Enjoying the choir

I realise that I never posted this last May, but as it has had quite a wide circulation in Mersea I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it up (despite what subsequently happened).

It’s long, so click ‘full post’ for text.

For the meeting on May 10 at 3pm in the Church Hall

To: members of Worship Committee and Choir
CC: other members of PCC and ministry team who are welcome to attend

Dear friends,

Enjoying the choir

“Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly.” (Ps 147)

I have been praying and reflecting much about the choir in recent weeks, partly as a result of the on-going conversations about Evensong in the Worship Committee, but also in the light of our worship through this last Holy Week and Easter Sunday. I would like with this paper to set out some of my thoughts as preparation for a wide discussion on May 10. Although ____ is unable to be with us on May 10 he and I have scheduled a separate meeting between us a few days before.

Why sing in worship?
I want to begin by going back to the fundamentals, partly because it is good to do so every so often, to remind ourselves of why we are doing things, but also because it will clarify what we agree on and what we disagree on. In other words, the question to begin with is: why have a choir at all? It seems to me that there are several important reasons why it is good to have a choir:

1. As I believe I may have mentioned before, the Church Fathers believed that to sing a prayer was to pray twice. This was simply because singing involves the whole body; it isn’t purely a mental act. It is therefore appropriate to sing in Christian worship because we worship the Word made flesh – we are called to worship with our bodies. Singing a prayer is therefore a more fully Christian form of worship than simply saying.
2. A choir can function in a way that enables the wider congregation to sing themselves, either by supporting the wider congregation in what they are singing or by expressing something on their behalf.
3. Some elements of worship are best sung by specialists – this has always been the case, as can be seen by the practice of Temple worship in Old Testament times, and by looking at the Psalms.
4. The corollary of this is that some people have the vocation from God to be such specialists – God has called them to offer up their particular talents in this form, and without the possibility of that expression they are prevented from being fully human. (I spoke about this in my sermon on Maundy Thursday.)
5. Ultimately, the point about singing in worship is that this is what the angels do, and the purpose of our singing in worship is to share with the singing of the angels. I believe that sometimes we achieve that.

In other words, if we accept that the chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, singing is an essential part of this.

The musical mountain
So what are my concerns? They can be summed up by the word joy. I don’t believe that we are enjoying the choir in the way that we are called to, either choristers or congregation. More specifically I am concerned about i) the workload being placed upon the choir; ii) the choice of music; and iii) the relationship between the choir and the wider congregation. These are the principal themes that I would like to discuss on May 10 and what I would most like to glean from the choir is a sense of whether I am perceiving the situation accurately.

I must confess to being heartbroken by the Good Friday liturgy this year (not an inappropriate experience for the day, admittedly). With the benefit of hindsight I can see that it was a mistake to include the Tallis litany in the service. This is not because of any inherent fault in the Tallis, it is because it a) destroyed any sense of musical unity in the service; b) was far too long and dislocated the liturgy; but especially c) meant that the Fauré was not rehearsed to the extent that it needed to be. I tried to explain my reaction to [my wife], and the best analogy that I could come up with was an artistic one: imagine that someone had taken Seurat’s ‘Grand Jatte’ and blended in a portrait of a man on one side of the canvas – except that the man was painted in the style of Rembrandt.

If we think of our musical offerings as being like a mountain, what I am wanting to pursue is a mountain that is both broader at its base and which reaches higher in its attainment of excellence. I would like the mountain to be one that is visible from a long way away, and which draws pilgrims to it as a place of worship, where people of all diverse sorts can find a spiritual home and come closer to God.

The height of the mountain
So the first aspect I would like to raise for discussion is about the workload on the choir. My worry is that one possible best is becoming the enemy of the good; in other words, I feel that the choir needs to concentrate on doing fewer pieces at a higher level of excellence. I have raised these concerns before but they have become more acute over time, and, indeed, they have become not just concerns about the effect upon our worship but also, to some extent, a pastoral and spiritual concern about the choristers. If it is true (as I would insist IS true) that some people have a vocation to sing in worship, that does not mean that there are no limits to that vocation; the singing needs to be pursued in balance with the wider needs of worship, and I believe it would give greater joy to choir and congregation if there were fewer choral pieces but that those pieces came closer to sharing in the heavenly chorus. Essentially, in order for the singing to be properly worship, rather than simply a performance, the piece needs to be known well enough by each choir member, and the choir as a whole needs to be comfortable enough with each other and with the piece, to be able to sing it so confidently that the whole congregation – including the choir! – are able to worship through it.

The breadth of the mountain
The Fauré is a good example of the standard of music that I would want to deploy in our worship, and I have no doubt that, given sufficient rehearsal time, we have the capacity to do such pieces justice. However, I am not persuaded that every choral occasion needs to aim so high and, for two reasons, I think that the choir needs to add more ‘lollipops’ to the repertoire (to use _____’s felicitous phrasing). By ‘lollipops’ I mean material which is more accessible for both choir and congregation, and this includes material which is more contemporary and vernacular. This does not at all equate to ‘dumbing down’, which for me is rather a red herring. The point is that there are different forms and styles of music and worshipful excellence can be sought and attained in each of them. Whilst I am sure the heavenly choir is most often to be found singing some of Mozart’s compositions I would also like to believe that they sing gospel choruses and even – on rare occasions! – rock anthems like U2’s ‘Magnificent’.

More than this, however, is the point that seeking a higher musical standard is, in the end, only one part of the purpose of the choir. Most important, for me, is that there is joy – joy in the singing and joy in the hearing. This joy is something that can be heard by the congregation and it is contagious, and so the first reason for wanting to include more lollipops is simply because they are in themselves enjoyable. In addition to this, the second reason for having more lollipops is that it will enable the choir to renew itself over time. If someone is experiencing a sense of vocation towards singing, we have a duty to ensure that such a vocation is nurtured and encouraged. If there is a varied repertoire, both thematically and in terms of the difficulty of the music, such a person is more likely to be able to find their feet, and be encouraged, and be allowed to discover the joy that comes with singing in worship.

Choir and congregation
Whilst it is true, as I said above, that the choir can serve to support a congregation in their singing there are times when the opposite can happen, and a choir can in fact undermine congregational participation in the worship. I believe that this has happened, particularly in our normal 11am Sung Eucharists. I see this principally as a physical phenomenon – there is a great distance between the choir and congregation, and this is having consequences for our worship. Whilst this has been exacerbated by the re-ordering of the sanctuary area I don’t believe that this is the fundamental cause as the issue was present even before there was any re-ordering. To address this I would like to experiment with relocating the choir to the back of the church for normal 11am services (not for the major feasts like Easter, and exactly where to we need to discuss). As well as physically uniting the choir with the congregation, which I believe will help the congregation themselves to sing, this will also emphasise the table as the central element in the service, which I think will help us to keep a proper spiritual focus.

What to do with the evening pattern?
“The theology of Anglican Evensong is not that everyone is expected to do it but that, particularly in cathedrals, a practiced song will be offered to God because God is worth the time and the effort and the money for this practiced song to be given.” (John Bell)

Which brings me to the question of our Sunday evening pattern. This has been a vexed question for some time, and in the Worship Committee we have been discussing it explicitly for at least eighteen months – which was when I first circulated a discussion paper setting out the options. Option one I called the ‘variety pack’ approach, which involved a different style of service on each Sunday of the month; option two was a ‘twin track’ approach, which envisaged a 5pm BCP Evensong every week, and a 6.30pm Common Worship service of different sorts. After that initial discussion we agreed to run with the variety pack approach, not least because it was emphasised to me that the choir did not wish to come out for an earlier service on Sunday afternoons. I have been encouraged by what has happened with the Sunday evening services since we have made the changes, and the Songs of Praise and Learning Suppers appear to have been successful in attracting a wider congregation and offering an enjoyable form of worship. However, the question has now been raised as to whether we could revert to a ‘twin track’ approach, and have a BCP Evensong every Sunday night at 5pm.

I think that there are arguments on both sides here. In favour of having a 5pm Evensong every week are that it would be consistent; worshippers would know what was going on reliably; it would preserve that particular form of worship; it might function to plant a ‘new congregation’ which I see as desirable in principle. On the other hand it will involve a greater strain on the resources of the church community (ministers, readers, welcomers etc); it would mean that the contribution of the choir to the 6.30pm slot is minimised if not rendered entirely absent; and, most of all, it runs the risk of collapsing, thereby meaning that this form of worship ceases in Mersea.

The more I have reflected on this question, the more I have come to believe that the initial decision of the worship committee and PCC was the right one, and that we should stick to the ‘variety pack’ approach for Sunday Evening worship. More than this, in the light of what I have said above, I believe that the BCP Evensong slot should be restricted to the first Sunday of the month, and be ‘cathedral’ style, ie the choir alone sing introit, psalm, mag, nunc and anthem. At least one advantage of restricting this to one Sunday a month is that it will give sufficient time to rehearse each item. It may seem paradoxical, but I believe that restricting choral Evensong to one Sunday a month is more likely to preserve that pattern of worship as a living entity for the long term.

For the other Sundays I see week 2 as being Songs of Praise for the foreseeable future and week 4 as being a Learning Supper. This leaves week 3, and the occasional week 5, plus any occasions when there is no Learning Supper or Songs of Praise, to be determined. I would see this slot as in itself more variable. In the normal course of events I think we have room for it to be a communion service. It has been on my mind for some time that regular Sunday Evening worshippers don’t presently have access to the Eucharist, and this needs to change, and so I would see this slot as normally being a Common Worship service (along the lines of the 11am) but it could occasionally be a BCP communion. In addition I think we need to revisit the question of a Common Worship Evensong. This has been tried, but the balance didn’t work, and so we need to look again at the reasons for that failure and see if we can do better. Finally I see this slot as occasionally being used for special one-off services, eg a formal healing service.

This means that the Sunday Evening pattern would become: Week 1 Full Choral Evensong; Week 2 Songs of Praise; Week 3 Sung Holy Communion; Week 4 Learning Supper – with variations over time.

The style of the choir
One thing that I would wish to emphasise is that restricting the BCP Evensong to one Sunday a month does NOT mean that the choir is only deployed once a month. There is no reason why there should not be a choral contribution to every Sunday evening service, and I would expect that, in order to achieve what needs to be achieved in the monthly choral Evensong, the choir will need to rehearse that material for each of the several Sundays prior to the service. However, for the choir to be involved directly in the new services, it would necessitate the choir itself becoming more than the formal/ robed/ processional institution that we have at the moment. The essential thing about the choir is what I began with, that it shares in the joy of singing praise to God; in contrast to Victorian children, the perfect choir is heard but not seen. This can be done in various different ways, and one theme that I would like to discuss further with the choir on May 10 is how to explore different styles of being a choir, so that the church body as a whole can enjoy the choir more widely. To make this specific I would like to invite the choir to join in with the Learning Supper at the end of July by singing, as an anthem, Swiggum’s ‘How can I keep from singing’.

Festivals
Finally, I would like to say something about our festivals, not least because we have just reached the summit of the Christian year. I see the most important opportunities for the choir – ie those occasions when the choir has to most actively seek the angelic heights – as being the great feasts, especially the Midnight Mass and the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter morning). In particular, the most important service of the year is the Easter dawn service – and this service is crying out for a choral contribution. If the choir is to be itself in offering up enjoyable praise to God then it has to make this service a priority. To that end two requests: at next year’s Good Friday service, please could we have the Allegri Miserere (which is at the top of my own personal musical mountain), and for the dawn service, please could we have John Tavener’s ‘Alleluia (As one who has slept)’.

I look forward to our discussion on Sunday.

Enjoying the choir

I realise that I never posted this last May, but as it has had quite a wide circulation in Mersea I don’t think there’s an issue with putting it up (despite what subsequently happened).

It’s long, so click ‘full post’ for text.

For the meeting on May 10 at 3pm in the Church Hall

To: members of Worship Committee and Choir
CC: other members of PCC and ministry team who are welcome to attend

Dear friends,

Enjoying the choir

“Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly.” (Ps 147)

I have been praying and reflecting much about the choir in recent weeks, partly as a result of the on-going conversations about Evensong in the Worship Committee, but also in the light of our worship through this last Holy Week and Easter Sunday. I would like with this paper to set out some of my thoughts as preparation for a wide discussion on May 10. Although ____ is unable to be with us on May 10 he and I have scheduled a separate meeting between us a few days before.

Why sing in worship?
I want to begin by going back to the fundamentals, partly because it is good to do so every so often, to remind ourselves of why we are doing things, but also because it will clarify what we agree on and what we disagree on. In other words, the question to begin with is: why have a choir at all? It seems to me that there are several important reasons why it is good to have a choir:

1. As I believe I may have mentioned before, the Church Fathers believed that to sing a prayer was to pray twice. This was simply because singing involves the whole body; it isn’t purely a mental act. It is therefore appropriate to sing in Christian worship because we worship the Word made flesh – we are called to worship with our bodies. Singing a prayer is therefore a more fully Christian form of worship than simply saying.
2. A choir can function in a way that enables the wider congregation to sing themselves, either by supporting the wider congregation in what they are singing or by expressing something on their behalf.
3. Some elements of worship are best sung by specialists – this has always been the case, as can be seen by the practice of Temple worship in Old Testament times, and by looking at the Psalms.
4. The corollary of this is that some people have the vocation from God to be such specialists – God has called them to offer up their particular talents in this form, and without the possibility of that expression they are prevented from being fully human. (I spoke about this in my sermon on Maundy Thursday.)
5. Ultimately, the point about singing in worship is that this is what the angels do, and the purpose of our singing in worship is to share with the singing of the angels. I believe that sometimes we achieve that.

In other words, if we accept that the chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, singing is an essential part of this.

The musical mountain
So what are my concerns? They can be summed up by the word joy. I don’t believe that we are enjoying the choir in the way that we are called to, either choristers or congregation. More specifically I am concerned about i) the workload being placed upon the choir; ii) the choice of music; and iii) the relationship between the choir and the wider congregation. These are the principal themes that I would like to discuss on May 10 and what I would most like to glean from the choir is a sense of whether I am perceiving the situation accurately.

I must confess to being heartbroken by the Good Friday liturgy this year (not an inappropriate experience for the day, admittedly). With the benefit of hindsight I can see that it was a mistake to include the Tallis litany in the service. This is not because of any inherent fault in the Tallis, it is because it a) destroyed any sense of musical unity in the service; b) was far too long and dislocated the liturgy; but especially c) meant that the Fauré was not rehearsed to the extent that it needed to be. I tried to explain my reaction to [my wife], and the best analogy that I could come up with was an artistic one: imagine that someone had taken Seurat’s ‘Grand Jatte’ and blended in a portrait of a man on one side of the canvas – except that the man was painted in the style of Rembrandt.

If we think of our musical offerings as being like a mountain, what I am wanting to pursue is a mountain that is both broader at its base and which reaches higher in its attainment of excellence. I would like the mountain to be one that is visible from a long way away, and which draws pilgrims to it as a place of worship, where people of all diverse sorts can find a spiritual home and come closer to God.

The height of the mountain
So the first aspect I would like to raise for discussion is about the workload on the choir. My worry is that one possible best is becoming the enemy of the good; in other words, I feel that the choir needs to concentrate on doing fewer pieces at a higher level of excellence. I have raised these concerns before but they have become more acute over time, and, indeed, they have become not just concerns about the effect upon our worship but also, to some extent, a pastoral and spiritual concern about the choristers. If it is true (as I would insist IS true) that some people have a vocation to sing in worship, that does not mean that there are no limits to that vocation; the singing needs to be pursued in balance with the wider needs of worship, and I believe it would give greater joy to choir and congregation if there were fewer choral pieces but that those pieces came closer to sharing in the heavenly chorus. Essentially, in order for the singing to be properly worship, rather than simply a performance, the piece needs to be known well enough by each choir member, and the choir as a whole needs to be comfortable enough with each other and with the piece, to be able to sing it so confidently that the whole congregation – including the choir! – are able to worship through it.

The breadth of the mountain
The Fauré is a good example of the standard of music that I would want to deploy in our worship, and I have no doubt that, given sufficient rehearsal time, we have the capacity to do such pieces justice. However, I am not persuaded that every choral occasion needs to aim so high and, for two reasons, I think that the choir needs to add more ‘lollipops’ to the repertoire (to use _____’s felicitous phrasing). By ‘lollipops’ I mean material which is more accessible for both choir and congregation, and this includes material which is more contemporary and vernacular. This does not at all equate to ‘dumbing down’, which for me is rather a red herring. The point is that there are different forms and styles of music and worshipful excellence can be sought and attained in each of them. Whilst I am sure the heavenly choir is most often to be found singing some of Mozart’s compositions I would also like to believe that they sing gospel choruses and even – on rare occasions! – rock anthems like U2’s ‘Magnificent’.

More than this, however, is the point that seeking a higher musical standard is, in the end, only one part of the purpose of the choir. Most important, for me, is that there is joy – joy in the singing and joy in the hearing. This joy is something that can be heard by the congregation and it is contagious, and so the first reason for wanting to include more lollipops is simply because they are in themselves enjoyable. In addition to this, the second reason for having more lollipops is that it will enable the choir to renew itself over time. If someone is experiencing a sense of vocation towards singing, we have a duty to ensure that such a vocation is nurtured and encouraged. If there is a varied repertoire, both thematically and in terms of the difficulty of the music, such a person is more likely to be able to find their feet, and be encouraged, and be allowed to discover the joy that comes with singing in worship.

Choir and congregation
Whilst it is true, as I said above, that the choir can serve to support a congregation in their singing there are times when the opposite can happen, and a choir can in fact undermine congregational participation in the worship. I believe that this has happened, particularly in our normal 11am Sung Eucharists. I see this principally as a physical phenomenon – there is a great distance between the choir and congregation, and this is having consequences for our worship. Whilst this has been exacerbated by the re-ordering of the sanctuary area I don’t believe that this is the fundamental cause as the issue was present even before there was any re-ordering. To address this I would like to experiment with relocating the choir to the back of the church for normal 11am services (not for the major feasts like Easter, and exactly where to we need to discuss). As well as physically uniting the choir with the congregation, which I believe will help the congregation themselves to sing, this will also emphasise the table as the central element in the service, which I think will help us to keep a proper spiritual focus.

What to do with the evening pattern?
“The theology of Anglican Evensong is not that everyone is expected to do it but that, particularly in cathedrals, a practiced song will be offered to God because God is worth the time and the effort and the money for this practiced song to be given.” (John Bell)

Which brings me to the question of our Sunday evening pattern. This has been a vexed question for some time, and in the Worship Committee we have been discussing it explicitly for at least eighteen months – which was when I first circulated a discussion paper setting out the options. Option one I called the ‘variety pack’ approach, which involved a different style of service on each Sunday of the month; option two was a ‘twin track’ approach, which envisaged a 5pm BCP Evensong every week, and a 6.30pm Common Worship service of different sorts. After that initial discussion we agreed to run with the variety pack approach, not least because it was emphasised to me that the choir did not wish to come out for an earlier service on Sunday afternoons. I have been encouraged by what has happened with the Sunday evening services since we have made the changes, and the Songs of Praise and Learning Suppers appear to have been successful in attracting a wider congregation and offering an enjoyable form of worship. However, the question has now been raised as to whether we could revert to a ‘twin track’ approach, and have a BCP Evensong every Sunday night at 5pm.

I think that there are arguments on both sides here. In favour of having a 5pm Evensong every week are that it would be consistent; worshippers would know what was going on reliably; it would preserve that particular form of worship; it might function to plant a ‘new congregation’ which I see as desirable in principle. On the other hand it will involve a greater strain on the resources of the church community (ministers, readers, welcomers etc); it would mean that the contribution of the choir to the 6.30pm slot is minimised if not rendered entirely absent; and, most of all, it runs the risk of collapsing, thereby meaning that this form of worship ceases in Mersea.

The more I have reflected on this question, the more I have come to believe that the initial decision of the worship committee and PCC was the right one, and that we should stick to the ‘variety pack’ approach for Sunday Evening worship. More than this, in the light of what I have said above, I believe that the BCP Evensong slot should be restricted to the first Sunday of the month, and be ‘cathedral’ style, ie the choir alone sing introit, psalm, mag, nunc and anthem. At least one advantage of restricting this to one Sunday a month is that it will give sufficient time to rehearse each item. It may seem paradoxical, but I believe that restricting choral Evensong to one Sunday a month is more likely to preserve that pattern of worship as a living entity for the long term.

For the other Sundays I see week 2 as being Songs of Praise for the foreseeable future and week 4 as being a Learning Supper. This leaves week 3, and the occasional week 5, plus any occasions when there is no Learning Supper or Songs of Praise, to be determined. I would see this slot as in itself more variable. In the normal course of events I think we have room for it to be a communion service. It has been on my mind for some time that regular Sunday Evening worshippers don’t presently have access to the Eucharist, and this needs to change, and so I would see this slot as normally being a Common Worship service (along the lines of the 11am) but it could occasionally be a BCP communion. In addition I think we need to revisit the question of a Common Worship Evensong. This has been tried, but the balance didn’t work, and so we need to look again at the reasons for that failure and see if we can do better. Finally I see this slot as occasionally being used for special one-off services, eg a formal healing service.

This means that the Sunday Evening pattern would become: Week 1 Full Choral Evensong; Week 2 Songs of Praise; Week 3 Sung Holy Communion; Week 4 Learning Supper – with variations over time.

The style of the choir
One thing that I would wish to emphasise is that restricting the BCP Evensong to one Sunday a month does NOT mean that the choir is only deployed once a month. There is no reason why there should not be a choral contribution to every Sunday evening service, and I would expect that, in order to achieve what needs to be achieved in the monthly choral Evensong, the choir will need to rehearse that material for each of the several Sundays prior to the service. However, for the choir to be involved directly in the new services, it would necessitate the choir itself becoming more than the formal/ robed/ processional institution that we have at the moment. The essential thing about the choir is what I began with, that it shares in the joy of singing praise to God; in contrast to Victorian children, the perfect choir is heard but not seen. This can be done in various different ways, and one theme that I would like to discuss further with the choir on May 10 is how to explore different styles of being a choir, so that the church body as a whole can enjoy the choir more widely. To make this specific I would like to invite the choir to join in with the Learning Supper at the end of July by singing, as an anthem, Swiggum’s ‘How can I keep from singing’.

Festivals
Finally, I would like to say something about our festivals, not least because we have just reached the summit of the Christian year. I see the most important opportunities for the choir – ie those occasions when the choir has to most actively seek the angelic heights – as being the great feasts, especially the Midnight Mass and the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter morning). In particular, the most important service of the year is the Easter dawn service – and this service is crying out for a choral contribution. If the choir is to be itself in offering up enjoyable praise to God then it has to make this service a priority. To that end two requests: at next year’s Good Friday service, please could we have the Allegri Miserere (which is at the top of my own personal musical mountain), and for the dawn service, please could we have John Tavener’s ‘Alleluia (As one who has slept)’.

I look forward to our discussion on Sunday.

Why have a choir?

“Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly.” (Ps 147)

Why have a choir? It seems to me that there are several important reasons why it is good to have a choir:

1. The Church Fathers believed that to sing a prayer was to pray twice. This was simply because singing involves the whole body; it isn’t purely a mental act. It is therefore appropriate to sing in Christian worship because we worship the Word made flesh – we are called to worship with our bodies. Singing a prayer is therefore a more fully Christian form of worship than simply saying.

2. A choir can function in a way that enables the wider congregation to sing themselves, either by supporting the wider congregation in what they are singing or by expressing something on their behalf.

3. Some elements of worship are best sung by specialists – this has always been the case, as can be seen by the practice of Temple worship in Old Testament times, and by looking at the Psalms.

4. The corollary of this is that some people have the vocation from God to be such specialists – God has called them to offer up their particular talents in this form, and without the possibility of that expression they are prevented from being fully human.

5. Ultimately, the point about singing in worship is that this is what the angels do, and the purpose of our singing in worship is to share with the singing of the angels, to be taken up and transformed by that beauty.

In other words, if we accept that the chief end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, singing is an essential part of this.

The Old Testament heart

Note: first posted 7/5/07. I thought it timely to repost it.

This is a long one! I’ve been pondering the themes in this post for many months now, especially on my recent holiday. Now is the time to write it. The lyrics which structure the post are from the song ‘The Dive’ by Steve Knightley, of Show of Hands. Click on ‘full post’ to read.

One November noon, we left the docks
Heading southwest from Morecambe rocks.
My dad and me, our ‘nine to five’,
He used to steer. I used to dive.

So over the side I slowly went down,
A hundred below, the seawater brown.
Well, after an hour, I got low on air,
When I surfaced again his boat wasn’t there.

~~~

I miss my father.

Shortly after his death I went to see my spiritual director, a very wise old Franciscan monk. He asked me how close I was to my dad, and after some scattered comments I said ‘Somehow I feel much less afraid of death now. I feel he’s now right there on the other side, and when I die his will be the first face I see.’

‘Ah,’ said my director. ‘Very close then.’

~~~

I have very vivid memories of that time. In particular I remember when I decided that I was going to take the funeral, which was a very strange decision to make in many ways. I was sitting on the hospital bed in the room where my father had died – his body had been taken away but our things were still there, so the staff hadn’t yet put another patient in.

I made the decision in part because there were very clear reasons why it would have been inappropriate for the local incumbent to take the service, which I need not go into here. More, though, was the sense I had of being propelled forward with great ferocity – almost an anger – an insistence that the funeral had to be done right. More than anything else, though, was an awareness of something very strong within me that was coming forward; something really rather primitive in many ways, but also very vital and alive. A remarkably powerful sense of will and purpose.

~~~

My father wore two rings – his engagement ring and his wedding ring. My elder brother got the engagement ring as it was inscribed with my father’s initials, which my brother shares. I wear the wedding ring on the middle finger of my right hand. I would like my eldest son to have it when I die – he was named after my father.

When I first put it on it was too large for the ring finger. My mum suggested putting it on the middle finger, where it now sits. Of course it’s now a bit tight. As if I have expanded to fill the space.

I felt different as soon as I had put it on. Not sure if it is because I am a Lord of the Rings fan or otherwise superstitious but it represents to me now precisely that strength of will or affirmation of purpose that I felt come upon me at that time. It marks a change in me. A death. A birth.

~~~

Looking back now I see that until he died I always lived under the shelter of my father. He was always there, and he always supported me. I was lazy; not necessarily in a physical sense but, perhaps, in a more fundamental moral sense. A passenger perhaps; not a driver. I didn’t pass my driving test until two years after he died. It had never seemed urgent until then, but I passed my driving test on the day I was appointed to my present job. There is a sign in that, I believe.

And it is when I am driving now, especially when I am on my own, that I am most aware of my father’s presence with me. There are times when it is stronger, other times when it is weaker, but there is this persistent awareness of him being with me; and that is as much a moral image as a spatial one.

I remember long car journeys with him, either to boarding school or university. Sometimes talking, sometimes just a companionable silence.

I believe osmosis is a generally ignored form of parenting.

~~~

My marker buoy had come untied
And drifted away, his boat at its side.
He looked at his watch, three miles to the South,
And turned back again, his heart in his mouth.

Soft rain on my face, the sun nearly set
I cut loose the weights, let fall the nets.
Lights on the shore so bright and clear,
The combs drifting in and nobody near.

~~~

I first heard this Show of Hands song live, down in Putney. I was utterly bowled over by it, not least because I was so hooked by the story – will he live or will he die? It’s a true story, and the writer knows the people about whom he talks. I find Show of Hands to be a very male group, which I intend as an unambiguous compliment.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I have long struggled with the question of non-violence (newcomers can explore the links on my sidebar). The debate is sharpest within me when considering the ‘frightening scenarios’, ie ‘what would you do if…’. Stanley Hauerwas says that this is a failure of Christian imagination and that Christians should be concerned with the wider questions that arise prior to such scenarios taking place. I am becoming clearer in my mind that this is not the whole truth, however much sympathy that I have with his perspective. If an opportunity had arisen then it would have been the right thing to do to kill Seung Hui Cho. I do not mean that killing him would have been without sin; I mean that in such situations there is a choice between the present reality and possible futures. Sometimes a love for the concrete present must be allowed to restrict the possible future. We trust that the future lies in God’s hands and that he can redeem us from wherever we are found.

There are good men; and there are bad men. Sometimes a man is good because he is somebody near.

Sometimes a man is good not just because he has killed the bad, but because he is prepared to do the same thing again. That is, he is not crippled with regret or remorse. He recognises the link between death and life.

~~~

We do need ways for warriors to be re-integrated into society. Hauerwas is very good on this, not least that the greatest sacrifice asked of a soldier is the request made of them that they sacrifice their unwillingness to kill.

~~~

There is, of course, the equal and opposite error. Not the exercise of the will but the elevation of the will, the ‘puffing up’, the Alpha Male expanding his chest.

At the age of ten I was made Head Boy of my primary school; I instantly began trying to copy the authority figures and give my classmates orders. I was rapidly and violently disabused of my authoritarian notions.

That lesson has gone very deep. For most of my life I have been suspicious of my own will. It has been kept caged up in case it got me into trouble. I proceed cautiously and patiently. Also relentlessly, it must be confessed. I find it very difficult to go into reverse – one reason why I am so conscientious about moving forward, thinking through as many options as I can before I take a decision.

Thing is, decisions cannot be avoided; or, better, the avoidance of a decision is also a decision itself, and therefore it is not without consequences.

My father’s death woke me up. It woke up my will. This frightens me sometimes.

~~~

Was there ever a reel, a rod or a line
So strong and true, so straight or fine?
That tied and wound him through time and space:
He came out the darkness right to that place!

Now we don’t talk much about that day;
Got two kids of my own now, and one on the way;
But if they’re to grow, and if they’re to thrive,
One day they’ll go, one day they’ll dive.
And when they come up for light and air
I hope someone’s close; I hope someone’s there.

~~~

One of the reasons why shivers went up my spine when I first heard this sung were because the lyrics fitted so well with regard to children, though my ‘one on the way’ has now arrived.

Fathers are needed. I’m sure I’m not on my own in thinking that I fail sometimes; but this isn’t me seeking reassurance – I think I do OK! – it’s more a recognition of the truth, that I struggle to raise them well, that often I really don’t know what I’m doing.

This is most acute when considering the question of smacking. I am short-tempered sometimes; normally if I am in some stress from other things; so occasionally I shout more often than I consider genuinely wise. I never believed I could become so cantankerous.

I can’t believe that smacking is absolutely out of bounds. Not as a routine issue – and certainly not done with any instrument or as some form of structural discipline (in the way that I was ‘slippered’ at school…) – but sometimes a child needs to see that a parent can be provoked into anger, and that that anger can have physical consequences to reinforce the lesson, the establishment of a boundary. It has only happened, with my eldest, perhaps five or six times; even less with number two. I always hate myself later, but I don’t regret it. The benefits seem to be so clear.

Of course, perhaps those benefits are false – it’s just conforming somebody else’s will to my will, and who am I to impose my will? Actually, who am I not to? That is precisely the point. It is the father’s job to raise a child able to enter into society and make their own way in life. The mother will identify with the child and seek to nurture and affirm. It is the father that must prune and shape. I think there is a biological basis to this, but actually the roles are not unequivocally biological. Sometimes it is the father who is nurturing and affirming whilst the mother exercises discipline.

“Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgements which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it. So that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.” (Deuteronomy chapter 6)

~~~

Hebrews 9.22 states that unless there is the shedding of blood there is no άφεσις (aphesis – remission/ forgiveness/ redemption & new life). This is about Jesus and his death; it is also a wider Biblical principle. Not one that is comfortable for a modern awareness.

A few months ago I read an outstandingly good book about survival, by Laurence Gonzales. I liked it especially because it linked in with the neurological work done by Damasio and others which I have been interested in for a long time. I’d like to share this quotation with you – Gonzales is describing a group of people who have been cast adrift at sea in a small boat, and the way in which some of them were mentally ready to do the work of survival, whilst others were ‘losing it’ – and becoming a hazard that would potentially kill everyone. Hard decisions had to be made, and Gonzales quotes another writer in saying this:

“To survive, you must at some point allow cool to become cold. Stockdale wrote, “In difficult situations, the leader with the heart, not the soft heart, not the bleeding heart, but the Old Testament heart, the hard heart, comes into his own.” Survival means accepting reality, and accepting reality takes a hard heart. But it is a strange kind of coldness, for it has empathy at its center. Survivors discover a deep spiritual relationship to the world….”

The Old Testament heart is the capacity to inflict pain for the greater good; to keep eyes fixed upon the essential point, and to take the measures needed to ensure long term flourishing. It is when the heart is set wholly on God that priorities find their proper place, and God’s hand guides the blade. It is when will power is allied to idolatry that darkness and destruction descend on the community.

~~~

At my father’s funeral I preached the resurrection. I was profoundly grateful that I had had a conversation with him not long before when he had explicitly avowed his belief, and that he found my rather academic explorations rather beside the point. I said this: “when we are faced with the harsher realities of life, and we are thrown back from the everyday, the Christian faith, the faith which Bruce shared, comes with a clear message, a message of hope. For Christianity was born when Jesus rose again from the dead, and the shockwaves from that event are still rolling around our world. Many people, perhaps most people today, question this Christian belief in the resurrection. Bruce didn’t question it – he told me so himself. Bruce had a simple and living faith, which worked through him and animated all that he did. He lived a Christian life; he didn’t talk about it much, he just did it. And at the heart of the Christian message is a testimony that death does not have the last word.”

My memory of giving this sermon is exceptionally clear. I felt totally exposed; my will was utterly present; and it was right. It was as if this was the place where I received the anointing of the Holy Spirit, here is where God affirmed me as a priest.

“I came that you might have life, life in all its fullness.”

~~~

It’s November noon
We’re leaving the docks
My son and me
From Morecambe rocks.

Let’s dive.

Let’s dive.

Guitars in worship

bls has launched a C.H.O.C.T.A.W. manifesto, for the avoidance of crap worship. This is something I have a lot of sympathy with – and yet I am presently being accused of precisely that because I am encouraging – nay, I am insisting – on the use of the guitar in our principal communion service. Click ‘full post’ for a preview of an article in our upcoming parish magazine which explains why. See also this post (via *Christopher) for another point of view, and the comments there for yet more!


There are few things that are more likely to cause disagreement amongst Christians than questions to do with the use of music in worship. Consider this cartoon – as the saying goes – music is too important to be left to the musicians (grin). However, putting on a more serious hat, I would like to say something about the use of the guitar for some songs in the 11am communion service, as this has been causing pain to some members of the congregation. This may take a little time as it touches on very central elements of the faith.

It may be argued that it is never appropriate to use a guitar in the context of a church worship service. This I see as a very weak argument, for a rapid survey of church history will demonstrate that stringed instruments have a much deeper and stronger relationship with Jewish and Christian worship than has, for example, the organ. There are enough Scriptural references for people to be familiar with (try the last few psalms for a starting place) but consider this passage:

“It happened on Sunday after Christmas – the last Sunday they played in Longpuddle church gallery, as it turned out, thought they didn’t know it then. As you may know, sir, the players formed a very good band – almost as good as the Mellstock parish players that were led by the Dewys, and that’s saying a great deal. There was Nicholas Puddingcome, the leader, with the first fiddle; there was Timothy Thomas, the bass-viol man; John Biles, the tenor fiddler; Dan’l Hornhead, with the serpent; Robert Dowdle, with the clarionet; and Mr Nicks, with the oboe – all sound and powerful musicians, and strong-winded men – they that blowed. For that reason they were very much in demand Christmas week for little reels and dancing parties; for they could turn a jig or a hornpipe out of hand as well as ever they could turn out a psalm, and perhaps better, not to speak irreverent. In short, one half-hour they could be playing a Christmas carol in the squire’s hall to the ladies and gentlemen, and drinking tay and coffee with ’em as modest as saints; and the next, at the Tinker’s Arms, blazing away like wild horses with the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’ to nine couple of dancers or more, and swallowing rum-and-cider hot as flame.”
(From A FEW CRUSTED CHARACTERS by Thomas Hardy)

The particular form of worship used within a church changes over time – it always has done and always will. The particular style of music used here in West Mersea for the 11am was principally shaped by the Victorians, who were responsible for introducing robed choirs (imported from 17th century Italy). The question of principle is whether that style of music is necessarily the right one to adopt today, bearing in mind the purposes that music is used for. There is some unanimity on that score: some months ago the Worship Committee agreed that “the role of music is to support, enhance, enable and – occasionally – to express the worship of the congregation”. The issue is therefore whether the use of the guitar is something which enables a congregation to worship; but that itself begs the more fundamental question: what is the congregation at the 11am service?

One of the principal changes that has come about in the last few years here at St Peter’s and St Paul’s is the development of the 9:30 congregation. The liturgy at the 9:30 was specifically designed to be simpler and more accessible to the newcomer, and the music more modern. When the service was launched there was no clarity about whether it would succeed or not, or whether there would be much of a demand for it or not. Manifestly there was both a desire for such a service and it has been tremendously successful. Yet the consequence is that the overall balance of the church’s life has altered – and that has to affect the 11am service.

The 11am service is the principal Holy Communion offered in this church. It is the place where Christians who are separated through the week can gather and break bread together – as Christians have done since the very beginning. Whilst I am very happy that some of our services can be seen as ‘niche’ services, whereby those who desire particular forms of worship can have those desires met, I believe it would destroy our unity in the faith if the 11am service became a ‘niche’ service in that way. The purpose of the 11am is to be the ‘big tent’ whereby as many Christians as possible can come together for the breaking of the bread. That will inevitably mean that no one group within the church will be completely content with what is offered, whether that be “traditionalists” who dislike the guitar, “9:30ers” who don’t like choral anthems, or the Rector who mourns the absence of incense. Yet this is no bad thing – we are called to love our neighbours as ourselves and if we are only prepared to worship with those who are just like us then we have failed to recognise the Body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 11.29 – and it has the consequences that Paul describes in that passage).

As a consequence of these two things – a change in the balance of our overall church congregation, and the necessity for the 11am service to be a spiritual home for as many brothers and sisters as we can achieve – we have begun to explore different ways of doing the 11am service, so that it more accurately reflects the nature of the whole congregation, not just the existing 11am attenders. There is no point in having a principal communion service if the nature of that service is such as to actively exclude large swathes of the church body. This is still a work-in-progress, and is tied up with the re-ordering of the sanctuary. It will take quite a few more months before we are in a position to see where the 11am service will be, although those who attended the recent ‘9:15 Morning Praise with Holy Communion’ will have a good idea of how I would like to see the 11am service develop.

There are undoubtedly times when, as we have explored a different way to do the 11am, we have tried something new and it hasn’t worked. That is my fault as I am the one pushing the exploration, sometimes over the objections of the musicians! Yet I don’t believe that God is opposed to exploration and failure – there would be nothing worth redeeming if that was the case. Whatever the birth-pains associated with the introduction of the guitar into the 11am service I do see it as absolutely essential to the long term spiritual health of the church that we embrace the guitar – and the flute and the piano and the violin – and the choir and the soloist and the organ – that, in short, we embrace each other at the 11am service. This is our common meal, where the church family says grace and shares with each other. There will always be jostling and elbow-jabs but that is what makes us who we are: a Christian community, learning what it means to love one another as our Lord loves us.

The Singing Thing (John Bell)

This was a book I bought and actually read at Greenbelt, and (combined with the Richard Giles books – reviews forthcoming) it has really shifted my thinking about the liturgy. But I’ll write about that elsewhere. Bell splits the book into two parts (and the book itself is the first of two books). In the first part he outlines all the reasons why human beings sing, and why it is so important. As you might imagine, he found a receptive reader in me. He lists ten reasons:
– because we can
– to create identity (especially community identity)
– to express emotion
– to express words (beliefs)
– to revisit the past (remember ourselves)
– to tell stories
– to shape the future
– to enable work
– to exercise our creativity, and
– to give of ourselves.
All of which were very persuasively argued for. He then goes on to ask ‘why do most people – in England in particular – not sing?’ He argues that:
– almost everyone can sing, but most have been told they can’t at a formative age;
– the ‘performance culture’ inhibits joining in (and he is equally critical of robed choirs and worship bands);
– the layout within a church often undermines congregational confidence; and
– there is often appalling leadership, from clergy and choirmasters, organists and musicians and choristers, all of whom seem theologically bankrupt when considering singing in church. (My summary – not his language!)

This was a really good book, which I think needs a much wider circulation. I’ll be reading part two shortly….

One last thing – it really reinforced the truth in the song ‘Roots’ by Show of Hands:

“Now it’s been 25 years or more,
I’ve roamed this land from shore to shore.
From Tyne to Tamar, Severn to Thames,
From Moor to Vale, from Peak to Fen.
I’ve played in cafes, and pubs and bars,
I’ve stood in the street with my own guitar.
But I’d be richer than all the rest
If I had a pound for each request
For “Duelling Banjos”, “American Pie” — it’s enough to make you cry.
“Rule Britannia”, or “Swing Low”,
Are they the only songs we English know?

Seed, bud, flower, fruit,
They’re never gonna grow without their roots.
Branch, stem, shoots.
They need roots!

After the speeches when the cake’s been cut,
the disco’s over and the bar is shut.
At Christening, Birthday, Wedding or Wake,
What can we sing until the morning breaks?
When the Indian-Asians, Afro-Celts — it’s in their blood below the belt.
They’re playing and dancing all night long,
So what’ve they got right that we’ve got wrong?

Seed, bud, flower, fruit,
Never gonna grow without their roots.
Branch, stem, shoots.
We need roots!

And all away boys, let them go,
All in the wind and the rain and snow.
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know,
On the rocky shores of England.

All away boys, let them go,
All in the wind and the rain and snow.
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know,
On the rocky shores of England.

We need roots!

And the minister said his vision of hell is 3 folk singers in a pub near Wells.
Well I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl.
It’s pubs where no one ever sings at all.
And everyone stares at a great big screen,
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens,
Australian soap, American rap, Estuary English, baseball caps.
And we learn to be ashamed before we walk,
Of the way we look and the way we talk.
Without our stories, or our songs,
How will we know where we come from?
I’ve lost St George in the Union Jack,
It’s my flag too and I want it back!

Seed, bud, flower, fruit,
Never gonna grow without their roots.
Branch, stem, shoots.
We need roots!

And all away boys, let them go,
All in the wind and the rain and snow.
We’ve lost more than we’ll ever know,
On the rocky shores of England.

Sing to my soul

“The first and foremost doctrine de scriptura is therefore not a proposition about scripture at all. It is rather liturgical and devotional instruction: Let the Scripture be sung, at every opportunity and with care for its actual address to hearers even if these are only the singer. The churches most faithful to Scripture are not those that legislate the most honorific propositions about Scripture but those that most often and thoughtfully sing and listen to it.”

(found here)