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!