(no subject)
Every winter a local church, the House of Hope, which has for a long time had some kind of a vague partnership with Macalester, hosts something called "Macalester Sunday". This rather hilarious tradition (of many decades standing) is distinguished by five things:
1) Someone associated with Macalester (usually the president) gives the address.
2) The choir does a prelude and a few things during the service.
3) There are bagpipes at the beginning and the end, played by fully decked-out pipers. (Today just the one, but in past years the display has included a sizable showing from the whole college bagpipe program, big drums and all. Very loud and exciting.)
4) There is a ceremony called "The Kirkin of the Tartans". The story of the prohibition against wearing highland dress is read, and descendents of various Scottish clans who are living in the Twin Cities bring forward little bits of their clans' tartan to be blessed while the name of the clan is announced.
(I always, always have trouble not laughing when the representative of the MacDoodle clan comes forward and the name is solemnly and sonorously pronounced.)
5) There's shortbread afterward. Not very good shortbread, but shortbread nonetheless.
It's kind of fun the first time, and overall a hilarious tradition, I think, given how removed the college really is from its Scottish/Presbyterian roots. But in light of the mile I had to walk in the dangerously sub-zero temperatures, at 7:30 AM, to get to the unheated bus that drove us to the church, and the really terrible coffee and pastries they gave us between the two services, and how tired I am of the repertoire, and how insistent my static-y choir dress was on clinging to my legs, and how little I'd slept and how much homework I had (have), I wasn't really in the mood to take much pleasure in the picturesque hypocrisy this year.
So I read The Picture of Dorian Gray through most of the service. We're doing it this week in my literature class, and I hadn't read it in a couple of years, so I figured I'd brush up.
... Interesting contrast to a church service, really.
"There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful..."
-- AND FORGIVE US THE INIQUITY OF OUR SIN --
"[In age] We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to..."
-- AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL, FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND THE GLO--
" Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing... A new Hedonism. That is what our century wants."
AAA-HAAA-MEEEEN.
... Oh, the moral confusion of a liberal arts education. Such ills can only be cured by much better shortbread than was provided following this Wilde/Presbyterian grappling. I might make my own later tonight. Shortbread twice in one day... I dunno, is that enough hedonism for one sleepy, overworked agnostic on a Sunday?
1) Someone associated with Macalester (usually the president) gives the address.
2) The choir does a prelude and a few things during the service.
3) There are bagpipes at the beginning and the end, played by fully decked-out pipers. (Today just the one, but in past years the display has included a sizable showing from the whole college bagpipe program, big drums and all. Very loud and exciting.)
4) There is a ceremony called "The Kirkin of the Tartans". The story of the prohibition against wearing highland dress is read, and descendents of various Scottish clans who are living in the Twin Cities bring forward little bits of their clans' tartan to be blessed while the name of the clan is announced.
(I always, always have trouble not laughing when the representative of the MacDoodle clan comes forward and the name is solemnly and sonorously pronounced.)
5) There's shortbread afterward. Not very good shortbread, but shortbread nonetheless.
It's kind of fun the first time, and overall a hilarious tradition, I think, given how removed the college really is from its Scottish/Presbyterian roots. But in light of the mile I had to walk in the dangerously sub-zero temperatures, at 7:30 AM, to get to the unheated bus that drove us to the church, and the really terrible coffee and pastries they gave us between the two services, and how tired I am of the repertoire, and how insistent my static-y choir dress was on clinging to my legs, and how little I'd slept and how much homework I had (have), I wasn't really in the mood to take much pleasure in the picturesque hypocrisy this year.
So I read The Picture of Dorian Gray through most of the service. We're doing it this week in my literature class, and I hadn't read it in a couple of years, so I figured I'd brush up.
... Interesting contrast to a church service, really.
"There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful..."
-- AND FORGIVE US THE INIQUITY OF OUR SIN --
"[In age] We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to..."
-- AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL, FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND THE GLO--
" Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing... A new Hedonism. That is what our century wants."
AAA-HAAA-MEEEEN.
... Oh, the moral confusion of a liberal arts education. Such ills can only be cured by much better shortbread than was provided following this Wilde/Presbyterian grappling. I might make my own later tonight. Shortbread twice in one day... I dunno, is that enough hedonism for one sleepy, overworked agnostic on a Sunday?