Shirtsleeves in January

Saturday was a wonderfully warm day in the high 50s (and maybe even the low 60s), though the spectre of possible rain hung over the city all day long. We ventured out to brunch, intending to go to a place near Dupont Circle, but they seemed to be closed when we got there, even though their website said they were open for lunch. Dupont Circle was buzzing with all kinds of people and protestors around (the usual). I guess lots of people were out to enjoy the unexpectedly warm weather.



After brunch, we passed by the international headquarters of the Church of Scientology. Interestingly enough, they had some of their followers out on Dupont Circle with tables set up to hold these machines with metal handle thingies on thick wires that they use to help people measure their stress levels, at least from the Scientology viewpoint. I suppose everybody's thetans are off, and we all need Tom Cruise to come fix us.

Okies invade cathedral

Hundreds of Oklahomans descended upon the Washington National Cathedral this morning for the quadrennial observance of Oklahoma Major State Day. We managed to get reserved tickets, so Tony and I got to sit up front with all the dignitaries and special guests. Congressman Dan Boren (D-2nd Dist. Okla.) read the Old Testament Reading during the service and former governor and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Frank Keating and his wife carried the Oklahoma flag in the procession. Principal Chief of the Cherokees Chadwick Smith presented the bread during the offertory, Oklahoma Arts Council Executive Director Betty Price and another woman whose name escapes me (she used to be administrative hired help at Tulsa Opera) presented the wine, and a woman I didn't know presented the water.

The incumbent governor was a no-show and I didn't see any of the other members of the Oklahoma Congressional delegation there. Federal dignitaries I saw and chatted with included the Special Trustee for American Indians Ross Swimmer (who's a former Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs), the Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Pat Ragsdale, and OST's Director of the Office of Trust Regulations, Policies and Procedures Phil Viles (who's a former chief justice of the Cherokee Judicial Appeals Tribunal). I was surprised not to see any of the bishops from Oklahoma there.

Had a nice chat with Governor Keating's wife, who was escorting her mother around, and Congressman Boren introduced me to his very pretty wife. Also talked with Chief Smith before the service and his wife afterwards. The chief has a new Indian jacket in a striped tan fabric, and Bobbie was wearing a tear dress in matching hues. Speaking of clothes, Cathy Keating was in a gorgeous turquoise angora sweater.

During communion, I noticed Mrs. Price was grimmacing a bit after she received her wine. Since she was one of the people who brought it up to the altar during the offertory, I meant to ask her at the reception afterwards what vintage it was so I could avoid buying a wine she so obviously didn't like. Alas, she didn't go to the reception, so I didn't get to ask. She's probably used to my parish back in Oklahoma City, where they always serve white wine on the Epistle side and red wine on the Gospel side.

The Cherokee National Youth Choir (pictured above—those tiny people in the ribbon shirts behind the altar) sang a choral prelude before the service. It was all their standard gospel hymn stuff sung in the Cherokee language. The cathedral acoustic, unfortunately, wasn't terribly kind to their singing, but you know how everybody always thinks kids are cute, so everyone was happy.

The service itself, a standard 11 a.m. communion service for the cathedral, was a little low-key. The dean preached (too long) and their canoness liturgist was the celebrant. She, as usual, wrote some weird text for the service and substituted some weird "Arise your light has come" hymn for the Gloria. The Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls sang, and I noticed the assistant director in procession and conducting (meaning we had the third string today), and I didn't recognize the playing of whoever was at the organ—it certainly didn't sound like the cathedral organist.

The choir did a lovely a capella introit from the rear of the nave, which was Edward Bairstow's "Jesu the very thought of thee." The offertory anthem was "O God who by the leading of a star" by Tomas Attwood and the slated communion motet was "Senex peurum portabat" by William Byrd. The limited Mass setting music was William Mathias' Sanctus and they did a fraction anthem I don't know which wasn't credited in the program; there was no Agnus Dei and nothing else was sung. The Psalm was sung to the Anglican chant Cambridge. Hymns were Truro for the procession, a hideous contemporary thing called Mary Alexandra with the words "Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?" for the sequence, Dix with weird alternative words "As we worship you today" after the offertory, Land of Rest with the words "I come with joy" for post-communion, and Crucifer for the recessional. The organ postlude was an unusually slow and ponderous Fugue in E-flat "Saint Anne", BWV 552 by J. S. Bach. The carillonneur played Truro as a prelude and I couldn't recognize the postlude he was ringing.

I was kind of amused to notice that atheist-wannabe Tony went up and ate Jesus during communion. He has Irish Catholics on both sides of his family, so I'm sure he'll blame it on cellular memory or something. I prefer to think of it merely as the Holy Spirit working in mysterious ways. :-)



After the service and coffee and cookie reception, we wandered around a bit so I could show Tony around the place and so we could kill a little bit of time. Above, Tony is standing in the Great Quire ogling the pipe organ. We were killing time so we could all go to brunch with my friend John who was driving down from Baltimore after playing a service at Old St. Paul's. He also was singing in the Evensong choir at the National Cathedral this afternoon, so we had to have a quick brunch at one of the neighborhood cafes to accommodate his schedule, and landed at Cactus Cantina, since there was a waiting list at Cafe Deluxe.



Alas, we had to be polite during our brunch conversation, since the canoness liturgist was seated at the table right beside us, and we couldn't make catty comments about the sad state of cathedral liturgy these days with her there and protect 's job at the same time. I suppose, though, we should remember the adage about if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

Insipidness

Last night, I wandered over to St. Matthew's Cathedral for their Sunday evening Mass. It's never my favorite, since that's their "contemporary music" Mass and I hate insipid Catholic music, especially when it's made worse by lack of thought and preparation. They don't use the organ at this Mass, relying instead upon an amplified piano and a bass player, a small contemporary choir, and a cantor who was strangly hard to hear last night (and who didn't know his music). They did a mixed Mass setting with the Gloria of Michel Guimont, the Celtic allelulia, the Mass of Creation for the canon of the Mass, and an unidentified Agnus Dei I didn't know but which was intended for congregational response. Hymns were "Lift up your hearts" for the processional, a surprisingly unsung-by-the-congregation "The Summons" for the offertory, a Psalm 23 setting with the "Shepherd me, o God" antiphon for communion, and for the recessional "Glory and praise to our God" sung at a funereal pace. The one interesting observation last night was that the man with the unfortunate mutton chops I'd mentioned in my Advent Lessons and Carols report last month has shaved and looks infinitely better!

Musings on a quiet holy-day

It's eight o'clock on a Monday morning and the streets of Washington are as silent as they were on Christmas morning. I thought it strange; then I remembered this is a federal holiday for Martin King. This will be an unusually subdued King holiday in the District of Columbia, since a task force led by city councilman and former mayor Marion Barry moved the King parade from this holiday date to April 1 (April was the month of King's death), seeking to avoid the cold weather which forced cancellation of last year's parade. It makes little difference, however, to the lily-white neighborhood between George Washington University and Georgetown in which I live, since the observances here are limited to sleeping late, and maybe doing a little shopping later. Parades and such happen on the other side of town.

Yet, what most of the people on my side of town don't know is that one of King's most significant sermons was given just north of here, right in the heart of the upper-class white neighborhood up on Mount Saint Alban, Washington's highest geographic point. Just four days prior to his death, King preached his last Sunday sermon from the pulpit of the great Washington National Cathedral, a sermon which King called "Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution."

Everyone knows today that King stood for justice and equality for the oppressed of the world, not just the Negro, not just the poor, not just the American. Certainly he was moved by the poverty and racism he saw in the rural South and in the northern ghetto, but he also traveled the world and he was just as moved by the incredible suffering he saw on the streets of Calcutta. He spoke out against injustice where ever he saw it and against violating the fundamental civil rights of human beings, regardless of what that compromised right was.

I have, therefore, always wondered what Dr. King would have had to say about the Great Prejudice and Great Hatred of the American majority here in the early 21st century: the hatred of homosexuals. Unfortunately, there is nothing in his writings or sermons which says a thing about homosexuals. That isn't all that surprising, though, since homosexuality and gay rights were just not on the radar screen in the 1960s; in fact the Stonewall Riots didn't even take place until 1969, more than a year after King's death.

Actions, though, often speak louder than words, so let's put on our "WWMLKD" (what would Martin Luther King do) bracelets and look at the issue. Immediately we see an example from the historical record. When King organized the 1963 March on Washington, he put a man named Bayard Rustin in charge as chief organizer. Even from within King's own circle, this appointment was controversial because Rustin had been arrested and imprisoned multiple times for acts of homosexuality; nevertheless, King insisted that Rustin was the right man for the job. Obviously, King had no problem working with homosexuals and putting them in high profile positions of authority.

An FBI undercover agent managed to take a photograph of the infamous Mr. Rustin talking to King while King was taking a bath, and this photograph was widely used at the time by J. Edgar Hoover, Strom Thurmond, and others to make the charge that King himself was a homosexual. While we will never know whether or not King had homosexual relations with Rustin or anyone else, today it is believed that King was not a homosexual and those rumors were just a part of the FBI slander and smear campaign against King.

Now, the Religious Right has made a big deal out of saying that gay rights activists should stop comparing their struggle to the struggle of African-Americans to achieve equal rights, saying there's a "difference between God-designed racial distinctions and changeable, immoral behavior.” I suppose they forget that their God created about ten percent of His world population to be homosexual. Yet the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force makes a point to link the issues of African-American civil rights and gay civil rights. Why? Because King's widow, Coretta Scott King, told them to.

Mrs. King spoke to them in 1998, thirty years after her husband's death, saying, "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny....I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be....I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy," she stated.

The charge is there. The authorization has come. Yet, how do homosexuals demand an end to injustice against them?

In his formative years, King was highly influenced by the statements of Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi. In 1924, Gandhi said, "I believe that it is impossible to end hatred with hatred." Gandhi, too, was driven by the goal of non-violence and submission to achieve social reform, lessons which King took to heart. Today, as homosexuals struggle with continued violence, hatred, and prejudice from the Evangelical Christian and Roman Catholic communities, and from literal murder at the hands of Islamic communities, homosexuals are challeged to meet these burdens with love and to affect social change through non-violent means. Gandhi himself once observed that Jesus Christ was the most active practitioner of nonviolence in the history of the world and the only people who don't know Jesus was nonviolent are Christians.

Throughout his religious career, King advocated non-violence as the way to move Negros, humanity, and civil rights forward. "For him, non-violent action was the opposite of passive. It was the most powerful human force, " King's biographer Stewart Burns wrote. King was convinced, Burns said, that "soul force"—assertive, nonviolent action—was more effective than violence in the long term.

And that gets us back to the National Cathedral sermon of March 31, 1968. Towards the end of his sermon, King made what is perhaps one of the most important summations of his career. Certainly it is not one of his most quoted "sound bites," but it is the true message he had for the world. He said, "It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence."

Nonviolence or nonexistence. Nonexistence.

Thus we come to my sermon—the message I have for gays and lesbians today fighting the fight for rights and acceptance. Those of you who enjoy playing the role of the public activist confronting the Fred Phelpses and the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons of the world can get plenty of advice for your jihad from the usual civil rights speeches and rallies, and I have little to add to that. Those I want to address today, however, are the more silent people, those who must remain discreet to keep their securitiy clearances or to keep custody of their children, to maintain their family ties or to maintain their incomes, to fit in with their suburban neighbors or to fit in with their religious groups. My message is simple: remember that you must be nonviolent to yourself.

How many of you are self-destructive? How many of you have attempted suicide? How many of you suffer from self-hate?

How many of you watch the beauty of young heterosexual love, see the hope and happiness of young families and their children, then launch into a night or even a weekend of serial promiscuity? How many times have you come home from dinner with your judgmental parents and gone straight to the bottle of vodka, downing it in one gulp? How many times have coworkers and sports team members joked around and made antigay remarks while you listened quietly, only to go home and seek the flagellation of the BDSM dominant? How many relationships have you had fall apart because society as a whole doesn't support gay relationships, but you don't mind because you're zoned out on drugs? How many of you have felt the ostracism of straight peers and sought the solace and acceptance of a group by "bug chasing" and intentionally trying to contract HIV? How many of you have been rejected by hypocritical bigots in your churches and rather than fight to educate them about what the Bible really says, you've simply separated yourself from the love of God?

Homosexuals have the highest per capita rate of psychiatric mood disorders of any group in the United States, and it's no wonder, given the constant pounding homosexuals receive from the Religious Right, the military, and the unenlightened and uneducated general population. When a person has to hide their true feelings and emotions, when they are constantly told they are "intrinsically disordered," that they are sinners or that they are a freak, when they must continually lie and prevaricate with friends and family, it's easy to be affected. It's hard to educate a religious public about the science behind the genetics of homosexual orientation when they are too busy supporting a mythology that asserts that the Earth is flat, or to explain that same-sex attraction is physiologically innate and not a "choice" when they are more worried about passing laws to teach creationism and intelligent design.

This may sound odd after just having said so much about Martin King and his message of nonviolence, but I want to give you a lesson from General George S. Patton: “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

We cannot win the war if the warriors all commit suicide. In the face of all this violence, hatred, oppression, and bigotry, if we do nothing else, we must be committed to nonviolence to ourselves. That nonviolence requires us to avoid self-destructive behaviors. That nonviolence demands that we love and accept ourselves.

So many of my gay friends have become atheists or agnostics, even though they were raised in religious households. Some became that way because they were rejected by their faith community when they revealed their homosexuality. Some simply got tired of listening to the antigay rhetoric. Some chose to hide their feelings behind the veil of intellect and academic achievement, determining that no truly intelligent person should believe in the mythology of a god-race.

Well, I'm not here to convert people. Yes, I have my own personal religious beliefs and they happen to be primarily Christian, but I will be the first to admit that I believe in God, not in religion and not in the man-made rules of a denomination. In my own faith quest, I've studied my denominational beliefs and history, as well as those of many other faith traditions. I've also had the privilege of teaching religion from the secular perspective in public universities, which has made me expand my thinking well beyond simple Christianity or even Abramaic thought to include eastern philosophies.

What I am firmly convicted of today is that we simply cannot grasp or comprehend the will or the wonder of God. And, I certainly cannot see that any one set of religious or denominational beliefs is the one, true, correct Faith to the exclusion of all others. What I do see as a thread running through all of the great religions of the world, though, is the mandate to live in love, peace, and harmony with one another.

And thus we must try to live in love, peace, and harmony with all those good Christian people who would repress and deny us and with all those hatemongers who would strike and slay us, and, most importantly, we must live in love, peace, and harmony with ourselves, accepting the love of God and doing to ourselves nonviolence. As Martin King said exactly one year prior to his death, “Let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons and daughters of God."

We have been given our calling. Now, let us dedicate ourselves to love and nonviolence.

Amen.

Epiphany lessons and carols

All better now! Went to St. Paul's tonight for their Epiphany lessons and carols with their men and boys choir, and it was wonderful! I took my camera with me this time, but the church was already half full when I got there, so it didn't seem appropriate to wander around snapping pictures. Couldn't do it afterwards, either, since after the postlude (which most people stay to hear), there was only going to be a brief pause before they did their usual Solemn Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament service, and I didn't want to stay for that. So, you'll just have to use your imagination about all those spectacular evergreen, fruit, magnolia, and grapevine arrangements. One addition was back at the font in the narthex, where they had tall pedestal stands holding huge arrangements of white roses. When I came in, they had an excellent bell choir in the little chapel off to the right side of the nave identified as the "Martin Family Ringers," but unfortunately we didn't get a chance to see them. Their repertoire was not identified in the program, but it was very complex and fast moving music, so they are obviously expert ringers.

Here's tonight's program:


A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols for Epiphanytide
Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, K Street, Washington, D.C.


Processional Hymn: Irby, Once in royal David's city
Invitatory Carol: "Ding dong! Merrily on high," arr. David Willcocks

First Lesson: Genesis 3:8—15
Carol: "Adam lay y bounden," Peter Warlock

Second Lesson: Isaiah 9:2, 6—7
Carol: "Joseph was an old man," arr. Stephen Cleobury
Congregational Hymn: Es ist ein Ros, Lo, how a rose

Third Lesson: Micah 5:2—4
Congregational Hymn: Humility, See amid the winter's snow

Fourth Lesson: Luke 1:26—38
Motet: Ne timeas Maria, Tomás Luis de Victoria

Fifth Lesson: Luke 2:1—7
Carol: "Tomorrow shall be my dancing day," John Gardner

Sixth Lesson: Luke 2:8—10
Carol: "The Lamb," John Tavener
Congregational Hymn: Piae Cantiones, Personent hodie (On this day earth shall ring), arr. Gustav Holst

Seventh Lesson: Matthew 2:1—12
Congregational Hymn: Was lebet was schwebet, O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness

Eighth Lesson: Hebrews 1:1—12
Carol: "A Babe Is Born," William Mathias

Ninth Lesson: John 1:1—14
Congregational Hymn: Adeste fideles, O come all ye faithful

Voluntary: Carillon de Westminster, Op. 54, No. 6, Louis Vierne

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The Tavener was absolutely exquisite! It's a striking work anyway, but it's incredibly difficult, and the treble voices were amazing and acquitted themselves wonderfully through the odd intervals and dissonances. The Mathias was also excellent; I've sung it several times in the past and this is another of those rythmically difficult late 20th century British works.

They had a great new a capella harmonization for the second verse of "Once in royal David's city" as well as a descant and very interesting organ accompaniment for verse six, all by Jeffrey Smith. The Personet hodie was fun cause we got to sing the Latin words and I've always loved that marching Holst accompaniment. The Vierne organ voluntary was used both for the recessional and for the postlude.

The Ninth Lesson has always been one of my favorite Bible passages because it ties in so well with the mystery of one of my personal theologies I've been trying to work out. This is that "In the begining was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God" section. The Greek word for "Word" is logos, and the logos is carried on the breath, or pneuma. When we talk about the Trinity in Christian doctrine, interestingly enough the Greek word used for what we translate as "holy spirit" is actually "pneuma," meaning the third part of the Trinity is the Holy Breath, so now the question is whether in the begining was the logos or in the begining was the pneuma, but that's another lecture. Anyway, St. Paul's being the high church parish that they are, they made everybody kneel for the phrase, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth," which was a major hassle, since people were dropping the kneelers down, and no sooner had they knelt but the passage was over and it was time to stand again and kick the kneelers back up, but that's the old high church tradition.

The readers included a local Lutheran pastor (the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is in communion with the Episcopal Church) and the dean of the Virginia Theological Seminary. The curate officiated and the rector was the final reader. The four clergypeople processed in cope. They used incense in the processional and recessional.

So, all in all it was a fun evening. I see on their calendar that their next big musical event will be for Candlemas on February 2; they are bringing in two English bishops as guest celebrant and preacher.

Organless

As previously reported, the organ at St. Stephen Martyr is broken and no longer playable. That is unfortunate, but it shouldn't be that much of a problem for the music program there, since they have a grand piano in the nave. I don't know if they are being passive-aggressive or just trying to blackmail wealthy parishioners into ponying up for the new $1 million pipe organ or what, but this morning's Mass was done with no piano or instrumental accompaniment whatsoever. It was awful. I know the piano isn't broken too, because the organist played a little improv as filler during communion.

Now, throughout history, the Church has been able to hold beautiful religious services without instrumental accompaniment with just choirs and congregations singing. The difference, though, between those services and the music this morning at St. Stephen's is that the old unaccompanied masses used music—Gregorian chant, typically—which was designed for such purposes. Further, the choirs and congregations knew the music well, so it could be sung simply and automatically. St. Stephen's attempted to use the same mass settings, hymns, and other musical items which they always use when the organ is up and running, and that music was all designed to be performed with instrumental accompaniment.

Certainly I'm very sympathetic to the unappreciated hard work of church choristers, but the choir at St. Stephen's is just too small (three women and two men, plus the organist and the cantoress as available) and insufficiently professional to be able to pull off this kind of service without accompaniment. What's worse, they often tried to sing four-part harmony that was seldom in tune and several times the sopranos attempted some extremely painful descants. The organist joined in with the cantoress a few times to help sing some of the service music and antiphons, but I wish he'd learn not to use vibrato when chanting plainsong (this is a regular issue, though, not one limited to today).

The other nightmare was attempting to gain congregational music participation. The entrance hymn (We three Kings) seemed to catch the congregation off guard, and there was some weak attempt to join in on the refrain. The parts of the service which are normally chanted a capella (Confiteor, Kyrie, Alleluia, prayers of the faithful, Our Father, Agnus Dei) came off okay (though the tag at the end of the Our Father was a bit of a train wreck). The congregation lacked confidence, though, for the usually-accompanied Gloria and Psalm, as well as for the communion procession antiphon (they never sing that, anyway). They do the consecration portions of the Proulx A Community Mass here, but congregations are just not wont to sing out for the high notes without some accompaniment support; this mass setting was written to be sung with accompaniment! Consequently, the Sanctus/Benedictus was awful and no one (including the choir!) had a clue as to the starting pitches for the memorial acclamation and great Amen.

Starting pitches also reared their ugly head with congregational hymns. They did "The First Nowell" for an offertory hymn, and the cantoress started on such a high pitch that I had to sing two octaves lower! Much of the congregation which was actually attempting to sing found it too high, too, only they opted to go with the old technique of when the music gets too high, just screech out the highest monotone noise one can make. It was funny because the next thing she led was the Sanctus, and she started that one too low. For the recessional hymn (Salzburg: Songs of thankfulness and praise), the organist with pursed lips banged out a starting pitch before she starting singing that one. Didn't really matter—the congregation didn't sing that hymn either.

On the good side, the choir sang an unaccompanied "Brightest and best of the stars of the morning" from Southern Harmony for a communion motet which was pleasant. I really wish this parish would use their choir to sing an offertory anthem instead of doing offertory hymns which most of the congregation doesn't sing, and then do the communion motet during communion with that silly communion procession antiphon hymn (which the congregation also doesn't sing) being merely a time filler after the motet. This parish is sorely in need of a liturgist.

The church was still decorated for Christmas and was very pretty. They had two big evergreen wreaths on the east wall flanking the tabernacle and four enormous, fat fir trees in the sanctuary, all of which were covered with white miniature lights. They had displays of red and salmon poinsettias in front of the altar, in front of the ambo, and other places in the sanctuary to add splashes of color.

The pastor showed up after Mass to help greet people as they left the church. I started to tell him my opinion of the music situation, then I thought better of it (at least in that venue) and just told him he looked cute in his red sash (he's a newly created monsignor). I don't know whether I'll chat with him about it or not.

I may go to St. Paul's tonight for my music fix. They are doing a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols for Epiphanytide with their men and boys choir. I hope it's good. The choir may be burned out, though, after all the extra music they have to do for Advent and Christmas (they did both Advent and Christmas lessons and carols in addition to all the regular holiday and Sunday services). We shall see.

If anybody wants to go tonight (it's at six), let me know—I could do with some company.

Processions and pontificals

St. Paul's K Street did their annual Procession and Solemn Pontifical Mass tonight in observance of the Feast of the Epiphany. They got to be pontifical tonight because they pulled in the retired bishop of Chicago, the Right Reverend James Winchester Montgomery, as principal celebrant. It was another full church tonight, and, as usual, they do a good show at St. Paul's.

St. Paul's was the first Episcopal church I visited after moving to the District a little over a year ago, and, interestingly enough, it was for their Epiphany service. I was kind of amused to review my post from last year and my comment wondering if I went back to this parish if anybody would talk to me. Well, I've gone to services at St. Paul's at least once a month for the past year, and all of two people have talked to me, and I think both of them were visitors. And tonight? Just the priests on the way out the door.

The mass setting tonight was Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli, sung a capella, a rather ambitious work after all the Christmastide music. It was fine, though there were a couple of noticable (to me at least) rough spots where the men were a bit tentative. The offertory anthem was the Coventry Carol, though not with the standard melody we usually hear for Christmas; they sang a 20th century composition by Kenneth Leighton, which included a soprano solo (I think) that was uncredited in the program. The choir also sang an unannounced communion anthem which was a Palestrinaesque work that sounded like another Agnus Dei. They did the psalm to an Anglican chant by Edwin George Monk, and did plainsong antiphons for the introit, Gospel, offertory, and communion.

Hymns tonight were Puer Nobis, Stuttgart, and Three Kings of Orient all for the formal procession, Dix for the sequence, Was lebet, was schwebet during the post-communion ablutions, and Morning Star for the recessional. The organist played La Nativité by Jean Langlais for the prelude and "Paean on 'Divinum mysterium'" by John Cook for the postlude. As usual at St. Paul's, the Lord's Prayer, Nicene Creed, and Prayers of the People were sung.

They imported a Londoner, Fr. Timothy Pike, vicar of Holy Innocents in Crouch End, to preach tonight. He's a younger priest and a surprisingly good preacher for a Brit. He talked about the new The Chronicles of Narnia movie and about new babies in the family completely changing a family's lifestyle. I rather imagine that he rehashed his Christmas sermon from his London parish, but it was new material to us, so I suppose that's okay.

This parish has a couple of bad habits. During the offertory anthem, they incense the altar, the eucharistic ministers, the choir, and the congregation, which is all well and good, but they do it during the anthem! In fact, when they cense the congregation, everyone has to stand, and that is so incredibly distracting for those of us who want to hear the choir! Were I the organist/choirmaster, I'd pitch a fit. The other bad habit they have here is their mariolatry. They have a shrine to the Virgin Mary (who they call Our Lady of Walsingham, after a similar Marian shrine in Walsingham, England) at a small altar on the front side of the nave. While there's certainly nothing wrong with that, when the parishioners are coming and going to communion, they make a big show of huge reverences to the shrine. Now, Anglicans unlike Catholics are not supposed to be Mary worshippers in the first place, but the bigger problem is reverencing that shrine during communion while Jesus is up there on the altar. This parish claims to be Anglo-Catholic, which means they should believe in the Real Presence (the Anglican equivalent of transsubstantiation) which means they should believe that the communion bread and wine doesn't just memorialize or represent Jesus's Body and Blood, but that it is His Body and Blood. I don't care how deeply they genuflect to their Mary idol outside of Mass, but during Mass and especially during communion they should not be doing that.

I usually have my camera with me when I wonder around town, but I didn't have it with me tonight. Alas, it would have been fun to have photographed the church for you to see their decorations. When one walked into the church tonight, there was a strong scent of cedar and evergreens with that slightly sour edge. Long garlands were strung from the ceililng beams to the pillars in the nave and there were garlands on the organ pipe boxes. The tops of the pillars also had greenery arrangements, as did the ends of the choir pews and the pulpit (big one there). I've always thought that this parish must have a florist on staff, or else they have a huge floral budget. The arrangements were stunning, featuring whole fresh pineapples, whole fresh pomegranites, and magnolia leaves. Two huge sprays hung on the east wall of the sanctuary flanking the altar, and they had the fruit plus lots of flamboyant "rays" of gold-painted grapevine. The high altar was heavily decorated with greenery and a profusion of deep red and pure white roses. A few evergreen wreaths with red and white roses were in the chancel. In the nave, every few pews had poles on the outside aisles topped with three white candles on a base of pine branches with gold-painted pine cones.

Should anyone be interested, the men and boys choir will be singing Epiphany lessons and carols in lieu of Evensong on Sunday evening at six.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and the last day of the Christmas season. I hope everyone is having a wonderful, bright, festive Christmastide with lots and lots of parties! Tonight is the historic Twelfth Night, when Christmas trees are taken down and burned in big bonfires, and tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany, when the visit of the Three Magi to the manger is celebrated.

Everybody knows the Christmas carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." It's celebrating these twelve days of Christmastide after Christmas Day. The carol dates back to the 16th and 17th century, when there were wars being fought in England and Europe between Catholics and Protestants over the "True Faith." When the Puritans took over England in the 17th century, the celebration of Christmas was outlawed as "popish," so this carol was created (according to some scholars) to help Catholics preserve their now-underground tradition and teach their children about their faith. Each day's "gifts" had special symbolism:

First day— A Partridge in a Pear Tree, representing Jesus Christ (the birthday boy).

Second day—Two Turtle Doves, representing the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.

Third day—Three French Hens, representing the Three Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

Fourth day—Four Calling Birds, representing the four books of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Fifth day—Five Gold Rings, representing the first five books of the Bible (which is also the Jewish Torah), Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Sixth day—Six Geese A-Laying, representing the six days of Creation.

Seventh day—Seven Swans A-Swimming, representing the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, being prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and compassion.

Eighth day—Eight Maids A-Milking, representing the eight Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, being Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who mourn, Blessed are the meek, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure in heart, Blessed are the peacemakers, and Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

Ninth day—Nine Ladies Dancing, representing the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit, being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Tenth day—Ten Lords A-Leaping, representing the Ten Commandments.

Eleventh day—Eleven Pipers Piping, representing the eleven disciples of Jesus (excluding Judas).

Twelfth day—Twelve Drummers Drumming, representing the twelve points of the Apostle's Creed, being 1) I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth; 2) I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord; 3) He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary; 4) He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell; 5) On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father; 6) He will come again to judge the living and the dead; 7) I believe in the Holy Spirit; 8) the holy catholic Church; 9) the communion of saints; 10) the forgiveness of sins; 11) the resurrection of the body; and 12) the life everlasting.

Time to start taking down the Christmas decorations.

Why heterosexuals shouldn't be ministers

Tulsa pastor arrested for alleged prostitute solicitation
By Staff Reports (Tulsa World)
1/4/2006 3:22:00 PM CST

A prominent Tulsa pastor was jailed early Wednesday on a complaint of offering to engage in an act of lewdness with a prostitute.

The Rev. Lonnie Latham, 59, pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church, Tulsa's second largest Southern Baptist church, was booked into the Oklahoma County jail after being arrested by Oklahoma City police.

A jail spokesman said Wednesday afternoon that Latham was expected to be released on a $500 bail later that afternoon, and that no charges had been filed.

Latham is on the board of directors of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, and on the Executive Committee of the international Southern Baptist Convention.

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As you can see, heterosexuals have no business being ministers of the gospel. They have a bad track record with monogamous marriages, with over 50% of their so-called weddings ending in divorce. They also have a track record of adultery, infidelity, fornication, and child molestation, and, therefore, they are intrinsically disordered and should not be allowed to assume positions of leadership in churches or in positions involving work with children.

It's full of allegory, but did they realize......

All month we've been hearing about the Christian allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the new movie based on the children's novel by Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, how many of the evangelical churches have been encouraging their members to see the show, and how evangelical spokesmen have been whining about the attention Hollywood has been paying to Brokeback Mountain whilst ignoring Narnia. Finally, we decided to go see the movie today to form our own opinions and see what all the fuss is about.

Note to parents: This is not an appropriate movie for young children! It is very scary in some spots, one child character is kidnapped and put in bondage, a child is physically struck by the evil character as a means of punishment, there is a prolonged, graphic battle scene, and there are several graphic killings. I would not take any child under eight and I would urge you to use your discretion to consider how sensitive your eight- to ten-year-old child may be.

Narnia is in wide-release, with many theaters showing the film on multiple screens; our auditorium was barely one-quarter full, and there was a predominantly middle aged and older audience with a handful of young children. It's a shame that the evangelicals have conscripted this movie, because I'm sure a lot of the potential audience for the film will stay away because of the Christian cult associations. As an interesting bit of trivia for the evangelicals, the actor portraying Edmond, Skandar Keynes, is the great-great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.

If you go see Narnia just for its entertainment value, it's not really that bad of a movie. There is a lot of fantasy and battle, and the special effects are generally very good. None of the actors in the cast are known stars, yet they all do an adequate job of portraying their characters (the three "known" actors provide only animal voices: Liam Neeson as Aslan, Rupert Everett as the Fox, and Dawn French (The Vicar of Dibley) as Mrs. Beaver). In many instances, the film reminded me of an elaborate video game which might be played by younger teenagers, and a lot of the plot strongly resembles the stories of Lewis's contemporary at Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and the recent motion picture versions). But Oscar worthy? No. It's still a good movie, though.

I've never been a big fan of Lewis, especially since I used to socialize with a lady who did her doctoral dissertation on Lewis and talked about him incessantly. I've never read the book on which this movie is based, so this analysis is based solely on the movie, not the plot details which may have been included in the book. The plot is simple. Four British siblings are sent to live in a country house during the London bombings in World War II. In the new house, they discover a wardrobe (or what we might call an "armoire," a big piece of furniture for storing clothing) in an upstairs bedroom that some how magically leads to the mystical and magic land of Narnia, which is populated with all sorts of mythological creatures and talking animals. All is not well in Narnia, though, as their benevolent god-leader, the lion Aslan, has been driven out of the land for the past one hundred years by the evil White Witch, Jadis. The arrival of the four human children, however, inspires Aslan's return because of a prophecy that four humans would help defeat the powers of evil and return happiness to the land of Narnia.

The story line sets up the classic battle between good and evil, though I think the allegory here is a little odd for Christians, since the good guys are dependent upon magic and potions to achieve their victory. There is a rather lame Christ-like self-sacrifice by Aslan for the greater good. Otherwise, I found no strong Christian message, and any number of allegorical meanings can be thought up to fit this script. Perhaps things are clearer in the book, but I missed the sermon in the movie.

In this allegorical vacuum, one thing that jumped out at me to my great surprise is the high degree of homoerotic imagery and allegory in this film.

First of all, the eldest of the four children is a tall, slender, blond-haired, blue-eyed, sixteen- or seventeen-year-old boy with a ruddy flush to his cheeks and a soft British accent, the quintessential sexual interest of ephebophilic British academics like Lewis. His name is Peter (at least it's not Lance or Rod or something), and when the four children assume their thrones as kings and queens of Narnia, he is crowned King Peter the Magnificent. He has a long, broad, shiny sword that he likes to pull out and hold a lot and which he received as a gift from an older, bearded man, representing both Santa Claus and a sugar daddy, who taught him how to use it. And further, Peter the Magnificent rides into battle atop a white unicorn; between the unicorn's horn and Peter's sword, there is double phallic imagery and the two phalli, representing the phalli of a homosexual couple, are needed to vanquish (with the help of extra magic from others) the evil female witch. In several scenes, he reminded me of the blond Colin Farrell in the gay movie, Alexander, riding around playing army commander. Late in the movie, we see the children all grown up, with the very adult and bearded Peter having no wife or girlfriend, and just happily hanging out with his sisters; clearly Peter has chosen a homosexual lifestyle and is very content and successful with it.

Peter's younger brother, Edmond, is about twelve to fourteen years old and has dark brown hair and the most gorgeous big brown eyes. Edmond is constantly admonished to follow The Way of his elder brother, but he rebels and aligns himself with the evil female. The evil witch just uses Edmond for what he can give her, giving him a little "Turkish delight" as a reward for his good behaviors, then puts him in chains in a dungeon after she has slapped the crap out of his face, meaning that those boys who go after women will fall into the evil ways of BDSM culture and become beaten-bloody submissives. Two supporting characters attempt to help Edmond return to The Way of his brother; he betrays them both, though, trying to gain the affections and approval of the evil female, and in both cases the evil female turns the good guy into stone. When Edmond finally turns away from the evil female to join The Way of his brother, she gets her revenge by running him through with a spear, teaching us of the treachery of women and the superior homosexual path of The Way.

Jadis the White Witch has really bad hair, reminding us of the social unsuitability of anyone with bad hair. She wears a lot of big dresses which would be the envy of any drag queen, and she is surrounded by attendants who are bears and trolls. And, once the evil White Witch is vanquished, all of her minions and bad guys disappear, giving us another message about her kind of culture, how worshipping a witch/female as a queen is wrong, and the goodness and superiority of The Way.

The two sisters represent two present-but-unneeded female archetypes in homosexual culture. Big sister Susan has become "boring" according to her siblings and is an unadventurous nag, just like the age-appropriate, marriage-seeking females who would want to date a boy like Peter. Little sister Lucy is a chubby, fun-loving girl who encourages her brothers to do things and go places, always wanting to tag along, representing the archetypal "fag hag."

Far-fetched? Unintentional? Gay propaganda? Consider these things:

—Lewis was a lifelong academic at Oxford, and later Cambridge, during an era when discreet homosexuality and pederasty was common amongst the upper classes, especially in prep school and collegiate academic settings.
—Lewis formed a close friendship with a fellow soldier in World War I who was later killed in combat.
—Lewis invited his Army friend's mother to live with him and supported her until her death in 1951.
—Lewis was estranged from his father.
—Lewis had bouts of depression.
—Lewis went to an English public school (what we Americans would call a private boarding school or prep school) where he was extremely unathletic.
—Lewis did not marry until 1956 when he was 57 years old, wedding a divorced Jewish poetess said to be his intellectual equal who fascinated him on an professional level.
—He admitted to having married solely so that his wife could stay in England and not have to return to her country.
—His wife soon became mortally ill with bone cancer, and it would be reasonable to assume that they would have had a limited sex life because of her illness.
—Several Lewis biographers report that while Lewis and his wife loved one another very much, the relationship was platonic.
—After his wife's 1960 death, he did not remarry and lived with his elder brother until his death.
—As a child, Lewis loved Beatrice Potter stories because they featured "dressed animals," and wrote and illustrated his own animal stories.
—Anglican Christians in the early 20th century did not manifest the great hatred of homosexuals currently seen amongst American evangelical Christians.

While there is no proof of Lewis being a homosexual or committing homosexual acts, there is ample circumstantial evidence which points out the strong possibility of a potential homosexual psychological orientation, especially when viewed as a whole. I submit, therefore, that veiled homosexual messages are just as probable in Narnia as the more openly-discussed Christian messages, and that while Lewis may have intended an overt Christian message, he also may have included a major subtext glorifying pederasty and homosexuality.

So, rather than being a great Christian movie, I'm afraid we're going to have to explain to all the evangelicals that this movie is merely another Hollywood glorification of homosexuality and the Gay Agenda.