A radiant Sign of Hope

The Twelve Days have been a hard slog so far. The weather has been snowy and cold, and everything that involves being outside (such as going to work) takes longer. I am always worn out by the afternoon of Christmas Day, and this year I was coming down with a cold. My wife was also worn out by a back injury in November and the insanity of big-chain-store retail in December. By the time I got home that afternoon, the two of us stared bleakly at each other for a while, ate a light supper, and went to bed. Neither of us had bothered to have a gift for the other; she received no gifts at all other than some cash from her parents.

It has been little better since then; I have worked my normal schedule, fighting a mild fever and hacking cough in the rush to prepare for Sunday – having Christmas on Wednesday made it like two very short weeks with two Sundays to cover, two sets of bulletins to produce. Twice as much work, no extra time to do it.

Seeing that the refrigerator was starting to be a little barren – the weather had been too frightful, and I too tired, for my normal grocering the previous Monday, and promised to be even worse this Monday (yesterday, Dec. 30) – I swung by the all-night supermarket on Sunday when I was done at church, dully making my way through the store for milk, yoghurt, beer – all of these for my wife, nothing for me. I had lost my appetite with the fever and was barely eating. Halfway through, I had to stop and go to the store's filthy restroom with a bout of diarrhea. I somehow managed to get home and lug the groceries and twelve-pack of Grain Belt to the door, the wind chill some thirty below by now. I got everything inside, put away, and fell into the bed, still in most of my clothes.

The next morning: not a word of thanks. “I am almost out of oatmeal. And you didn't bother to even look.”

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming
as seers of old have sung.
It came a blossom bright,
amid the cold of winter,
when half-spent was the night.

The week has been instructive. In my weakness, I clung to the Daily Office, and for the three Major Feasts, the Ante-Communion service with the Eucharistic lessons (for this is how I celebrate them, not being a priest). For Stephen's Day, which was a day off and the worst of my sickness, that was all I could manage – Matins, Ante-Communion, Evensong, sleep.

And a slim little book: the Infancy Narratives volume of Benedict XVI's “Jesus of Nazareth.” Having read the other two volumes, I was slightly disappointed when I purchased and read it early in 2013; it is 132 pages and hardly more than a two-hour read, where the other volumes had been substantial. And it cost the same: $20.00. Worse, the ending seemed like Benedict simply ran out of steam and quit. To some extent, that might have been true, for his powers were failing when he wrote this and it is a miracle that we have it at all.

But now – here I was in the Twelve Days, in most desperate need. It was medicine for the soul. Even the ending now makes sense; Benedict saw rightly that this book must lead directly into the one he wrote first, which takes up the story of Jesus of Nazareth at his Baptism. I can see that if one were to read the books in order (that is, the Infancy narrative first), the end of this book would flow almost seamlessly into the beginning of the next, and the very fine ending of "volume three" (the second to be written, covering the events from Palm Sunday through the Ascension) would be a fitting conclusion.

I do not have the time or energy for extensive quotes; I will simply recommend the book to anyone who wants a companion through the infancy narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke.

And one quote:

Is what we profess in the Creed true, then?--'I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God … [who] by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary?' The answer is an unequivocal yes.... These two moments [the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection] are a scandal to the modern spirit. God is 'allowed' to act in ideas and thoughts, in the spiritual domain—but not in the material. That is shocking. He does not belong there. But that is precisely the point: God is God and he does not operate merely on the level of ideas....

Hence the conception and birth of Jesus from the Virgin Mary is a fundamental element of our faith and a radiant sign of hope. (p. 56-57)

Today, I am better. It was still a struggle to get to the church in the snow and I was ten minutes late in starting Matins, out in the church in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and the final public liturgy of the year. But I was able to sing the Psalms and Canticles without coughing for the first time since Christmas Eve. And I was able to put in a solid day of work, much of it on a First Workout of “Les Mages” from the Messiaen Nativity suite. It will be the prelude for Sunday.

My wife and I both have this Thursday as a day off. Perhaps we can mend some bridges then. It will help that I swung by the store for some oatmeal on the way home today.

O Star of Hope, O Mother of God,
pray for us sinners.
May we treasure His words in our hearts,
as you have ever done.
May they bear fruit in our lives
for the Kingdom which began
with your obedience.
May we love the poor among us
and be their servants.
May we, with you, behold his face
forever, world without end.

Beethoven and God

From Romain Rolland: “Portrait of Beethoven in his Thirtieth Year”

When we speak of Beethoven we have to speak of God: God to him is the first reality, the most real of realities.... [Beethoven] can regard him as a companion to be treated roughly, as a tyrant to be cursed, as a fragment of his own ego, or as a rough friend, a severe father qui bene castigat. (The son of Johann van Beethoven had learned as a child the value of this treatment.) But whatever this Being may be that is at issue with Beethoven, he is at issue with him at every hour of the day; he is of his household and dwells with him; never does he leave him. Other friends come and go: he alone is always there. And Beethoven importunes him with his complaints, his reproaches, his questions. The inward monologue is always à deux. In all Beethoven's work, from the very earliest, we find these dialogues of the soul, of the two souls in one, wedded and opposed, discussing, warring, body locked with body, whether for war or in an embrace who can say?

for Beethoven's Birthday

December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827

I am an organist, and no longer a Real Pianist, not the kind who plays Beethoven. But there was a time...

Like most piano students, my first encounter with him was the fine little composition Für Elise. And like most young pianists, I played it over and over. I would not be surprised if I played it a thousand times. It was a gateway into another realm of being.

That led, in due time, to the Sonatas. I no longer have the yellow paperback two-volume set of the Thirty-Two Sonatas, edited by the great nineteenth century conductor Hans von Bülow and published by G. Schirmer, numbers one and two in their series “Library of Musical Classics.”

Sadly, I was influenced by Purists as an undergraduate in the 1970's, when the Romantic sensibilities of von Bülow were unfashionable, and I discarded the set. I wish that I still had them, for I now recognize that von Bülow's copious footnotes and editorial suggestions, extending even to rewriting some of the notation, retain value. Those Thirty-Two Sonatas helped me survive to adulthood, and von Bülow's comments helped this romantic-minded teenager find a way into the spiritual meaning of these works.

In those days, every evening, when I had finished my regular practicing, I would stumble through a sonata movement, pounding it out on our little spinet piano in the living room. Nearly all of them were far over my head; it was the equivalent of a child in Sunday School class reading Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. But they all were icons, windows into a world of freedom and purity. It was like looking up at the stars, and seeing by their unchanging grace that my petty concerns were not so important as they seemed.

Some of the late sonatas and quartets, which are the ones I love the best, are still over my head; Beethoven's path led far beyond mortal realms. But I played the Moonlight Sonata and the Appassionata Sonata in high school recitals, and (much) later played the Opus 110, one of the most sublime of the late sonatas. I would love to do more, and contemplated a few years ago learning the Diabelli Variations. I soon realized that I am not up to that task, and probably no longer up to playing any Beethoven in public.

In graduate school, I had the opportunity to sing the Ninth Symphony under two different directors, one of whom I hated, and one (Rafael Kubelik) whom I loved. I will be forever grateful for this opportunity. It was not until adulthood – well after graduate school – that I finally encountered the Missa Solemnis.

It is fair to say that Beethoven was not a pious person in the conventional sense. But one author, it may be Romain Rolland, observed that for Beethoven, God was always part of the conversation, and this is true. The best one can tell through the music, Beethoven's relationship with God was much like that of the Psalmist – often stormy, sometimes (as in the Missa) ecstatic [there is hardly anything more amazing in all of music than the opening bars of the Gloria in excelsis], always unflinchingly honest.

Here is the Ninth Symphony, as conducted by Kubelik in 1959.

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt!
Brüder, über'm Sternenzelt
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
Such' ihn über'm Sternenzelt!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.

Sacramentum caritatis

Pope Francis' recent Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium caused me to wonder whether his predecessor had issued similar documents. I was familiar with the three Encyclical Letters written by Pope Benedict, and through most of his papacy I read with pleasure and spiritual profit his weekly Angelus messages, plus most of his homilies.

But I missed his four Apostolic Exhortations.

So far, I have had time only to dip my toes into the first of them, Sacramentum Caritatis (2007). It is a meditation on the Holy Eucharist: its theology, practical applications for its celebration in the church, and its ramifications for life in the world. In many respects, it appears to build on the excellent book he wrote as Cardinal Ratzinger: The Spirit of the Liturgy.

There is one paragraph in the section on practical applications that is explicitly about church music, and I wish to quote it in full:

Liturgical song
42. In the ars celebrandi, liturgical song has a pre-eminent place. Saint Augustine rightly says in a famous sermon that "the new man sings a new song. Singing is an expression of joy and, if we consider the matter, an expression of love". The People of God assembled for the liturgy sings the praises of God. In the course of her two-thousand-year history, the Church has created, and still creates, music and songs which represent a rich patrimony of faith and love. This heritage must not be lost. Certainly as far as the liturgy is concerned, we cannot say that one song is as good as another. Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided. As an element of the liturgy, song should be well integrated into the overall celebration. Consequently everything – texts, music, execution – ought to correspond to the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons. Finally, while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers, that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy.

This is all very sensible, and I have sought to exercise my ministry in these ways, especially in regard to the correspondence of text and music with “the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons.” It has often been a struggle, when working with others who see no need for such correspondence and place higher value on the music being "uplifting" or "easy to sing" or "familiar." These three characteristics are indeed important, but they are secondary to music's role in the proclamation of the Gospel, the whole Story, over the course of the three-year lectionary cycle. Over time, the congregation comes to understand what is happening, and comes to expect that the music work in harmony with the Scriptural texts and the liturgical seasons.

The comment on “generic improvisation” is food for thought. I have occasionally played free improvisations in the liturgy, especially as evensong preludes. I have never felt comfortable about it, and I suspect that Benedict is right; liturgical improvisation should be based on the musical materials elsewhere in the service: hymn tunes, chants, chorales.


Benedict's second Exhortation, Verbum Domini (2010) also looks very interesting.

And did those feet in ancient times...

One of the functions of an Episcopal Parish is to be the ethnic home for a certain minority group, one that is often overlooked in modern American life.

This afternoon, we conducted the Burial Office for a daughter of the Church of England. She has lived most of her long adult life in a small Midwestern farming town with no Episcopal Parish in town, or in any of the neighboring towns. She made it clear to her children that when the time came, she wanted to be buried with the ceremonies proper to the Episcopal Church, and the Book of Common Prayer.

So, she was. The family, none of them Episcopalians, came to us and asked if we might do the service; of course we agreed. This being a holiday and neither of our regular clergy being available, one of our retired associate priests was Officiant.

About forty people gathered; children, grandchildren, friends, most of them still living in that Midwestern farming town. The liturgy was the Burial Office, Rite One; we sang “Abide with me” and “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” As requested, I played the tune Jerusalem (“And did those feet in ancient times”), on full organ, before the Commendation. The children had noted that she and her husband (dead these seventeen years) ensured that they knew all the British songs, and sang them regularly at home. She thrilled to the events of the Royal Family, most recently the birth and christening of Prince George; she adored the Queen (as do I).

And every afternoon, without fail, she and her husband would have Tea. They were doubtless the only family in the town, perhaps the county, to observe this custom.

At the end, after most of the people had gone out, I played one last song for this Daughter of England: “God save the Queen,” on eight foot flutes. All of the children came back in to listen, tears in their eyes.

Your Majesty, you will never know it (not, at least, in this life), but you have lost a loyal subject. You have many others, some of them in the most unlikely places.

St. Andrew's Day

I have little time today, but I wish to commend to you a little-known hymn by Fred Pratt Green, titled "In honour of St. Andrew."

It does not appear at Hymnary.org, which implies that it has not been published in a U.S. or Canadian hymnal, and it is a copyrighted text, so I cannot give more than a snippet. But it is number 149 in the volume "The Hymns and Ballads of Fred Pratt Green" (Hope Publishing Company). From the middle stanzas:

Though some were favoured more than he,
And he was fourth, and they 'the three',
Yet Andrew was content.
Would I were such a saint!

Of him they said, both Jew and Greek:
'Ask Andrew, if it's Christ you seek'.
He knew why they were sent.
Would I were such a saint!

(copyright © 1969 by Hope Publishing Co., All rights reserved)

I am a member of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, and look to Andrew for encouragement, especially in the work of rolling up one's sleeves and being a hard-working "fisher of men" (c.f. Matthew 4:19), without regard for what people might think.

"Would I were such a saint!"

Thanksgiving Day

I do here both acknowledge and declare that the LORD God, of his tender loving-kindness, hath granted us a bountiful harvest in this good land which he hath given us. And, in the company of the faithful, I worship him: for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. (see Deuteronomy 25:1-11)

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Our parish is in the midst of what is probably the most agricultural state of the Union. When it goes badly here, food prices rise and those on the margins go hungry. It was that way last year in the Midwest. But this year, the season has been as nearly perfect as could be, and the harvest is bountiful. Thanks be to God.

We children of the Age of Science do not often give God sufficient credit for good weather, for healthy crops and livestock. We have outgrown such superstitions. Weather is essentially random, we claim (though affected for the worse by global warming). We depend more on the laboratories of Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland than we do on the vagaries of prayer and faith. [A large percentage of the crops grown in this state are genetically modified. I have heard numbers of over ninety percent, basically everything except the crops raised by organic farmers.]

There is, therefore, no reason for thanksgiving, and no one to thank. Or so they would have us think. Instead, this is a day to eat too much and gear up for tomorrow's shopping. Or to go ahead and get started; many of the big retailers are open today.

But hidden from the scientists (so-called) and the Big Ag people is the Hand of God.

We plow the fields and scatter
the good seed on the land,
but it is fed and watered
by God's almighty hand;
he sends the snow in winter,
the warmth to swell the grain,
the breezes and the sunshine,
and soft refreshing rain.

About twenty of us gathered this morning for the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. We sang hymns – songs such as the above, “Come, ye thankful people come,” and “Now thank we all our God.” We heard the words of Holy Scripture. We prayed, and gave thanks. After that, we had Thanksgiving Dinner in the parish hall, a potluck with lots of good food. Better still, good people.

It sometimes bothers me that I cannot be like normal people, who have Thanksgiving with their family. For thirteen years, every Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day have been at the church, on duty. But when I consider it more closely, I am grateful that I can help give voice to the praises of Holy Mother Church on these days on behalf of the larger community of this parish, this city, this state, this nation and world. The people who gathered today, many of them the same ones who come to this service and dinner every Thanksgiving, are my family.

I believe that the dark days will come, days of gnawing hunger, when fossil-fuel based Industrial Agriculture has been swept away and our grandchildren are sharecroppers or peasants working the land in the way that it has been worked for thousands of years – hand tools, hard labor, and most of its fruits going to the wealthy few in faraway cities.

But for this day, we are well-fed. The grain elevators are full. And we rejoice in the one who has made it so.

And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the LORD thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you. (Deuteronomy 25:11)

more on Evangelii Gaudium

Some quotes:

“There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter.” (paragraph 6)

“... even if the Christian message has known periods of darkness and ecclesial weakness, it will never grow old. Jesus can … break through the dull categories with which we would enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity.” (paragraph 11)

“The apostles never forgot the moment when Jesus touched their hearts... Together with Jesus, this remembrance makes present to us 'a great cloud of witnesses' (Heb. 12:1), some of whom, as believers, we recall with great joy.... The believer is essentially 'one who remembers.'” (paragraph 13)

“An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people's daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.” (paragraph 24)

“Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time.... It cares for the grain and does not grow impatient at the weeds.” (paragraph 24)

“[the Christian as Evangelist] finds a way to let the word take flesh in a particular situation and bear fruits of new life, however imperfect or incomplete these may appear.” (paragraph 24)

"Patience and disregard for constraints of time..." That struck home. I consider some of the men of the community whom I have tried to help; I described them in a previous essay. I often resent how much time they take -- one of them, R., comes by every Wednesday after the free breakfast and talks. He can chew up an hour very easily. But he amazed me a couple of weeks ago; one of the other street guys has bad feet (I'm guessing he is a poorly-managed diabetic) and was in an especially bad way. R. took him into his own home, such as it is (a room at the cheapest flophouse motel in town), to soak his feet in epsom salts, which I helped him buy, and let him "take a load off his feet" for a day or two. If that isn't "bearing fruits of new life," I don't know what is.

In yesterday's post I linked to a newspaper account that emphasized the social justice aspects of the Pope's exhortation; I soon found that Francis himself gave an outline of the document at the end of the introduction (paragraph 17). I added it to yesterday's post, and will repeat it here:

I have decided, among other themes, to discuss at length the following questions:
(a) the reform of the Church in her missionary outreach;
(b) the temptations faced by pastoral workers;
(c) the Church, understood as the entire People of God which evangelizes;
(d) the homily and its preparation;
(e) the inclusion of the poor in society;
(f) peace and dialogue within society;
(g) the spiritual motivations for mission.

I have dealt extensively with these topics, with a detail that some may find excessive...

Pope Francis: The joy of the Gospel

I am pleased to offer a link to the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium ("the joy of the Gospel"): here it is in PDF form.

"... I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ... The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step toward Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms."

Here is a newspaper account, for those desiring a summary.

The 84-page document, known as an apostolic exhortation, amounted to an official platform for his papacy, building on views he has aired in sermons and remarks since he became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years in March.

In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticising the global economic system, attacking the "idolatry of money" and beseeching politicians to guarantee all citizens "dignified work, education and healthcare".

I have just learned of this document and have read only the first few pages. But that was enough to fill me with delight.

[Edited to add: Francis himself gives a good outline of the document at the end of the introduction (paragraph 17):

I have decided, among other themes, to discuss at length the following questions:
(a) the reform of the Church in her missionary outreach;
(b) the temptations faced by pastoral workers;
(c) the Church, understood as the entire People of God which evangelizes;
(d) the homily and its preparation;
(e) the inclusion of the poor in society;
(f) peace and dialogue within society;
(g) the spiritual motivations for mission.

I have dealt extensively with these topics, with a detail that some may find excessive...]

Some other time, I must write of the Two Popes. I love Benedict XVI. I have learned much from him, and continue to learn from his writings. And I have grown to love Francis I. Benedict was more scholarly, and I think that this was needed. Francis is more of a preacher, very plain-spoken.

Much of what he has said to date was also said by Benedict, for example in his encyclical letter Caritas in veritate, written in the aftermath of the 2008-09 economic crash. I think it would be fair to say that in some respects Francis is building on Benedict's work. And it is also fair to say that Francis is taking it to the wider public in a manner that Benedict could not have done. And he is doing it with an infectious spirit of joy, a spirit that brims from this document, a joy which comes from the Gospel and which is the essence of our witness to the world.

I fear for Francis, because the plain-spoken proclamation of the Gospel most often leads to a martyr's death, and there are powerful forces that stand against him. So far, they do not take him seriously, but they will, and I believe that eventually they will destroy him. Or try to.

But that is a path that Another has trod, and if Francis -- if we -- walk in those footsteps, we need fear no evil -- "for Thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

Two Hymns to St. Cecilia, and a Sermon

I have good memories of singing the Howells Hymn to St. Cecilia at RSCM Courses: for example, this. Also this.

Here is a recording from the cathedral choir of Haderslev, a city of some 21,000 in southern Denmark., by a fine large choir of men and boys. This is a better performance than the ones by English-speaking choirs.

It is for the likes of this that I have grown to love YouTube: there are magnificent performances of choral and organ music that one would never otherwise encounter. They are almost never the YouTube items with hundreds of thousands of views. A few hundred is more likely.

But here is one that does indeed have over sixty thousand views: the Benjamin Britten Hymn to St. Cecilia, on a poem by W. H. Auden, performed by the Cambridge Singers and John Rutter.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

-------
As for C.S.L.: Seeking to read something by this gentleman who shares November 22, I settled on "Prince Caspian." The Narnia books were not part of my childhood, and I have not read any more than "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," which was the topic of a Vacation Bible School in our parish some years ago. I started "Prince Caspian" on the bus this morning, and it is a delight.

Here is the "sermon" that I delivered at the end of that Bible School:

"This has been a special week for me. I hope it has been equally special for you. But now, it is time to let our experiences of Narnia blend into the experiences of our daily lives. This morning, I saw a young deer run across a field, and I thought of our friend Mr. Tumnus. I have never met anyone quite like Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, but the next time I see a beaver, or a beaver's house, I will not see it as I did before. Thank goodness, I have never seen the White Witch, but I have felt her spell at times.

"You see, we cannot stay in Narnia. Our journeys into Narnia and other places of the imagination such as Hogwarts, the Hundred Acre Wood, the Shire of the Hobbits -- are meant to strengthen us for our lives here. We must return to plain old [name of our city], and the rest of this mundane world -- a world that is sometimes perplexing and dangerous, but also full of beauty and grace, for its Creator lavished much care on its making and gave his life to redeem it.

"There will be times when we realize that we are Lucy and we are Edmund, and perhaps Peter and Susan. Or there may be times when we are the White Witch, or the evil creatures who followed her. There is no doubt in my mind that Aslan is with us here just as much as he was in Narnia. We know him here by another name.

"We should return from Narnia with new insight into what it means to be a Christian in this world. We are called to proclaim a new kingdom, to live as Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, all of us children of a heavenly Father, because this story, the one WE live in, is real. The Professor's friend Mr. Tolkien wrote about the sort of story that we have heard this week and compared it to the Christian story: Here is a paraphrase of some of what he wrote:

The Birth of Christ is the 'happy ending' of Man's history. The Resurrection is the 'happy ending' of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy.... There is no tale ever told that we 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.

But in God's kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on. The Gospel, the Evangelium, has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the 'happy ending.' The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed... All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen creature that we know.

"Here we are, back on this side of the wardrobe door. We are fed now at this Table with the food that will sustain us on a new adventure. We move on toward a meeting with the Lord of all kingdoms. Though it is tempting at times to look back and long for the good times of the past rather than facing the unknown road ahead, we should recall the words of the Professor to the children at the end of the book, after their return from Narnia when they came to him to apologize for losing the four coats from the wardrobe:

"Yes, of course you'll get back to Narnia again someday.... But don't go trying to use the same route twice. Indeed, don't try to get there at all. It'll happen when you are not looking for it."

Office 2013

Our parish recently updated our copies of Microsoft Office to the new 2013 version. In the new version of Word, I could not at first so much as cut-and-paste into our church bulletin, and ran aground on this fact as I was trying to fix something for the secretary, with five minutes before I had to run to catch the transit bus. Even opening a document was counter-intuitive.

I was not happy.

I have ill will toward Microsoft, for I remember Netscape, which was illegally destroyed by Microsoft and their Internet Explorer, with a slap-on-the-wrist legal settlement all that Microsoft had to pay for their misdeeds. I remember also the Lotus SmartSuite office package, at one time second in market share to Microsoft Office, and ruthlessly crushed sometime around 2000 or 2001 – until then, the spreadsheet part of SmartSuite, Lotus 1-2-3, had been the industry standard,and the rest of the suite was superior to the Microsoft equivalents. For my personal work, I continue to use Lotus Word Pro, Approach, and Organizer by preference to any newer alternatives. In both cases (Netscape and Lotus), Microsoft won in spite of inferior software. It was all marketing and legal shenanigans. This has been their standard operating procedure from the outset, and it has made Bill Gates a billionaire.

But I have to use Microsoft Word in the church office to be compatible with the others, especially on the church bulletin, where my work is a significant factor.

This afternoon's work on the bulletins, just completed, was a breakthrough. Finally, I was able to do it efficiently, in about an hour's time as opposed to the half-day or more that it had taken me the first couple of weeks. And I must grudgingly admit that it is Good Software.

M.W., on whom all of us in the office rely as our Resident Computer Geek (and I mean that as a compliment), commented the other day that Office 2013 is “like Apple.” That fills me with warmth and cheer; it is not that Microsoft finally had a good idea; instead, they realize that Apple is better and are shamelessly copying them.

I believe that Microsoft is on the decline. They missed on tablet computing, where the dominant operating system is Android; they missed on cell phones. All they have left is their stranglehold on the office workplace, and they have powerful competition there from OpenOffice, which is free and open-source. If the office computer does not have to run Microsoft Office, there is no reason for it to run a Microsoft operating system and to pay the “Windows tax” on every computer. And if Microsoft loses the office market, they are dead.

----
A Netscape footnote: My first internet web browser was Netscape Navigator, and I loved it. They had an outstanding e-mail interface, which I also loved. Both are gone. But Netscape was instrumental in the founding of Mozilla, and Firefox is still very much on the scene, s their influence has not disappeared.

Chewing on the Psalms

Here is an essay on Psalmody by Graham Kendrick, a British songwriter/worship leader whom I highly respect – and all the more after reading this.

Some quotes from the essay:

One of the strongest arguments for using the Psalms is both simple and profound – it was what Jesus did. The Psalms were Jesus' prayer book, songbook and meditation manual, and if he needed them how much more do we? The Christian community was early convinced that he continues praying them through us as we pray them: "we recite this prayer of the Psalm in Him, and He recites it in us." [Augustine].

"The Psalter knows that life is dislocated. No cover-up is necessary. The Psalter is a collection over a long period of time of the eloquent, passionate songs and prayers of people who are at the desperate edge of their lives" [Praying the Psalms, Walter Bruggemann, p10, Authentic media.]

How do we pray the psalms? One of the best ways is simply to read them out loud, but not in a detached, cerebral way. The book of Psalms begins with a promise that the person who meditates in the law of the Lord is like 'a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.' That is quite a promise. Meditation sounds like a purely mental activity, but according to Eugene Peterson:
"Meditate [hagah] is a bodily action; it involves murmuring and mumbling words, taking a kind of physical pleasure in making the sounds of the words, getting the feel of the meaning as the syllables are shaped by larynx and tongue and lips. Isaiah uses this word 'meditate' for the sounds that a lion makes over its prey [Isaiah 31:4]." [Eugene Peterson, Answering God]
The Psalms spring to life when we engage with them physically – try it!

This last is important: “taking a kind of physical pleasure in making the sounds of the words.” I submit that this is what we are doing in choral rehearsal when we work on the Psalms, and that the addition of music (and physical pleasure in making it) is a significant part of the spiritual benefit. The Psalms have always been primarily music to be sung, not just texts on a page.

Rehearsal of Psalmody is difficult. I normally put it at the beginning of the choral rehearsal while we are fresh, but even so it can be a challenge. Can we bring ourselves to the level of discipline – communal listening, care for intonation in the plainsong tones, shaping phrases, careful diction – that the Psalms demand of us? If we can, we are better prepared to rehearse the anthems on our list. And over time, we are perhaps better people from doing this work with diligence.

As long-time readers will know, I have been reading the Psalms in Hebrew for about three years when I pray the Office at home. Not singing them; I do not know how. Even more than in English, it seems impossible to read the texts without doing it aloud, or at least moving lips and tongue and whispering to make the beautiful strong consonants of the Language of God. At church, I mostly sing the Psalms from the Plainsong Psalter (Church Publishing, edited by James Litton), which follows the text of the 1979 American BCP. And of course we sing them as a choir at the Sunday Eucharist, and (to Anglican Chant) at our First Sunday Choral Evensongs. I would account the two methods of reading in Hebrew, or singing in English, to be equal in benefit for me, with reading in English a distant third.

I believe that the physicality of meditating on God's Word applies also to the rest of the Old and New Testaments. We would do well to read the Scriptures aloud whenever possible, and to do so from a translation that “reads well.” Not all of them do.

My favorite, which I never fail to mention given opportunity, is the Authorized/King James Version. But there may be others that would be suitable.

[Thanks to Fr. Tim who, if I remember rightly, linked to this essay in his blog a couple of years ago. I saw it in my list of bookmarks and re-read it today.]

election results: friendship trumps money

Despite all the money the Koch brothers and their “Americans for Prosperity” poured into our city council election, their four candidates were trounced. Their candidate for mayor got only 27% of the vote; none of their three council candidates got any more than 25%.

In my previous posting, I expressed surprise that the AFP had not resorted to personal attacks: as it transpired, they saved that for Monday, the day before the election. Their mailing-of-the-day featured photos of the incumbent council members and proclamation of the tax breaks they had given themselves as council members. True, in a way: their taxes were reduced. But so were everyone else's, by exactly the same rate; it was an across-the-board reduction in property taxes, normally the sort of measure beloved of “fiscally conservative” groups such as AFP.

But the direct mailings, the painting of our town as a little Detroit, the half-truths, the robocalls, the blizzard of advertising – all of it was to no avail.

I spent the day as election chair for the smallest of the six city precincts, sworn to “prevent fraud, deceit and abuse in the conduct of this election” along with my two co-workers at the polling place. It quickly became clear that the turnout would be heavy, and that we would run out of ballots. I called this in to the county auditor's office, with increasing desperation as we dwindled to less than a score of ballots by midday. Just in time, a delivery of forty-eight more ballots arrived, followed by a second delivery in the late afternoon, after the auditor's office had printed another 1800 ballots to be divided among the six precincts. They were needed: it was a record turnout, higher than either of the last two presidential elections.

One other thing became clear: one of the non-AFP candidates lived in our precinct, and it seemed like every voter on her street and the neighboring streets were coming out to vote, a steady stream of them all day long. In the end, she gained the last of the three open council seats by a margin of about 150 votes. This lady was a traditional candidate: a thirty-year resident of the town, a “soccer mom” who put all her children through the local schools and was active in parent-teacher organizations and civic activities. Every time in the last twenty years or more that there has been a community drive or festival or event or need for volunteers, she has been there, working alongside others to do the grinding (and often unappreciated) hard work that undergirds such activities.

And in this election, that trumped the outside money. Her neighbors and friends came out and voted for her. It was as simple as that.

Sunday night and the footsteps of Advent

(2 am) This day has been long; youth choir sang at the 8:45 service, with the adults at the 11:00 Choral Eucharist. Then, choral evensong at 5 pm.

The problem was that with evensong done, we must begin work on Advent music this Wednesday, and I had not selected much of it. The Lessons and Carols service is planned (though it needs a bit of adjustment; one of our anthems has proven to be too difficult for us), but not the Sunday morning music, nor the First Sunday Evensong.

So, I started next Sunday's bulletins, part of my normal Sunday evening work. That took me to about 10 pm. After that, the anthems for the morning Eucharists came easily enough, and there are, after tonight, some nice things on the schedule, some that will likely surprise everyone (such as a Jeremiah Ingalls fuging tune for Advent I).

The Advent Evensong on December 1? Not so much. With at least two of our key singers gone (it is Thanksgiving weekend), whatever we sing must be easy. There will be just one tenor. I pencilled in the Vaughan Williams Mag and Nunc, which works well as an SAB piece, or even unison in a pinch -- bless you, RVW, for your kindness to practical musicians! The Ayleward Responses will be a stretch, but about as suitable as anything in our repertoire other than the basic plainsong version in the hymnal. Psalms for the first evening are 6, 7, and 8. But what about an anthem? I puzzled over this for quite a while. The lessons are dark, as befits Advent I: the first chapter of Amos, where the poor are sold for a pair of shoes, and I Thessalonians 5 - "when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape."

I had decided to simply do a hymn, and was looking through some of my books... and (by this time, about 12:30 am) happened on a text by Shirley Erena Murray, one of the great hymn authors of our time: "There is no child so small," found in her book "Touch the earth lightly." But the tune will not do. It is a nice tune by Amanda Husberg, whom I have met at Hymn Society conferences and greatly respect -- but it is sweet and Christmasy. There is nothing sweet about this text:

There is no child so lost,
no refugee so nameless
that God will leave us blameless,
who share no care or cost.
(copyright 2008, Hope Publishing Company)

A tune came to me, just like that. I had it written down within about two minutes. I am tired, barely able to stay awake. But I know better than to walk away from something like this. And it seemed to want more than just a hymn setting, so I sketched out an anthem setting (two-part, remembering our lone tenor), in the process entirely discarding the first harmonization I had done, but finding nothing that I wanted to modify about the tune itself. To my delight and surprise, it even works as a canon, which will be one of the stanzas.

That took me to about 1:45. And it was clear what needed to happen for the other music: as prelude, the strange Bach setting of Nun komm der Heiden Heiland "a due bassi" (for two basses), and as closing hymn, "Creator of the stars of night."
----
I have fallen into the trap of writing about politics and not about music. That is because I have been thinking too much about these things. It is pointless, and I repent.

an insurance update, and the election

Here is an article from the New England Journal of Medicine about what happens to Americans who do not have medical insurance.

The author states that many of his clinic's uninsured patients do not understand that under the Affordable Care Act, they might be able to get insurance. All that they have heard is that they will be fined for not having insurance, and the opponents of the ACA have seen to it that they do not hear the other part: the subsidies to help low-income people pay for it – sufficient subsidies for many people among the "working poor" to entirely pay the premium.

That is, unless they fall in the “Medicaid Gap.” The intent of the ACA was that for persons who are below the poverty line, the states would expand Medicaid (with financial support from the federal government) to cover them. But many “Red State” governments have refused to do so, leaving lots of their citizens without any coverage. For example, in Mississippi, a single adult's monthly income must be under $403 a month to be eligible for Medicaid ($4,836/year). For a couple: $542/month. The poverty line is $11,490 a year for one person, $15,510 for a couple. A lot of people fall in that gap, and even with the ACA, they will continue to be uninsured. But they must blame their state government for that, not “Obamacare.” Also, they could blame the Supreme Court: their ruling overturned the original requirement in the ACA that the states expand Medicaid to include everyone below the poverty line.


As for me and my wife, it turns out that we will not need the Health Care Marketplace after all. To their credit, my wife's employer, the Kohl's Corporation, has revamped their medical insurance, and we have now registered for coverage beginning January 2014. It is better coverage than our Blue Cross policy at a discount of about $200 a month from what we are currently paying.

Where the ACA enters into this is the fact that we do not have to worry about insurance and pre-existing conditions if my wife loses her job – a constant possibility in retail.

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As for the upcoming election, we are now receiving a flyer from “Americans for Prosperity” in each day's mail. Yesterday's compared our town to Detroit, insinuating that we are on the fast track to a similar bankruptcy and ruin.

I worked in another political campaign several years ago, and I know how much it costs to send a bulk mailing to the voters of our town – about $4,000. Every day. When in past city elections, that was how much most of the candidates spent for the whole campaign.

And that is not counting the phone banks, the door-to-door canvassing, the advertising....

We are hearing a lot from the AFP, and almost nothing from the other candidates – their voices are being drowned out. And that is the plan.

A Local Election

Tuesday, November 5: The general election in our community (that is, the town of 20,000 where I live, which is not the same as the community in which I work) has only one matter on the ballot: the election of a mayor and three members of the city council.

Normally, such elections are of marginal interest, with low turnout. It may be different this time, thanks in part to the presence of Americans for Prosperity. If you are unfamiliar with them, you might take a moment to peruse the applicable Wikipedia article.

AFP is widely known for its leading role in the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election, and for its attacks on President Obama during the 2008 and 2012 elections. It also played an active role in the anti-union “budget reforms” of 2011 in Wisconsin.

What are they doing in my community? My theory is that we are something of a pilot project for them. Thanks to the Supreme Court “Citizens United” ruling, they have so much money from conservative billionaires that they can now expand beyond national and state politics into the local arena.

Here is my analysis of their activity in this election:

- Eighteen months to two years in advance, identify a potential “hot button” local issue that falls within their purview. I believe that their interest in our specific issue is not genuine, but it gave them a starting place.

- Provide support for low-level “educational” activities on the issue. We started seeing yard signs, occasional flyers, and letters to the editor on the subject.

- Identify local people who take an interest in the issue, and groom selected persons as potential candidates. According to reports, AFP recruited their slate of local candidates in January or February of this year. None of them have any previous experience in elected office: this is a plus, for they have no past record to defend.

- Ideally, look for an election where a takeover can be made in one sweep. In our case, the long-time mayor is retiring, and three out of five seats on the council are up for election.

- Avoid direct financial support of any candidate, as it could be counterproductive. The presence of AFP has rightly become an issue in the campaign, and all of their candidates deny any direct support from AFP, though they admit to advice and logistical support. However, one other candidate stated that she was offered $20,000 by AFP to run, and she refused the money, sensing that there were "strings attached." She has been one of those attacking the AFP candidates for the "out-of-state support" that is behind them.

- Instead, funnel money into such activities as telephone “push” polls, advertising and direct mailings that avoid naming any specific candidates that happen to agree with the views expressed. AFP representatives from the state chapter say that as the election draws near, there will be door-to-door solicitation and "other educational efforts not tied to any candidate."

- Turn it into a one-issue election. Hammer on the selected issue at every opportunity; defuse any discussion of other potential issues. This has been the clear pattern in the three candidates' forums. By this time, thanks to almost two years of preparation, the selected issue is at least vaguely in the back of most voters' minds, even those who pay little attention to local politics (which is nearly all of them). In the final weeks, the goal is to bring the issue to the forefront of every voter's mind.

- Use sufficient funds so as to overwhelm what any local candidate could do. I have read estimates that past council candidates have spent sums in the area of $4,000 or $5,000. In this case, if the AFP money is counted, the amount per seat is more on the order of $20,000 and up. Be it noted that these estimates have been made by liberal organizations hostile to AFP's mission, so take them with a grain of salt.

So far, we have not seen the vicious personal attacks for which AFP became well-known in the Obama campaigns and various congressional campaigns. Such attacks would be more likely to backfire in a small-town election. But the direct mailings we have received are clearly from the same hands, down to the layout and graphic design. They tend to sensationalist one-liners that are at best misleading and sometimes entirely false.

I encourage you to watch for this pattern in your community. If you have local offices up for election on November 5, pay attention to them. Educate yourself about the candidates – it is much easier to do in this day through the Internet than it was in the old days.

Henry Martyn (1781-1812)

from Kiefer's Biographical Sketches of Memorable Christians of the Past, s.v. October 19: Henry Martyn:

"[Martyn's] diary has been called 'one of the most precious treasures of Anglican devotion.'"

Martyn, who died on this date in 1812 while on a missionary journey in Persia, was a gifted translator and one of the most energetic of Anglican missionaries. I know little about him beyond the short biography in Kiefer, which mirrors the one-page account in the Episcopal book "Lesser Feasts and Fasts." He appears to have been much influenced by another Anglican saint, Charles Simeon.

But hearing that line about his diary at Matins this morning made me curious: sure enough, it is available on Google Books.

It is a free PDF, or can be downloaded as an E-book. I have not looked at the e-book version, but I suspect it would be easier to read in the PDF version. It is unfortunately not available in Project Gutenberg, which is a superior source for free e-books.


If you are reading online, here is the excellent HTML version of both volumes at Project Canterbury.

I have so far done no more than spend fifteen minutes with the first pages of his diary. It is enough to show me that indeed it is a treasure, a very personal account of his spiritual life and struggles. I commend it to you, and to myself.

[added later] I read some more in Martyn's Journal over dinner. Do not be put off by the tenor of the first part, wherein he (to modern readers) seems overly grieved by his sinfulness and failures. I found it instructive to compare several months of the first year (1802) when he was still in England with passages from the end of his life (1811-12). On first acquaintance, he appears to have been a person for whom leisure was deadly - but when he could be fully engaged in the work of an evangelist, life was much better.

Another point of interest, once he reaches the mission field, is his accounts of learned conversations with the wise men that he met -- for Martyn was as skilled in mathematics and science as in religion and languages. These discussions roamed as freely among the natural sciences as among the fine points of Zoroastrianism and Islam as compared with Christianity.

From the entry for January 1, 1812:

To all appearance the present year will be more perilous than any I have seen, but if I live to complete the Persian New Testament, my life after that will be of less importance. But whether life or death be mine, may Christ be magnified in me. If he has work for me to do, I cannot die.

This sentiment appears to be utterly characteristic of Martyn, all the more so as he matured on the mission field. And it was a just assessment: he took a fever that autumn and died. Here are the final entries:

[from October 5]... I was pretty well lodged, and felt tolerably well till a little after sunset, when the ague came on with a violence I had never before experienced: I felt as if in a palsy; my teeth chattering, and my whole frame violently shaken. Aga Hosyn and another Persian, on their way here from Constantinople, going to Abbas Mirza, whom I had just before been visiting, came hastily to render me assistance if they could. These Persians appear quite brotherly after the Turks. While they pitied me, Hassan sat in perfect indifference, ruminating on the further delay this was likely to occasion. The cold fit, after continuing two or three hours, was followed by a fever, which lasted the whole night, and prevented sleep.

[October] 6. No horses being to be had, I had an unexpected repose. I sat in the orchard, and thought with sweet comfort and peace, of my God; in solitude my company, my friend, and comforter. Oh! when shall time give place to eternity? when shall appear that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? There, there shall in no wise enter in any thing that defileth: none of that wickedness which has made men worse than wild beasts,--none of those corruptions which add still more to the miseries of mortality, shall be seen or heard of any more.

shutdowns and hunger games

For what it is worth, the local crisis center has put out a call for help: the W.I.C. ("Women, Infants, and Children") nutrition program is shut down along with other federal agencies and programmes. The word has gone out via e-mail to our church members, and doubtless at other local churches. There is a limit to what we can do.

A Huffington Post article about this, written when it was still a prospect for the future.

Locally, they are honoring WIC food vouchers that have already been issued, but no more can be issued until the budget impasse is solved. The situation varies somewhat from state to state, depending on whether a state might be willing or able to fund it temporarily to avoid starving children.

It is of such as this that revolutions are made.

[Added some weeks later... I won't link to it here, but a speech by one of the senators from North Dakota brought my attention to how things have been on the Native American Reservations since the "sequester" began earlier this year. Part of the U.S.'s treaty obligations to the Sioux and other tribes was that, since they were being shoehorned into reservations where they could no longer make a living in the traditional way, the U.S. government would see to it that they are fed, clothed, etc. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has always been chronically underfunded, but was cut even more by the sequester. Here is an analysis of its effect. At this writing, the "shutdown" has been temporarily resolved, but the "sequester" is looking more like a permanent fixture.]

commitment to the Song

With gracious thanks to M.W., who sent me a link to the excellent site The Daily Office from the Mission of St. Clare.

The site includes links to the BBC Choral Evensong, which is of course a staple of my life, as it has been for thousands of Anglicans these eighty years and more -- the longest running weekly radio broadcast that exists.

From Wikipedia, s.v. "BBC Radio 3":

The programme has a strong following, revealed by various unpopular attempts in the past to change the broadcast arrangements. When the programme was moved from Radio 4 to Radio 3 in 1970 it became a monthly broadcast but vigorous protests resulted in a return of the weekly transmission on Wednesday afternoons.

More recently, in 2007 the live broadcast was switched to Sundays which again resulted in protests. The live transmission was returned to Wednesdays in September 2008 with a recorded repeat on Sunday afternoons. Choral Evensong forms part of Radio 3's remit on religious programming though the musical performance and repertoire holds interest for a wider audience.

The Mission St. Clare site also includes links to Thursday Evensong at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco and Compline from St. Mark's, Seattle. This morning as I have worked through my e-mail and other deskwork, I have been listening to the Grace Cathedral broadcast and their excellent choir. For this service, the Canticles were Stanford in B flat, and the Anthem was Beati quorum via, likewise by Stanford - an appropriate choice for the feast, which was Eve of St. Francis.

The Grace Cathedral choir of men and boys is one of the finest in the world; the boys are in the Cathedral School, and the ATBs are all professional singers. Their singing of the Stanford music is splendid.

But it is, in one important way, inferior to what one would have heard at this year's RSCM Course (the Beati quorum via) and last year's (Stanford in B flat - I may be wrong about the year, but I know that we sang it very recently).

We were more committed to the music.

A choir such as Grace's sings this music all the time. Especially for the professionals, it can become commonplace: another day at the Office.

For those of us who attend an RSCM Course, it is anything but commonplace. This is our only opportunity all year to sing this sort of music, and with this sort of choir and director. For me, and I know for many others of us, these services, this music, are among the most important things in our lives. And that can be heard in the results.

I wrote of this some while ago about another time and place. We are, thank the Lord, not in the situation of those German musicians in 1944. For them, it really was life and death to play the Bruckner Ninth as what can only be termed a Prayer. But at whatever level one is making Music, it has a chance to be effective only when the musicians commit themselves entirely to what they are singing or playing.

As the Berlin Philharmonic showed in that recording, it is possible for professionals to achieve this. It is harder for them than it is for amateurs, and harder for adults than it is for children.

an interview with Wendell Berry

I commend to you this week's Bill Moyers webcast: an interview with Wendell Berry.

He speaks to many things that are important to me. Much of what he says has to do with the most important work a human can do: farming. That is not my task, so what am I to do?

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old, for hope must not depend on feeling good and there’s the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight. You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality of the future, which surely will surprise us, and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction anymore than by wishing. But stop dithering. The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them? Tell them at least what you say to yourself. Because we have not made our lives to fit our places, the forests are ruined, the fields, eroded, the streams polluted, the mountains, overturned. Hope then to belong to your place by your own knowledge of what it is that no other place is, and by your caring for it, as you care for no other place… This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy when they ask for your land and your work. … Be still and listen to the voices that belong to the stream banks and the trees and the open fields. … Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet. Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground underfoot…. The world is no better than its places. Its places at last are no better than their people while their people continue in them. When the people make dark the light within them, the world darkens.

"Hope then to belong to your place by your own knowledge of what it is that no other place is, and by your caring for it, as you care for no other place…"

For me, a church musician, it means to play our little old Pilcher organ in this parish, and to really listen to what it has to say, and to not care about the fine new instruments that might be in other places. It means to welcome university students when they come here to play their degree recitals. It means to pray Matins in our courtyard, or in the church, or in my office. It means to know the children and adults in our choirs and care about them, and to figure out how to help them grow. It means to listen to the congregation when they sing, and to do what I can to help them do it better.

Perhaps this is not as good as being attached to a piece of land, but it does, I think, mean belonging to my place, and knowing what there is about it that is true of no other place. And that is enough.

the Giving of Almes

Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.... (St. Matthew 6:19-21)

You can't take it with you. (proverbial saying: c.f. I Timothy 6:7)

But perhaps you can: I sometimes fancy that the treasures we will have in heaven are those things that we have given to the poor in this life. I think that C.S. Lewis said something similar about books: the only books in heaven are the ones that we loaned or gave away.

One of my regulars is the one-legged Marine that stakes out a busy intersection on my bicycle route to church. Yesterday was a home football game, and he was hard at work before dawn in order to catch the incoming fans, with his wheelchair decked with two American flags and a pennant for the local college team, and his artificial leg with the seal of the U.S. Marine Corps painted on the front of it. I always give him a little something.

We have become friends over the years from our brief encounters. I see him sometimes walking his dog in front of the cheap motel where he and his wife live, and visit with him for a few minutes. "I hate asking for money," he once told me. "And if it was just me, I wouldn't. But my wife needs her heart medicines."

We said our good-byes for the season yesterday, for my bicycle is going into winter storage this week and our paths do not cross when I ride the city bus. He told me that he and his wife have started going to church - not ours, but a storefront church closer where they live - and he wished God's blessings on me. I wish the same for him and his wife.

Then there is E., who caught me after church today at the Chinese restaurant. He came right in and sat across the table from me. "God sent me here," he told me, asking for $20 for a bus ticket. "I didn't know it for sure until I saw you through the window." Now, E. has been caught stealing from purses at the church. So I am not enthusiastic about helping him. And that $20 is more likely to go to drink than a bus ticket. But then again: "It's getting cold. And I can't get in the shelter here. If I go [sixty miles east, to the next town that has a homeless shelter], I think I can get in there." So maybe he will get on that bus. And how was I going to sit there, dressed in my fine white shirt, suit and tie, eating my fine dinner, with a man across the table from me telling me he was cold and hungry, and all this just seven days after hearing about Dives and Lazarus in last Sunday's Gospel?

And there is R., who went through a long struggle to get his SSI psychiatric disability - well-deserved in my opinion, for he is not remotely close to sanity. This week he lost his wallet, with his SSI card and all his cash, including his rent money. He has been by the church every day looking for me, and I have given him odds and ends - a partially-used transit bus pass, little bits of money. He wants five people who will each "loan" him $100; otherwise, they will evict him on Monday. I am not one of those people. But I gave him a little bit.

And there is D., another veteran, a drug addict. We helped him some; he tried to steal one of our chorister's leather jacket, and I suspect he stole another chorister's coat on another occasion, with wallet in the pocket (neither jacket nor thief were ever found). After talking with the VA people, I no longer give him cash. But when he comes by on a Sunday evening [not that often nowadays, but occasionally] and says he is hungry, I walk him across the street for a couple slices of pizza, and sit with him for a little. And pray with him. When I forget this last, he reminds me: "Aren't you going to say a prayer?"

And walking back to the church from the restaurant today, I saw a woman whom I had helped once this summer; she is mostly disabled (mentally as well as physically), and that day her motorized wheelchair ran out of juice, right in the middle of a busy intersection downtown. I was getting on the bus to go home, but no one was going to help her (the cars were blowing their horns at her, and driving around on both sides. None of the hundreds of university students who were busily going to their classes offered to help). So the two of us pushed her dead chair to her assisted living facility, going at the extremely slow pace at which she is able to walk. Today, I do not think that she recognized me, and I hurried across the street to avoid dealing with her.

For that is what happens. I want to lock the doors, go down in my basement office, and hide from these people.

The hard part about giving alms is that it is not just a one-time thing. If you give money to someone, most often they come back and ask for more. Again and again. For years. And you have to relate to these people as Children of God on an ongoing basis, even when you very much would rather not. It is easier to just write a check to Church World Service for people on the other side of the world, whom you will never encounter.

Some years ago, the parish had a system of "caregivers" who would interview the people who asked for help, connect them with social service agencies in the community, and screen out the drunkards and drug addicts, thus freeing the clergy from any direct interaction with the poor. [To be fair, one of our priests has always been involved with a weekly free breakfast for the poor, and rightly considers it central to her ministry. Blessings be upon her.] The "caregiver" program worked for a while, but all of the volunteers eventually burned out. After that, the policy was that our parish would no longer help anyone. If they came and asked for help, the staff was instructed to say (in essence): "Too bad. Go try the Crisis Center."

This was, in my view, a scandalous offense. How can we claim to be Christians and act this way?

As it happened, I had stopped donating to the parish around 2002, for reasons I would prefer not to describe. But "the tithe is the Lord's." Thus, I had a lot of money available. I gave most of it to places such as the Heifer Project, the Carter Center, Church World Service, the American Indian College Fund, and a couple of the local aid agencies. But I also had a fair amount of cash which I was willing to give to the poor, so I resolved to try and pick up the slack, so that the Name of Christ would not be blasphemed on account of our parish.

My situation is now different; I made a pledge to the parish for 2013, the first time in ten years, and thus I no longer have a lot of extra money for the poor. It is not yet a tithe, not even close, but it feels like a lot because there had been none, and I hope to increase it for 2014. And the parish does now help people as we are able.

But I still have these hangers-on. And I believe that I am at the least doing no harm in helping some of them in small ways; a few dollars here, a few there. I can now do no more without slighting the parish - on which I depend for my livelihood.

It is hard to set limits. The church staff helps, especially our office manager and the secretary, both of whom are also heavily involved in helping those who walk through our door.


I say all this not in any way to justify myself. I do not know if I have done any good for anyone. Maybe I am simply enabling their dependency, as the Republicans would say, and keeping them from taking responsibility for their lives. And very probably, my direct gifts do less good than would be done by donations to the local agencies, all of them starving for money and overflowing with people they cannot afford to help.

But we place ourselves in spiritual peril every time we harden our hearts and turn away from the poor man who seeks our assistance. Worse, we dishonor our Lord.

The only real answer is that of St. Francis: Give it ALL away, and yourself live as the poorest of the poor.

And I am not ready to do that.

----

Today was Evensong Sunday, the first Sunday of the month. In the month's rehearsals, the one Evensong amounts to as much choral rehearsal time as the four or five Sunday morning Eucharists all put together. It is similar for my organ playing; I try to play a larger work from the organ literature for the Evensong prelude, and it is about as much work as the voluntaries for the rest of the month's services.

The organ piece was the Priére by Cèsar Franck, an intense work of about thirteen or fourteen minutes' duration.

I played it seven years ago - badly, in spite of much work on it. This time, with my revised approach to organ practice, it went very well. I consider the improvement a validation of my practice method. I spent about eight hours over the course of about a week revising the fingerings, then did my careful work-throughs with slow repetitions of short passages, modified rhythms, and final review of each day's work by means of a slow play-through. All told, I was able to work through the piece at the organ only four times, over the space of about nine days -- and that was sufficient, even with almost no pre-service warmup on it this afternoon. I hope that this gives me more confidence in future work.

Obamacare and Me

Before Matins this morning, I turned on the computer and went to the official site for the Affordable Care Act.

When I saw their splashpage with the big title: "The Health Insurance Marketplace is Open!" I shed some tears. It has been a long time coming.

Many presidents, going back at least to Harry Truman, have sought affordable healthcare for Americans. Lyndon Johnson was the first to win a partial victory, by pushing Medicare through Congress. Harry Truman and his wife Bess were there when Johnson signed it into law in 1965, and were the first persons enrolled in the program.

That took care of the largest part of the issue: health care for persons over age 65. The rest should have been straightforward. It has not, however, proven easy. The debate over what became the Affordable Care Act (immediately labeled "Obamacare" by its detractors) is widely known, and I will not say more about it.

But it is perhaps worth a few minutes to relate how it affects me, a married person in his late fifties.

For a long time, I was a participant in the pension and healthcare plan of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Under their system (at least as it was in those days), the local church paid a fixed percentage of each employee's salary, which provided for a defined benefit pension and medical insurance. As they often said, it was a "community-based approach." Those who were well-paid (typically clergy) paid more, those who made less (typically lay employees, also clergy in smaller churches) paid less. All paid the same percentage, or rather the congregation paid on their behalf. It was (and remains) a thoroughly sensible approach.

Then I became an employee of the Episcopal Church.

Our diocese offers three medical insurance plans, and it is mandated by canon law that the local parish must pay the full cost of participation in these plans for the clergy. As it currently stands (2013), I may enroll in the insurance plan should I wish to do so. The cost for single-person coverage is about $9,000 a year; should I wish for my wife to also have insurance, the total cost would be slightly north of $20,000. The congregation would pay zero; it would all come out of my pocket -- which is not sufficiently deep for numbers like this.

Thus, my wife and I purchased individual coverage from the state Blue Cross/Blue Shield affiliate. We are on the cheapest plan they offer, which has such a limited list of coverages that it does not cover what the ACA calls "essential health services." We are both in excellent health, but have had "pre-existing conditions" ruled out -- for me, there was no coverage for anything related to the eyes, because I am sufficiently nearsighted to be at high risk for retinal detachment. The deductible for this policy is $11,000 a year -- that much has to be spent in medical bills before the plan pays so much as a penny. The premium is about $500 a month, covering the two of us; this premium has approximately tripled during the twelve years that we have had the policy. This is a "high deductible health savings plan" and is accompanied by a Health Savings Account, to which we can make tax-free contributions, and we have done so every year, right up to the maximum allowed. This money sits in a HSA earning about 0.5% interest with a $25 annual fee eating away at it.

In my opinion, this is not a satisfactory arrangement. But it is the best we can do, balancing affordability with at least a minimum of insurance -- for, if you are uninsured in America, you are one accident or illness away from bankruptcy.

Correction: you WERE one accident away from bankruptcy. Today, that all changed.


I spent only a few minutes on the HealthCare.gov website; it is a busy day for them and their servers are maxed out. I downloaded a form that my employer will need to fill out, which is part of my proof that I cannot afford the insurance offered by my employer (it is well over the 9.5% of family income that is the cutoff). Our income falls easily within the range that should make us eligible for a subsidy on our premium payments. It looks promising; the best I can tell, we should be able to find coverage in the "Marketplace" and get by for no more than we currently pay, and receive much better coverage.

"Obamacare" is a term of derision coined by the program's detractors -- there are some deep-pocketed people out there who have funded a sophisticated program of dis-information about the law, and at this writing, the Republicans in Congress remain determined to kill the program. I use the term in the hope that "Obamacare" becomes a badge of honor for this president, who has staked everything on it. I believe that it will do as much to benefit the ordinary people of the U.S. as Social Security.

At the least, this American, who on the whole is not a fan of President Obama, wishes to thank him for bringing us to this day. My hat is off to you, Mr. President.

[I tip my hat also to Sen. Edward Kennedy, of blessed memory, for whom this was an issue of utmost importance. And Pres. Richard Nixon, who was among those who tried and failed to bring universal health care to Americans. His proposals back in the 1970's, built around a mandate for employer-provided insurance, have many likenesses to the Affordable Care Act as it now stands.]

on Angels

[reprinted from my old LiveJournal: Feb. 22, 2008]

I have always felt a little guilty about believing in angels. They are like something out of a fairy-story – like Ents, or Hobbits. There is no evidence whatsoever of their existence in the Real World of the scientists. Rational men and women should have laid such fantasies aside by the age of nine or ten, along with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

Nonetheless, if we are to give the slightest credence to Holy Scripture, the words of our Lord Jesus, and the universal testimony of the church (well, almost universal; many liberal clergy and professors of theology do not believe in angels any more than they do in the Resurrection), angels are as much a part of this Real World as trees and elephants and bumblebees.

It is as if Gandalf were to show up for supper, knocking on our front door with his staff, a dozen dwarves in tow.

"The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls 'angels' is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition." (Catholic Catechism, paragraph 328).

What are angels like?

We have evidence from Scripture, which I will leave for the reader to explore. My mental image of them owes much to Tolkien. The author Poul Anderson and his wife Karen noted in an essay that many of JRRT's species – dwarves, orcs, trolls, for example – are stock figures of northern European folklore. But not his elves; JRRT's elves are quite different from the sidhe. The Andersons suggested that instead, they are like angels.

I think of Glorfindel at the ford, shining like a flame of fire, or Galadriel, wise and strong and true, seeing into the darkness even while the darkness could not penetrate the light of the Golden Wood, and all the while capable of being as merry as a child. Or the company of elves with which Frodo and Sam dine while leaving the Shire. Or Legolas, sturdy friend and companion in good times and bad. I can imagine that angels could be like this.

I can also believe that angels can be like Fëanor of old, falling from brightest light and skill into pride. For Lucifer is an angel, one of the mightiest, and it was not Lucifer alone who fell into darkness.


How do angels help us?

Guardian angels? So the catechism says (paragraph 336, with a half-dozen Scriptural citations in support). I am less confident of this than I am of the more general presence and work of angels in the economy of God's providence to us, and perhaps to others of God's creatures. But it could be true. It is hard to explain several occurrences in my past without resorting either to “what some call chance” or the action of God, directly or mediated through an angel.

It is well to not rely overmuch on a guardian angel: “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,” as our Savior said when presented with Psalm 91's promise that “he shall give his angels charge over thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” We should not expect unlimited protection when the Lord of all the heavenly host, who could have called ten thousand angels to his rescue, was nailed to the cross. No angel helped him that day. No angel can do for us those things which are given us to do. They can strengthen us with hidden graces, as they helped our Lord in the desert and at Gethsemane. But they cannot bear our cross, or his.


The catechism reminded me of another way, one that is so obvious that I had forgotten it, and perhaps more important than all the rest:

They help us sing.

“Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts....”

Our poor efforts at song are riddled with mistakes and missed opportunities. They are never sufficiently rehearsed; they never live up to what the song ought to be. But we human singers and instrumentalists are not the only ones in the choir loft, or the congregation, or the orchestral stage, or the opera house, or gatherings of Celtic or bluegrass or jazz musicians, or any other place where there is effort to offer a song that is true. There is more to the song than what we can hear.

Ye holy angels bright,
who wait at God's right hand,
or through the realms of light
fly at your Lord's command,
assist our song,
for else the theme
too high doth seem
for mortal tongue.
(Richard Baxter)

Grown-up, rational men and women must recognize that there are Things out there for which scientific evidence cannot account. Some of these Things are even more wonderful than all the angels of heaven and all of the songs, ours and theirs – the presence of God in the church and in the Blessed Sacrament; the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting; the Son seated at the right hand of the Father; Our Lady and all the saints around the throne; the promise that we will one day join them.

Soli Deo gloria.

some thoughts on Money

Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (St. Luke 16:13)

Well, that is clear enough.

The rest of this morning's Gospel lesson (St. Luke 16:1-13, the parable of the Unjust Steward) is puzzling. What are we to make of this scoundrel, who cheats his master and is commended for doing so? It sounds to me like Jesus is telling us in verses 8 and 9 to go and do likewise, to use the "unrighteous mammon" in any way we want with disregard for such niceties as honest dealing and stewardship of what belongs to others.

He then seems to contradict what he has just said:

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? (v. 10-11)

This at least makes more sense: money is a passing trifle, not to be compared with the "true riches." But it is a testing ground for us; if we cannot be faithful with money, we will not be faithful with anything.


So, what are we to do? Experience shows that Jesus was right: "no servant can serve two masters" (v. 13). St. Paul gives this advice:

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. (I Timothy 6:6-11)

Yet, we must pay some attention to money in order to at least have "food and raiment." St. Paul says in another place that "if any would not work, neither should he eat" (II Thessalonians 3:10). More specifically, in this society we must normally have a job, for which we are paid with money. What are we to do with it? And should we lay some of that money aside for future days, so that we may have food and raiment when we are old and can no longer work?

In my parents' day, this aspect was easier. Most Americans had jobs that promised a retirement pension, plus social security at age 65. They did not need to give any further thought to these matters; the checks would be in the mail when the time came. Almost no one currently in the workforce has a defined benefit pension nowadays, and social security is on shaky ground.

Instead, if we have a pension at all, it is a "defined contribution" plan, where we have considerable responsibility for how it is invested. That means we should know a little about the subject, enough so that we can be faithful stewards in this matter.


In light of these thoughts, I suggest three books that have been helpful to me.

The first book is "Your Money or Your Life," by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. It has gone through several editions since the first in 1992; I read it in the late 1990's, and again last year. Mr. Dominguez died in 1997; Vicki Robin maintains a website that is a helpful introduction to the ideas in this book and much else, such as sustainable living and local foods:

Here is a summary of the book.

A related website is this.

It has a longer guide to the "financial integrity" program, based on the work of Dominguez and Robin: this is a 132-page PDF.

One concept from the book that helped me was to think of money as a representation of "life energy." For example: my effective salary is $16 an hour. When I ate lunch today at the Chinese restaurant, it cost me a little less than $7. I can think of this as roughly a half-hour of "life energy," the amount of time I needed to work in order to earn that $7. Was that a worthwhile use of that half-hour? I think so.

But what about that $16,000 car on the dealer's lot? One thousand hours of life energy, plus more to insure it, fuel it, and repair it. Is it worth that much time out of my life? Probably not, especially when I have an older car that is all paid for and still runs well.


In the earlier editions of "Your Money or Your Life," Mr. Dominguez recommended that once you are out of debt and begin to have a little money left over, you should invest it by purchasing 30-year U.S. Treasury Bonds. Every time you get $1,000, buy another bond. If you had done that in the 1990's when he wrote this advice, you would have done well. But it is a less attractive investment plan nowadays, given current interest rates. So, for this aspect I would turn to two other books:

"The Intelligent Investor" (Benjamin Graham). This was written in 1949 and remains a classic. It outlines a simple approach to asset allocation and investing. Several differing editions are in print, some considerably expanded by more recent authors such as Warren Buffett.

"The Little Book of Common Sense Investing" (John Bogle, 2007). This follows many of the same ideas espoused by Graham, providing a more recent perspective. The basic principle of both books is to have a balance of bonds and equities, and pretty much leave them alone except to rebalance when one or the other goes up or down. Most of all, "chasing the market" is a fool's game, certain to lose most of your money.

I also recommend the website of the Vanguard company, which has a lot of educational material for someone new to investment. Our IRA accounts are with Vanguard, and I recommend them.


So I have gone from St. Paul's "having food and raiment, [being] therewith content" to being an Investor. My wife and I have managed to stay out of debt and save some money, mostly in our retirement accounts, and considering our age, this is a good thing. But it lays us open to "temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts," and some aspects are harder now than they were when we had little or no money. It is perhaps not helpful that I find the subjects of economics, finance, and investment to be fascinating. They can easily consume a lot of time -- more of that "life energy," that properly belongs elsewhere.

Perhaps the key is simply to remember whose money it is. We are stewards of it, responsible for using it in a manner appropriate to the Kingdom. And (borrowing from Dominguez and Robin), we are equally stewards of the "life energy" that is granted us and that is in part represented by money. "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much."

a choral warmup

A choral warmup exercise, developed in our youth choir rehearsal today:

Have the full choir begin on the C above middle C (third space treble clef). The tenors and basses are in unison with the trebles, in their head voice (not an octave below them)

Sing down the scale, using solfas (Do - ti - la - sol...)

At middle C, the trebles go back up (Do - re - mi ...) while the tenors and basses continue down another octave, down to the tenor C. [If there are male altos, they should take whichever part is more comfortable, probably singing with the trebles and female altos. But if they have the low notes, they can go on down with the tenors and basses.]

The two parts turn around and come back down/up the scale to meet at middle C.

Not every choir is capable of this.

I am very proud of our tenors and basses and altos. Nearly all of them have beautiful and comfortable head tones in the range from F or G of the treble clef up to the third space C, and a couple of them beyond that. I have tried to model this for them by singing that way myself, and it amazes me that they have picked this up. I hope that some of them might move with better freedom among the three male parts (alto, tenor, bass) than I have done, and maintain a wide vocal range throughout their adult lives -- I was well into my forties before I learned to properly sing in my upper range.

In my experience, the best way for a young man to develop his voice is to first establish the head voice, in a sound that some would call "falsetto," and at first it may be more of a falsetto and not a developed head voice.

Each day, after the first preliminary warmups (Posture, Space, Breath: sustained note on "ee" in comfortable range -- low voice or high voice -- yawn-sigh on "Oh", then "over the top" on "Oh" - start low, go high, slide back down low), sing several sustained notes in the high head voice, middle of treble clef. "Oh" is a good vowel to start, then use other vowels.

After establishing this sound, sing scales downward across the passagio [register "break" or "change"] into the lower voice. Then scales down and back up [not up and back down! Start high, go down first.] Then other patterns, such as arpeggios, melodies with skips, etc.

In my own singing practice, I improvise at this point, consciously seeking to make melodies that cross the passagio. This is enormous fun, one of the most enjoyable parts of my day.

It is important to develop the low voice as well, and to carry some of the power the low voice into the high voice. The "mezza di voce" is excellent for this. At first, do it on pitches that are well within the low voice or the high voice and not near the passagio. Then, work on pitches nearer to the passagio, where the exercise takes the voice from the higher register to the lower register and back.

Evensong: Sunday of Proper 17, Year A

Psalms for the First Evening: 6, 7, 8
I Kings 8:22-40
St. John 8:47-59

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
What is man that you should be mindful of him? *
the son of man that you should seek him out?

Eleven weeks ago in the middle of June, we started this cycle of Lessons from the Old Testament for the Daily Office with Hannah and Samuel. We have read of Saul son of Kish, of David son of Jesse. And now we are at what must have seemed the high point of the narrative: Solomon son of David and the dedication of the temple.

By the time the Books of the Kings were most likely set down in order as we have them, the temple lay in ruins, not one stone left upon another. The prophet Isaiah wrote of this: "Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste." (Isaiah 64:10-11)

It is no wonder that the editors who assembled First Kings under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost devoted eleven chapters to the reign of Solomon, four of those chapters to the building and dedication of the temple. It was a Good Day, the best of days. In a few short years the kingdoms would be divided and begin their spiral into ruin. Never again, even to this day, would the land have rest from all its enemies round about. Never again could it be said that "Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking, and making merry." (4:20)

But what is that to us? The days of the Temple rituals are past, and we worship One who is greater than the Temple. "Before Abraham was, I am," he said to the people (St. John 8:58), identifying himself as not only one who is greater than Abraham and the prophets, but as the one who is the Son of the Father, the "I AM" revealed to Moses at the burning bush: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father."

And yet... we continue to build places that are called by his name.

Many people come into this place during the week to pray -- on Sunday, but also throughout the week. They often kneel in silence, most often well back in the church. Or they kneel at the side altar. Perhaps they light a votive candle. Others walk by outside and leave prayer requests in the book, or tie a ribbon on the tree as a symbol of their petition.

I count myself blessed to spend many of my working hours in this room, on the organ bench or at the piano, and I pray that I may never take it for granted.

Some of us would say that our Lord Jesus Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, reserved in the tabernacle up there by the candle. Whatever we may think of that, most of us in the Anglican tradition would say that this place is more than what the Puritans would have called a "meeting house," simply a convenient place to gather on the Lord's Day. This, and every other Christian church, is a place that is called by the name of Christ, and where, in some manner, he chooses to dwell among his people. As we shall recall shortly in the prayer of St. Chrysostom, "when two or three are gathered together in his Name, [he] will be in the midst of them."

Why should God pay attention to us this evening, or any time that we pray in this place, or even when we remember it from afar and pray "toward this place," as Solomon phrased it? "What is man that you should be mindful of him, the son of man that you should seek him out?"

Part of the answer is in the sign that Our Lord Jesus gave after cleansing the Temple, saying that it must be a house of prayer for all people. In chapter two of his Gospel, St. John recounts it in this manner:

Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said. (vv. 18-22)

And another part of the answer comes from St. Paul, in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: "... ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." (6:16b)

The Temple was but a figure of "a greater and more perfect tabernacle" (Hebrews 9:11): Jesus Christ Himself is the holy place, the One in whom all the fullness of God doth dwell (Colossians 2:9). When St. John the Divine described the holy city, new Jerusalem, he stated that he "saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:22-23).

Through him, we "as lively stones, are built up an spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (I Peter 2:5)

In connection with this we must consider a detail that is omitted from the narrative in First Kings. We find it in the parallel account of Second Chronicles:

And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place: (for all the priests that were present were sanctified, and did not then wait by course: Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)

It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God. (5:11-14)

In Psalm 22, we read that the Holy One is "enthroned upon the praises of Israel" (v. 3). This is as true now as it was on that day in the Temple: the presence of God is in some manner connected not only with the Blessed Sacrament, or the house that is called by his name, but with the music that we sing in this place, most of all in those moments when through the making of music, we become "as one."


It is with these things in mind that we can hear Solomon's prayer. We can join with him on behalf of those who enter this place to pray, those who tie a ribbon on the tree outside, those who remember this place from afar and wish that they could be here.

... hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee to day: That thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place... And hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou hearest, forgive. (8:19-20)

----------------------

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. (St. Jude 24-25)

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(slightly expanded from the version that I preached at Evensong: September 1, 2013.)