Thursday Musical Musings

I don’t think we ask enough from our liturgies.

It is 11:00 as I begin this missive.

I am at home because my son is ill. I am, loosely speaking, working from home today. What that means is I am watching a thousand training videos that I should have watched a month ago. EP and I are both still in our pajamas. His fever is down for the moment thanks to Tylenol. He is watching Godzilla while dressing like a “scary space robot.” So, he’s doin’ okay.

He also wants to turn the basement into a science laboratory where he can make mutations and shrink rays. I’m not worried. You’re worried.

I am contemplating all the things. Again. And I don’t mean my vocational stuff. I’m taking about break from that particularly capitalist enterprise. Today, I am thinking about what it means to make music at All Souls Day, an Evensong service on Nov. 11 at the historic Fork Church, and a possible sermon I have been asked to give in Advent. Lastly, and certainly not least, I have a funeral to plan. One of my patients has passed and we need to send him off in style.

So, to sing or generally music (as a verb) on All Souls/All Saints is to enter into the great cloud of witnesses. It is to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” with all manner of words, to sound praise with those who see The Holy One most clearly. There is no veil. There is no distance. The sacramentality of music transports us into one another’s presence. Immanence and transcendence dance.

Likewise, sung Evensong is the only Evensong, IMHO. I’ve participated in many such services. Unlike so many folks, I don’t find them any more moving, approachable, or transcendent than other liturgies in the Anglican tradition. I don’t say that to speak badly of Evensong, but to speak more highly of our other liturgies. I think the reason people love them so much has to do with the combination of novelty, preparation, and dusk. I could be wrong. But excellence is what I expect every Sunday…and the novelty of symbolic abundance. We don’t ask enough of our liturgies.

Preaching on the fourth Sunday of Advent…wow. I love the lectionary assigned for that day. The Magnificat features prominently. Mary is singing. See? More music. It’s all about the music. She sings a song of revolution and cosmological comeuppance. She’s been singing the prophets Hannah and Miriam. It’s always tempting to get all nostalgic at Christmas. I feel it. But the lectionary for that day demands another more challenging vision.

Now about that funeral…we’ll be singing and I’ll be playing his guitar. We’ll be singing “Deep Settled Peace.” Sacramentality will be all up in the joint.

Y’all be excellent to each other.