The music is back, and other news

Never say that catching the monsignor's ear at the opera doesn't do any good (last Tuesday, we ran into him at the Kennedy Center during a performance of Wagner's Parsifal). I wandered in to St. Stephen's this morning and they'd put an electronic keyboard up in the choir loft and were actually using it for the hymns this morning!

Yay. I was glad to be able to sing for a change. The congregation was singing, too. It was wonderful.

Hymns today were Darwall's 145th, National Hymn, and Wareham, and most of the Mass setting was Proulx's Mass fo the City. The choir did Duruflé's "Ubi caritas" for the communion motet. Otherwise it was a boring Mass. The preacher went on and on about witnessing about Christianity by buying fifty fish filet sandwiches at McDonald's during Lent.

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My mother called from Oklahoma today with an interesting bits of news. Their parish priest is a nominee for Bishop of Oklahoma. If he gets elected, it would be kewl cause I'd get to go back and sing at the consecration.

The Washington Midrash

Most of us are familiar with the story of George Washington as a child, who had received a hatchet as a present and then chopped all around a cherry tree on his family's farm, causing the cherry tree's death (or the alternative version where the cherry tree was "chopped down"). When the tree was discovered by George's father, he was angry and sought the identity of the culprit. The young George then brightly said, "My father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped on the cherry tree."

For centuries, we have told this story to our children as a way of teaching them not to lie.

The only problem is that this story about Washington and the cherry tree isn't true. It's a lie. According to the Internet site for the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, which operates Washington's Mount Vernon estate today, "The story, known to schoolchildren for generations, seems to have been invented by a man named Mason Weems shortly after Washington's death. Ironically, the story was intended to show how honest Washington was."

Yes, it is ironic that we would lie to our children to teach them not to lie. It's a long standing tradition, though, one used by the Bible and one which was used millennia before Christ in the Arabic and middle eastern areas of the world, and it's called "midrash." Midrash is a story telling technique which glorifies kings, generals, and heroes or perhaps which tells the great lessons of the culture, teaching the social mores and values of the people. Perhaps some of the stories are based in fact or based on historical events, but the storytellers take enormous artistic license in making their points, wanting a good and entertaining story as well as a fable with a moral or lesson.

In those cultures, it is well understood that these stories are for teaching purposes, and no one expects them to be literally correct. Of course, where this gets to be a problem for modern day Americans is that the entire Bible—which was written by Jews, one of those middle eastern cultures with a long-standing midrashic tradition—is essentially a midrash, and, therefore, cannot be taken as literally true and correct. The Bible, though, much like our story of George Washington and the cherry tree, is still a useful means for imparting our social mores and values to our younger generations. Thus, we keep our midrashic stories in our modern culture, and we will continue to lie to our children about cherry trees every February to teach them not to lie when they chop down our cherry trees.

Walking to church on a Sunday morning

Snowy mornings are always challenging for churches: should they hold services or cancel them? In centuries past, priests lived on-site and most parishioners lived within walking distance of the church, so it was no big deal at all to trudge to church in the snow, and, since missing Sunday services was formally considered a "sin" in the eyes of the Church, trudge away they went. But today, most Christians, especially Protestants, are fair-weather Christians. They stay home Sunday mornings if it's too snowy or too cold or too rainy or too sunny or too close to a football game (oh, that's not weather, is it?) or on a more important day like Christmas morning (Christmas?? Isn't that a Christian holy day?....oh, sorry, that's not weather, either), etc., ad infinitum.

Yesterday was no exception. I wasn't worried, though, since the streets in downtown D.C. were easily passable and there are at least half a dozen socially acceptable churches within easy walking distance of my condo. The first church (pictured to the left) I walked by on the GWU campus was still locked up, though.

As it turned out, my photography walking tour of the public sites of Washington took longer than expected, and I had to hurry back towards the White House and Lafayette Square to catch the eleven o'clock service at St. John's, the "Church of the Presidents" (Dubya comes to the early service here sometimes, and the parish claims him as a member, since technically he is "canonically resident"). There were only about forty people in the congregation; they all must have been hard core Episcopalians, because I had dressed for the weather and walking around town in nearly a foot of snow with my snow boots, dark trousers, collared shirt, and a rather expensive Fair Isle sweater, but their disapproving gazes quickly pointed out to me that I was the only man in the congregation not wearing a coat and tie!

Speaking of my snow boots, as I was struggling with the kneelers in the church and trying to get them to fit under the pew as I was kneeling, I was meditating upon them. It occurred to me that I bought these boots when I was an undergraduate at the University of Kansas probably around 1979, which means they are older than many of my blog readers!

Anyway, getting back to church......St. John's seemed to be well staffed with three priests (well, one priest and two priestesses), a couple of acolytes, an organist, a choir director, and their core professional octet for the choir. All of the clergy and musicians were in choir dress, complete with academic hoods. They also had a full complement of ushers present to handle their usual crowd of 300 or so, so as you can imagine, with only forty charges that morning they were rather overly solicitous. There was a parish lunch scheduled after the service and everyone was strongly encouraged to come, since they'd cooked for a bigger crowd; I didn't go, though, since I couldn't figure out how to get down to the basement where they were eating.

The service turned out to be Morning Prayer. I haven't been to a Morning Prayer service in decades! It's so......'Sixties!

The choir sang, predictably, Palestrina's "Sicut cervus" for the offertory, since Psalm 42 was in the readings. They also sang a choral Magnificat setting by Gary Davison as the second canticle. The first canticle was a Jubilate Deo congregationally sung to Anglican chant by Christopher Gibbons and the psalm was sung to Anglican chant by the parish's choirmaster, William Bradley Roberts. Processional hymn was Darwall's 148th, Siroe at the sermon, and Hyfrydol for the recessional. At the offertory presentation, they did a doxology sung to the Lasst uns erfreuen tune which segued directly into the fourth verse of America.

After the postlude ("Toccata" by Flor Peeters), they had a quick little communion service for those who wished to stay—maybe only about half a dozen people had left. It felt very clandestine! They started at the sursum corda and quickly read through the consecration, and it only took about ten or fifteen minutes to complete, and, obviously, nothing was sung.

After sitting all that time, my legs were stiff, so I Metroed home. It's an interesting little parish, though, and they are surprisingly friendly for Episcopalians. I would go more often, but they are rather low church there, and very much in that "Southern" mold. If you drive, they have valet parking here. They also have a lot of outreach and special projects here, and one that always tickles me is two groups of Alcoholics Anonymous for lawyers only!

Evangelical TV

We've all heard the news about NBC's cancellation of the scandalous(ly true and funny) series The Book of Daniel about the pain killer-addicted Episcopal priest who "talks" with a hippie-type Jesus, as NBC executives showed their gutless caving-in to the whines of an evangelical Christian lobby that had never even seen the show. The Evangelicals decided they didn't like it because, while they never really figured in the plot, the priest had a gay son, his wife had a lesbian sister, and his straight adopted teenaged Asian son was sexually active with a wealthy white parishioner's daughter. Duh. Like all of that doesn't happen in the Baptist church, too, except with the Baptists, it's not gay sons, it's gay senior pastors and Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee members.

And, even more fun, as Will and Grace winds down to a series finale this spring, rumors are already rampant about a still-unwritten show in which the Evangelicals allege guest star Brittany Spears is going to play an evangelical Christian broadcaster who works with Jack on a variety show food segment called "Cruci-fixin's," and now the Evangelicals want to organize a boycott against NBC and its advertisers. You know, years ago I think I remember seeing some church ladies' group selling a cookbook of their church potluck recipes called Crucifixin's. Must not be politically correct any more.

So, it's time for all of the hypocritical and holier-than-thou Evangelicals to launch a total boycott of NBC and the cable companies which program the network on their cable lineups, and for the rest of us to start watching more and more NBC. Since NBC "depicted" Jesus in a show, maybe the Evangelicals should emulate the Muslims who are protesting and burning Danish embassies over a silly editorial cartoon and start burning NBC studios and stations all over the country. Self-righteous fanaticism is always such a good thing.

Speaking of Mass.....

Speaking of Mass.....I was slow and running late this morning, so by the time I got out the door, there wasn't time to go anyplace fun, so I ended up back at St. Stephen's, the neighborhood parish a couple of blocks away.

I was just at St. Stephen's for their noon Mass last Friday. It was the Feast of St. Blaise, the patron saint of throats, and after Mass they did blessings of throats. It's a fun little optional Catholic ceremony. Two beeswax candles are tied together with a red ribbon into a V-shape, and the priest holds the candles to ones throat with one hand and puts his other hand on ones forehead for the blessing. It's a nice way to let God through the grace of His sacraments preserve my singing voice.

At the Friday Mass, I had to hold back my laughter from time to time. They had this little geriatric lady with blazingly dyed bright auburn hair (catch the pun on St. Blaise?) who was just banging the Hell out of the piano, playing accompaniment for the hymns, as well as a very "gospel hymn" sounding prelude. It was good to hear hymn accompaniment in this church, though (continuing my weekly rant during "Broken Organ Time"), and to further my point, I noticed that the very small congregation at this noon service sang much more confidently and loudly than the huge congregation with unaccompanied hymns did this morning.

This morning I walked in as the organist was playing a very nice prelude on the piano. He later would play an excellent improvisation on the offertory hymn after the hymn. He accompanied the communion marching hymn and played some improv filler between it and the ablutions motet. He did not, however, play accompaniments for any of the Mass setting or the major congregational hymns. Alas. Seems like attendance is down at this service, too.....right reverend monsignor pastor ought to take note.

Hymns today were "Your hands, O Lord in days of old" (Forest Green) for the procession (if they're gonna sing four-part unaccompanied harmony, the choir really needs to keep together on those eighth notes!), "The voice of God goes out through all the world" (National Hymn) for the offertory, and the standard Rendez à Dieu for the recessional. Mass setting was New Plainsong Mass for the antiphonal Gloria, Mass for the City for the Sanctus and Memorial Acclamations, and the old Gregorian chant Agnus Dei. The choir sang a nice motet during the post-communion ablutions, "Praise the Lord who reigns above" by Theodore Marier.

Otherwise, this has been a slow church week. I'd wanted to go to Candlemas on Thursday evening at St. Paul's K Street (they were bringing in two English bishops to serve as celebrant and preacher), but I went to that world premiere with the National Symphony Orchestra instead. The rest of February should be quiet—Lent is late this year.

Cellular erections

This morning as we were filing out after church, I was chatting with a tall, handsome boy I didn't know who's a GWU student. Out of the blue, he said, "Your cell phone is erect."

Taken off guard, I asked, "What?"

He pointed with his nose and looked down towards my crotch. I followed his gaze. There, in its holster on my belt, was my cell phone, its antenna fully extended.

I'm glad to know that during Mass the GWU boy had his mind on lofty subjects.