RSCM Report: Generations

For the Lord is gracious;
his mercy is everlasting;
and his truth endureth from generation to generation (Psalm 100:4)

For the first time, we had an RSCM St. Louis Course without Mr. B. Last year, I wrote that

[Mr. B.] is the one who started the St. Louis Course from scratch sixteen years ago, and I am convinced that this is the Great Work of his life. Now he is laying it aside, and it is obvious how much it means to him, and what an emotional day this was for him. In the downstairs choir room, he told the choir of the news after the service; it was an emotional moment for us all, most of all for his own choristers who love this man so deeply.

I have not yet dealt with it; I cannot imagine this Course without him. For now, I can only thank him for what he has done: the tedious administrative groundwork that has gone into the Course, year after year; his gracious hospitality in the "big house" after midweek Evensongs which made the Course such a special place for many of the adult participants, and so much more. May God's blessings be with him, and with us as we seek to go onward next year.

This year, the leadership was largely in the hands of a new generation. Instead of Mr. B., we had an executive committee of Debra, Kristin, Debbie and Weezer. Instead of Br. V. as Chaplain, we had Michael K. Instead of Caitlin and Elizabeth, we had Meredith, Jennifer, and Meara; for the boys we had Eddie and Mike, and able assistance from the assistant proctors Mark, Jenna, and Kyle. Four of those that I have named are from our parish and the others I have know from the Course since they were children; it pleases me that they have all grown into such capable leadership and responsibility for the choristers, as well as leading the choir with their musicianship.

Among the choristers and adults were many new participants, notably the group from the Choir School of East Texas, with Jeffery Ford, musical director, and Diana Keesey, executive director, whom I hope will be my friends for years to come. The musicianship of these choristers, their spirit, their laughter and joy in rehearsals and mealtimes were a delight. The mutual affection and respect between Jeffery, Diane, and their choristers was obvious, and is the foundation for the work they do together. I consider their Choir School a bold undertaking, and wish them the best as they build something virtually unique in the U.S. May the school prosper and be an example to others.



Four of the young women mentioned above found themselves in the ATB rehearsals this year, since we had plenty of strong confident trebles. They were joined in the alto section by Susan, another veteran of RSCM Courses and now in her mid-twenties, and several of the high-school age women from the Texas choir school. Other new altos of more advanced years, some of them parents of choristers, joined them. The result: a most amazing alto sound, rich and velvety and strong.

How did they come to this sound, and that in their first rehearsal together? It is the older women's doing as well as the young. The oldest of them, Judith (who is now in her sixties) told me later that she has noticed that her vibrato is more prominent than it used to be, which is normal for older singers. I listened for it in the next rehearsal, and yes, there it was – it blended with the rest and added a richness to the sound that would otherwise have been absent. She sat between Jennifer and Meredith for many of the rehearsals, and I hope that they got to know her better; Judith's intelligence, stability, and experience are valuable qualities to find in a friend when one is in one's twenties (or any time; I consider Judith to be one of my close friends).

We need one another, and that is reflected vocally. When there is a full spectrum of young, middle-aged, and older singers in a group, the sound is healthier. And it is in this manner, this act of singing together, that the faith is transmitted “from generation to generation.” It is not just the faith, I submit, but musicianship as well. Others taught me; I now teach the choristers that are in our parish; they in turn will someday teach others. If we could know, we would find that the chain extends back many generations, probably to the first hominids who made Music in the Earliest Days.

The tenor and bass sound was equally fine this year, with almost all of it coming from the teens and young adults. I sang between two young baritones from our parish, Ken and Tom, with Emmanuel (from Dallas) beside him. It was a delight to sing at their side as colleagues, and to look across and see others from our parish and from past Courses– Mike and Mark, no longer able to sing together except for the annual RSCM week – Max, singing with the tenors beside my young friend Saul from last year, with Eddie and Spencer from the Indianapolis group, both of them fine musicians and fine young men. It seems but yesterday that they were all trebles, and now Eddie is married, Mike and Mark are in college, and Spencer will be soon.

It was good to be with these people – men old and young, women, girls, boys. Our music together was at times a glimpse of that Promised Land where the Song shall be one, all creation together.

on Intercessory Prayer

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (Romans 8:27)

I am not very good at intercessory prayer. I end up feeling guilty much of the time, thinking of all the people I should be praying for, and all the people I forget to pray for, especially all the people that I have told “I'll pray for you,” and then I've forgotten to do so.

There are a number of problems with intercessory prayer. First, what good does it do?

I have a friend, Byron C. Bangert, who is a genuine Liberal Theologian. I owe him much, because when Byron was a young clergyman, he took a chance on hiring an untidy-looking young pianist who said he knew nothing about playing the organ, but thought he might be able to learn how. We have remained friends through all these years, as his theology has grown steadily more liberal and mine more Catholic and (in many ways) conservative.

Bangert wrote a book in 2006 ["Consenting to God and Nature,” a book which I heartily recommend]. In part, it is about this very question: What good does it do? If one believes as he does:

As a first step, I will endorse the understandings of the natural world that come to us from contemporary science, in particular, the view that there are no exceptions to the universality and inviolability of the causal nexus that is constitutive of all events.

then how could any prayer ever be answered? In short: God is not only unwilling to act in human or natural affairs by doing such things as, for example, raising his Son from the dead on the third day; God is unable to do so in a direct way (as Bangert expands upon later). More precisely, God is not omnipotent in the traditionally recognized sense; instead, God works (and can only work) through the existing natural laws revealed by modern science, and through the volition of those who are willing to work with him. It seems to me that this is refuted by the Argument of Anselm: one can easily imagine a God who can suspend the natural laws, and such a God would be greater. I am confident that Bangert would disagree.

He espouses Process Theology as a way for God to interact with the universe, positing a God who is panentheistic. When I first saw this word, I thought it was a misprint for “pantheistic”; it is not. Instead, panentheism claims that God contains the world but is not identical with it. It denies that the world is something that God “made.” The universe is not identical with God, but God cannot exist without the universe. Although, in my view, there are serious problems with Process Theology, it does offer a way for God to answer prayer. God can “persuade” agents who possess free will to do things His way. And in this view (based on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead), everything down to the subatomic particles has a degree of free will appropriate to its mode of being. So, if God wanted to do something that appears to be in violation of natural laws, all he has to do is ask, and if enough things are willing to cooperate, the “miracle” would take place.

When I first read of this (again, in Bangert's book; I had been innocent of these ideas before), I was intrigued. I could well imagine the atoms and molecules hearing God's voice and joyfully obeying his every wish, and far more reliably than humans have done. All of a sudden, anything was possible: “Is there any thing too hard for the Lord?”, as the angel said. I still suspect that there might be some truth in here, somewhere, but I do not think that the current formulation is correct.

For example, I am unable to accept that God does not exist apart from the universe. I toyed with the idea that he did, at the beginning, exist on his own, and created the universe as something to which he was no more directly related than an author to his story. But by means of the Incarnation, he irrevocably tied himself to this universe by his free choice. There is a real person, a flesh-and-blood Homo sapiens who was “born of a woman” in a particular time and place into this particular universe, who is now and for ever inseparably a part of the Godhead.

I broached these ideas to Byron in a long letter; he responded at equal length saying that this is completely incompatible with Process Theology, as are the concepts of the Incarnation and the Trinity. Jesus did not have two natures (the “hypostatic union,” as I believe it is called); he was simply a human who completely lived what he said in the Garden: “Not my will, but thine be done.” From beginning to end, his will was perfectly aligned with the Father's. While this, also, is true as far as it goes, I think that it is not the full picture. I think that it is equally true that “the Word was made flesh.”

My point, after this long digression, is that by whatever means, I do believe that God can answer prayer, even if it means acting contrary to the laws of physics, biology, and the other sciences. I remain agnostic as to just how this works, but I accept the evidence – most of all the Resurrection -- as convincing proof.


A second problem:

As noted, I forget to pray for people that need prayer, and that I ought to be remembering, and then beat myself up with guilt for forgetting them. This is, in the end, a statement of finitude. I cannot pray for everyone who needs prayer, any more than I can help everyone who needs help. I can, at best, tackle a microscopic sliver of these tasks. But we know someone who does not forget even the smallest sparrow, and who is unwilling for any of his sheep to perish:

. . . this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:24-25)

Our intercessions, as inadequate as they are, become part of his perfect intercession. Our intercessory prayers are “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And so long as that is true, they will be heard. If I forget to pray for someone, He doesn't.


A final problem: What to pray for?

“Even the wise do not know all ends,” as (I think) Gandalf said. When someone is sick (for example), is it really best to pray for healing? Might not the illness be a means of grace for the person bearing it? Some of mine have been so. Yet, we do have an Example telling us to ask for specific needs that we have: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Further, people came to Jesus seeking very specific help for themselves and others. So, when someone is sick, I do pray that God will heal them, and likewise for any other difficulty. When I hear or read of someone in need, I pray for them right then, and every time that they come back to mind. I try not to worry about the times that they do not come back to my mind; as noted previously, I trust our Lord Christ with that. I trust the Father who gives every good gift to refrain from giving us what we ask when something other would be of more benefit. I further trust the “groanings which cannot be uttered” of the Spirit to express what I cannot, or dare not, say.

But more and more, my prayers tend to take the form of “Remember ______ .” As the Quakers say, I “hold them to the Light,” and trust that God will know how best to address their need.

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16)

[Footnote: For a much better treatment of this subject, see “Letters to Malcolm, chiefly on Prayer,” by C.S. Lewis. Some people consider it to be his finest book.]

Prayer and the Sanctification of Time

Many years ago, I worked for an Anglican parish in the Caribbean where Matins and Evensong were said daily at the church. Anywhere from a half-dozen to twenty or more people came – taxi drivers, hotel maids and kitchen workers, bartenders, unemployed people, one family with four children, two police officers, office workers, a lawyer. They cared about these services enough to fit them in around their workdays and other duties. A couple of the older folks walked into town for Matins pretty much every day; one of the taxidrivers gave them lifts home or to the markets afterwards for free.

It is for this that I became an Anglican.



One hundred fifty psalms every month; great swaths of Holy Scripture, daily canticles that quickly became best of friends, prayers that expressed what needed to be said to begin and end the day – and all of it in the magnificent language of the old Prayerbook and the Authorized Version of the Bible. . . . There were no sermons (except at choral evensong, which was offered every Sunday), normally no music except for one unaccompanied hymn after the collects; just plain ordinary people, sharing language (Biblical and otherwise) that was thoroughly honest, polished like stones in a creekbed by centuries of use. Mind you – these were not monks and nuns, or particularly “religious.” Most of them had little education and spoke the everyday dialect of the Caribbean – incomparably beautiful, but quite different from the language of the Bible and Prayerbook. Despite what trendy clergypersons and “liturgists” have insisted to me in the decades since, they understood the “thees” and “thous” and all the rest without the slightest difficulty.

This was Thomas Cranmer's dream. As one can read in the preface to the First Book of Common Prayer of 1549 (page 866 in the U.S church's 1979 BCP), the Daily Offices of the medieval monks and nuns were so complex and burdensome that an average layperson could not hope to negotiate his way through them. He disposed of the “Anthems, Responds, Invitatories, and such like things” that created most of the complexity; he directed that the Psalter, and most often the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, be read straight through in course rather than scattered around or (largely) ignored; he condensed the seven monastic Offices into two: Matins and Evensong. So far as I know, parish clergy in the Church of England are still under vow to say these offices in the church every day. American clergy are under no such vow.

Cranmer intended for the people of the parish to attend these services, where there “[was] ordained nothing to be read, but the very pure word of God, the holy Scriptures, or that which is evidently grounded upon the same...” with the hope that “the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) should continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be more inflamed with the love of his true religion.”

In the 450-plus years since, it has not often happened that way. But there are many Anglican laypeople, besides the monastics of the Anglican communion, and (I hope, somewhere) a few clergy who say the offices as they are able, and find them to be of inestimable value. In my current parish, there are a handful of us, mostly from the Brotherhood of St. Andrew and the Daughters of the King, who do what we can. There are fourteen mornings-and-evenings in a week, we have public services at the church for five to seven of them, depending on the week. Attendance normally ranges from one (the norm at Matins) to about a dozen (the monthly Saturday Matins with the Daughters of the King), and somewhat more at the once-a-month Choral Evensong. Most weeks, I make it to four of these services, praying the balance of them at home, or wherever I happen to be.

Matins and Evensong are the cornerstones upon which the day is built. They are, of course, much older than Cranmer. They are rooted in the earliest days of Israel's pilgrimage: in Exodus, God tells Moses and Aaron to offer “sweet incense” (Ex. 30:7-8) and burnt offerings (Ex. 29:38-46) every morning and evening as a “continual offering throughout your generations”. God goes on to say that “there will I meet with the children of Israel,” and “I will dwell among [them], and will be their God.” Placing these statements in the context of the daily offerings implies to me that they are central in the encounter between God and his people. There is more: it is a “lamb of the first year” that is offered as the burnt offering, and the incense is compounded on a base of frankincense (Ex. 30:34). The altars of incense and burnt offerings (as well as Aaron, representing what now, in the time of the “priesthood of all believers,” would be all of us) are sanctified by anointing oil of which “pure myrrh” is a principal ingredient. Thanks to the Magi, frankincense and myrrh are evermore connected with the Lamb of God whose Star they followed. These things teach that all of our prayers are “through Jesus Christ our Lord.” But that is a topic for another time.

In the Anglican approach, it is in these two offices of Matins and Evensong that large chunks of Psalmody and Scripture are read. It is vital, in my experience, to immerse oneself in the Story. It is impossible to live as a Christian without doing so. Obviously, our prayers are not limited to what is printed in the Prayerbook. But none of us can pray in a vacuum, as if it were just “me and God,” with no context of Scripture or Church. As often happens, Cardinal Ratzinger has appropriate words about this:

[speaking of the “I – Thou” theologies of Martin Buber and others in the 1930's] Partnership between God and man is conceived in I-Thou terms in a way which deprives God of his infinity and excludes each individual “I” from the unity of being. By comparison with God, man's identity is not simply in himself but outside himself . . . The Christian believer discovers his true identity in him who, as the “firstborn of all creation,” holds all things together (Col. 1:15ff), with the result that we can say that our life is hidden with him in God (Col. 3:3). . . . The church as a whole presents the model of this kind of “identity.” . . . In finding my own identity by being identified with Christ, I am made one with him: my true self is restored back to me, I know that I am accepted, and this enables me to give myself back to him. On this basis the theology of the Middle Ages proposed that the aim of prayer . . . was that, through it, man should become an anima ecclesiastica – a personal embodiment of the church. . . . In this process the language of our Mother becomes ours; we learn to speak it along with her, so that, gradually her words on our lips become our words. (from The Feast of Faith, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger; my emphasis)

This last is the most beautiful statement of why one should pray the Daily Offices (and the other prayers of the Church) that I have ever encountered. It corresponds exactly with my experience of praying the Offices for close to three decades. These prayers, psalms, and Scriptures remain the prayers of Holy Mother Church, but they have become “my” words, my prayers as well. Their language and ideas have spilled over into every corner of my life. If they would have the proper and full effect of turning me into a true anima ecclesiastica, it would be a Good Thing, but there is much still to be done.

I am focusing narrowly on the Anglican traditions here; there are many other paths. About ten years ago, I happened in a thrift store upon a set of the four Roman Catholic books for the Liturgy of the Hours. They had belonged to a Hispanic Jesuit, and there they were on the shelf. I bought them for 80 cents per volume, and spent the next six months or so saying the Offices from them, instead of from the Episcopal book. In (modern) Roman usage, the large chunks of Scripture and Psalmody are in the “Office of Readings,” and there are, as Cranmer noted, a great many “Anthems, Responds, Invitatories, and such like things.” The largest difference for me was the arrangement of the psalmody, following the Benedictine model of placing psalms where they best fit in terms of time of day, and day of the week. There are advantages to this. But the English translations are horribly pedestrian (I suspect the services, psalms, and Scripture lessons would be much better in Latin), and I had already grown too accustomed to the Book of Common Prayer. So, after a half-year, the Roman books went on the shelf, for occasional reference. And, again, there are many other paths to prayer. I encourage you to find, and follow, one that “is suitable to your condition,” as they used to say. Even for those who do not follow the Roman Rite in these particulars, it is worthwhile to read the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours.


A few other details:

One important ingredient to daily prayer is Table Grace. In addition to the obvious use at mealtimes, I often pray such prayers as I cook, wash dishes, and shop for groceries. The whole relationship with food is cause for most grateful thanksgiving.

Then, there are the “Little Hours.” They are just that – little. I have come to them rather late, and am still struggling to make the midday Hour a regular part of my life. But they have helped me. The Book of Common Prayer gives forms for “An Order of Service for Noonday” and “An Order for Compline,” which is at the close of day. I follow these, conforming the language to “Rite One” traditional usage, which I consider more appropriate for prayer. In addition, I say (usually in a whisper, for Mrs. C. is sleeping) a Little Hour upon my first awakening, before I get out of bed. This is of my own devising, but follows the form of the Noonday hour:

Invitatory:

O Lord, open thou our lips:
And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.

Psalm 100:

O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands . . . .

Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-3

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses . . .

Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.

The Lord's Prayer

A Collect for Grace (BCP p. 57)

O Lord, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that we, being ordered by thy governance, may do always what is righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dismissal:

Let us bless the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
(Alleluias added to the above during the Easter Season)

The above has been very helpful toward beginning the day in a proper context, and I commend it to you.

Then, and in some ways the most important, is the ongoing practice of “breath prayer.” The most common way of doing this is the “Jesus Prayer,” from the eastern Orthodox tradition. I tried that for a while, and ended up with my own form: I pray “Deo gratias,” inhaling “Deo” and exhaling “gratias.” It seems to me that this is a way of fulfilling the Apostle's injunction: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” (I Thess. 5:16-18) In addition, since it is the final response of the Offices ("Thanks be to God"), it is a way in which the set times of prayer spill over into the rest of life, echoing throughout the day with every breath.


And there is yet another way to sanctify time: Music. But I have spoken of that elsewhere.

(revised from my LiveJournal: April 16, 2008)

Saint Benedict, and Getting Things Done

Today, July 11, is the Feast of St. Benedict.

Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart... The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. (Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict)

Benedict's thoroughly sensible Rule laid a foundation for Christian life in community in the Western Church. Much of it deals with the Opus Dei, the daily cycle of Psalmody, Scripture, and Prayer. As I wrote in the previous essay, nothing is more important: Operi Dei nihil praeponatur. The Rule gives down-to-earth advice on becoming more humble and more obedient. And it covers the administrative aspects of living in community with unsurpassed wisdom.

Some of it might require a grain of salt nowadays:

Should anyone make a mistake in a psalm, responsory, refrain or reading, he must make satisfaction there before all.... Children, however, are to be whipped for such a fault. (Chapter 45, “Mistakes in the oratory,” sentences 1 and 3)

That might not go over so well in our youth choir rehearsals.

Much has been written and said about this Saint. I will content myself with one link, a sermon by the Holy Father who took his name, Benedict XVI: General Audience, 9 April 2008

… the Saint's work and particularly his Rule were to prove heralds of an authentic spiritual leaven which, in the course of the centuries, far beyond the boundaries of his country and time, changed the face of Europe following the fall of the political unity created by the Roman Empire, inspiring a new spiritual and cultural unity, that of the Christian faith shared by the peoples of the Continent. This is how the reality we call "Europe" came into being....

Without prayer there is no experience of God. Yet Benedict's spirituality was not an interiority removed from reality. In the anxiety and confusion of his day, he lived under God's gaze and in this very way never lost sight of the duties of daily life and of man with his practical needs.

A Rule of life is not just for monks and nuns. It is a helpful practice for anyone to develop some manner of Rule. I first started such a document many years ago as a way to organize my work on Sundays, a complex and challenging day for church musicians and others, such as clergy. At first, I simply wanted a task list so that others could fill in for me, but it quickly grew beyond that, and beyond Sundays into the rest of the week. Over years, it grew larger and more detailed, and then simpler. Changes to the Rule are made with thought and prayer, and the result is that, when I am disciplined by it (which is not always) I am not living my life by whim, but by reason and faith. I do not always live up to it.

As one of my colleagues, a youth director, often said, “Transitions are important.” If I am on task, I am all right – as I wrote the other day in regard to the Daily Office: once I begin, I can almost always carry it through. The point of danger arises when one task is laid aside and it is time to do Something Else. What might that be? Countless times the Rule has helped me; when in doubt, I do what is next. If necessary, I open my computer file and look at the Rule, and it reminds me. But over time, the sequence of the day's work becomes habitual, and that is good.

There must be enough flexibility to lay aside the order of things in the Rule to take care of what Stephen Covey would call “Quadrant One” tasks – “important and urgent.” But one of the defining qualities of such a task is that when it arises, there is no question as to what to do next, though the question of how to address the task may be less clear. As soon as possible, I return to the Rule.

My recent tweaks have mostly had to do with my growing recognition of larger cycles in my life, especially the monthly cycle that culminates in Choral Evensong, and the weekly cycles that center on Choral Rehearsals and Sunday Eucharist. How can my work be best arranged so that the things that matter get done?

I have said enough. You must make your own Rule, informed by the work of others, including Benedict most of all.