Key's church

This seems as if it's been Francis Scott Key month. You'll recall that Key is the author of the words to "The Star Spangled Banner," our national anthem, and he became a prominent lawyer who lived and worked in Georgetown in the years following his trip to Fort McHenry.

Well, on the Fourth of July, Robert and I watched the fireworks from the Key Bridge. The full, official name of the Key Bridge? The Francis Scott Key Bridge. And why was that bridge, spanning the Potomac River between the Rosslyn area of Arlington and Georgetown, named after him? Right there by where the Key Bridge intersects M Street in Georgetown is Francis Scott Key Park, the site of Key's former Georgetown home.

Well, yesterday, I had another Key contact. I was apartment sitting in Georgetown for Ian this weekend, so I decided to go to church Sunday morning at the Episcopal church that's about two and a half blocks from Ian's place.

The parish is called Christ Church Georgetown. It was founded in 1817 by the Corcoran family (of the art gallery fame) and their friends, including Francis Scott Key, who was to be a long-time member. The present building dates to 1886.



The architecture is quite interesting. The design is from the mid-Victorian period during the late Gothic revival era. The exterior is fairly plain, but the inside is quite ornate, with a colonnade of low columns lining each side of the nave and some unusual broad interior arches. There are gorgeous, priceless stained glass windows that seem to be in the German style popular in the 1880s. Small clerestory windows depict the disciples and apostles of the Church. Elaborately carved wood reredos back the high altar (which was pulled away from the wall in a late-20th century remodeling). Old style box pews fill the nave, all numbered, and many with brass family name plaques still attached. You can't quite tell from the photograph, but there are two columns of pews and an aisle on the far side of each colonnade, so the seating capacity is about twice what is readily visible.



Large, wide arches separate the nave from the chancel, and the chancel from the nave. You can't see it, but off to the left in the chancel is the organ console and a large pipe chamber. The organ is essentially an 85-rank Möller, but it has some Skinner revisions and some modern Allen electronics.

Up in the sanctuary, there's plenty of room on either side for the altar party to be spaciously accommodated, and they are far enough back the congregation can't see them.



The organist provided the prelude and postlude, doing first Bach's Alle Menschen müssen sterben, BWV 643, then Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 557.

Hymns included Du Lebensbrot Herr Jesu Christ for the processional, a split O quanta qualia for the sequence and gradual, the Old 100th as the presentation doxology, and St. Michael for the recessional. The Mass setting was Healey Willan's, Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena.

The choir sang the psalm in Anglican chant using a setting by Samuel Sebastian Wesley. For the offertory, they sang C. H. H. Parry's "Prevent us, O Lord." The choir was small (nine), but they had a nice sound and choral blend. The only times I noticed a problem was in some of the soft passages when the sopranos (unable to sing full voice) went a little flat on the high notes, but that's not unusual at all under such circumstances. One thing I noticed throughout the service was how much the choirmaster kept the sound reigned in for more responsiveness and nuance.

The rector served as celebrant for the Rite 1 service. There was a little bit of language mixing: they used modern words for the Credo ("We believe" instead of "I believe" and Holy Spirit instead of Holy Ghost). The program gave the traditional words for the Gloria tibi and Laus tibi, but a substantial number of the congregation said the modern versions. Otherwise, it was a nice, solid liturgy. The congregation was a bit reserved, but they seemed all to know their service, and sang and spoke along.

Speaking of the congregation, they were classically Episcopalian! Now, as I walked to church late on Sunday morning, the temperatures were already nearly 90º! Consequently, I made the executive decision to dress in cool, comfortable, casual summer clothes. Well, that's not the tradition at Christ Church. I saw two younger men in Polos and khakis and two or three older men in casual clothes, then I saw one middle-aged man in a blazer and dress shirt with no tie, but other than that, all of the other men were in suits and ties, even the little boys. There were, however, lots of nice bow ties, and I saw more than one man in seersucker and several pairs of white bucks.

The assisting priestess served as homilist. Her sermon-length homily talked about the lyrics to a couple of Bruce Springsteen songs. The pulpit, at least, was striking, and I particularly liked the large, brass, overhead light.

During the passing of the peace, people just quietly shook hands with the four or so people in their immediate vicinity and then sat down. How refreshing!

After the service, people headed to the parish hall for coffee and refreshments. Now, this wasn't a special Sunday or anything (like next week, when they'll be having a special reception to welcome a new staff member), so it was just a regular thing, but, my, how nice for a "regular" service! They had long tables set up, one with coffee and the other with tea punch, both with a seated lady pouring. The food included miniature crab cakes, bacon-wrapped scallops, fried shrimp, a shrimp salad with tiny shrimp, lots of deviled eggs, and tea sandwiches with cucumber, chicken salad, and egg salad. The tea punch—non-alcoholic, unfortunately—was a cold, satisfying mix of tea and ginger ale. The parishioners were surprisingly friendly, too, as I had two men engage me in conversation at the punchbowl.

What an absolutely lovely parish! This is the kind of place I could get used to going to every Sunday....and they even sing Evensong twice a month! Here are a few of their stained glass windows as a parting thought.

Sunday report

It's Sunday. I was going to go to church this morning and even plotted out Metro routes (it's a new place, far away), but I slept through it. Then, I was going to go to the 5:30 tonight, but I kept getting phone calls and just didn't get showered and cleaned up in time. I had a dinner meeting in Georgetown and I was going to go to the 10 p.m. Mass at the chapel on campus, but we got done with dinner at eight, and I didn't want to hang around the campus for two hours with nothing to do, so I just went home. Eh. Such have been my weekends of late.

Enduring another Mass

After my morning transportation adventures, I got back to Columbia Heights in time to walk over to Sacred Heart for their 10 a.m. Mass.

I don't know what it is about that church, but once again, they had long "extra" stuff to drag out Mass. This time, the priest was offering healing prayers and anointing those wishing Holy Unction. The problem was that he did this after the homily and before the creed, and I do believe that nearly the entire congregation is sick and ailing, as they flocked to stand in a long, long, single file line for their sacramental reception. It must have taken at least twenty minutes to get everyone through. They really should have put some of the other priests at the parish to work and had two or three anointing stations to move things along (though I would have preferred it had they done it after Mass). I got tired of hearing the praise band sing "There Is Balm in Gilead" over and over ad nauseam.

Meanwhile, sitting through that Mass, I thought I was going to die. There was a female singer someone needed to shoot to put out of her misery.

Things at this parish are still much the same as they were at my previous visit last month. The priest needs a liturgist. The congregation, especially the children, is undisciplined; it was like Romper Room in the south transept with all the babies crying and small children running around. The acolytes are untrained and the priest kept having to direct them. And the music....Holy Mary Mother of God.....the music! I try not to cringe when I hear amateur musicians offering their "gift" to God, I promise, I really do! I am but a weak mortal, though, and there is only so much I can do!

The service music today was a setting that sounded like it was based on the old American folk hymn Land of Rest ("Jerusalem, My Happy Home"). Richard Proulx wrote a similar setting called Land of Rest Acclamations; this may have been what they did, but there were several times I wasn't sure if they weren't doing the David Haas' Mass of Light instead. It was hard to know; the Land of Rest Acclamations setting is not in the Gather hymnal the parish uses at the Anglo services. The gospel alleluia, though, was an attempt at the Celtic Alleluia. The priest didn't chant the Sursum Corda or anything else. I have no idea what the psalm responsorial setting was, since music wasn't provided, and I wasn't able to grasp a tune well enough to sing along.

Hymns included Foundation (How firm a foundation) for the processional (played much slower than I ever do), "Be Not Afraid" for the offertory, Hymn to Joy (Joyful joyful we adore you) for the recessional (the congregation starts leaving before the altar party gets out of the sanctuary!!), and I forget what contemporary ditty it was they did for communion.

They have a woman pianist/singer I suspect is the parish music director who's actually pretty good, if you like pop church tunes. She occasionally sang and played filler music. After communion, there was a second collection, and she improvised a nice piece blending Hymn to Joy (the Beethoven theme) and the Quaker tune "Tis a Gift to Be Simple." Her instrumental ensemble today included a violin, flute, bass clarinet, and guitar; I think they all play by ear, rather than read written sheet music when they play. She kept fixing her hair in between music bits....I hope she got it the way she wanted!

As we left the church, the priest stood at the back door and greeted everyone with a robotic "good morning how are you? good morning how are you? good morning how are you? good morning how are you?" not ever engaging anyone in conversation, and keeping them moving out the door.

Outside, though, it was much more festive, as the usual Sunday morning street market lined the sidewalks around the church. If I ever get around to brushing up my Spanish, I'm going to start asking the vendors what some of those food things are they have piled up on their tables.

Meanwhile, the quest for a new parish home continues. I did happen to find an Episcopal parish that's a few blocks farther away than Sacred Heart. I almost visited them this morning, but I'd read about them on the internet, and I can already tell they won't be a good fit. This morning's celebrant was some lesbian priestess (with an online bio highlighting her civil union). She probably does inclusive language liturgy and refers to God as "She." The parish is very liberal and socially active in radical liberal causes, and they even let liberal protestors "camp" in their church for housing when they come to D.C. They've also got a weird parish layman self-governance thing, with a half-time "senior priest" instead of a full-time rector, and half a dozen stray volunteer assisting priests, all with liberal credentials in their bios. Nevertheless, I will visit the parish soon and go to Mass with an open mind. Maybe they'll have a good music program. I can ignore a liberal homily so long as the music is decent and they don't have liturgical dancers.

Visiting St. Augustine's

Finally forced myself to go to Mass Sunday morning after a month of bad-church-music-avoidance syndrome when I discovered that St. Augustine's was actually within (sort-of) walking distance. It was a singularly unique experience.

St. Augustine's is the historically black Catholic parish in town, this year celebrating its sesquicentennial. This is the parish's third physical location, moved after the MLK riots into the former St. Paul's, an old German parish that dwindled away until the archdiocese merged what was left of St. Paul's into St. Augustine's. The St. Paul's building, though, was a beautiful edifice, probably from the Victorian era, with some stunning, traditional stained glass windows and a lot of elaborate carvings on the inside. The exterior design is rather unique to Washington, with those short, almost industrial-looking spires common to the German form of gothic architecture.



Over the years, something happened to one of the twelve big windows in the nave and it had to be replaced. Unfortunately, rather than duplicating the missing window or having something different made in a similar and harmonious style, they installed a really bright, contemporary, shockingly inconsistent window that sticks out in the church like a sore thumb with a strobe-light-on-a-mirror-ball homing beacon. It's probably by some famous African-American artist, but it's really in an artistic style that is totally not to my personal taste, especially in a liturgical setting. While there may be a place for that window somewhere, it isn't in the midst of those beautiful old traditional windows, and I have to fault the clergy in charge at the time for not insisting on something that maintained the artistic and architectural integrity of the nave.

They've made a couple of other changes to the building, too. Most immediately noticeable is in the narthex, where they've built a walk-in baptistry that looks like a tiled hot tub with the old, traditional font stuck up on a pedestal in the corner of the dunking tank. Then up in the sanctuary, they've installed a porta-altar in front of the beautiful carved white marble original high altar, and they've put a grand piano, choir seating, and microphones in between them. An organ console also sat over to the left of the "stage" area, and did not seem to be connected at all to the beautiful ranks of pipes in the organ loft in the balcony. I noticed the office lights (the six tall candles and candlesticks) from the high altar had been moved over to the side chapel where they were crowded in on top on that tiny altar. Otherwise, the interior space looks generally in need of some money and maintenance to fix peeling paint, water stains, etc., though they seem to be engaged in a capital campaign right now.

Anyway, let's talk about Mass. On Sunday mornings, they have two main services. According to their Web site, the 10 a.m. Mass features "classical, traditional, Catholic choral music and hymns," while the 12:30 p.m. Mass uses "traditional African American spirituals and hymns as well as contemporary gospel music." I went to the 10 a.m. Mass.

Lead Me, Guide Me, the black Catholic hymnal published by GIA, is the only book in the pews (and literally in the pews, not in a book rack on the back of the pew). This is the first time I've ever used or seen the hymnal, so it was a bit of an adventure trying to find things. No service leaflet or parish bulletin was provided. Three of the four hymns (processional, offertory, communion) were totally unfamiliar. The offertory hymn, alas, was a four part hymn that required all four of the parts to be sung for the words of the chorus to make sense; the all-female choir sang the soprano and alto lines with the choir member cantoring (and miked!) singing soprano, but some key words in the chorus were in the bass line. The communion hymn was one of those insipid contemporary Catholic music songs of the ilk often seen in the Gather hymnal, but not one I knew. The fourth hymn (recessional) was a sort of faster, jazzed-up version of the old summer camp song tune I know as "Kum-ba-yah."

The service music was impossible. I flipped through all the Mass settings in the hymnal as they were singing, and I couldn't find the Kyrie, psalm setting, alleluia, or Agnus Dei (the Gloria was spoken!). I presume these were all from the African-American genre from their rhythms and tunes, but I don't know for sure, but they weren't in the hymnal. The Sanctus/Benedictus and memorial acclamation were from the very familiar Proulx A Community Mass, but played at a pace slower than funereal (the unfamiliar settings were all pretty fast and peppy; was this an attempt to draw a distinction between black music as fun and white music as boring?)

Here was the problem with the music Sunday: the choir only had eight singers, all older females, and all but two were white. There is something inherently wrong with white people trying to sing gospel. In fact, by great coincidence, there was a feature story in Sunday's Washington Post about a Lutheran church in the Maryland suburbs that is sponsoring a community gospel choir where the black choir director talks about his frustrations trying to teach white people to sing gospel. Having already read the story, I had to laugh as I listened to the white choir at Mass as they did all the bad things that director talked about. Then, there was a lady in the choir probably in her 60s with white hair, bright pink skin, glasses, that no-nonsense, take charge attitude about her, a sense that it was her duty to show us the path, and she was doing it The Right Way.....there's something about her that just screams "Irish nun," don't you think?.....who in the closing hymn started people clapping their hands in time with the music—on the first and third beats, just like the Lutheran musician says white people do instead of the second and fourth beat like black people do.

Anyway, I always evaluate a parish's music by the total enhancement it offers to the process of worship. There are some parishes with highly trained and proficient choirs that offer beautiful concert performances of anthems and Mass settings that inspire the congregation to think of the glory and beauty of God as they listen. There are other parishes where the choir leads the congregation in singing and participating in all of the hymns and service music in such a way that the people can lift up their voices in praise and worship to the Lord. Either of these approaches can be highly effective as enhancements to worship. What really bothers me in worship is when the music is distracting, poorly done, or inappropriate.....in fact, there are some parishes I don't ever want to go back to because the music at Mass was so bad.

The biggest problem I noticed at St. Augustine is that the congregation is not fully accommodated and encouraged to sing. The service music isn't provided, and the congregation isn't engaged in the hymns, and, since the choir wasn't one of those "concert" type choirs, they needed to be leading and engaging the people. Perhaps some of the problem is cultural, with the parish self-identifying as a "black Catholic parish," but at the Mass I attended, only about 40% of the congregation was black. Some of those black parishioners seemed to know some of the hymns and service music, but many of them were singing along without using the hymnals. Then when I looked at the white and Latino people in the congregation, I saw a total lack of musical participation, even with many of the men standing there with their arms crossed across their chests. And, further, even though the church was doing presumptively black music, I just didn't have the impression that they were doing it well.

I think I'll have to go to a 12:30 Mass to hear the actual gospel choir and see how that Mass is sung. The 10:00 certainly didn't impress me as either "classical" or "traditional."

The rest of the Mass was pretty standard. They started right on time. The pews weren't really that full, maybe about 60%. The congregation stood during the offertory when the oblations (bread and wine) were brought forward instead of waiting for the alms (money) to be brought up. During the Our Father (Lord's Prayer), they almost all held hands, snaking across the aisles to make big chains, and engaging some of the clearly uncomfortable white worshippers (fortunately, I didn't get caught up into having to hold hands). Then, during the peace, they were wandering all over the place, passing the peace to everyone instead of just their immediate neighbors. It took so long, the pianist was able to play "Let There Be Peace on Earth" as they wandered about.

After Mass, I didn't get a chance to shake hands with the priest since I had walked around a bit to take some pictures of the inside of the church and he was already gone when I left. It's really a pretty little church (other than that one stained glass window), and if we threw some money at it, it could be gorgeous. I'm curious about their organ, too, since there are a lot of pipes up there. I hope they aren't one of those places that let their organ fall completely into ruin and disrepair. Anyway, here are some pictures. I'll probably be back.....at least once.....to try them out again, since I was so disheartened and uninspired at Sacred Heart (the Hispanic/Vietnamese/Haitian place in Columbia Heights just a few blocks' closer walk from my house), but next Sunday I'll have to try Sacred Heart again....then maybe back to St. Augustine.

Capital Pride Parade

Last night was the Pride Parade. And it rained!

No worry, though, because the parade went on and everyone was just as festive as ever. I was worried that the drag queen's makeup might run and their bouffant hairdos might droop, but they all came prepared, wearing probably half a can of Aqua-Net on their hair to keep things perfectly in place (and those umbrellas helped, too!).

I'm old enough that once the parade gets started and I see the mayor, police chief, and congressional delegate leading this big parade of happy, celebratory gay people, I still get a little emotional and slightly teary. Younger people don't realize how far things have come and how amazing it is that we can appear in public as gay citizens without fear of our jobs, livelihood, families, and personal safety, not to mention having all of these public officials joining in and marching in our parade! When I was in college, this sort of happy public celebration would have been just a daydream!

While churches are our next area to educate and inform, there were dozens of church groups marching in the parade from a wide variety of denominations, not just the gay churches. The Episcopal Bishop of Washington was even riding in the parade in his convertable (though the top was up due to the rain)!

California gay marriage case

Just a few moments ago, the California Supreme Court handed down its decision in the consolidated cases of City and County of San Francisco v. State, Tyler v. State, Woo v. Lockyer, Clinton v. State, Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund v. City and County of San Francisco, and Campaign for California Families v. Newsom. I've just finishing reading skimming it.

In a carefully crafted and very, very long (172 pages, including two concurrences) 4-3 majority opinion, the court specifically said its ruling was on the narrow issue of what to call domestic partnerships in California, and they went to pains to extricate themselves from the issue of whether or not there should be gay marriages, acknowledging that there is still a societal difference of opinion on that matter. So, for the Religious Right doomsayers, this isn't a blatent case of judicial activism (after all, six of the seven justices are Republican appointees), as domestic partnerships already exist in California—the court did not "legalize" gay marriage.

The court was very careful to point out that this applies only to civil marriages and domestic partnerships; nothing in the ruling is to be construed as requiring any church or religious organization to recognize or perform same sex marriages.

California is in the position of being one of only a tiny number of states wherein there are legislative statutes on the books allowing heterosexuals to marry and homosexuals to enter into domestic partnerships (some states use the term "civil unions"). They also don't have a Religious Right constitutional amendment yet (definition of marriage as heterosexual only), but merely a state referendum-imposed Religious Right statute. The court observed that the existing California domestic partnership laws embued gay couples with most of the rights of straight married couples, so they sought to answer the question as to whether or not the state had a compelling interest in maintaining "separate but equal" parallel systems. In dicta, the court found a fundamental right of gay couples to marriage, that the "separate but equal" system wasn't equal, and that the State has no compelling interest in prohibiting homosexuals from marrying. The crux of this ruling is that the referendum imposing the Religious Right definition limiting marriage to one male and one female is unconstitutional under California's state constitution and its equal protection clause.

For years, I've made the argument that marriage is a religious institition that gave an imprimatur to the archaic concept of ownership of females by fathers and husbands, and that governments have no business sanctioning marriage or other religious ceremonies. I submit that if a government wants to recognize a gender-neutral "domestic partnership," that would be fine, but they should not be doing "marriages." The court addressed this issue, too, and decided that, rather than stripping heterosexual couples of the title of marriage, it was better just to use the familiar term and extend marriage to homosexuals.

Now, all those people who were married by the handsome San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004 will still have to get re-married, since the California Supreme Court invalidated and voided those marriage licenses in an earlier case (Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco). The question in my mind, though, is what happens to lawful domestic partners in California today. Are they now deemed married? Or do they have to go get a new marriage license or certiticate? Perhaps one of you California lawyers can weigh in on this topic.

We should also note that the Religious Right has already submitted a petition trying to get a constitutional amendment on the November general election ballot. Governor Schwartzenegger has publicly said he will oppose such an amendment, but if it gets on the ballot, there will be a high risk that it could pass.

And I still get confused when my gay friends get married.....what do I call them? Are they both husbands? And, with lesbians, which one is the husband and which one is the wife, or are they both husbands? ;-)

Visiting a new church

For the past several weeks, I've been meaning to visit the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, the Catholic church that's on the border between the Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant neighborhoods. It's a century-old parish that now occupies a 1930s-vintage Romanesque basilica. The parish and its services reflect the growing Washington immigrant community in that neighborhood, and on Sundays, only one Mass is said in English, with four in Spanish, plus others in Vietnamese and Haitian Creole. And, while it's a well-attended church, the immigrant nature of the parish shows in the apparent long-term financial shortfalls of the parish budget and their need for some major capital improvements. The parish is staffed by Capuchin monks (the monastic order after which the coffee drink cappuccino is named in honor of the light brown color of the monks' robes).

Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost, so I showed up at the one and only English Mass wearing my red sweater in honor of the liturgical color of the day. It's a little farther from the Metro stop to the church than I expected, so I was a little worried about being late to Mass. Then, when I got to the church grounds, I was further slowed by a Hispanic street market set up along the sidewalks and the crowds browsing there. But, I needed have worried, since the Mass started about ten minutes late.

Inside, it's a pretty church. The cruciform floorplan used in many churches is something that dates from the late medieval Gothic era; in contrast, this church is laid out as a traditional T-shaped basillica, the design used in the early church and through the Romanesque period. As is traditional with this type of architecture, the windows and arches are all rounded at the top instead of pointed, and there is a large dome over the crossing. There is a beautiful high altar surmounted by its own dome, but they don't use it as an altar anymore. Instead, they have a rather too-small table set up near the altar rail that serves as an altar and it is positioned to allow the priest celebrant to stand behind it and face the people (I would remind the monks that Vatican II allowed the possibility of standing behind the altar, but did not mandate it!).



The interior surfaces reflect the practicality and experimentation of the 1930s, with what appears to be brushed concrete instead of big marble stones making up the walls. The interior decoration is traditional, yet I had a strong feeling of the influence of the Art Deco movement of the period. I didn't get close enough to inspect, but it looked like "mosaic" art was actually painted on instead of being made from small colored tiles.

A large pipe organ is located in the balcony at the back of the nave, but, alas, it wasn't used. They had a praise band with a piano, guitar, and violin up front in the side of the sanctuary with a small volunteer choir to provide musical support.

As usual in Catholic churches, side altars flank the high altar. Here, the Joseph altar is on the left and below the Marian altar is on the right. The shrine to the BVM was quite well illuminated with dozens and dozens of votive candles!

Once we finally got started with Mass, we got fed a diet of bad contemporary Catholic music by Haugen, Haas, and Hurd. The Mass setting was Mass of Light by David Haas (though they took the Gloria at what I thought was a Muzak pace—and I can say that after all the hours I once spent learning to play the very involved accompaniment at the proper faster speed). Hymns included two Marty Haugen ditties, "Send Down the Fire" and "Spirit Blowing through Creation" for the processional and the offertory, then Bob Hurd's mixed Spanish-English song "Envia tu Espiritu" for the recessional. While I saw some Hispanic parishioners singing along to "Envia tu Espiritu," for the most part, the primarily Anglo congregation stood in stony silence during the hymns and the Mass setting. I don't know if they are merely a non-singing congregation or if they just don't like contemporary Catholic music. The choir and praise band sang everything pretty much as a solo performance. My only complaint with them was that they were miked, and the several microphones in their midst were placed in such a way that two or three voices were directly picked up and stuck out over the choral blend.

I'm not sure if it was scheduled or not, but the priest took it upon himself to sing a capella the traditional chant Veni Creator Spiritus in Latin as a solo sequence hymn. He also had to sing the Haas arrangement of the eucharistic prayer, a nasty, mournful composition, and, judging from his lack of familiarity with the "tune," I'm going to guess that it was a special thing just for Pentecost.

The priest gave an interesting (and pleasantly brief) homily talking about how our goal in life should be to act and behave in a way leading to our eventual canonization as a saint.

Liturgically, they did something I didn't like: inclusive language. They did the switch of "It is right to give Him thanks and praise" to "It is right to give God thanks and praise" and one or two other similar incidents.

One thing I noticed about the service was how very undisciplined the congregation was. Lots of families with small children chose to sit in the transepts and they let their children run around wild during Mass, so their noise echoed throughout the church. Lots of babies cried and screamed unabated (no crying room!). Several people tried to pass the peace with more than just their immediate neighbors. Lots of people got up and down during the service (bathroom breaks? cigarette breaks?). Often, I heard the murmur of conversations, especially during the homily and communion. People didn't go to communion in row by row order, but just went up at random. One man walked up to communion early and stood on a kneeler by the altar rail to "sing" with the choir. Several acolytes seemed untrained and had to be prompted to carry out their duties. Parishioners came up at the end of Mass to give 10-15 minutes' worth of announcements (the length was bad enough, but the majority of the announcers didn't speak into the microphone and I couldn't hear them). So, it was a very interesting morning.

On the way home after Mass, I stopped off and had a cappuccino.

Lighting the Cathedral

This past weekend as a part of its celebration of the centennial of the groundbreaking, the Washington National Cathedral brought in internationally-noted Swiss lighting designers for "Lighting to Unite," an unusual event where the cathedral building was used as a canvas for interesting outdoor lighting effects. We went to go look, and it was certainly an interesting thing.

I'm not really sure what "Lighting to Unite" had to do with anything. There wasn't any theme or propaganda presentation associated with the lighting. The lights also weren't really what I was expecting. The press releases talked about he artists "lighting" the cathedral, so I was thinking they would position various lights around the place and turn them on at various times, but in reality what they did was use the building as a projection screen for colored slides. It was still pretty.

Here are a few more views. If you'd like to see a lot more of the pictures, go to my Flickr album to view them. Sorry about the blurry pictures, but I don't have a high end camera or a tripod, and it's difficult doing photos at night without the proper equipment. You can get the idea, though.

Memories of Easter during Ascensiontide

By accident this morning, I happened upon a YouTube video someone recorded at St. Paul's Episcopal Church (K Street) this past Easter. I'm not sure if the recording is from the Easter Vigil or one of the Easter morning Masses, but it's kind of a fun thing. They took a recording of the congregation and choir during the service and paired it with some pretty videography showing the church and it's Easter decorations (I wish they'd had actual footage during the service!). Anyway, these are the traditional Easter acclamations, Christus Vincit, sung every year at K Street, and it's the song where I always blow out my voice, since it demands high Gs! LOL

Vibrato

Yesterday, Robert invited me up to Takoma to go to church at the little Episcopal parish, Trinity, that's across the road and down a bit from his house. I've seen it many times, and it's a very English-looking, 1930s vintage, stone building in the neogothic style with a Normanesque square tower.

We showed up in time to get a good seat for their 10:30 service. It's a small church, but the pews were filled with a vibrant and interested congregation. It seems as though the active membership of the parish is about 90% African-American, African, and Carribbean.

They started ten minutes late, processing in to In Babilone (Hail, thou once despised Jesus). It was a big procession, including a choir that filled the choir stalls in the chancel, and the rector wore a biretta and chasuble in procession. The parish transferred Ascension Day (last Thursday) to Sunday, so I'm not sure how much of the service was "normal" and how much was for the festal occasion. After the collect for purity, the choir sang "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" as an introit.

Other hymns included Lancanshire for the recessional, Old Hundredth as the offertory doxology, and then, using the Lift Every Voice and Sing II hymnal, "God Will Take Care of You" for the gradual, "I Love the Lord" in between the blessing and dismissal, and for the Mass setting. The Gloria (#243) is very pop music familiar sounding; the Lord's prayer (#264) is an arrangement of the Malotte song, and the Santus/Benedictus and the Agnus Dei were the Schubert German Mass settings. They sang Gerald Near's fraction anthem "Christ Our Passover" in the Agnus Dei spot (before singing the Schubert "Jesus Lamb of God"), having already said the fraction anthem words.

A soprano soloist sang the spiritual tune "I Don' Feel No-Ways Tired" as an offertory solo. Two men sang a duet during communion, but it was not listed in the program. The choir was an interesting group of volunteers. It helped me illustrate to Robert, though, why I don't sing in a non-professional parish choir; they had two women with big, trained voices whose voices clearly stuck out over the choral blend of the rest of the choir (and their big vibratos and the occasional jump-up-the-octave big ending notes didn't help). I just can't sing with untrained voices because I don't want my voice sticking out, and as one approaches the higher notes in one's range, one simply must sing with proper technique (and, hence, volume), or not at all. I understand their dilemma.

A seminarian delivered a very good sermon on the "certain women" mentioned in Acts who were in the upper rooms with the apostles after the resurrection of Jesus. She has a lot of potential. I understand she'll be leaving in the fall to work on a doctorate at Duke.

The congregation seemed very involved in the service. They applauded after the sermon and after all the choir anthems and solos. The acolytes were all trained and very focused on doing things the old, traditional ways. During the prayer of consecration, not only was the tower bell rung at the elevations, an adult acolyte in the sanctuary thrice rang the sanctus bells for each elevation. The priest also fully incensed the altar, but they didn't seem to have any smoke coming from the thurible! They had parishioners reading explanations of the readings before the reader, and one woman was so verklempt from her explanation she dropped her papers and had to run back to her seat. Another woman introduced the preacher. And, then, there was the passing of the peace. OMG! It seemed to take hours as everyone wandered around visiting and chatting and greeting everyone in the church....and one man even sat down at the piano to play a little music whilst people were peace-passing. Then, they did lots of announcements, including having someone out in the nave with a microphone so visitors could introduce themselves; I resolutely avoided looking at the microphone bearer as she kept trying to get my attention to offer me the mike.

The service was long. We didn't get out until nearly 12:30! So, considering their late start, their service was about 1.75 hours.

Trinity is a very warm and friendly parish. I wish them well.