No turning back

For Samuel, one could say that it began that night at Shiloh, when he heard the Voice calling him by name. One could also say that it began years earlier when his mother Hannah brought him there, a little toddler of a boy. “I have lent him to the Lord,” she said. Or one could say that it began in the mind of God before the foundation of the worlds, when he predestined Samuel to be among his children (see Ephesians 1:3-5).

The point is that God has been calling us, and preparing us for the call, for much longer than we have known of it. But for all of us, there comes a time when we hear the Voice, in one way or another. And we are free to walk away from it. Most of us do, at first.

But he is patient.


For me, I first heard the call at age twelve. Keith, who was a neighbor and my friend, invited me to the Vacation Bible School at his church. That week they talked about some of the parables. I was blown away; I had never heard any of these stories, and they were like nothing else I had encountered. A half-century later, that is still true.

In today's Eucharistic lessons, we heard about Samuel, and about some of the disciples. For most of them – for pretty much all of us now – someone told them about Jesus, and said “Come and see.”

Who is waiting for you to say “Come and see?”

We sang the little song “I have decided to follow Jesus” at the contemporary service this morning, and I improvised on it. The song is usually done in a cheerful up-tempo manner: I don't see it that way, and I certainly didn't this morning. Part of it, probably, was my concern for one of our young choristers, who has been very ill this week and is not altogether out of the woods. But that is just a reminder that following Jesus is not an escape from troubles. It takes you deeper into troubles, because you begin to share some of the way that He sees people, and loves them.

But, as the song says, “No turning back.”

George Fox

For several years in the late '90's, my wife and I worshipped on Sunday afternoons with the Society of Friends, after I had played services at the Presbyterian church in the morning. It was the only period in our thirty-plus years of marriage that we have been able to attend church together, and it was good to be there with her, to share the long silences, the listening.

George Fox, who died yesterday (13 January) in the year 1691, is unlikely to appear on any Anglican calendar of saints. I suspect he would be displeased with the very idea. But I commemorate him, and revere his memory. In a tumultuous age, he preached nonviolence. In an aristocratic society, he considered all to be equal before God, women and children as well as men. He called both Anglicans and Dissenters to account, and neither group would attend to his message.

Fox, and the Society of Friends which came into being around him, are, I think, an important corrective to the Anglican Way. Our clergy (and sometimes church musicians) too easily become enamored of our Perogatives, our fat pensions and comfortable salaries and medical insurance and fine pipe organs and lovely old buildings and clerical finery and all the rest. I cannot think of many Episcopal clergypersons who live a life of humble simplicity, and if they did, I suspect they would have a hard time finding a parish that would hire them. The musicians are no better – we love our AAM and AGO conferences where we stay in the finest hotels and eat at the finest restaurants. George Fox reminds us that this is not the path that Christ walked.

Worse still, we too easily become enamored of our Liturgy and our Music. We come to believe that they give us a direct line to God. Fox reminds us that the whole business – Prayerbook, Liturgy, church buildings, pipe organs, choirs, clergy, even the Holy Sacraments – is superfluous in comparison to the Inner Light, the simple following after God, the love for one's neighbor.


I believe that the Friends are not without their problems. In my experience, by throwing out Sacraments and Liturgy, they have also gradually lost connection with Scripture and (I would say) any recognizable belief in Christ. The Friends I was around are in belief essentially Unitarians, and most of them have not opened a Bible in decades, if ever. I would submit that without grounding in Scripture and a conversion experience in Christ (which Fox himself considered essential), it all becomes like chaff, blown about by the winds.

But there is nothing like a burial service among Friends. Or a wedding. And by comparison, Episcopalians know nothing about Silence, or waiting for Clearness. And there remains the steadfast nonviolence of the Friends, even at great personal cost.

Perhaps we need each other, we Anglicans and the Friends.

Rest in peace

We had another funeral yesterday: my friend Grace F., who died suddenly on Wednesday evening. She was an Organist and a member of our parish.

It was a scramble to prepare some music for a Saturday funeral. Here is some of the organ music. Without explanation, it would seem a bit strange.

First, there is the Bach Prelude in E flat that begins the Third Part of the Clavierübung. I often play the accompanying Fugue, often known as the “St. Anne” Fugue because of the accidental resemblance of the first theme to the head motive of the hymn tune; I played it recently, at the funeral on December 22. But the Prelude is another matter. It was a special favorite of Grace's. I had last played it on Trinity Sunday; it had a solid fingering in place, and I figured it was worth taking a chance on getting it ready in two days.

In the liturgy, this was the prelude. As I played, Nora came and told me that we would be five minutes late while guests were continuing to arrive, so I had time to add the chorale prelude “Vor deinen Thron,” which I played under similar circumstances on Dec. 22.

After that in the recording: the tolling of the church bell. I left it in with the ensuing silence as a remembrance of Grace.

The recording then skips ahead to the postlude, the aforementioned Fugue. Unless there is reason to play something else (such as a request from the family), I play this as the postlude for funerals.

The idea is not by any means original. Many years ago, I was with a group from my congregation at the Presbyterian worship and music conference at Montreat, NC. It is a grand event with about one thousand musicians of all ages, with a few liturgically-inclined clergy. That year, a young woman in the high school choir suddenly fell down dead, right in the middle of a choral rehearsal. It was quite a shock to the entire conference, especially her fellow high school choristers. I have to this day most profound respect for the high school director that year, Mr. John Yarrington, for the way he spoke to the two-hundred or so young people when they next gathered, that afternoon.

It was decided that we would have a memorial service for the young lady right there at the conference. The girl's family had arrived by then, I think from Florida. We sang many hymns. All of the choirs sang: children, junior high, high school, adults, handbell choirs. Scriptures were read. We even had Holy Communion, which in a Presbyterian gathering would not be as expected as it would be among Episcopalians.

The organist that year was Mr. Gerre Hancock. At communion, after the high school choir sang their anthem (and the rest of us wept), he improvised in his masterful way, and all of a sudden, I realized that he had worked his way around to the beginning of the St. Anne Fugue. It was the most perfect musical statement for that moment that could possibly have been offered, binding all that we had done and experienced into the glory of God.

I still remember that young person, taken from her family and friends all too soon. May she rest in peace. May Grace rest in peace, and all of my other friends, a list that continues to grow.

One of the blessings of growing older is that as time passes, more of your friends and family are on the Other Shore. Eventually, as with my 95-year-old mother, pretty much all of them are gone and you alone are left. That makes it easier to say good-bye to this life when the time comes; it becomes increasingly clear that you are going home, never more to part.

The Day After the Epiphany

The Magi have “departed into their own country another way” (St. Matthew 2:12). The shepherds have returned to their work, “glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen” (St. Luke 2:20).

What of us?

Last night, we heard the magnificent Lessons from the Eucharist for the Epiphany, one of the Seven Principal Feasts of the Church. The Rector climbed a ladder and blessed the door of the church with a chalk inscription. She later announced the Date of Easter and its related Holy Festivals and Fasts. The ladies washed the dishes from dinner. Everyone went home; I locked the church, turned out the lights.

What next? How do we go on from here?

I spent part of this day helping my fellow-laborers in Christ (John and Nora) take down the Christmas decorations in the church. This used to be a community project by the parish; it has now fallen to the staff, and I did not want it to fall solely upon John, our Sexton. We took down the wreaths, removed the bows and packed them away, threw out the greenery, removed the fake electric candles from the windows, boxed up the figures from the Nativity creche (including the Angel, who got lost in the next room and never made it to the Stable).

It was Holy Work, and not just from helping my friends (instead of doing the work proper to my profession). It was a Transition, a Fresh Start. When I mentioned this to Nora, she said that many people have sensed these days as such a transition, a “de-toxification” from the rigors of Advent and Christmas. That makes sense to me: I have hardly accomplished anything since my essay last week, despite having the Gift of several days when I should have made some progress.

Much work lies ahead. From here, the path runs straight ahead to the River Jordan, and from there deep into the Desert, where Satan awaits, but where also the Angels minister to us (St. Mark 1:13).

This day is like standing at the starting line. I am not ready, but I need only follow my Captain, one step at a time, and go where He has led.

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It is late for Christmas music, but here is my improvisation from Sunday, on "What child is this" and "O come, all ye faithful."

The music of Advent and Christmas can be a way that we, like St. Mary, ponder these things in our hearts. She never forgot those eventful days and months, nor should we.