And all the people rose up and worshiped, every man at his tent door
Felt particularly fragile tonight, so I turned on a BBC Radio 3 recording of choral evensong. I left my Book of Common Prayer back in Wisconsin, but of course the text is the same as in Oxford, so I know it almost by heart. Sometimes I do slip into the responses from the Lutheran Hymnal, which I used for most of my life, but I like the Anglican texts better: "O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give."
It's an odd experience, listening to a church service in full. I almost hesitate, for example, to say the Lord's Prayer along with the congregation in the recording. It's as though I've taken this participatory activity and turned it into a performance, and I've turned myself into the audience rather than an actual participant, and at that point it's difficult to feel involved in the service. My old church regularly recorded services for those members of the congregation (they called them "shut-ins") who were too elderly or ill to make it in on Sundays, and I wonder if it they felt the same way: that it might be instructive, but it no longer feels like worship. Though, come to think of it, you could argue that choral evensong by its very nature feels more like a performance than do other orders of worship. That's not to say I agree with Lewis, mind you, when he argues against services that rely so heavily on music. (Is that in Letters to Malcom? I think it is, but, again, my library didn't make it overseas with me.) I find a really good choir and organist do wonders for my concentration and participation when I'm in an actual church.
Perhaps it's just that music works for me as an aid to worship but not as an aid for solitary meditation. It was a beautiful service, though; it's at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k4llx, though it's only up until tomorrow. The anthem is Mendolssohn and particularly nice, though I usually prefer something a bit earlier.
I miss Oxford achingly. I'm still not sure if it's the place itself, though I fell in love with it so quickly, or associations with the social awakening I experienced that year, or maybe the religious community I found there.
Unrelatedly, I ordered The Language of Bees some time ago, and I'm very impatient for it to get here. There's no amazon.tr, and shipping is ridiculous, but I'd rather not wait. It's the second book I've ordered from overseas this year; the other was Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, which was more than worth the extra expense. Though it's going to be a pain bringing them back to the US this summer.
It's an odd experience, listening to a church service in full. I almost hesitate, for example, to say the Lord's Prayer along with the congregation in the recording. It's as though I've taken this participatory activity and turned it into a performance, and I've turned myself into the audience rather than an actual participant, and at that point it's difficult to feel involved in the service. My old church regularly recorded services for those members of the congregation (they called them "shut-ins") who were too elderly or ill to make it in on Sundays, and I wonder if it they felt the same way: that it might be instructive, but it no longer feels like worship. Though, come to think of it, you could argue that choral evensong by its very nature feels more like a performance than do other orders of worship. That's not to say I agree with Lewis, mind you, when he argues against services that rely so heavily on music. (Is that in Letters to Malcom? I think it is, but, again, my library didn't make it overseas with me.) I find a really good choir and organist do wonders for my concentration and participation when I'm in an actual church.
Perhaps it's just that music works for me as an aid to worship but not as an aid for solitary meditation. It was a beautiful service, though; it's at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k4llx, though it's only up until tomorrow. The anthem is Mendolssohn and particularly nice, though I usually prefer something a bit earlier.
I miss Oxford achingly. I'm still not sure if it's the place itself, though I fell in love with it so quickly, or associations with the social awakening I experienced that year, or maybe the religious community I found there.
Unrelatedly, I ordered The Language of Bees some time ago, and I'm very impatient for it to get here. There's no amazon.tr, and shipping is ridiculous, but I'd rather not wait. It's the second book I've ordered from overseas this year; the other was Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, which was more than worth the extra expense. Though it's going to be a pain bringing them back to the US this summer.