The Food of My Soul

I was trawling through video clips so that I could update my Vernacular Video Bar, and struck (for me) gold. Today I have placed two pieces for your enjoyment - one because it is technical picking as I like it (though not hard to do if you know what you are doing), and because the other made me cry (in a nice way).

This is hard on the heels of a journey that I have made this morning where, as ever, I was plugged into my iPod. 

I reflected this morning that I could live without many things physical or temporal - but not music. I can no more live without music than I can live without air, and the starvation of either makes for a poor day, I find.

The video at the top of this post is of Mark Knopfler, the only man alive who by his creativity can make me weep because I find his skill overwhelming and beautiful. His music, to me, is stunning. It is music that soars like a feather on a spring breeze, just before crashing into me like a freight-train. It is effective, lyrical, hard yet soft, winsome when needs be and technically about as good as you will find. This video is of a song that is dripping with pathos anyway, and with an orchestra, is a perfect moment. The fact is, that Mr Knopfler is a man who makes the notes that he doesn't play sound stunning too. 

In general terms, music reaches us where we wish to be reached. I played a wide array of snippets of music last night at the service I lead in the Week of Prayer for Christian unity - including Maria Callas, Metallica, Eric Clapton, a kids' nursery rhyme, Alien Ant Farm and the odd Wesleyan hymn - partly to illustrate that we are all different, but to comment that despite their differences, all of that music was on my one iPod. In its breadth I am best served by music as there are Faure days as their are Chris Rea days. Unity, I said, wasn't about being the same, but about being united in our variety.

The thing with music is that we choose what we like. We don't waste a moment of our time listening to music we dislike, so it fast becomes the purest expression of ourselves. I am not sure that much else works like that so easily and so purely in our lives. Our musical tastes have their seasons too, and it fair to say that I haven't listened to Hitman Howie Tee for a few years (though I used to listen to little else when I was a sprog).

I pity the poor soul that has to arrange my funeral. I can't even do it (an exercise I have tried to do so that Mrs Acular is spared). Music in death is as evocative as music in life, and the effort to sum me up in hymnody and song will be a rocky one. Put another way, if you want to get a real idea of who this blogger really is, listen to these videos and others as they appear - for they do a far better job than I could. 

Ecclesial Anxieties

 What I am about to write is nobody’s fault (I think). It is probably part of the warp and weft of church life and also the fact that tides ebb and flow over decades. It is also because of some events in recent years and recent weeks, and I hope it is not a thing that will calcify into something permanent.

The brand of priest and Christian that I am is in the decline and under serious threat. I speak, of course, as a liberal Anglo-Catholic (as distinct from one who would apply the word ‘traditionalist’ to himself these days). I am a dog-collar wearing, black clad, sacramental, open-minded, priest, and I must report, dear readers, that I am nearly the last in a nearly extinct breed of Christian. I can offer a couple of examples from my present circumstance.

1. Deanery Chapter – this is a gathering of the local Anglican clergy in the town. They are lovely warm and wonderful people, but in their company, I am very much the odd-one-out, ecclesially. Not their fault, nor mine. I am the only one in that gathering (normally) who would be referred to as ‘Father …’ and there is actually a considerable distance between where I am where they are. Not their fault, nor mine.

2. My curate peer-group – this is a gathering of those of us who were ordained in the same academic year. Here, I really am the last of a dying breed. Very often I would be the only one in a collar (and would be gently ribbed for so doing), and very often the only one in the room not to know the words to the song in question, for example. Not their fault, nor mine.

The fact of it is, it’s hard. It is hard being different, the odd-one out. Not only that, but now those of us who are this way are incorrectly labelled as the next coach-load to be leaving for the Ordinariat. We are not. We support the ordination and consecration of women. We always did; we just love our ceremony ritual and focus on the sacraments. We delight in the priesthood of all ordained people – be they male female gay or straight. The thing is that when stood alone in a large gathering feeling a little like the one who rolled up in fancy-dress, it starts to gnaw away at one’s confidence. When I worship among those for whom the Eucharistic is out-moded and passé (and frankly wholly unfamiliar) it causes me to wonder if I somehow missed a bus in my mid-twenties and that I have been left behind.  It is hard at times. I also feel that I have to be on the defensive all the time, to try and justify who and what I am.

I write this post after a gathering of a good proportion of the diocese curates and in which we enjoyed a wonderful act of worship, among other things. That act of worship was a fusion of the traditional (meant in the traditional sense) with the very contemporary, with ‘old’ words and ‘new’ music. For me (and I believe others) it was a wonderful time, holy and Spirit-filled, and I have no aversion at all to it. Yet what an effort to bring us to a point of commonality (speaking as the one who ‘designed’ the liturgy). As I commented at one point – how did we ever become so polarised?

I am not sure how I want to end this post, except to say that at times I feel sad, and at times I feel under siege. I don’t want to feel or be irrelevant, and I want to be or feel like a vestige of something long forgotten and wholly irrelevant. I didn’t like having fun poked at me by other priests because of the uniform I wear, but I put up with it.

So I will fight for my survival and that of my breed of Christian, for that is all I can do.

I Am Doloris Van Cartier

Not really - that would be preposterous. 

It was my joy and delight to see the musical 'Sister Act' at the London Palladium last night. We went with two good friends to see this stage-remake musical of the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg film [she was meant to star as Mother Superior, but she had lost her mother a couple of days earlier - prayers for Miss Goldberg aplenty]. I am not much of a one for musicals, but Mrs Acular is, and when she is happy so am I - but this was an amazing production. Quite unlike some musicals I have seen (and didn't enjoy), this one featured a long succession of really well produced songs that just thumped to the beat without exception. 

When I am in the presence of creativity, I often inexplicably become creative. Last night was another example. I sat and I ponder the possibily of writing a musical of the life of St. Peter. I would set in the context of English comtemporary street-culture; the events in the life of Peter could be translated easily into such a context, with moments such as 'I Will Follow You', 'Do You Love Me', 'I Do Not Know Him' all set to a rock score and choreographed with an edgy street-dance support. This enterprise would be called The Rock - sorted; send me my quids Lord Lloyd Webber.

The real musical I saw yesterday tells the tale of a lounge singer who witnesses a murder at the hands of her boyfriend. She is hidden away in a convent for 'witness protection', and during her stay turns a group of closeted Sisters from an choir of the queazy into a Gospel Troupe Extraordinare. She not only transforms their musical fortunes, but attracts new worshippers, raises money pay for a crumbling inner-city church, and finds her own soul at the same time. The set was amazing - a 20' high statue of Our Lady, robes made by a genuine clerical-outfitters. The context I could understand and relate to.

It struck me as I sat there loving this thing - that there was something of the familiar about all of this. The reasons that brought me into a life of faith are very different, but I feel at times as that character felt (and have reported in this blog ad nausiam) - it's the square peg round hole thing. That all said, it was a joy to watch a tale unfold where the differences are the catalyst for good change, not a forceful wrench away from what is normal!

What a Weekend

My last post described my immersion into the West Indian culture. That was Friday! On Saturday, I was immersed in Zimbabwean culture, presiding over the Blessing of the marriage of two members of their community, taking them into on to the great celebration of the Eucharist.

It went a little like this: a service scheduled to start at noon saw me sipping coffee at five-past as I waited for the congregation and couple to arrive. Worshippers started to arrive by quarter-past and promptly burst in hymns sung Shona-style.

I started the service at half-past twelve (not everyone had arrived even then). I opted to use the 'said' version of the service, but giving the Zimbabwean community the chances to embellish the Rite in their own way. My lot from Zimbabwe know how to be the beating heart of worship. As I said to them, their worship and praise go to my heart! We had two english hymns and two Shona hymns, but whenever there was a hiatus in proceedings, more choruses burst forth! 

I have no idea what they were singing about - but I was all the same connected. I knew  not what the words were, but I knew well what they meant. Amongst maracas, whooping, shreaks and screams, the harmony-perfect music was (and always is, in my opinion) the music made in heaven. Unaccompanied save for the Spirit, it is worship that entrances and intoxicates and adds to my view that in so many cultures there are such wonderful ways to make music to our Lord. The whole thing defied the lines and edges of english liturgy, but actually - in a way that made 'some old said Eucharist' quite the most spectacular act of praise you could witness.

It is of profound importance to me that what I offer as the adminstrator of any Sacrament is that the context of that Sacrament is seemly, fit for use and meaningful. That means (to me at least) that a West-Indian act of worship, a Zimbabwean act of worship or even a kid's act of worship be of them and for them. I know what is important to me in liturgy, but that is only for me - but to deliver Fr David's standard service to all - well, that is just unacceptable. So, as I said at the end of the service yesterday:

Mwari, Mweya Unoyera, ngaakusimbisei muchitendero nerudo, akudzivirirei kumativi ose, akutungamirirei muchokwadi nerunyararo, uye Chikomborero ChaMwari Baba, noMwanakomana, noMweya Mutswene zvigare nemi kubvira zvino dakara narini. Amen

...and apparently I got it right and didn't inadvertantly insult anyone.

In a world where we are all different, only in a world like that can we stand a chance of really knowing God. 


*This image was from my First Mass, a service also greatly enhanced by my friends from Zimbabwe