Yes, I know, there is more to a good blog that just continually posting YouTube videos but in the words of a good book recommended to me by my dear departed friend F**k it
You lift me up to the crucial top, so I can see
Oh you lead me on, till the feelings come
And the lights that shine on
But if that don’t mean nothing
Like if someday it should fall through
You’ll take me home where the magic’s from
And I’ll be with you
Thinking a great deal about music at the moment, under many different aspects, and came across this poem in a wonderful collection given to me by a friend. This is by Rabia of Basra, translated by Daniel Ladinsky:
I randomly picked up a Vanity Fair the other day, to discover celebrated atheist Christopher Hitchens talking about ‘If it be your will’.
There is a slight irony there. It is at least a possibility that Hitch is unaware of it…
It’s a song I’m finding comforting at the moment:
From the May 2011 edition of Third Way magazine:
“…I went on going to church and I think I had the same values, only no longer quite with belief behind them. I went on with church music, which I liked a lot. Religious music still moves me, in a way that I suppose it shouldn’t, if you like. It’s not something that a Christian would think of as religion, but it’s a substitute.” (Professor John Carey)
I think Professor Carey articulates something very important to understand: that it is possible to appreciate religious music (or art or whatever) in such a way as to gain some benefit from it, even spiritual benefit – but this is not the same as worship. I think I would want to describe the difference as being between a consumer of religiously flavoured produce and being engaged in a conversation with something other than our own desires and perspectives. It is the latter that counts as worship, not the former.
We launched our Appeal on February 14th with a concert given by Banksy and the Artist, which raised over £600 – and was very enjoyable. I recorded another song but can’t seem to now connect my phone to my PC…
BTW see also Banksy’s latest rant about music here.
Graham tagged me with this one, simply ‘your best contemporary worship song ever’. I don’t know about the ‘ever’ part, but this is my answer:
(A video I made a few years back, using some of my beach photos). Very singable, sound theology, lots of personal meaning from the symbolism… what’s not to like?
This one originates with the artsy honker, and I think I was tagged on Facebook but I’m not sure…
1.What is your favourite piece of music for congregational singing? Why?
As the question is about music, and not just hymns, I should confess a strong fondness for Personent Hodie, which has several different words available (“God is love, his the care…”, “Long ago, prophets knew…”, “When our God came to earth…”). I first came across it (that I can recall) at a friend’s wedding, and I find it marvellously stimulating and uplifting. I think the WM organist is getting a bit fed up of playing it though ;o)
2.What is your favourite piece of music for performance by a group of specialist musicians within a liturgical context? This might be a worship band or a cathedral choir or just a very snazzy organist or something else entirely, but the point is that it is not congregational singing and it is live music in liturgy.
3.What is your favourite piece of music which makes you think about God to listen to outside of your place of worship? Why? This could be secular music.
4.What is one thing you like about the music at your usual place of worship? Have you told the musicians about this lately?
Musing on the various hymn/music memes going round, and pondering a way of gathering several thoughts and threads together. The question I want to ask is: what will enable this congregation to worship? The three parts each carry weight:
– what will enable – this is the end purpose in the choice of music (as of other elements) in a service. Will this get in the way, or will it allow those present to engage?
– this congregation – not congregations in general, not other congregations attending at other times of day, or times past or future, but this congregation here and now
– to worship – not be entertained or intellectually stimulated, have prejudices pandered to or preconceptions picked apart, but worship – to come into the presence of the living God in spirit and in truth, in adoration and thanksgiving.
So – a question, not an answer, but I think it’s a good question.
We care so much about music in worship – and we care because it matters.
Some good thoughts from Tim here, and the Artsy Honker here, and I am shamelessly stealing this CS Lewis quote from the latter, which I love:
“There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (aesthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to God.
“The other is where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his own defect. Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have liked, but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense.
“But where the opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with the pride of skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and resentful hostility of an inferiority complex on all who would try to improve their taste – there, we may be sure, all that both offer is unblessed and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost.”
My musical thought for the day: mindless and emotive worship music is popular (in some circles) because it is a corrective to the excessive rationalism promoted (in some circles) by our culture. It might explain the apparent paradox of brilliant IT nerds enjoying near-fundamentalist churches – it brings balance to their force 😉
Here’s the meme, again from Doug, who won’t let me escape…
1. Choose a hymn that you love to hate. It must be in a widely used and current hymn-book.
2. Say why.
3. Tag three people.
An honest answer would be ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ but I think that would be too easy. So a possibly controversial one:
1. Make me a channel of your peace.
2. A good prayer set to a difficult tune which is often murdered by a congregation that is unfamiliar with it. What makes it worse is that it is quite often chosen for funerals because people have been exposed to a good performance by a pop star (eg here) and the sentimental level is pushed up to 11. Blech.
3. I tag: Byron, Cranmer and Dave W.
This is via Doug: “Please try to name ONE (I know, there are so many to choose from) CCM praise song that you find unbearable and at least 2-3 reasons why, pointing to specific lyrics if you must.”
I plead ignorance of the field!
So I cheat, tag Banksy and say that I’ll agree with whatever he chooses 🙂