Abbey in almost every possible respect, we had a good choral service this morning. The choir sang verses from Psalm 79 to Tone IV, capturing the dark intensity of these words:

O God, the heathen have come into your inheritance;
they have profaned your holy temple *
they have made Jerusalem a heap of rubble.

They have given the bodies of your servants as food for the birds of the air, *
and the flesh of your faithful ones to the beast of the field. . . .

They later sang "There is a balm in Gilead" in the fine arrangement by William Dawson, in a manner that was fully committed to this great Spiritual, communicating that being a Christian is something that demands everything from us, and is in turn our only refuge and help, the "balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole." In our own way, we gave testimony this morning to "our faith in Christ, in this Christ, risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father, who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead."

It is as we worship and serve this our Lord Jesus Christ, looking to Him alone, that we are one. We must hold on to this.

"Ha! Ha!" among the trumpets

[from a sermon by Martin H. Franzmann, preached at Zion Lutheran Church, St. Louis, June 4, 1956. A more complete text can be found in the book Come to the Feast, the collected hymns of Martin Franzmann, edited by Robin A. Leaver: MorningStar Music Publishers, 1994. It is an excellent little book, not least for the four sermons appended to the main text, from which the following quotation is drawn:]

-------

"Nowhere in that jubilant and exuberant book, the Old Testament, is there such an expression of joyful wonder at the creation of God as in the latter chapters of the Book of Job . . . . And in all these chapters, in all these pictures of beings fearfully and wonderfully made, there is nothing quite like the picture of the horse in his strength [Job 39:19-15], the horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, the glory of whose nostrils is terrible, who paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, who mocketh at fear, who swalloweth the ground with fear and rage -- 'He saith among the trumpets, 'Ha! Ha!''

"God has made him a horse, a steed of war. He delights in being a horse; he is glad to work like a horse and to fight like a steed of war. He hears the trumpets of war, and he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet; that trumpet is God's call to him to be what God has made him. And he greets that call with an equine Alleluia! He snuffs the air, and stamps the ground, and 'saith among the trumpets, 'Ha! Ha!'"

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For several weeks at Matins, we have been reading the Book of Job. I have written of it elsewhere: Some thoughts on the Book of Job. Like Dr. Franzmann, I delight in the latter chapters of the Book, wherein the LORD answers Job "out of the whirlwind" (Job 38:1).

The whirlwind, or tornado as we would call it, is a Force of Nature of the most immense power. That is, possibly, why the author depicted the LORD as speaking from it, calling his listeners (which include us, all these thousands of years later) to account. "Gird up now thy loins like a man: for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." (Job 38:3-4)

When we are tempted to make God into a cosmic teddy bear, all love, cuddly warmth, and forgiveness, which we can set on a shelf to gather dust, bringing Him out when we are feeling lonely or sad, we should remember the LORD speaking out of the whirlwind. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (St. John 3:8).

No hand can thwart the Spirit's intention. That divine intention has, from the foundation of the world, had at its center a Cross, and we are part of it, we who are of the Body of Christ. In our participation in His death upon the Cross, we find the gate of life. "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20).

Franzmann again:
"Perhaps you have decided to work like a horse in your ministry. Do so by all means. But do not work like a drudging nag under the lash, or a weary bag of bones under the yoke. We are not under the yoke in our ministry. The necessity which is laid upon us is not that of the yoke and the lash but that of the irresistible call of God's own trumpet."

The Collect for Holy Cross Day, September 14:
Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world unto himself: Mercifully grant that we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Red Beans and Rice, Music Office Style

This has been a busy week, so I cannot write anything profound. Thus, a recipe:

Needed:
- small Rice Cooker
- Rice, either Brown or White: 1 "cup"(see note below)
- Dried Soup Vegetables: ½ cup
- Can of Red or Pinto Beans, or similar amount of leftover "home-cooked" beans
- Cajun Seasoning to taste (I use one or two Teaspoons)
- Water
- Cooking Oil: about 1 Tablespoon

By one "cup" of rice, I mean one Rice Cooker "cup," which is 6 ounces, or three-quarters of a standard U.S. measuring cup -- and, very conveniently, one good-sized serving. Such a measuring cup supposedly comes with a rice cooker when you purchase it; the three cookers I have owned are all from thrift stores, and did not have the cups. I take a regular measuring cup and fill it about three-quarters full. One need not be exact.

Dried Soup Vegetables are handy to keep around. They can be purchased in the bulk food section of our local natural foods cooperative. If not available where you live, you can order them from Frontier Natural Products, which is the source from which our cooperative gets them.

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Put the rice and dried vegetables in the rice cooker. Add the cooking oil. Add water as appropriate for your rice cooker, probably an inch or so above the level of the rice/vegetable mixture, a bit more if you are using brown rice. If you have time, you can let the rice and vegetables soak for a while before cooking; I prepared it to here before Matins this morning and left it to soak until after the late Eucharist.

Plug in the cooker, and cook the rice. Have ready the can of beans. When the rice cooker clicks off from "cook" to "warm," stir in the beans and cajun seasoning, stirring to the bottom of the cooker pan (with a wooden spoon to avoid scratching the cooker). Put the lid back on and let it set on "warm" for fifteen minutes or more. Unplug the cooker and serve.

Serves one hungry person (me, on a Sunday after church. I fixed it today in my office as I worked on next Sunday's bulletins).

August 15: A Sunday on the Road

A note for those who read the paper-and-ink version of the "Music Box" in our church newsletter: the September essay should be read in the context of what follows, and is, to some extent, an answer to it. As much as I might like to be in the places I describe, I am not, in any manner other than a tourist and stranger. I am here, now, in the place where God has put me. And that is best. For those who do not see the newsletter, I will append the essay to this posting.
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My principal task for the day: driving from Nashville to my home in the hills to the east. But it was Sunday, the Lord's Day. I decided that I would head up the road and see if a likely-looking church might appear at 10:30 or 11:00.

I ended up at Lafayette Missionary Baptist Church, in Lafayette, Tennessee. From the moment the music started, I knew that I had been led to the right place.

People were pouring into the church from the parking lot. I was glad that I was in white shirt and tie, because most of them were dressed in similar fashion. I followed the crowd into the sanctuary, which was already full at ten minutes before the hour, filled with people of all ages and with the happy buzz of conversation. These people obviously enjoyed one another's company.

I will borrow from the format of the Mystery Worshippers at ship-of-fools.com:

The Church: It was, the sign said, established in 1849. There was an older building with facade in colonial style with white columns, and a much larger new building alongside it to the left with similar facade, connecting by a short passageway.

The Denomination: There are dozens of varieties of Baptist, and at least two sorts of "Missionary Baptists" to which this congregation could be affiliated: the "Old Time Missionary Baptists," whose heartland is this very region of Middle Tennessee and Kentucky, and the more modernistic churches who are closer to the Southern Baptists in practice, but are not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention because of its liberalism. The lack of an invitation at the end of the sermon inclines me to think that this might be more of an "Old Time" congregation, as one of their hallmarks is that they consider "decisional regeneration," or choosing to accept Christ as personal savior, to be biblically unsound, while those closer to the Southern Baptists regularly include an invitation to accept Christ as part of their services. Also, the lack of a baptistry might be indicative; the Old Time churches prefer to conduct baptisms in rivers, by immersion.

On the other hand, this congregation would be quite large for the "Old Time" group, whose churches tend to be small, and the use of an organ along with the piano would be unusual. Then again, such congregations are independent of one another, and far from uniform in their practice. In the end, they are what they are. There was a Church Covenant inscribed in a large plaque on the wall above the pulpit; this probably served as a description of their beliefs, but I was sitting too far back to read it. The Wikipedia article linked above includes the "Eighteen Articles of Faith" typically considered to be fundamental doctrine by Old Time Missionary Baptists. I heard and saw nothing in my visit at the Lafayette Church that would not be in keeping with these doctrines.

The Building: As I eventually learned, they were in their third week of worship in a new facility, built alongside their old one, which had been transformed into their church school. It was a plain, square room with plain white walls, red carpet, and heavily padded pews. In the front was an area on the right for a choir, filled with about thirty people, a pulpit in the center with two chairs behind it and the Church Covenant above -- no communion table or cross anywhere in sight and no decorations anywhere -- and on the left, an upright piano and electronic organ. The songleader stood by these instruments.

The Neighborhood: A block from the Macon County Courthouse, in the middle of the small town of Lafayette (northeast of Nashville, near the Kentucky line on State Route 52), with many of the businesses closed and boarded up as they are in most small rural towns -- the center of business activity had moved to the Wal-Mart on the edge of town. Some of the abandoned nature of the downtown is probably the aftermath of an EF-3 class tornado on the night of February 5, 2008, which came to ground in downtown Lafayette, killing fourteen people in Macon County.

The Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee and Kentucky is one of the more isolated parts of America, a region of rolling countryside, farms, and woods, of cornfields, pasture, and burley tobacco, beautiful with its fully mature leaves a bright yellow, much of it already cut and stacked in the fields, ready for drying in sheds over the winter. This was my kind of place.

The Cast: The service was led by an unnamed Elder. Besides the choir of about thirty people (who had no independent part in the service; their function was to support the congregational singing), there was a young man in white shirt and tie, perhaps eighteen or twenty years old, as songleader; another young man perhaps in his mid-twenties at the piano; and a woman in her seventies or eighties at the organ. I did not learn any of their names.

The Date and Time: Sunday, August 15, 11:00 a.m.

What was the name of the service? No name was given, either inside or outside on the church sign, which did not list service times. This was simply what people did; show up at 11:00 on the Lord's Day. It did not need a name.

How full was the building? Filled to overflowing. As mentioned, I arrived ten minutes early; I nonetheless seated myself in a folding chair in the back, because there were no other seats. All of the pews were full, and others continued to arrive, pretty much filling all of the overflow seating. All told, I would guess at 250 people or thereabouts, of all ages, with probably fifty or seventy-five of them under the age of sixteen. Being a new facility, I worried a bit that it was already overflowing, and that on a Sunday in mid-August when our church back home was likely pretty much empty. Perhaps it should have been larger. But perhaps this was all they could afford; it was about twice the size of their old worship space. On the whole, the people looked comfortable, but not at all well-to-do financially. They had the look of hard-working country people. Upon reflection, I realized that part of it was the teeth.

I have bad teeth, three of them missing and the rest crooked. This comes, in part, from not having access to orthodontics in my childhood; only the children of the wealthiest families wore braces in that time and place. The people among whom I live these days all have fine straight teeth, thanks (in many cases) to extensive dental work recently and throughout their lives. The only ones with bad teeth are some of the street people, and immigrants from Eastern Europe or Africa. But back home in the Appalachians, pretty much anyone of my generation has teeth like mine. As did the people in Lafayette Missionary Baptist Church. These were not people who spend thousands of dollars on their appearance.

In this light, it is worth mentioning that two offerings were taken, back to back -- two sets of ushers (all male), two sets of plates going around at the same time while the piano and organ played a couple of gospel songs as an offertory. Both sets of plates were overflowing with cash, with lots of $20's and $50's in evidence. The songleader mentioned the purpose of the two offerings, but I didn't catch it.

Did anyone welcome you personally? No. In fact, no one sat within three seats of me in my row despite the crowded conditions, and some people (especially children) stared at me as an obvious stranger. There were no ushers or greeters. Then again, Lafayette is well off the beaten path, and small enough that people probably recognize everyone in town and are unused to seeing strangers.

Was your pew comfortable? The pews appeared to be comfortable; the folding chair was not.

How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere? Happy. A family reunion. There was something of a sense of anticipation, as well.

What were the exact opening words of the service? From the songleader: "In the blue book, number ...."

What books did the congregation use during the service? There were four songbooks in the pew racks (or on the chairs, in my case), all of them Stamps-Baxter gospel collections in shape-note notation and all of them well-worn. In this service we used only one of them, referred to as the "blue book." I neglected to note its title. About half the congregation had brought their own Bibles, and used them during the sermon. I was sorry I had left mine in the car.

I must describe, for the uninitiated, what a "Stamps-Baxter" book is. They were a publishing house which specialized in Southern Gospel, producing thousands of songs in the genre and printing them in small paperback songbooks with shape-note notation, even though the music bears little relation to the older Sacred Harp or Southern Harmony shape-note singing traditions. It is a unique part of Americana, and of the history of church music in the United States. Donald Hustad describes it in this manner: "In the 1930's . . . the Stamps-Baxter "gospel quartet" emerged to present all-night "gospel sings" and to publish scores of small songbooks which became popular, particularly in rural churches in the South. Most of these "southern hymns" were "up-tempo", combining the call-and-response techniques of spirituals with the word repetition common to the quartet song." (from Jubilate II: Church Music in Worship and Renewal: Donald P. Hustad, Hope Publishing Co., 1993). Such music was obviously this congregation's entire repertoire and delight. While this repertoire is often sung by quartets, in this church all of the singing was congregational, sometimes in parts and sometimes in unison. Sometimes it departed quite a bit from the notation.

In a way, the relation of Southern Gospel to the old Sacred Harp singing is analogous to the relation between Bluegrass and old-time traditional Mountain Music of the southern Appalachians. In both cases, the latter is a genuine folk tradition, and the former is an adaptation and commercialization of it in accord with the differing circumstances of the mid-twentieth century, especially the advent of radio broadcasting and recordings.

What musical instruments were played? Piano and organ together, in the grand Baptist style. From the first notes of the prelude, a lively gospel song, I was entranced. The pianist was a young genius. He played this style as well as I have ever heard it, even in recordings. He combined formidable technique with a solid understanding of the music and the accompanying of congregational song. The organist was good, too, though in this style the organ's role is that of playing sustained chords while the pianist has all the fun. As a team, pianist and organist were impeccable. The songleader was in the stiff, no-nonsense style that one commonly finds among the Latter-Day Saints churches; no emoting, no commentary or exhortation, just the songs, announced and conducted in a thoroughly straightforward way. I loved it.

Did anything distract you? No. I was in heaven.

Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy-clappy, or what? Very happy, in a dignified old-school country Baptist manner. Not at all "happy-clappy" in the forced and artificial modern evangelical sense; it could not be further removed from that sort of churchmanship.

Exactly how long was the sermon? I did not time it, but it was somewhat over forty-five minutes.

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about? The presiding elder, a gentleman in his sixties or seventies, began with the "Reading Lesson," which was the entire twenty-sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, being Paul's defense before King Agrippa (in the King James Version, as were all of the many Scriptures that were quoted). But that was merely the lead-in to an account of the Promises of God, beginning in Genesis 3 and running through the "Old Bible," as he called it, right up to Malachi, with a half-dozen or so passages from Acts and the Epistles for good measure, most tellingly Acts 2:38-39 -- "the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." He probably quoted twenty or thirty passages, all appropriate to his point. It reminded me of what we Anglicans do in a different way in a Service of Lessons and Carols. As mentioned, there was no invitation or altar call at the end. His stated purpose, which he fulfilled, was to show what a firm foundation we have in Christ, whose incarnation was the fulfillment of the unshakable and eternal promises of God. There were many "Amens" scattered through the sermon, some of them from me. At the completion, he said "And that is what the Lord has put on my heart for today. Let's have a Christian handshake with one another."

If this was indeed an "Old Time" church, the elder probably had no theological education. It is frowned upon in this tradition. But he had spent a lot of time with his Bible.

Which part of the service was like being in heaven? The music. The congregational singing and especially the pianist and organist. I could listen to them for days on end. And the "Christian handshake." And the sermon; it was good to hear a sermon with plenty of meat on its bones. I doubt that the elder has encountered his writings, but I thought of Lancelot Andrewes more than once.

And which part was like being in... er... the other place? The folding chair got pretty uncomfortable before all was done. We remained seated throughout until after the sermon, a good hour and a quarter or more into the service. The acoustics were horrible, which is typical of Baptists. I thought more than once how much better the singing would be with bare hardwood floors. But it was good enough as it was.

What happened when you hung around after the service looking lost? By this time, several people had spoken with me in the "Christian handshake," which I will shortly describe. After the closing prayer, an elderly gentleman engaged me in conversation; he proved to be the husband of the organist. I spoke with her as well, telling her that I was a church organist "back home." She said "Oh, if I'd known that, we'd have had you play instead of me." I demurred, and told her I could never play this music as well as she and her pianist companion had done. Several other people spoke with me briefly, inviting me back anytime I was in the area.

How would you describe the after-service coffee? There was none. No coffee, no cookies, no nothing. But people hung around for a long time, talking and having a good time. I left after ten minutes or so, and I was one of the first to do so.

How would you feel about making this church your regular home (where 10 = ecstatic, 0 = terminal)? Four. For a one-time visit, I was ecstatic. But I spent many years in a related branch of the Baptist tradition, and left it for the Episcopal Church. As fine as it was, the music was one-dimensional, pretty much all in the same tempo and "feel," and all geared toward the life of eternity. In this style, there is not even the Watts and Wesley that one finds in the old Shape-Note traditions that lie behind the Stamps-Baxter music. There were no Psalms, and no Eucharist -- they probably do it once a quarter, call it the "Lord's Supper," and deny that it has any sacramental character. Bach or Messiaen or Howells would be unimaginable in this setting. There would be neither Matins nor Evensong, and no devotion to the Mother of God or the Blessed Sacrament. I would miss the heritage of hymnody in all styles from plainsong onward, the Sunday Lectionary (which, as one learns in a "free" church, is a safeguard against the whims and prejudices of the clergy), the Nicene Creed and other parts of the Ordinary, the elegant language of collects and liturgy when conducted in Rite One, the liturgical year, the sanctoral calendar. Perhaps the hardest part would be giving up the Anglican choral tradition, and my work with choirs, as well as my playing of the classical organ literature. It would be a lot to sacrifice.

Nonetheless, were I to live in Macon County, Tennessee - with the nearest Episcopal churches probably an hour's drive away and not at all a part of the local community - I would probably join this congregation, learn to live with its limitations, and sing the Daily Office at home. And I would learn from these fine musicians how to play gospel piano and organ.

Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian? Absolutely. I am pleased and honored that these people are my brethren, and that they (eventually) gave me the right hand of Christian fellowship, even though a stranger. I am very glad that such congregations still exist in this degenerate age.

What one thing will you remember about all this in seven days' time? The delight in my heart at the first measures of piano and organ, playing this music the way it ought to be done. I almost floated out of my seat into the rafters for joy.

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Afterword:
I have mentioned the "Christian handshake." This was a ritual which was new to me. After the sermon, the songleader announced the first of eight or ten songs, and the elder started shaking hands with people in the choir. Gradually, people in the choir and congregation got up, lined up along the right-side wall, and started filing down to the front, shaking hands with all they encountered, often exchanging hugs and entering into conversation. They continued on around across the front and up the left-side wall and aisle and the whole thing dissolved into as fine an example of the Peace as I have encountered, the singing continuing throughout. This process occupied about a half-hour. When it was time, the presiding elder called for the closing prayer, which he delegated to an elder in the congregation, and the service was finished with a postlude, with which some of the people sang along. And people continued to mingle for quite a while.

Partway through this ritual, a few people began to shake my hand -- quite a few had gone right past me at first. Then more and more, and finally nearly everyone. It was if it simply took them a while to warm up to a stranger in their midst. And this was fine.

The order of service: After a short prelude, we began with two congregational gospel songs. The presiding elder then stood, and without any introductory statements or welcome, asked for prayer requests. People spoke up, many scores of people, briefly naming those who were in need of prayer, sometimes adding a sentence describing the reason. After it was clear that everyone had spoken who had something to say, the presiding elder called on "elder ...." in the choir to "lead off the prayer." The elder who was indicated knelt on his knees and started praying. Others joined him, sometimes simultaneously. In the carpeted church, it was almost impossible to hear what they were saying if they were at any distance in the room. The whole process of requests and intercessory prayer took about twenty-five or thirty minutes.

Then came the two offerings, as mentioned, and we sang a couple more gospel songs. After that, the presiding elder stood for the "Reading Lesson" and sermon, followed by the "Christian handshake," a brief closing prayer by an elder out in the congregation (right in front of me, as it happened), and postlude.

Another Afterword:
According to the so-called "church growth experts," a place such as this should not exist. They do nothing that the pollsters and pop-sociologists say a church should do to attract newcomers: they are positively unfriendly to a stranger on first appearance; they make no effort to explain their manner of worship; their music is miles away from the mainstream of Christian pop that is supposed to attract the crowds; they use the King James Bible; they are located in what appears to be a decaying rural community, instead of the wealthy upscale suburbs favored by the likes of Willow Creek; their service is uncompromisingly long, with a sermon filled with Scripture and devoid of any contemporary cultural or topical reference. There are no written materials of any kind other than the Stamps-Baxter songbooks and the Bibles that people bring with them. No video screens, no lighting or stage effects. No announcements, save a brief reminder of the Sunday evening service, and a call to "always pray for the lost." The church does not appear to have a website.

Yet, this church was filled, and not just with old people. The mix of age groups was similar to the contemporary service in our parish; lots of children, including small children with their families, plus more teens than we have in our services. There was no children's chapel, or children's sermon. There was nothing whatsoever that was specifically aimed at children or youth, but the place was full of them, and they appeared to be having a good time. The very young ones enjoyed being with their parents and playing in the pews -- and the congregation happily tolerated the noise and disorder that young children always bring -- the older children and teens tended to sit with their friends in groups, and did a good bit of quiet talking among themselves, but they were there, and seemingly happy to be there.

Two Lists:
Here are some of the songs that were sung. There were many others, but I did not know most of them, and I was so entranced that I was simply flowing along with them, not paying much attention to what they were. I was too shy to sing alto, so I sang melody, tenor, and bass, easily falling into my native hillbilly accent, and had a grand time.
- I'd rather be an old-time Christian
- I'll fly away
- Trust and obey
- Victory in Jesus
- There's a better home the other side of Jordan

After church, I drove for a while eastward on Route 52, finding the "Gone Country" Cafe in the next county seat: Celina, Tennessee, in Clay County. It was a little downtown place run by three women -- one of them young, perhaps the daughter or daughter-in-law of the oldest woman who was working the kitchen. She (the young woman) was, I think, the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan -- "Gone, but not forgotten," as the little display on the refrigerator door said, above a collection of fading newspaper clippings and photos.

I had the Vegetable Plate:
- Mixed Beans (pinto and navy, cooked to perfection)
- Hoecake (like a pancake, but made with corn meal. This was what appeared in response to the question "Do you want corn bread or light bread?" That is what my mother used to ask my father when starting to fix supper, and it took me right back to those days.)
- Mashed Potatoes
- Cole Slaw
- Green Tomatoes, battered and fried
- Apple Cobbler with Ice Cream

Once again, I was in heaven. This little place had food that was a hundred times better than the fancy fare at the Doubletree Hotel. May these three women live long and prosper, and may their beloved soldier rest in peace.

Sunset and Evening Star
Evening found me in far Southwest Virginia, after a sultry afternoon on U.S. 58 running up the east side of Cumberland Mountain as the shadows lengthened, along the route of Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road. It is one of the most beautiful drives in America. For a while, U.S. 58 is joined by the north-south highway U.S. 23. Loretta Lynn, the "Coal Miner's Daughter," was born and raised not far north on this highway in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, before following her husband (to whom she was married just after her fourteenth birthday and bore four children by the age of nineteen) out west, and later driving cross-country with him, trying to get radio stations to play her songs. Some of them did.

Dr. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys are from around here too, near Clintwood in the next county east, along with elder brother Carter Stanley (1925-66), guitarist and mentor to Ralph. They are among the great practitioners of Bluegrass, Gospel, and traditional music. If one wishes to understand this region and its people, one could do worse than listen to Ralph and Loretta's songs, such as "The Fields Have Turned Brown" (a Carter Stanley song, which Ralph still sings), "When I Wake to Sleep No More," and "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Following this road, I began working my way north, deeper into the mountains. At the top of one of the mountain gaps just south of the city of Norton, there is a roadside overlook. I arrived there shortly past sunset, and walked out the long path to the edge of the cliff. The mountains rolled away into the distance, into the summer haze that softens the contours of the Virginia hill country.

Castanea dentata used to be the dominant tree species in these parts. It loved the steep slopes with their thin, rocky soil, the temperate summers with plenty of rain, the moderate winters. I may walk far from these hills in my journeys, but part of me will always be here.

As I watched, the evening star appeared in the darkening sky.

O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven;
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed.

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

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Appendix: I am here, now
"I am here, now." This remains in my mind from a sermon many years ago in our parish. We are limited in space and time. "I am here, now." That means I am not in other places, some of which I would like very much to be. We can learn much from the trees in this; once the seed commits to germination, it is in that place for the rest of its life, perhaps centuries. It may find the place to be uncongenial -- choked with pollution, too dry or too wet, poor soil, insect and animal pests in abundance, harsh winters. It may find itself in the path of a highway, or a subdivision, or a logging company. But it is committed to that one place, come what may.

We animals have more flexibility. Nonetheless, we, like the trees, are only in one place at a time, and prosper only when we stay in that place long enough to learn its ways. We must cast forth roots and seek to bear fruit, whether the circumstances are favorable or not. We must work for the good of the place where we are, of the people around us, in the present moment, and in the manner committed to us.

We might fail, insofar as we can judge the results of our work. By the time he died, "Old Bach" of Leipzig was an obsolete relic, his ways abandoned by his sons and students, the Lutheran orthodoxy he loved cast aside for modern ways. But his work lay for generations like seeds in the soil, bearing fruit in ways he could not have foreseen.

The work is given to us, but it is not ours, and our personal success or failure in it matters not at all. The work is the LORD's, and it shall not fail.