endings and beginnings

The last spring recital is finished. The accompanist came downstairs to shake my hand and wish me a good summer. He has been a student here in the jazz department and in classical piano, playing Rachmaninoff and Prokofieff and Scriabin well into the night upstairs on the good Steinway, year after year. This fall, he will be with the others in the new music building, not here.

The teacher was a classical saxophonist in the doctoral program; he graduated a few years ago, after years of the saxophone quartet that he headed rehearsing here at the church. This afternoon’s event was his spring studio recital. After the students had left and I had locked the doors, he got out his own instrument and played in the church. I stood outside in the courtyard, singing Evensong with the fireflies, the light streaming through the stained glass from inside the church. The last daylight faded, the first stars appeared.

Eventually, he found me and, like the pianist, shook my hand and thanked me. “This place is so beautiful,” he said, looking back at the church. “There isn’t another acoustic like this anywhere around.”


Ascension, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday – all past. The choirs are on summer holiday, after one final gathering this past Wednesday. This week, since Trinity, remained full, thanks to yesterday’s wedding. This afternoon, I finished the 2015-16 planning cycle, pencilling the last voluntaries into my planning book, ordering the choral music for the youth choir’s fall season.

One of our adult choristers has moved to Virginia; he was back today, here for the weekend to load his possessions into a U-Haul. He has joined the choir of a big-time Episcopal church. And he said “the choir out there is larger. But we sing just as well as they do, and better on the Anglican chant.”

I resist the thought that somehow, this choir in this Midwestern town could possibly become a “big-time” program, the sort of place that I have always looked to for an example of how to Do It Right. We don’t have the paid singers that a major league choir would have; we have some choristers who would not pass an audition. We have an overworked organist/director who cannot devote enough time to either part of his job. The youth choir has just one rehearsal a week when all the articles in the journals say that you must have at least two, and that they must sing for church every Sunday. And half of our choristers aren’t even there for the whole rehearsal – they have other activities, and I often think that choir comes last on their list.

I cannot see how we could be an example to anyone; there must be better examples wherever one might want to find them. But here we are. If nothing else, we might be an example of working within what is possible, and allowing the music of this place to develop in its own direction – that would include my own work as an organist and pianist. I never expected that I would be improvising piano preludes every Sunday, and finding it one of the most challenging and satisfying parts of my work.

And I never dared hope that I could have a rehearsal like this past Wednesday. The choristers who are going to this summer’s RSCM course gathered for an afternoon read-through of the music. They sailed through it all, finding none of it particularly difficult. Five of them: three teen girls, a changing-voice alto (maybe; he might still be a second treble in July), a young tenor. The alto said “After the Handel Amen, this stuff isn’t so hard.” That was not at all to look down on the course music; they loved it, and recognized what it would take to prepare it. But they were not intimidated by it.

They refused to take a break; they wanted to keep on singing, seeing the time slip away. And they asked for another rehearsal.

The rehearsal ended, and I walked with friends over to the Mill (the local venue for Good Music), where youth choir families and some of the adult choir were gathering for an end-of-year celebration, eating and drinking and listening to the local bluegrass band. Some of the young choristers took to the dance floor alongside the elderly couples, one lady (probably in her eighties) in her red spangled blouse that has probably been her dancing outfit for fifty years, she and her husband having as much fun as the children. We stayed for hours, sitting and talking and enjoying the evening. I love these people; they are like family to me.

Cantare amantis est.

------------
The selection of music for upcoming weeks and months is the first part of a trinity, a “sub-creation” that is in its limited way a mirror, an icon of the Maker of all things in whose image we are made. I quoted this from Dorothy Sayers just a few weeks ago, after having noted it here:

For every work [or act] of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

First [not in time, but merely in order of enumeration] there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.

Second, there is the Creative Energy [or Activity] begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.

Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other: and this is the image of the Trinity.

The selection of music is the Creative Idea. And most years, there are a few points where the insight of what will work on a given Sunday overwhelms me, every bit as much as it actual performance might.

For today’s work, it was the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A: December 18, 2016. Chapter one of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, with supporting lessons from Isaiah and Romans, and Psalm 80. I needed something for the youth choir to sing that day, for that is the one day in Advent that will work for their schedule. I was thinking small, what with Christmas Eve around the corner – until it hit me: “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion…”

They could sing the alto “solo.” I took it to the piano and sang it through myself; some of it is a little low for trebles, but I am guessing that we will have boys for whom this will be ideal, and with them singing up in the alto/falsetto range alongside the girls and treble boys, it will be a beautiful and unique sound, a bit like the male alto in the linked recording. And then the adults can join them on the SATB section at the end.

It will be just right, exactly what needs to be said at that point in the liturgy, in the year, and in the development of these choirs and the life of this parish. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I wrote it into the planning calendar, “beholding the whole work complete at once.”

Arise, shine, for thy light is come.
And the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

It is a Gift to live in the Creative Idea for an afternoon, most of it working with organ voluntaries (for the adult schedule, hymnody, and psalmody are already in place; all that remained were the voluntaries and the youth choir). There are other moments where the Idea was overwhelming: the Stanford Te Deum in B flat with the adults for the Sunday in October when we have Choral Matins, the youth choir in September singing Alice Parker’s arrangement of “Be thou my vision” with (I hope) the string players drawn from the choir itself. And quite a few things in the organ music.

Now I, and all of us, will have to learn these things. It will take work, lots of it, “with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter. And this is the image of the Word.”

And then the Creative Power, the effect of this music in the hearts of those who hear it, as well as those who sing it.

Lessons and Carols: large and small

This morning we had something of a hybrid service: part Christmas Lessons and Carols, part Holy Eucharist. I do not think that the two belong together, but the Second Rule of Liturgics tells me this:

If the Rector says “Do it this way,” then you do it this way.

Nonetheless, it was a good service. Six of the Lessons, a total of fourteen Carols, all congregational, for the Choir is on holiday until January. Those who attended seemed to enjoy it. I received the usual handful of complaints about various aspects – the tempo is too fast, why didn't you sing this, why did you sing that?

I have noted to others that I hear more complaints about the music at Christmas than at any other time of the year. One person who usually supports my efforts told me after the Midnight Mass that unless I can arrange for “something special,” I should not bother with preservice music. After working quite a bit to prepare the Canonic Variations of which I wrote the other day, I did not take that well.


This evening as I worked on yet another set of Bulletins (groan!!!), I have listened to the Real Lessons and Carols, the one that they do at King's College, Cambridge. The music is of course spectacular. Most of it is choral, with a handful of congregational hymns. I have no doubt that their Director, Stephen Cleobury, receives a lot of complaints. But there is probably no one on the planet who would not consider their work “something special.”

I have four liturgical comments:

-- The First Lesson is not Genesis 3:1-15, as it is printed in the green “Carols for Choirs” book and which I have always assumed was the way it is supposed to be done. Instead, it is the later part of the chapter, verses 8-19, about the Curse, and “Dust thou art.” This is a much more logical selection for the account of our Fall and Redemption that is the purpose of the service. I will see if the Rector might let me use this next year both in our Advent service and the inevitable repeat of today's Christmas service.

-- The Scriptures are all from the Authorized Version. I suspect that this is part of the attraction of this Service, which draws its audience from all of the English-speaking world. Who would want to hear the intentionally ugly prose of the New Revised Standard Version?

-- At the end of each lesson, the Lector says “Thanks be to God.” Not “The Word of the Lord” with the congregation responding. I am puzzled at this. Are they, like the trendy liturgists in America with their “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the people,” no longer willing to assert that these passages of Scripture are in any sense the Word of the Lord? That is my suspicion.

-- Somehow, I do not find the whole thing conducive to worship. Not in the slightest. Nor did I find our service this morning worshipful. It too easily becomes all about the music. Perhaps that is all right; for those who want something more liturgical, BBC also broadcast the Roman Catholic Midnight Mass from Westminster Cathedral. And if what one desires is a good sermon, one could do worse than the one that Pope Francis gave on that Night – my thanks to the blogger Jesse, who posted it – and for the music, linked the YouTube of Ting and myself playing “O Holy Night.” I do think that it turned out well, and I am pleased that her fine playing is thus given a larger hearing, well over 100 views when I checked on it yesterday.


This year, the King's service featured several arrangements from their former director Sir David Willcocks, in honor of his 95th birthday. I must say that when the choir – especially THAT choir in that room – sails into his descant on “Sing, choirs of angels” in the penultimate hymn (“O come, all ye faithful,”) it never fails to send chills of delight up my spine. And when the organ cranks up into the harmonization of the final stanza, it is the same. The final hymn, “Hark, the herald angels sing,” again in the Willcocks arrangement (with a slightly different descant than what I know), is the same for me. I played these arrangements the other night at the Midnight Mass, but our little Pilcher – and our little parish choir – cannot work up to such an effect.

The organ scholar concluded with the large and majestic (and youthful: he was under the age of twenty) Bach organ setting of “In dulci jubilo,” BWV 729. By chance, I also finished this morning's service with a Bach setting of “In dulci jubilo” – but not that one. Instead, I played the little setting from the Orgelbuchlein (BWV 608) which dances along like little cherubs at play, the four voices forming a double canon. It is fitting, perhaps: what they do is large, what we do is small. But both have their place.

Concluding Remarks:
I am unable to keep up the pace; tonight's essay is the last of my daily entries. I hope to return to a more-or-less weekly schedule.

One of my accomplishments the other day when I should have been pressing on toward Sunday was a milestone: I cut my first CD of organ music, in limited edition (three copies). It begins with the Toccata and Fugue in F and finishes with the Canonic Variations, and I am proud of it. For all of my complaining and last-minute scrambling this fall, I consider it a respectable body of work.

My principal reason for the CD was the hope of sending it as a gift to my organ teacher, Dr. McDonald. I walked it to the post office on Friday and mailed it. His health has not been good, and I fear that he may no longer be in his apartment where he has lived alone for decades. I hope the CD gets to him.

Last year, my wife and I made the mistake of neglecting one another at this holiday. This year was better; we found small gifts for one another and she had the forethought to have me purchase a frozen lasagna from the grocery so that we could have a bit of a special meal in the late afternoon on Christmas Day. It was good to be with her.

My work is challenging at this time of the year. Hers is worse – “big box” department store work. We must care for one another, especially at this time of the year.

And finally, a bit of a puzzle about that recording of "O Holy Night." I received notice from YouTube that the clip contained Third Party Content, and that one of the performing rights organizations was claiming it. I could acknowledge and All Would Be Well, or I could fight it and probably get a "copyright strike," which could result in my banning from YouTube. Now this is thoroughly puzzling: Adolph Adam wrote the music in 1847 and it is in the public domain. I was one performer, Ting Davidson the other (and she has given me permission to post it). Who is claiming it? YouTube does not say. But I was unwilling to fight it, so I clicked my acknowlegement -- and now I see that there are advertisements running with the video. Someone is making a little money on this at our expense.

Sigh.

A radiant Sign of Hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And one quote:

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

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

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

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

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

An errand to the East

Monday, July 4: Independence Day

There are innovations for this trip East, one I have made a score of times. I departed in leisurely manner on Monday instead of rushing off on Sunday afternoon. Quiet and productive Sunday afternoons are precious, and rare during the academic year; I treasure them. I completed my packing on Monday morning instead of Saturday afternoon; I ate a solid Monday breakfast at home, sufficient for me to nibble bread and fruit as I drove the rest of the day; I visited with my wife instead of rushing off without conversation.

I took the Basic Route that I have most often used: I-74. This would give me a good sleeping place at the Indiana rest area at milepost 150, between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. It was an easy and comfortable drive through the agricultural heart of America. I arrived at the rest area in time to finish Evensong before dark.

A large sign proclaimed “No overnight parking or camping,” causing me some unease. But no one awakened me; I had a restful night's sleep and was ready to roll by 4 am local time.

Tuesday, July 5

The early start allowed me to sail around the Cincinnati Beltway before dawn, eating a chunk of bread as I drove. The first light of day and the onset of heavier traffic arrived about the time I stopped for fuel at New Richmond, on U.S. 52 upriver from the city. I drove a few more miles to Point Pleasant and the rest area by the Ohio River, across the highway from the birthplace of Ulysses S Grant. I watched the morning light come to the river, and took an hour's nap to let the morning fog clear.

It lifted, a little. But the sun did not break through until well into the day. I drove most of the way southeast to Portsmouth with the river a mist-shrouded presence on my right.

There is an old-fashioned highway rest stop near Portsmouth at Sandy Point, about a hundred miles upriver from Cincinnati. I sang Matins there, with slow progress through the Sefer Tehillim making the Office extend beyond an hour.

Always before on my drives Eastward, there was haste; Mother was waiting, begrudging the hours I lingered on the way. My principal purpose in this trip is unchanged: a visit to my parents. But this time, they are in no hurry.

From the West Virginia line, my path was in doubt: the quicker way through Charleston and Beckley on the interstates, or the more enjoyable way down State Route 10 through Logan and the coalfields of Wyoming County, along the Guyandotte River? It seemed a choice of little import, but it did no harm to ask: “Lord, which should I take?” As soon as a sense came to take the quicker way, a rebellious voice urged me to indulge myself with the scenic route. It was a surprisingly intense struggle over such a little thing.

I arrived at my destination in the mid-afternoon, hungry, tired from the traffic-choked highway, low on fuel. A perplexing two hours followed, in which my options for sleeping in the car evaporated – not the truck stop, which was defunct; not the Wal-Mart parking lot, which was posted; no campgrounds closer than a state park a half-hour's drive away. I got back on the road and drove there, just missing the 4:00 closing of the campground office. There were a few sites available and I could claim one, as the sign on the office door indicated. But I could not leave until I checked out and paid the next morning at an undisclosed hour.

I returned to town. Now I was facing the prospect of the florist closing for the day. I went there, bought a bouquet of daisies with five minutes to spare, took it to the cemetery, and found myself too agitated for a proper visitation. I left the flowers with water in the bronze vase, and headed for the funeral home. Eight months have passed, and there was no placard on the headstone with Mother's date of death.

It was obvious that the secretary of the funeral home did not want to see me, this unshaven old hillbilly in T-shirt and jeans, not with dressed-up people arriving for a wake and staring at me. The secretary told me that the placard was the family's responsibility, not theirs. I clearly remembered otherwise, and said so. She called Mr. S., the proprietor. He said that he would take care of it and send us a bill, and got me out the door as quickly and quietly as possible.

I still had no place to park my car. I drove across town and registered at an old motel that had been there since my childhood. I balked at the price: $60.61. But it proved to be a fine clean room where I slept well, did Pilates in the morning, showered and shaved, and ate breakfast in a plastic chair outside my door, watching the end of a morning rain shower.

The lady at the desk was young, blonde, and pretty, with “West Virginia teeth” as I have described elsewhere – crooked, two of them missing, the others tobacco-stained. She and her husband (who came over to introduce himself as I ate breakfast) bought the motel and are trying to make a go of this old landmark, now surrounded by big chain motels. May God bless them in this endeavor, in its way a battle against the Principalities and Powers.

Finally, I could slow down. After registering at the motel, I fueled the Honda, considering how the “little” decision of which route to drive through West Virginia had proven to be not so little. Had I taken the other road, I would have arrived too late to deal with the funeral home, too late to buy flowers that day.

I wish I were more attentive to the “still, small voice.” And I wish that I would do what it says when it comes. The Collect for next Sunday applies:

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

After some thought, I drove to a local cafeteria where Mother and I enjoyed many luncheons until the final years when it became too hard for her to go out. I had a splendid dinner of vegetables and their fine Soft Rolls and Cornbread, finishing with a $10 tab, a stack of nine vegetable dishes and two bread plates.

At last, I made it to the graveside, the daisies blowing prettily in the evening breeze.

What does one do after driving a thousand miles to visit a grave? More is needed than flowers and a quick prayer. I sang Evensong, followed by the Burial Office (Rite One), with three readings, Psalms, prayers, and the Committal service. Yes, they have already been committed to the earth and to God's care. It nonetheless felt right to do it again, for I continue to commit these my parents into the Hand of God.

[To Be Continued]

G.P.S., and Cats

March 3: Charles and John Wesley (T minus 13)

I slept until 10:00, took an afternoon nap, cooked pinto beans, sauerkraut, corn, and rice for dinner, and finished the day with Evening Prayer, assisted by two cats.

Back in January, we decided that we had grieved long enough for our beloved Bernie, who died the same week as my Mother. For the next few weeks, we visited the veterinary office which houses cats for the county Humane Society, making the hard decision as to which cats to adopt. Mrs. C. immediately linked up with Angel, a chubby little grey-and-white cat whose curiosity, I suspect, had gotten her lost from a previous family. She appeared on a farm out in the county with a gunshot wound in her shoulder, and ended up with the Humane Society. We are fairly confident that she had a previous home, because she is far too cuddly and sociable to be a true feral cat.

My heart went out to Tinkerbelle, a large grey tiger-striped older cat who had outlived her human. She had been in the shelter for over a year, and when we visited, she would sit on a table and stare out the window into the hallway, and hiss at any other cat that came near – especially the playful little Angel. We wondered whether the two cats could co-exist.

When we got them home, Tinkerbelle disappeared under the bed for three days. Angel, meanwhile, had visited every room in the apartment within the first five minutes, and explored every corner, tabletop, windowsill, and chair within an hour.

But now that they are in a quiet home, they get along pretty well; they even play together and chase each other around the apartment sometimes. Angel is anyone's friend, especially if there is a lap available. Tinker is reserved, and a good kitchen cat. She loves to sit on the kitchen table and watch me cook and wash dishes. She stays out of the way and is not interested in nabbing little dainties; she just wants to be companionable. When she is not in the kitchen, she is most often in what used to be my rocking chair. It is now hers, but she will let me sit in it if she can curl up at my feet.

So, evening prayer at home is often with one cap in my lap, and the other at my feet. In iconography, St. Julian of Norwich is usually depicted with a cat; I suspect that she had similar assistance with her prayers.

March 4: Symeon the New Theologian (T minus 12)

I begin with three hours' work on music for this Sunday; two morning services and Choral Evensong. It is all in pretty good shape, thankfully.

This is followed by the First Workout on the second movement of Franck, an Andante. Compared to the many hours it took me to work through the first movement, this was straightforward; I worked through it in less than an hour. It is clear that having a well-defined fingering (which took a long time for this movement, with lots of finger substitutions on the chords, much longer than it took to give it the First Workout at the organ) will be of great benefit. With one more workout, this movement will probably be ready for performance.

Over lunch in my office, I receive a phone call from C.H., a notable friend of the organ, the organ-builder responsible for the instrument which I will be playing. He has heard that I am playing the Grand Pièce Symphonique, one of his “all-time favorites.” He will be out of town on March 16, and wondered whether he could come by the Congregational church when I am practicing there to hear it. The only possible time before his trip is Ash Wednesday. I warned him to come “not too early,” because it is not going to be in very good shape early in the day. I didn't warn him that it would be my second work-through of the piece. Or perhaps third – I am guardedly optimistic that I might finish the First Workout and at least part of a second by Wednesday.

It is an immense joy to finally be working on the piece. Once this Sunday's services are past, the Franck and music for a March 19 wedding will be my primary tasks at the organ. The wedding involves two young people who read these pages; A. and S., I send you my greetings. They made splendidly intelligent musical selections, and working on these things will be a good counterpoise to the Franck. In terms of work, the recessional/postlude, Bach's Pièce d'Orgue (BWV 572) is the greatest challenge. It will be a glorious sendoff to the newly married couple, if I can play it adequately. I have it just ahead of the Franck on my work list – it has been given its First Workout, and will get its second before I start through a second time on Franck.

If I could combine the Franck, the Pièce d'Orgue, and “Master Tallis's Testament” from the Six Pieces by Herbert Howells (this Sunday's Evensong prelude), I would be well on my way to playing a full recital. We shall see how it all goes.

After lunch, I dig in on the third movement scherzo: Allegro, tres lié. It is pianissimo throughout and must fly like the wind. I have worried about this movement, and will continue to do so, but not as much now that it has had its First Workout. This takes two hours. About forty minutes of that is on a four-measure passage near the end. I am stuck; it simply is not working. Finally, I change one fingering – one sixteenth note, from a 2 to a 1. That makes all the difference, and the passage now flows like silk, as it ought. These final forty minutes push me right through the time I had allotted for Evensong, which will have to wait until after this evening's choir dinner and rehearsal.

The final play-through at half tempo is especially important with music of this nature, and all the more so when some of the work has not gone easily; with the final play-through, one's final memory of the piece for the day is relaxed, confident, and (almost) error-free.

odds and ends

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

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

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

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

Several books:

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

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

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

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

a Sabbath, and the end of days

Sunday, October 17: a Sabbath

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

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

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

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

Monday, October 19: the Feast of St. Luke

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

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

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

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

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

---
An Obituary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In the midst of life..."

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

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

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

Sunday and Monday: October 10 and 11

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

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

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

Monday evening and Tuesday: October 11 and 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wednesday through Saturday: October 13 through 16

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

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

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

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

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