Conference Notes: Praise and Worship Music

This entry is more for myself than for others; it is a way to try and make sense of one of the aspects of last month's Hymn Society conference. Namely, it summarizes my notes from the workshop led by Greg Scheer entitled "Praise and Worship: from Jesus People to Gen X." By putting my notes in this form, I can include links to fill out the picture somewhat, and return here for reference.

First, my disclaimer: I know very little about this genre. Mostly, I want to list the elements that Mr. Scheer thinks are important in the current era, that of "Emerging Worship," and some of the musicians that are prominent. And mostly, the information here presented is from the notes that I took at Mr. Scheer's workshop. Anything useful is his; the mistakes and misjudgments are all mine. [My comments are in italics]

A much better presentation of these ideas can be found in the essay that Mr. Scheer contributed to the book "New Songs of Celebration Render: Congregational Song for the Twenty-First Century," edited by C. Michael Hawn, published by GIA Publications, Chicago, 2013. I purchased a copy of this book on the last day of the conference and it looks to be very interesting (I have not had time yet to read it). The book traces seven "streams" of congregational song as we move into this century, with Praise and Worship being one of the seven. Mr. Scheer's essay is found at pp. 173-206.

Three Fundamental Traits:

- P&W music is a product of American Evangelicalism, but has affected others, including Roman Catholics and the mainstream Protestant denominations
- The aesthetic is drawn from pop culture. It tends to track pop culture with a time lag of five to twenty years. The desire is to please and attract nonbelievers by speaking their musical language. Music is always a vehicle for evangelism. It is youth oriented because pop culture is youth oriented, aimed at age 18-24.
- There is a strong personal and ecstatic spiritual orientation, with roots in Wesleyan Holiness and the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements.

Precursors and Scripture Song (1971-77)

Mr. Scheer outlined several precursors to the movement, especially William Booth and the Salvation Army bands; the frontier revivals, camp meetings, [and urban revivalism - C. Finney, D.L. Moody, and the musicians associated with them such as Ira Sankey] ; African American music [spirituals, but especially gospel music. Also "white" Gospel music belongs here - e.g. Fanny Crosby, William Doane, many others]; the mid-twentieth century evangelical movements such as the Billy Graham crusades, Youth for Christ; youth musicals; the "Jesus People" of the 1960's and early 70's.

The early "Scripture Song" movement is well illustrated by Karen Lafferty's song "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." [We sang this one today at the contemporary service]. These are guitar songs, quoting Scripture for their texts [almost always King James version], using three to six guitar chords.

Important in the early stages was Calvary Chapel and its pastor, Chuck Smith. As Wikipedia recounts it, "Smith's daughter introduced him to her boyfriend John Higgins, Jr., a former hippie who had become a Christian and who went on to lead the largest Jesus Freak movement in history, the Shiloh Youth Revival Centers." With Smith's support, the musical side of the Jesus Freak movement led to "Jesus music"
and Christian Rock Concerts. The music label "Maranatha! Music" was formed to publish and distribute these songs [and make a lot of money on them. The resulting "Christian music industry" pretty much absorbed all of this music and its musicians. This is a theme that recurs several times in the history of this genre; every new creative impulse is soon commercialized.]

Praise Chorus (1978-92)

The Jesus People grew up and became Boomers, and wanted a "contemporary" style of worship with "their" music. From this period come what Scheer called the "classic praise choruses." A typical song is "Sanctuary" by Randy Scruggs and John Thompson, copyright 1982, with the first line "Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary."
[Although it is over thirty years old, it is still sung at gatherings such as our diocesan youth "Happenings," and was one of the songs chosen by our high school musicians for Youth Sunday in our parish this spring.]

The CCM, or "Christian Contemporary Music" movement fits here. Just as "Maranatha! Music" was the key publisher for the Scripture Song period, "Integrity (Hosanna!)" is the main publisher in this period. [Partly from dealing with these publishers and their music, I have gotten to where I am very suspicious of any corporate name that includes an exclamation point. Just saying.]

The music gets professionalized, often with big triumphalistic orchestrations. The style is no longer simply one or two singers with guitars. It is smooth light-rock pop. Most importantly, it is now a fixed style. As Mr. Scheer said, it is immediately identifiable -- "Oh yeah. That's my mom's church." In other words, it is the church music of the Boomer generation.

Praise and Worship (1993-1998)
CCM reached a point of crisis with Amy Grant, "the queen of Christian pop." Her album "Heart in Motion" (1991) was a crossover into secular pop, and offended many of her fans, as did certain aspects of Ms. Grant's personal life during this period. For example, as Mr. Scheer cited, she was portrayed on a music video as dancing with a man who was not her husband. And later, she divorced her Christian songwriter husband Gary Chapman and married mainstream country musician Vince Gill. None of this set well with CCM fans. [One of my choir parents at that time had a genuine spiritual crisis over this; she felt deeply betrayed by Ms. Grant's move out of the CCM subculture into the secular world and especially by her divorce. This choir mother was not alone; it was an important moment for a lot of evangelicals who had immersed themselves in this genre of music.]
More broadly, it was becoming clear that CCM had become reflective of its big corporate ownership and the values that went with it -- primarily making lots of money and delivering product to consumers.

As Mr. Scheer said, "Praise and Worship ('P&W') stepped in to fill the gap."

Some names here are Hillsong and their musician Darlene Zschech;
Delirious? [yes, the question mark is part of the band's name. It is almost as bad as the 1970's and 80's exclamation points]

Also the Vineyard movement should be mentioned, with their founding pastor John Wimber. Their music is characterized by its very intimate nature, what Mr. Scheer called "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs. It tends to be in a Celine Dion style.

Emerging Worship (1999 to the present)

Once again, the previous era's music has now become The Establishment. By now, we have the children of the Boomers. If they have grown up in evangelical megachurches, they have never sung hymns. Boomers mostly want to be entertained; their children want to participate. Boomers threw away everything that was before 1960; their children are sometimes looking for something that has some history and substance, and especially for something that is not so commercialized. They are more attracted to elements of traditional liturgy, though often in new guises. Where the Boomers liked to build "worship centers" that looked like shopping malls, entirely devoid of trappings such as crosses and icons, their children are much less comfortable worshipping in such spaces. The new generation complained that their parents' music was "too slick, too happy, and too tame." [I think that Mr. Scheer was painting with a broad brush in these aspects, and I get a little nervous when one characterizes people by their generation. But there is probably a good bit of truth in these generalizations, and they correspond to what I have seen, so long as one remembers that there are many exceptions to these generalized statements in every generation. I am one of them, I hope. But I think that the characterization of the older P&W music is very accurate: "too slick, too happy, and too tame."]

A couple of names:
SonicFlood
Passion Conferences
and the "re-tuned movement" that I mentioned last week; we had a song festival of some of their music at the Hymn Society conference. Mr. Scheer was one of the leaders of that festival. They are looking to old hymn texts (mostly 18th and 19th century) and setting them in a current musical language.

Also this (their concert at the Ryman Auditorum)

Besides the songs, I think the clips of some of the songwriters starting at 54 minutes into the video are good: they talk about why these hymn texts are important.

"Hymns don't water down reality... We do ourselves, our communities, our families, our friends, and the world a disservice when we don't sit in reality."
"These hymns seem to have a lasting impact, where they go deeper and deeper into my heart. They become richer and fuller with each life experience, whether it's a hard and sorrowful time or a joyful time."
"I have literally sat in church services singing these songs, singing these hymns, and feeling my sanity restored."

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I will leave it here. This is not "my music." But I want to know about it. Perhaps it is best to end by quoting the final paragraph of Mr. Scheer's essay (p. 201):

Praise & worship is a little less than the worship utopia proponents predicted, but a little better than the erosion of foundations that detractors expected. Time will winnow the wheat from the chaff.

Some of my readers know a lot more about this music than I do; please comment and suggest further directions to explore.

RSCM Report: Part Four and Epilogue

July 28: When shall I come before the presence of God?

The RSCM course finished the week with Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. We sang the Mozart Missa Brevis, K. 65. It is a little jewel, a treasure from the godlike genius of this thirteen-year-old boy. As a musician he sprang fully formed into the world, yet he retained the heart of a child all his days. In this piece, there are places in which it is as if one can hear him say "Hmmm... what happens if I try this?" He is at play with his musical building blocks, and it is a delight to listen to him. My favorite part of it: the little Benedictus, a one-page duet for soprano and alto, sung by Caitlin and Kristin. The manner in which the soprano comes out of the forte at the end of the Sanctus, and is then joined by the alto, is magical. No small part of its effect on me was my affectionate regard for these two singers, and for Br. Vincent at the organ. This emotional connection is not to be discounted; music, and most of all church music, is never discrete from those who make it. Live music is a human connection, a mode of communication from heart to heart. A recording can preserve this like a flower pressed in a book, but the life is gone from it.

I was on the risers at the Basilica among the six tenors and eleven basses. Of these seventeen choirmen, all but two are under the age of thirty. Six of them (counting me) are from our parish. I am proud of this, perhaps inordinately. Mark and Mike have been especially impressive in their singing this week; they have become fine young musicians, and on this day, they were right behind me, singing in my ears, their strong confident bass making it easy for me to sing my tenor part. But I am equally proud of the others -- Edgar, Ken, Max.

We support one another, we choral singers. When we get our part right, it makes it easier for the rest of the choir; when we get it wrong, the others may be able to hold the performance together, but their work is made more difficult by our weakness. On this day, almost everything went well. The choir has become very good this week, perhaps the best of any year that I have sung in this Course. Mr. Kleinschmidt, our director for the week, deserves much credit for this; he is at the Course for the third time, and is one of the finest directors we have had. He is gracious, organized, humorous at times, always focused and demanding the same from us.

The Mozart was good, but my soul was most bound up with our anthem at the Offertory: Howells' "Like as the hart."

When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

The choir sings this phrase early in the piece, and it is a fine moment. But at the end when this phrase returns, it transcends any language. It is no longer an impassioned cry as it was before, but something other, something that can be described only through music. Aside from the softer dynamic and the indication of "dulce ed ardente" (sweetly and ardently), the only difference at first is the addition of a solo soprano line at the top of the texture, sung this week by Kyle with heartstopping beauty. [I think that, for this phrase, we sang it better than the choir of St. Paul's, London on the linked recording. They are too loud, in my opinion. And Kyle's voice is better.] Earlier in the week after we sang the piece at Vespers, I commented on this to Debra N., my friend, the director who has brought Kyle and Bryn, Eddie, Elizabeth, Spencer, and so many other fine musicians to the course. I told her how I came undone when I heard Kyle's voice, looked across and saw her singing. "You think it gets you," she said, agreeing with me. "Think what I felt like: that was my kid singing it."

Kyle and her sisters have been like family for Debra; they have sung in her choir from childhood. In the same manner, people like Jennifer and Mark, Mike and Tom, Meredith and Edgar, Ken and Ted, Max, Lucy, and so many others have become like family for me. Because of this Course, these choristers from Debra's choir, and Mr. B's choristers, such as Weezer and Michael, Meara, and others from past years such as Laura and Lindsey, and many others from many places who have come to this Course, have become like family to me as well, and my choristers to them. Each of these choristers sings in other choirs, too, and will be singing, Lord willing, long after my time is done. Some of them may be directing choirs, bringing young choristers of their own to RSCM Courses.

Such ties interweave like a tapestry across the generations and across the world into a seamless whole, which is the Body of Christ. Our unity is not yet fully visible, but we glimpse it when we sing.

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I thought I might get through today's service without too many tears. I made it through the Mozart, through the Howells. I began to get teary-eyed in the final hymn when I saw the girls on the back row of the treble side hugging each other as they sang. But at the end, Mr. B. came up and hugged Mr. Kleinschmidt his friend, tears in his eyes, and I totally lost it. Some of us adults knew what the choristers did not: this was Mr. B.'s final year as Course Director, at least for a time. He 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.


August 6: Epilogue and Loose Ends

I spent about four hours last Monday cleaning and detailing the Toyota. Even though my wife had insisted I take it on the road trips, she was a little resentful by the time I returned. She told me that one of her co-workers had asked how she liked her new car; "I've hardly driven it yet," she said. "My husband has it somewhere out in Virginia."

So, I did my utmost to restore it to like-new condition. The afternoon of careful cleaning and detailing, of window-washing and upholstery cleaning, of vacuuming and picking the remaining bits of grass and dirt out of the carpet, of Armor-All on the tires and interior vinyl, became a sort of farewell to the car that, as expected, I have grown to love over this month. I left the parking brake off as she prefers, carefully folded the towel that she likes to put in the seat for lower back support, locked the doors, and put my copy of the key away where I won't be tempted to use it.

Fortunately, last week was quiet at the church. I did little more at work than practice and tie up loose ends from my travels. More broadly, I have tried to return to my normal routine, with some stumbles. I have had trouble getting back into the regular Daily Office; it was not until the following Sunday that I managed to pray both Morning and Evening Prayer in the same day. I have exercised and cut back on eating, but I gained about eight pounds and need to turn that around.

And I have been posting these writings from my travels. On the road, I wrote with pen and paper, leaving the final stages for my return. It has been a good way to round off this month, a good way to remember it.

Eddie and Debra posted a YouTube clip of our RSCM St. Louis choristers singing the Stanford. In the visual part at the beginning, you can see the semichorus of which I have written this week, many of the other choristers behind us, and the Concordia Seminary Chapel. More importantly, you can hear us sing and discern for yourselves what sort of work we have done.

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I have now read "The Hunger Games" and, in one three-hour session, its sequel "Catching Fire." I continue to think that these are important books. My favorite character is Rue, the quiet and shy little twelve-year old who allies with the heroine Katniss in the arena. She should have no chance in the Games, being so small. But "I'm really hard to catch," she says. "If they can't catch me, they can't kill me." It turns out in the book that Rue's "favorite thing in the world" is Music, something that was hardly hinted at in the movie. And we learn in the book that Katniss' father, who died some years before in a mine accident, was also a musician. "When he sang, the birds would stop and listen," one of the characters says.

Between the two of them, Katniss and Rue represent a land and a way of life that is dear to me: Rue's District 11 is obviously the rural South (and Midwest?), here given over to agriculture in a manner very familiar from export agriculture in the Third World, the fields surrounded by tall fences with armed guards to keep the farmworkers from eating any of the crops they grow. And the District 12 of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale is obviously the Appalachian coal fields. I have known young men like Gale -- my father was one of them -- who only really lived when they were outdoors in the mountains and trees and blue sky, but had to earn their living in the darkness of the mines. My father's escape was the Army; he figured that he'd rather have Germans shooting at him than stay another day down there, and after the war he found ways to never go back. The "feel" of District 12 was right at home, with characters like Greasy Sal and places like The Hob, the indifference and scorn in which the District is held by the Important People, the thriving unofficial economy described in the first book and crushed by the "peacekeepers" in the second, and the people like Katniss and Gale who head off into the woods every chance they get.

Rue is killed in the Hunger Games; she is caught in a snare and speared through the abdomen, which was for me the darkest moment in either the first book or movie. There are plenty of other dark moments later on, as well. I have read that Suzanne Collins who wrote these books got the idea one night as she was channel surfing and juxtaposing reality TV with coverage of the war in Iraq. "The Hunger Games" books are fiction, but one does not have to go far to find young people being senselessly killed, their beauty and promise for this life obliterated by war, or by the death that roams the streets and neighborhoods of many of our cities, or by the slow death of the spirit, crushed by the burdens of this world.

To me, the great flaw of these books is the lack of the eschatological hope that shines through the Magnificat. These are not books devoid of morality; the thirst for justice burns like a torch throughout, and that connects them to the Psalmist. But religion in any form is entirely absent from this fictional society, and from the minds of the characters. The closest we come is when Katniss sings an old mountain lullaby to Rue as she dies, a song about a quiet and safe place of flowers and sunshine. Perhaps this is in the song a surviving hint of "hope beyond the circles of the world," as Aragorn said in another novel. But here it seems like no more than pretty words, something to comfort a dying child but without any real substance. I have yet to read the third and final book, "Mockingjay" (and probably won't until after seeing the second movie this fall), but I have cheated and read the plot summary on Wikipedia. Many readers have found the ending unsatisfactory, and I suspect the empty space in this fictional world where there ought to be a God is part of the underlying problem, for without God there can ultimately be no satisfactory resolution of these matters. I will probably write more on this when I have read the final book.

I do not greatly blame Ms. Collins for this; there are few modern works of fiction that are any different in this respect, and at least in hers, there is that aching desire for justice, for an end to iniquity. This is no post-modern world where it is all a matter of opinion.

"Whenever I see something beautiful, I think of her," says Katniss later about Rue. I will too, for a time. Perhaps a long time.

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And now, back to work. Sunday finally felt like a beginning of my normal life: matins with Fr. H., the 8:45 service, the 11:00 service, an afternoon of office work and practice, evensong in the courtyard with the birds and insects and flowers. Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration and a good work day, including some time in an e-mail conversation about next year's RSCM Course. I am increasingly confident that it will be a good Course. Lord willing, we will be there.

It is back to work for all of us who were at the Course, and the work that most of us do as church musicians -- organists, directors, choristers -- is of high importance, all the more as increasingly "the wicked prowl on every side, and that which is worthless is highly prized by everyone" (Psalm 12:8).

Deposuit potentes de sede,
Et exaltavit humiles.

Our Lord continually said, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." (St. Mark 1:15). Not "will be at hand" -- IS at hand, and we can hear it when we sing. It is, through his death and resurrection, a completed action. Almost every hymn or anthem we sing makes this proclamation in one way or another, and in the coming weeks and months, so long as this life lasts, it is my task to play and sing and conduct in a manner that bears witness to these things:

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. (Jude v.24-25)

RSCM Report: Part Three

July 26: The Lutherans and the Roman Catholics

Three days suffice to establish a routine: Morning Prayer, breakfast, rehearsals, lunch, rest time, rehearsal, activities (recreation for choristers, discussions for adults), dinner, rehearsal, Vespers.

On Friday, it ends.

This is the day that we rehearse at the churches. First, we go to the Chapel of Concordia Theological Seminary. It is the larger of the two seminaries of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and its library has the Bible that once belonged to J. S. Bach. We do not have opportunity to see it, but it is good to simply be near this sacred relic, and to sing one of his motets in this place. We are to sing Saturday Vespers here: Pachelbel, Stanford, Bach. The Chapel is a large place with a clean acoustic, bright tall clear windows, a fine Protestant simplicity and clarity about it. The choir is in a spacious rear gallery, with a good Casavant organ that makes plenty of sound.

After that, it is on to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis, where we are to sing at the Mass on the Lord's Day. I wrote of this place last summer when the holiness of the place profoundly affected me. This year, the afternoon is cloudy so it is not quite so visually glorious. But the acoustic is always astonishing.

If Bach is the proper music to sing at a Lutheran Seminary, then Mozart is ideal for this place. We sing the Mozart Missa Brevis, K. 65, plus motets by Gabriel Fauré and Joseph Jongen, plus one Anglican who slips into the mix: Herbert Howells and his anthem "Like as the hart."

Working as I do in a liberal denomination, I have the utmost admiration for the Missouri Synod Lutherans and the Roman Catholics. From my distance, it appears that they are doing much better at holding to the apostolic faith than we Episcopalians. This is not necessarily true: with a sinking heart, I see some of the progress made under Pope Benedict XVI slipping away. And my new friend Stephen, who is Kantor at the seminary, tells me that, like Episcopalians, many LCMS Lutherans have discarded their magnificent heritage of music -- the great Lutheran chorales, the music of Schütz, Buxtehude, Bach -- for the evangelical praise-and-worship model.

Well, the old and better music and liturgy from all our traditions, as well as the theology of the Church Fathers, and the great Protestants (Calvin and Hooker and John Wesley, as well as Luther) have left many seeds scattered across the earth. They will eventually spring back to life, though they lie forgotten for generations.

July 27: O quanta qualia

O what their joy and their glory must be,
Those endless sabbaths the blessed ones see.
(opening hymn for our Vespers: Peter Abelard, trans. by John Mason Neale)

Today is Saturday, the Sabbath. We sleep a half hour later, have a brief rehearsal after breakfast, and the gift of almost two free hours before lunch, on an unusually beautiful day for summer in St. Louis -- bright, sunny, breezy, in the seventies instead of the more usual nineties. I catch up on this journal, and walk the labyrinth down the hill from the Todd Hall Chapel of St. Cecilia. It is a real labyrinth of paved pathways and boxwood walls, and this is the first time in all these Courses that I have walked it. I did not entirely believe in labyrinths until I saw their effect upon our choristers at the diocesan ministries retreat and choir camp a month ago; that was enough to convince me to try it myself.

In the late afternoon, we sing the Saturday Vespers at Concordia. There is one final opportunity to stand together with the semichorus for Psalm 84 in plainsong; it is exquisite. Mr. Kleinschmidt says after our short warmup rehearsal that he would be glad to cut a chant CD with this group, and I agree. The biggest wrinkle has been me, and the two choristers whom I have trained; we are used to a different pace for psalmody, different length of the ending notes, and it has taken us (me, especially) all week to adjust. Two days ago, Mr. Kleinschmidt found it necessary to take me aside specifically between rehearsals for correction on these matters, and I have tried to get it right. By this day, we have, and we sing as one.

[A technical note for psalmody geeks: the manner in which we sing at home is used in many monastic settings, especially among Benedictines. Mr. K. said that it is the way in which the Cowley Fathers in Boston sing, and it is the way that I learned from Fr. Farrell, of blessed memory, who in turn followed the practice of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville. We keep a steady syllabic pace, not consciously lengthening syllables nor shortening them overmuch (I call it "hiccups" when this unfortunate shortening of syllables takes place. "Enemies" is an especially difficult word in the Midwestern dialect, where the first two syllables tend to be rushed.) Most importantly, we do not lengthen the final syllable of each half-line. Instead, we allow silence at the asterisk.

But there are other very good ways to sing the psalm tones, and Mr. K. is following a different tradition. In this style, the important syllables are stretched slightly for emphasis, as is the final syllable of the half-verse. "Sing it into the room," he said, instead of "clipping it short."

Most importantly, his method works better for a large space such as the Concordia Chapel, and would have been essential had we sung psalmody at the Basilica. My method, however, is perhaps better for the intimate chamber-music acoustic of our church at home.

I ought to be a good enough musician to adjust, and it was good experience for Mike and Mark, thoroughly trained in my methods, to sing it a different way.]

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I have been notably unemotional this week in rehearsals and liturgies, when I have at past Courses been a notorious wellspring of tears, as bad as some of the teenage girls. Today, it finally gets me. I am overcome by the second hymn at Vespers, the chorale "Herzlich Lieb."

Lord, thee I love with all my heart;
I pray thee, ne'er from me depart;
With tender mercy cheer me.

Earth has no pleasure I would share
Yea, heav'n itself were void and bare
If thou, Lord, were not near me.

And should my heart for sorrow break,
My trust in thee can nothing shake.
Thou art the portion I have sought;
Thy precious blood my soul has bought.

Lord Jesus Christ,
My God and Lord, my God and Lord,
Forsake me not! I trust thy Word.

In part, this is because we sang it at home with our combined choirs a couple of years ago. In large part, it is the fine seriousness of this text and music. They take matters of life and death with seriousness, and do not sugarcoat them. They say with honesty what needs to be said.

Lord, let at last thine angels come,
To Abr'ham's bosom bear me home,
That I may die unfearing.

And in its narrow chamber keep
My body safe in peaceful sleep
Until thy reappearing.

And then from death awaken me,
That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, thy glorious face,
My Savior and my fount of grace.

Lord Jesus Christ,
My prayer attend, my prayer attend;
And I will praise thee without end.
(Martin Schalling, 1532-1608, tr. Catherine Winkworth)

In part, it is the spirit of Bach in this place, his use of this chorale in the St. John Passion, and his motet that we shall soon sing. And in part, it is simply the singing of it with these choristers my friends.

Mario, standing beside me, is concerned when he realizes that I cannot sing. "Are you all right," he asks, concern in his whisper. I nod, the tears running down my face and blotching the music. I believe that he understands; if not, he will someday.

We sing the Stanford "Beati quorum via," so unbearably beautiful, and the Bach motet. After struggling all week on my part, it suddenly gels today, attaining the needed balance between strong German consonants and long legato lines. There is, again, a seriousness about this graveside motet, especially the earnestness of the counterpoint in the final phrase, that is fitting for me, for this place, for this time. The motet seems to gel for everyone, and it is the best we have sung it all week.

I am again overcome, this time by the sermon, given by Stephen Rosebrock, the Kantor of this place, and based on the Chorister's prayer. He speaks of the role of choral music in our lives and our formation as Christians, of the transcendence that happens when we sing. I see others wiping their tears, including our director Mr. Kleinschmidt, for Stephen has spoken to our hearts.

Then comes the Pachelbel Magnificat (I make a foolish mistake right at the beginning, coming in a beat ahead of the rest of the choir, but sing the semichorus sections cleanly), the trebles' anthem on the Choristers' Prayer, and we are done.

Done, that is, save for one last dinner at Todd Hall -- Mexican food, sufficiently fine to please even our Hispanic choristers. This is infinitely better than last week's food in Richmond: aluminum pans of rice, chicken, beans, cheese, toppings, bags of tortillas and taco shells, all spread on eight foot tables in Wilson Lodge. I am in heaven here among my friends, and eat far too much. It is a fine and relaxed evening: all too short, for tomorrow has an early start.

[Look for the concluding part of this Report on Tuesday]

RSCM Report: Part Two

July 24: Auf Erden bin ich nur ein Gast

We are singing the Bach motet (or one-movement cantata) "O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht," BWV 118. This is the first time that we have sung Bach at any of the Courses I have attended, whether here at St. Louis or elsewhere in the 1980's and 90's.

It was written for the burial office, to be sung at the grave. The absolute reliance upon God in the face of death is central to this motet, and it is in the background of all of the music of Bach, even the most joyful.

O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht,
mein Hort, mein Trost, mein Zuversicht!
Auf Erden bin ich nur ein Gast,
und drückt mich sehr der Sünden Last.

Judith determined that she and I are the two oldest people at the Course, and today, the second full day of the course, I feel it. My eyes are dim and I cannot read the vocal texts in some of the scores -- the Pachelbel and Bach pieces among them -- so I stumble over the words. I no longer have the breath to carry the phrases in any of the music, especially the Howells and Stanford. I am hoarse from too much singing at the passagio, the vocal area around middle C and D, and on this day not very happy with Mr. Kleinschmidt for choosing two big pieces in the key of D (Mozart and Pachelbel), both of them with lots of notes in this area for the tenors. Partly because of this, I feel inadequate for the Pachelbel semichorus, and sing much of it badly again in tonight's vespers."Und drückt mich sehr der Sünden Last," -- "the burden of sin weighs heavily upon me."

"You should quit," says the Adversary (Hebrew: Ha-Satan). "You are a worthless has-been. You have no place here with all these fine singers."

I believe that he is wrong: all of us are important.

I can perhaps still help the two fourteen-year-old tenors at my side, Mario and Saul. They are terrific, and both of them have better voices than mine. But I shared my music with Mario when he could not find his in last night's Vespers. I watch the director, I sing the entrances on time (mostly) and in tune, and this gives them confidence to do the same. Mario was beside me in the tenor section at last year's Course, and he seems to think well of me, treating me with the deference he might have for a grandfather. Saul was at last year's Course as well, and is becoming a fine young tenor. Both of them have become dear to me, and it was an honor to sing with them.

After Vespers was the Course event formerly known as the Gentlemen's Game. I used to have a ceremonial role in it, though that is now over, and I miss being part of it. But one of the competitors came over to me between shots and said "I need a pep talk." She had taken the early lead in this final round but then had gone cold. Others had caught up, and she was nervous. I believe that this night meant much to her, and I wanted to help, but I had no idea what to say. I reminded her to take deep breaths and I told her she could do it; she needed only one more good shot.

It was not my place to favor her over the others, especially when Ken, one of my choristers, was in the finals as well. I wished all of them the best, and do most fervently wish them the best in matters far beyond one night's game at a summer camp. Still, I would have been happy for this young lady if she could find that one more good shot and win the event.

I was not of much help to her; she lost. But she helped me; on this day when the Adversary's voice was strong, she reminded me that yes, I still have a place in this Course, even in non-musical ways.

"Auf Erden bin ich nur ein Gast" - "On earth I am but a guest." My place here is not for much longer. Tolkien called our mortality the "Gift of Eru," and a gift it is in truth. We should, like Bach and the other old Lutheran masters, contemplate our death in all that we do -- its foretaste in the gradual fading of our powers just as much as the final sleep at the end. Because of death, our choices are real, with lasting implications for ourselves and others. And the joys of this life are all the more precious. They are like music -- the art that is most preeminently in the moment, gone from the world as soon as it is sounded, but beautiful in part because it is so fleeting.

July 25: Bless, O Lord, us thy servants

Bless, O Lord, us thy servants, who minister in thy temple. Grant that what we sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts, we may show forth in our lives: through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is the Chorister's Prayer, with which I have begun all of my church choral rehearsals since I learned it from James Litton's choir at Trinity Church, Princeton, many years ago. Most RSCM choirs around the world use it. This week, the trebles are singing a setting of the text by Bruce Neswick for Vespers. I am glad, not least for the opportunity to revel in "That Sound," the beautiful sound made by the trebles of this Course and other well-trained choirs, boys or girls or both together. The soaring purity of it melts my heart.

It is not easy for the young choristers at their first Course, or learning to sing in changed voice. The Adversary attacks them just as he attacks older singers like me; he whispers to them: "You can't do this. You can't get anything right. You are stupid. You can't pay attention. Choral singing is dumb anyway. You should quit." In one way or another, he says such things to us all. (Why is it that he always belittles us, and our dear Lord, the Friend of Sinners and the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep, always builds us up, always believes that we can one day become like him, when we shall finally see him as he is?)

The first full day is the hardest: six hours of rehearsal plus Choral Vespers, a folder full of difficult music, much of it in Latin or German, surrounded by all of these older singers for whom it seems so easy.

One of the young choirmen, new to his changed voice, was struggling by the first afternoon's rehearsal. His attention wandered, and I could see that he was dangerously close to giving up.

What he and the other new singers do not yet understand is that the entire community of faith and song in this place is pulling for him. The older chorister sitting beside him tells him to hold up his music, helps him find the right page, urges him (sometimes with exasperation) to sit tall and pay attention. And it is for love that he does this, the love of one who was just as lost a few years ago at his first Course and wants this new singer to stay, to be a Choral Singer this week and this fall and all the days of his life.

Today is now the third full day, and it is becoming easier. That young choirman is gradually finding his way; the first-year trebles (one of them from our parish) are doing well, participating and answering questions. I am singing a little better, and might do all right with the Pachelbel by Saturday. All of us are gaining confidence in the music.

-----
There are many parishes with fine choral music, all of it sung by well-trained adults, where not the slightest attention is paid to children's voices. It is much easier that way, but it is a trap. I felt its seduction this week in our semichorus work: "Wouldn't it be great to sing with these people all the time? No little ones rattling their room key or dropping their folder or going to the bathroom every ten minutes. No wobbly-voiced old sopranos singing a quarter step flat, no half-blind tenors (like me). We could get so much done!"

All it takes is money for the paid singers and a sufficiently large pool of talent, preferably vigorous and intelligent young adults who sing perfectly in tune with good blend, sight-read like crazy, and are available for the two or three (or more; you always need more) rehearsals a week.

There are such places, and there are such choirs. But they have chosen the broad road that leads to destruction. In a few years, the singers will no longer be young; their voices will begin to wobble, their hearing go bad, and the director will find it impossible to get rid of them without ill feelings. And who will replace them if no parish has taken the strait and narrow path of teaching children to sing?

The St. Louis RSCM Course is the finest model of a choral community that I have encountered. There is a full range of choristers, from the youngest treble to the oldest adults. Most of all, there is a steady progression from children to middle-school teens to high-school singers, and young adults, many of them accomplished musicians. All learn from one another, every step of the way.

It is not just the rehearsals: it is the meals, the afternoon and evening activities, the times of just sitting around with friends. It is of such things as these that the Kingdom of God is made.

RSCM Report: The Gathering

July 22: Monday

This was the travel day to the RSCM Course in St. Louis. I love solo road trips; it always takes me a while to adjust to others in the car. But I soon relaxed, enjoyed conversation with Judith, and delighted in the young choristers in the back seat, Lucy and Ted, with their conversation and songs and games. I thought of other years, other choristers, now grown up.

These days are precious, and ever so fleeting.

Many friends from past courses were there at Todd Hall when we arrived, including some who had been long absent. I was delighted to see them. But again, these days are precious, and ever so fleeting: I learned this evening that Mr. B. is retiring after sixteen years as course manager. My first thought was that this might be the last St. Louis Course. By the end of the week, I came to believe that it will continue in some form, but I did not feel that way on Monday when I heard the news, and it hung over me like a cloud through much of the week. With almost everything that happened, I had the sense that it might be the last time.

I delighted in Ted, at his first course and his first rehearsal, volunteering to read a stanza of text. I sat in the tenor section beside Max at the first rehearsal -- Max, who was still a treble this spring. Mike was now sitting behind the table at registration as assistant to Mr. B., a leadership position where I am sure he will excel. It is they -- all these young folk and others like them across the world -- who will take the Song through the days to come.

July 23: Deposuit potentes

Fecit potentiam in brachio suo;
Dispersit superbos mente cordis sui,
Deposuit potentes de sede,
Et exaltavit humiles.

He hath showed strength with his arm;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat,
And hath exalted the humble and meek.

For the first time at this Course, we are singing Lutheran Vespers instead of Anglican Evensong. That means that we have a Latin Magnificat, a fine setting by Pachelbel. It is my first time singing the Latin text, and I am glad to learn it.

The Magnificat is the sovereign answer of Our Lady and Holy Mother Church to the mystery of iniquity, and all of its powers in this world. The infancy narrative of St. Luke is in Greek, not Hebrew. But there may well be an older Hebrew or Aramaic narrative behind it. Certainly it reflects a Semitic manner of thought more than the rest of St. Luke's Gospel.

It is far from obvious that "he hath put down the mighty from their seat." To all visible evidence, they remain firmly in control. But part of the genius of Hebrew and Aramaic verbs is that they do not concern themselves very much with past, present, or future in the same way as the verbs of European languages. As I understand it, the primary concern is more with whether an action is completed -- past or future is of little account.

From the introduction to my Hebrew Psalter:

... future events are often described in past tense, because the prophet has already seen these events occur in his prophetic vision.

Every Evensong, every Vespers, whether spoken or sung, is our testimony that these things are true: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek." This is a completed action, and the answer to all my doubts and fears.

--------
The musical balance is different for Vespers as compared with Anglican Evensong. The Anglicans have sophisticated choral settings of the Preces and Responses; the equivalents at Vespers (whether Lutheran or Roman Catholic; they are almost identical in form) are much simpler. This is a loss for an RSCM Course, because rehearsal on Preces and Responses builds concentration like few other forms of music. One must be at the height of alertness to sing them well.

I miss the Nunc Dimittis, which in the Anglican service is usually a quiet counterpoint to the Magnificat. But having only the one Canticle, the Magnificat can be (and usually is) a more extensive and challenging setting, like the one we sang.

It is worth noting that although Luther put much of the liturgy into the vernacular, he left some parts in Latin, at least for some occasions and places: the Magnificat is one example. The finest Lutheran setting of this canticle is of course the one by J. S. Bach, BWV 243, a major work for choir, soloists, and orchestra running about thirty minutes.

This is far beyond what we could do in one week at an RSCM Course. The Pachelbel setting, however, was perfectly suited for us. Here is an energetic performance of it by a young European choir (I don't recognize the language spoken at the beginning; it is perhaps from one of the Baltic countries such as Latvia?)


July 23 (continued): Beati quorum via

Beata quorum via integra est:
Qui ambulant in lege Domini (Psalm 119:1)

We learned this motet today, this fine setting by Stanford. In one day we took it from a first reading to performance at Vespers. A copy of this has resided in my personal library for decades, beautiful and unapproachable. I longed to sing it someday, but knew that I would never have the opportunity with any choir that I direct. And here we are today, singing it.

I was selected for the semichorus in the Pachelbel Magnificat, which is also the schola for the plainsong Psalmody. The group consists of four sopranos -- Elizabeth, Jenna, Kyle, Meara; Kristin and Erika on alto; Mike and Mark on bass; Eddie and me on tenor. It is an immense honor to sing with these people, most of whom I have known for many years through this Course (and two of them through our choir at home). I wish I could do more singing with them, to revel in the musicianship of this group. As it was, we had only one short rehearsal together plus the warmup on Saturday evening.

Along with the Stanford, we sang the Pachelbel at Vespers, a service that began with one of the high school singers, Kyle, at the organ for the opening voluntary. I have known for years that she is a fine choral singer. How splendid it was to learn that she is now an organist! May God's blessings be with her.

The day included good conversations with an old friend whom I did not expect to see again at the Course; a new friend, Stephen; and Michael, who is perhaps on his way toward ordination. This week he is the assistant chaplain, leading Morning Prayer and weekday Vespers. In his sermon, based on the Beatitudes lesson (for the Feast of St. Thomas á Kempis), he spoke of how blessed we are in singing here, in being gathered as a community this week. "Blessed are those whose way has integrity; who walk in the law of the Lord."

I bless the Lord for these people young and old: their music, the presence of Christ among us, gathered in his name; and for this day so perfect that I would cling to it, save for the knowledge that it endures in the mind of God forever.

Tree of life and love

July 15-17: The Church in the World

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work... (II Thessalonians 2:7)

It is at work in the gap between rich and poor, in Wall Street's control of the U. S. government, in the wars we have started, in the rape of the earth for the short-term benefit of a few.

But it shall not prevail for ever.



This year's conference of the Hymn Society considered the flowering of congregational song in the fifty years since the Second Vatican Council, under the title "Tree of life and love." I believe that the songs have been given to us as seed that may grow. They may lie dormant for a time, perhaps a long time. But the songs cannot be entirely silenced, and they will in due season fulfill their role in the healing of the nations.

I know that some of the changes wrought in these fifty years are necessary. But that does not make it easy. My discomfort with some of the songs and the theology of worship behind them arose almost at the outset: Monday's Morning Prayer, a service whose readings were mostly from Rumi (a 13th century Sufi mystic) and several modern poets, but no Scripture other than Psalm 29, no canticles, no creed, no Lord's Prayer, no collects. I wondered whether I would be better off skipping the services for the rest of the week.

But halfway through Monday's service, I realized that it was working its intended effect; I was joining in worship, and seeing for a moment in a new way. Musically, it was close to the manner in which our 8:45 service at home has developed, and through the week I was to sing many songs at Morning Prayer that would work in that context.

Still, I wish that it were more grounded in Scripture. We heard very little from that Book all week, and that is a grave danger.

The principal issue, we were told by the Jesuit scholar John Baldovin in the plenary address that followed, is the dichotomy between "moderate" and "conservative." The first is informed by the Enlightenment and historical method; the second rejects some or all of these influences. The documents of Vatican II can be read in both directions, and what he called an "epic struggle" for the soul of the church continues, fifty years later.

It is good for me to hear these things, though I remain firmly in the conservative camp, and hold to the liturgical and theological positions articulated by Benedict XVI among others.

I must respect the other side of the debate, musically, liturgically, and theologically. I must listen to the truth of its songs, its prayers. And I must be wholehearted in my work as a Musician in that context.

Among other virtues, the conference traced the development of three streams of congregational song since 1963: Roman Catholic, mainstream Protestant, Evangelical-Pentecostal. In all three areas, there is hope, and much better work is being done that there was ten or fifteen years ago.

The surprise for me came from the evangelicals, with a workshop and hymn festival on the "re-tuned movement." By the 1980's and 90's, the praise and worship songs of the evangelicals had become slick, formulaic, commercial, and virtually devoid of content. This was the music of the Boomers, grown middle-aged and comfortable. They hated the traditions of church and society, they discarded all that had happened or had been thought before 1960, they lived in a shallow world of pop culture, and that was what they made of the church.

But their children, who (in the evangelical churches) have grown up entirely without hymns, were looking for something more. Some of them are finding the old hymn texts and "re-tuning" them in their musical style, and, we were told, this is part of the music of the "emerging church." This gives me hope. We will all need songs with meaningful context in the coming years, and we will need new songs from a new generation.

I remain uncomfortable with the performance practice, for the congregation has no responsibility for the song. If they choose to sing, great. If not, it is the amplified sound of the band that matters, not the natural un-amplified voice of the people. But these "re-tuned" songs are a large improvement.

Here is an example of this music, a YouTube about a concert of "re-tuned" music at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The organizer of this concert was our leader at the hymn festival, along with a couple of the songwriters, and we sang many of these songs.


As the week continued, the morning prayer services became increasingly important to me, thanks in part to the leadership of the Mennonite musician and pastor Ken Nafzinger, and others whom he incorporated, most of them young, in their twenties.

There was much to remember about the week: daily hymn festivals, one of them led in part by an old friend from graduate school, now a pastor in the Reformed Church; another festival involving Carol Doran (of whom more in a moment); another evening which was a Taizé service, and a final hymn festival (again, more in a moment).

Carol Doran collaborated as a musician with the author Thomas Troeger on several volumes of hymns in the 1980's and 90's; she was the organist for the first night's hymn festival. I learned in conversing with her over lunch that her path moved on from seminary teaching to now, in her old age, teaching music in a ghetto middle school. It is a task of little account to the powerful, this teaching of children whom they have already written off as losers, part of Mitt Romney's 47 percent. It is a thing no larger than a mustard seed.

Taizé and its music well belonged in this context of developments since Vatican II. I attended the workshop on Taizé as well as the festival, and in my mental context (still lodged in the Hunger Games) was reminded of the patient witness of that community in the darkness of war-torn Europe. Should we return to such days, there is more to Taizé than I had thought -- more seeds cast abroad upon the earth.

We have a weekly Taizé service in our community, and the few times I attended it, I did not like it at all. This was different; there was less singing and much more silence (including one stretch of about fifteen minutes, which is a long time). This was the only service that had significant chunks of Scripture. The acoustic and visual setting were terrific; a large Roman Catholic parish church in semidarkness, lots of candles and icons.

I normally do not get anything other than boredom from singing "Ubi caritas" forty-six times in a row, and I think that has turned me against this repertoire. But in our parish, where we regularly sing Taizé songs at communion during the 8:45 service, there have been some moments where a Taizé song has become something remarkable.


The final hymn festival, the closing event of the conference, was titled "New shoots and buds: new directions in congregational song," led (mostly) by Tony Alonso and Hilary Seraph Donaldson with lots of other musicians -- almost all of them under the age of thirty (Hilary's father Andrew, a long-time Hymn Society leader, was one of the exceptions; it was great to see father and daughter together among the musicians.)

I learned that the organizers had not met in person before the conference. The planning, extending over a year, was done entirely through meetings on Skype and through other forms of electronic communication.

And they see what I see in the world. The penultimate hymn was a call to eschatological hope, which is central to the witness of the Church -- a hymn that they said was hard for them to find. It was sung to the strong shape-note tune "Morning Trumpet," with lines like this:

Let the banker and the president beware the trumpet's call,
And beat swords of greed and commerce into equal shares for all.
Let the teachers speak in wisdom, let the music-makers play,
Let the weavers weave the tent where we shall gather on that day.

Lowly eyes shall be lifted, while the tyrants taste their fear,
For that sound is both a gospel and a warning...
("The trumpet in the morning," by Rory Cooney)

I sang, we all sang, with tears in our eyes, longing for that day when all shall be made right.

Later that day as I drove west through the Alleghenies into one last mist-shrouded mountain sunset, I thought of these brave words and those who sang them. Will they -- will we -- have the strength to stand when the drone attacks and "peacekeepers" kill our friends, spies and informers are everywhere, and all is darkness -- as it already is in parts of the world?

On to Richmond

July 13-14: a college, a church, and the battlefields

The annual conference of the Hymn Society was held this year on the campus of the University of Richmond, an elite private institution of higher learning. Its elegant campus sits among the wealthy estates of the River Road area of west Richmond, and I could not help thinking of the Capital and its contrast with the poverty of Districts 11 and 12 in the Hunger Games book. Such thoughts do not, however, keep me from taking two desserts from the lavish display at dinner. I am not sure that I have ever eaten in such luxury, and can well imagine what Katniss and Peeta (and Rue and Thresh and many others from the book) would have thought -- as they loaded their plates and came back for seconds and thirds. Or what some of the people elsewhere in Richmond might think.

Years ago, our church sponsored a family of refugees from the Ukraine, back during the days of Soviet rule. There were two adults and four or five children -- the adults were short and thin, the children emaciated and small. I was with them when they first encountered an American supermarket. They could not believe their eyes -- all this food! I think of them as I marvel at this cafeteria.

I understand why the UR campus is so immaculate, why its dining hall and food are so lavish: they must attract students and their tuition dollars, and many of these students come from families of privilege where they assume such luxury as their entitlement. And this is no different from other elite private colleges and universities across the country, including the one where I received my baccalaureate. But I remain uneasy about it, and aware of the fragility of this manner of life: its manicured lawns, its perfect buildings -- and, I noted, its omnipresent security force.

Sunday morning finds me at St. James' Episcopal Church, its spire the focal point at the east end of Monument Avenue in Richmond. On this summer Sunday, the church is about eighty percent full, a lively congregation of all ages, including plenty of children and teens. I am underdressed in white shirt and tie with dress slacks and shoes; almost all of the men are in suits, the women in dresses.

The liturgy is straightforward Rite Two with five hymns, all well-played and sung with vigor. We kneel at appropriate times, but at no point do I see anyone make the sign of the cross; the overall feel of the liturgy is low-church.

I take an instant dislike to the Rector, whose function this day is Talk Show Host (at the announcements) and Celebrant. He reminds me of other clergy I have known, and it is unfair of me to lump him in with them. At the least, the obvious vigor of the parish reflects well on the parish leadership, and the Rector is always part of that.

I had arrived late, slipping into a back pew during the Collect for Purity, so I am curious whether anyone would greet me at the end. The postlude is buried under an instant din of loud chatter following the dismissal. I stand in place, listening as best I can, until the organist finishes (Buxtehude, played very well), and make my way to the door. There is much friendly conversation -- it is obvious that this congregation cherishes its fellowship -- but not a word for me, not so much as a friendly smile. I might as well be invisible. I am in the line for an assisting priest at one of the three doors; she takes my hand and with an artificial smile worthy of Effie Trinket from the Hunger Games, she says "Welcome. I'm so glad you're here." I walk down the avenue to the statue of "Jeb" Stuart, who was a communicant at St. James and was buried from this parish after his death in battle. The President, Jefferson Davis, and his wife Varina, and Mrs. Lee (and Robert, when possible) attended St. Paul's Episcopal, a few blocks away. We will have a hymn festival at St. Paul's later in the week

The afternoon lies before me, free until the conference officially begins at 5:00. I drive east on Broad Street, past the even more historic St. John's Episcopal Church, site of Patrick Henry's words "Give me liberty, or give me death." I linger at the National Park Service welcome center at the top of the hill on Broad Street, site of the Chimbarazo Hospital, the Confederacy's largest. More than 70,000 patients were here during the four years of its existence, with a lower mortality rate than many modern hospitals. A young park ranger makes up with her friendliness for the clergy of St. James; I am the only visitor, and she spends some fifteen minutes telling me about the site and the other National Park Service battlefield sites around Richmond. It is far too much for one afternoon, and I quickly get lost, seeking US 360 out to the Cold Harbor battlefield. I give up, and drive the length of Broad Street back to the university.

Later in the week I visited the battlefield sites east and southeast of Petersburg, some thirty miles south of Richmond. I linger at The Crater, remembering that horrible day. Those who may have seen the movie "Cold Mountain" a few years ago will remember the battle scene early in the film; that was the Crater. Some Pennsylvania coal miners in the Union army dug a tunnel under the Confederate lines and filled it with gunpowder. The explosion immediately killed some 270 South Carolina soldiers who were in the trenches, making a thirty-foot deep crater still visible today. As was too often the case in this war, the Union soldiers were not effectively led -- their commander, Gen. James H. Ledlie, was well behind the lines, drunk -- and they were soon driven back with heavy casualties in hand-to-hand fighting in and around this crater. A division of United States Colored Troops had been specially trained for this day, and their casualties were the heaviest, the Confederate soldiers killing many of them even after they surrendered. Some were bayoneted by their own Union allies, "white soldiers who feared reprisals from victorious CSA troops" (from Wikipedia, s.v. "Battle of the Crater"). There was not such an evil day as this in all the five years of the war.

On my way back west after the conference, I followed the route taken by the Army of Northern Virginia in its retreat from Richmond and Petersburg, and I stopped at Saylor's Creek. This was where Grant's army caught up with the Confederates, who were strung out with their wagon trains over the country roads, and on this day, April 6, 1865, the Army ceased to be an effective fighting force; almost 8,000 men from the Confederate Army were captured, killed, or wounded. In the aftermath, the Union dead received honorable burial in a little cemetery that is still there at the site; the Confederates were left to be eaten by the animals, and their remains were later dumped without ceremony into unmarked mass graves.

Why do I go to places like this?

The best answer is that given by Mr. Lincoln on another battlefield:

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln could not know that the "new birth of freedom" would soon be smothered by the robber barons who were already poised to take over his Republican Party and who control it to this day, and the Democratic Party as well. He could not know what a distant dream "government of the people, by the people, for the people" would become by the twenty-first century, hardly more than a bitter joke.

Perhaps he did not understand that the Confederates were fighting for such a government just as much as those on the Union side; their vision was a Jeffersonian democracy, an escape from what they saw as the tyranny of a too-powerful central government.

But Lincoln was right. So long as we remember those times, those people on both sides who, in their respective ways, fought for freedom, the dream shall not have altogether perished, and may yet in some future age become a reality.

A park, a visit, and a movie

[Some of my readers may be expecting an RSCM Report. With God's grace, it should be forthcoming by the weekend. Before that, I have today's post and two more about other matters, which (to my mind) relate to what follows at RSCM.]

July 8: The Valley of Virginia

I roll up I-81 through the Virginia Highlands, the foothills again shrouded with morning mist, behind them the mountaintops blue in the distance. I had hoped to drive part of the day on the Blue Ridge Parkway which winds northeast along the ridgetops, but instead I spend three hours at the rest area near Roanoke after the long descent from Christiansburg into the Valley of Virginia. I sit at a picnic table and write my account of yesterday's visit with old friends. By the time I finish, it is three o'clock in the afternoon, a fine hot day of white cumulus and blue sky.

A road trip such as this is for me a spiritual retreat, and the writing is part of it. The Daily Office, the long silences, the solitude, the (mostly) simple food, sleeping in the car, the unfolding vista of Nature... these are my teachers and companions. It is for this that I once thought to become a truck driver so that I could be on the road all the time. But it is enough to be as it is, and I do bless the Lord for the Road, and for the coming Home at last.

As is my practice, I stop at Lexington for a brief visit to the burial places of my heroes Lee and Jackson, arriving at the Lee Chapel minutes before closing time. I buy a photograph of Lee taken a year before his death, dressed in tuxedo and bow tie as president of Washington College. It will go on my desk with my icons as a reminder of this man's diligence in his administrative work. The Episcopal Church nearby is closed for the day, but I walk out to the cemetery to Jackson's grave.

From there, I go up at last to the Parkway for the late afternoon and sunset, with a night this time in an old-fashioned motel at Buena Vista, the sort of motel where each room is an individual tiny cottage. It is run by a gentleman from the Fiji Islands, and does not appear to be prospering; one gets the impression that no one has slept in this room for a long time.

July 9-12: A drive, a backyard and a movie

On this day, I briefly stop at the Green Valley Book Fair and buy gifts for two of my co-workers, plus a book for myself. Then, it is up the mountain again; my plan is to drive the northern half of the Skyline Drive, through the Shenandoah National Park.

Yesterday, I had thought to enter the park late in the day and stay for the night in one of the campgrounds, but I thought "They will be full. It is July, right after the fourth, a holiday week." No, I could have easily stayed there instead of the motel; the campgrounds I saw were less than half full. "People don't camp out much anymore," I am told by one of the park rangers. Nor do they drive through the Park; there is almost no traffic. I hardly see two score of cars all day. I can remember visits over the years when there was heavy traffic in this park: long lines of cars, trucks with campers, motor homes.

This is perhaps the most beautiful part of the Appalachians. There are plenty of opportunities for hiking, camping, and fishing in the park, and if nothing else, simply the leisurely drive along the mountaintops. If any of my readers should visit this part of the country, I highly recommend taking a day (or better, two or three) for this. Here is a typical view from the road.

By evening, I am at my sister's house, in a Maryland suburb of Washington. It is as it has been for decades; almost every horizontal surface is covered with books, knick-knacks, plants, quilting supplies. The cabinets, the many bookcases all groaning under double-shelved books -- everything overflows. There are piles of books on the floor, to the point where one can hardly enter some of the rooms. In the front yard, the old white Mitsubishi van is filled with more books, boxes of them, blue tarps lashed over it all with clothesline ropes, the tires flat. It has been no more than a storage building for ten years and more, reminding me of the old rusting cars and trucks on cinder blocks in the hill country.

Those who have seen my office may be tempted to say "It runs in the family," and they would be right. Were I not married to a Midwestern woman of Dutch descent who likes everything to be tidy, I would be just like my sister. Living with a slovenly hillbilly was a huge adjustment for her after we got married; she has improved me somewhat.

But there is a glory to this old house of my sister's, bursting at the seams with decades of clutter. It is the back yard: a riotous profusion of wildflowers, ferns, vegetables, trees, birds. Whenever an empty bit of soil becomes available, my sister puts a plant in it.

I sit in their glass-walled back room and feel as if I am in a forest, on this quarter-acre suburban lot within earshot of the Beltway. Over the almost forty years that she has lived there, she has created a little paradise. The arrangement of the plants seems random, but she has considered patterns of sun and shade, shelter from wind and frost, companion-planting principles. The result is an unstudied naturalness and beauty.

She and her husband love science fiction and fantasy -- it is she that introduced me to Tolkien in my childhood, and it is she who cajoled my parents into letting the two of us stay up late to watch the original Star Trek episodes every week. We saw three science fiction movies during my visit, including the current Star Trek movie (disappointing). One of the three movies was excellent, the one that we watched at home on DVD: "The Hunger Games." It is in part a commentary on the manner in which a small number of wealthy and powerful people, living in the "Capitol," manipulate and exploit everyone else. The protagonists are from District 12, the coal-fields, where most people live on the edge of starvation. Here is an account of the Hunger Games universe.

I am a little surprised that such an explicit indictment of the "one percent" was allowed to enter the public sphere. The lords of public opinion doubtless presume that these books and movies will have their few minutes in the spotlight and then be buried under the torrent of trivia and filth that spews endlessly from the Media.

Having seen how some of my choristers reacted to the Hunger Games, I would not be so sure. My impression is that these books and movies have entered the ongoing corpus of young adult literature every bit as much as Harry Potter. For a long time to come, young folk will read these books, see these movies, and be formed by them. The result is unknowable.

A week on the road

Wednesday, July 3: A beginning

Mrs C. helped me carry my gear to the car. "I want to see you get everything in," she said. I am traveling alone, but I will be on the road for eighteen days and have packed many things. I have what I need to sleep in the car; I have what I need for the Hymn Society conference; I have food for many days, mostly dried fruit, nuts and seeds, whole wheat tortillas, a box of granola bars, a gallon of water which I plan to replenish at rest areas. Mrs. C. shakes her head at the quantity of baggage.

Everything fits.

I am driving the new 2013 Toyota Corolla; 312 miles on the odometer as I begin what will be a journey of almost three thousand miles. One of the principal objectives of this trip is to gently break in this vehicle. The first thousand miles are critical, and if driven carefully, the engine and transmission are on their way to a long life, God willing.

I eschew the interstates for this purpose, seeking to vary the highway speed in a range from 45 to 55 miles per hour, up to 60 if I must make a foray onto the interstate (as soon proves to be the case, when part of my chosen route is closed because of flooding, with a detour to I-80, and later another twenty miles on I-74). I plan on taking frequent and long breaks, having read that in this initial break-in, one should stop for an hour or so after every two hours of driving.

This is precisely the manner in which I most love to travel cross-country.

First stop: a civic park on U.S. 6 in small-town Iowa for Matins. I have brought my Hebrew Psalter, so the appointed psalms take about a half-hour to read. Halfway through Psalm 16, an elderly man crosses the street and comes straight up to me. "Where are you from?" he asks; it is a sufficiently small town that he knows I don't live there. I tell him, and add that I am on my way Out East to visit family. I lay my office books aside and chat. His name is Skip; he is 83 years old, retired from a career as a barber; his shop used to be right across the street. We talk of the notable restaurant that used to be next to his shop; until it closed, I would try to time my trips along this road to arrive at dinnertime. Their macaroni salad, their potato salad, their versatility with what used to be called "congealed salads," were legendary. I have heard that their pork tenderloin was equally memorable, though I cannot speak to that from experience. The restaurant is no more; even the building is gone, replaced by a parking lot.

Second stop: another attempt at Matins, at a rest area on I-74 in Illinois. It is almost noon by now, and a family is having a picnic lunch nearby. The two small children eye me with curiosity. The second lesson is Philip and the Ethiopian, a good story for a day on the road. Like him, I proceed "on my way rejoicing."

Third stop: a civic park in a mid-sized town on U.S. 24, still in Illinois. It is almost 4:00 by now, and hot. I find a shaded picnic table in the deserted park and spend an hour writing of the day.

July 3, 1863, one hundred and fifty years ago today: the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, with Pickett's Charge. "Always remember that you are from Old Virginia," he cried to the men as they started across the field. As ever, my mind fills with "what ifs." What if Jackson had lived, and led his corps on the first day? What if Longstreet had not been so obstinate? What if the artillery had not overshot the Union lines as the guns grew hot, spending most of their ammunition with little damage to the foe? Despite it all, they almost did it; they reached the Union lines and almost broke them.

But they didn't. So many brave men -- Virginians, Carolinians, Georgians, men of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, units from every state in the Confederacy -- men from my home town among them -- dead on that field.

May they rest in peace, and their Union brothers with them.
May I always remember them, and remember that I too am from Old Virginia.

Independence Day

West Virginia, that would be. It became a state that summer of 1863, though there was almost no Union sympathy in my part of the state. My feelings about the making of West Virginia are a mixture of pride in the mountains and their cantankerous, independent people; and shame that we left Old Virginia and the Confederacy. Well: Jackson and many of his men were from what is now the Mountain State. There is no shame in that.

I sing Matins on this Independence Day in the parking area across the street from the birthplace of a man who did more for this country than most: Ulysses S Grant. As with the Battle of Gettysburg, this week marks the 150th anniversary of one of General Grant's triumphs: the surrender of Vicksburg after a long siege. In this campaign, Grant showed his considerable perseverance.

On travel days, I am mostly silent except for the Daily Office. But the Toyota has a modern audio system with a CD player. We have never had one of these in a vehicle, so I packed the three-CD soundtrack to the Lord of the Rings movies. Today is rainy, so I worked through all of them as the day progressed, repeating many of the tracks as I went.

For a project such as LOTR, the composer Howard Shore drew heavily on Wagner. As I listen this day, I find more influence from Bruckner than I had remembered, especially in the use of horns and low brass, and the choral voicings (very much like those in the second Mass setting of Bruckner, the one in eight parts with wind orchestra). It is good music, suitable for its purpose. That purpose, the accompaniment of visual action, causes it to be disjointed, held together mostly by its leitmotifs and the relationships of key centers, but the same can be said of Wagner's operas. I will not pretend that Shore's music is the equal of Bruckner's or Wagner's, but there is much that I can learn from it.

The rain continues all day, heavily at times. I finish the day at my base of operations for the next two days: the travel plaza on I-77 in Beckley. It proves a good vantage for the city's fireworks display. Before saying Compline and drifting off to sleep, I sit in the Toyota watching the fireworks and listening to the final tracks of Return of the King.

Lay down your sweet and weary head;
Night is falling, you have come to journey's end.
Sleep now, and dream of the ones who came before;
They are calling from across the distant shore...
(from the closing song, "Into the West")

July 5: Kinfolk

I visit three of my cousins, and decant a shot of white lightning from its mason jar, saved from my uncle's funeral. We toast our ancestors and talk of old times. I lived in that little valley for a while; I could have stayed. But my vocation lay elsewhere.

I return to the travel plaza for the night, which becomes rainy and cool; a good night for sleeping. The windows fog, the rain beats on the roof. I settle into the passenger seat under my sleeping bag and bless the Lord.

July 6: Memorials and collard greens

Onward: this is the day to visit the graves of my parents. I bring them white daisies and read part of the Burial Office, Rite One. I eat at the cafeteria where I used to take my mother; their collard greens, mashed potatoes, and soft rolls are as splendid as I had remembered.

I visit also the Confederate Memorial and the graves of those who died in defense of this town. Someone has planted old-time perennial flowers around the granite monument. I do not go by the old home place, but I look for the oak tree from the memorial; yes, there it is. My head spins in sudden memory of standing on that spot, a boy of eight or nine years, doing the same -- looking for our oak tree.

Onward again: to East Tennessee for the Lord's Day.

July 7: A Sunday among Presbyterians

Summer mornings come gently out here. I eat breakfast and sing Matins from the edge of a truck stop parking lot. The hills are shrouded in mist; the sun rises through the clouds. It is fully 10:00 before the morning clouds and mists disperse into a clear day. When I lived briefly in the Caribbean many years ago, I longed for mornings like this. There I was surrounded by sunshine, but my dreams were of foggy mountains, of grey soft mornings like those of the southern Appalachians.

I have returned to the town where we lived for seventeen years, probably the best and most productive of my years in this life. I miss this place.

The fine long main street now has many restaurants and antique shops where there had been empty storefronts. The upper storeys of some of these buildings have been made into lofts, luxury condominiums. But I when I turn left into the neighborhood of my former church and our home across the street, almost nothing has changed.

When we lived there, two dogwoods, two large holly trees, and an old lilac bush graced the front yard; all are now gone save one dogwood. The house is unchanged. The old garage, already bedraggled in our time, now leans slightly to the left.

Across the street at the church, I am most struck by the trees. I remember the planting of a row of saplings along the street; they are now thirty feet tall. The old single-pane windows in the office-and-classroom wing have been replaced with energy efficient (and, I learn, un-openable) windows. And they have air-conditioned the choir room and music office. I think of the long sultry afternoons at my desk, sweat pouring down in the ninety-degree temperature, or at the piano in the choir room, the windows wide open to the natural world. I miss those days.

The church has a front lawn of about two acres, needing only a flock of sheep to remind one of certain English cathedrals. A few years ago, they dug up this expanse of lawn, laid several miles of crisscrossing pipes, and installed geothermal heating and cooling as a commitment to environmental sustainability. Blessings be on them for this.

I last attended a service at F.P.C. fourteen years ago, and wondered whether anyone would recognize me, or I them. The moment I walked into the nave, Bob and Betty and their daughter Scottie saw me and immediately recognized me. Soon I was surrounded by a group of old-timers. I was deeply moved that they had not forgotten me.

Later, at the offertory, the usher that handed me an offering plate was K., a veteran of the girls' choir and former piano student, now grown plump and looking much like I remember her mother. She almost dropped the plate when she recognized me, a smile of delight on her face. After church I met her husband and two children, and we talked. "Are you still composing?" she asked. Nonplussed at such a question, I answered: "When I have to." She told me that the two pieces she most remembered from choir were Rutter's "All things bright and beautiful" and one that I wrote for the girls and had almost forgotten, a setting of the Genevan text and tune for Psalm 43. "I enjoyed choir," she said, "but I didn't realize what we had until my children got to choir age and I saw what they sang. Little children's songs." She paused, and added: "You taught us to sing quality music. Thank you."

The singing choirs are on vacation: the handbell choir plays a prelude, part of a hymn accompaniment, and a piece at the offertory that I had taught them. Three of the ringers date from my tenure, and I talked of old-timers with them afterwards: Jim, Lou, Bonnie - who I learned is now married to Gene, who (then and now) is a tenor in the singing choir.

I sit at church with Pat and Beth. It is a delight to sing the hymns with them: Pat's fine clear tenor, Beth's clear intelligent alto, all three of us singing the harmony parts. I notice how well they sing, with good phrase shape and diction. I had made music with them for seventeen years, but never until today had I sung at their side.

Several passages in the Revelation of St. John the Divine imply that the Body of Christ will finally be one, fulfilling the prayer of John 17, only when we sing together (e.g., Rev. 5:8-14). Today, singing with these old friends, is a glimpse of that day.

They take me around the church. The parish hall has been redone, now primarily designed as the worship space for their contemporary congregation, with stage, drumset, microphones, amps, speakers, screens, and no cross or other Christian symbol in sight. It is the larger of the two Sunday congregations.

The old Chapel is about the same, with its fine 19th century stained glass, moved from the congregation's previous building. The Hammond organ is gone, but the fine old wooden chairs remain. In room after room I encounter more old friends -- the pianos I used to tend. The church used to have thirteen upright pianos; I see six today, and others may be in the education wing. The old choir room Baldwin grand is now in the chapel, replacing the Hammond; the big nine-foot Knabe that was rebuilt during my tenure is still in the front of the nave; the seven-foot Steinway (which I had restrung) has been moved from the organ gallery to the choir room. Most of all, the pipe organ that was installed during my tenure remains in place, impressive and full-bodied.

In the evening, Pat and Beth make a dinner for me. The guests are Al and Loretta, whose three girls were choristers, and whom (all of them) I had grown to love; Ann and Pete, who sang in the church choir and whose two girls were also choristers; Steve and Vicki, my successors at the church. I am pleased to finally meet them, and even more pleased to see how deeply they have immersed themselves in this congregation and community. They have done excellent work, better than mine.

[Before church, I had stepped into the parish library, unchanged from my days, and saluted the portrait of my predecessor of blessed memory, Clifford L. He was there longer than any of us, almost forty years, and was the one who made F.P.C. a place for good music.]

I am glad that I came back. I miss this place and these people. But my parting from them is not forever.

From the "About Me" sidebar of this blog:

There is no greater privilege for a church musician than to help the congregation give voice to its prayers and praise. I sing the Daily Offices; the constant flow of Psalmody, Scripture and prayer are the foundations of my life... I look "for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13). I hope to follow him as long as this life lasts, and be granted mercy when I see him face to face. I hope to sing his praises forever, alongside the choristers I have worked with in this life and alongside every creature in heaven and on earth.

A "hidden" God of wrath and vengeance?

Fr. Tim Chesterton recently pointed to an essay by Roger E. Olson:
Every known theistic approach to Old Testament "Texts of Terror"

If one is to take Scripture seriously, one must ponder such texts as I Samuel 13, which recounts the genocidal destruction of Amalek at the express command of the LORD, on the basis of an incident hundreds of years before, when Israel was coming out of Egypt (v.2-3).

How does one reconcile this with the teachings of one who tells us to love our enemies?

I cannot speak to this matter as well as the Rev'd Olson has done, so primarily I point to his discussion, and his comment that all of the nine approaches he outlines "have serious problems."

For the record, I fall into the camp of number 9, Paradoxical Interpretation:

No attempt at harmonization should be exercised; we ought simply to accept at face value the texts of terror and Jesus' teachings about God's love and will (e.g., for peace) and not attempt to diminish either of them or reconcile them. (This is a version of "3" above [Literal interpretation] but attempts to explain it hermeneutically and theologically.)

*Problem: For inquiring minds [this] leads inevitably to belief in a "hidden God" (Luther) behind Jesus who willed (and possibly still wills) extreme violence such as genocidal holy war.

I find Olson's number 8, Narrative Intrerpretation, of interest as well:

God included these texts of terror in the canon as a warning to his people about how far it is possible to misunderstand God's will. To what extent they describe actual, historical events is undecideable at this temporal remove and is unimportant.

I do not subscribe to the second sentence of this, because it is all too plausible that the mass slaughters described in these passages actually took place. They are characteristic of our behavior toward one another throughout history.

But are these accounts indeed in the canon as a warning? If so, they are a dire warning indeed. For if the prophet Samuel (and Moses, for that matter: see Numbers 21) can so completely misunderstand the will of God, what of lesser folk such as us? To mention an example from recent history, it is easy to construct a Biblical justification from both Old and New Testaments for the practice of slavery, and as recently as 150 years ago, many Americans would have subscribed to such a doctrine. It seemed that the ethical issues for a Christian lay in the manner in which one should act toward one's slaves and in how slaves should act toward their masters, not in whether or not there should be slavery in the first place.

At this distance, it is clear that slavery is wrong, and has always been wrong. But where else are we equally wrong in our understanding of the will of God, so wrong that we cannot see it?