Changing Times

Riding the subway the other morning, a woman plopped herself down next to me and proceeded to take out her make-up bag.  She then applied every conceivable potion that Revlon sells from dark circle concealer, to foundation & blush.

When the eye brow teasers were removed from her bag of magic tricks I really became squeamish.   The subway was packed with no vacant seats.  Besides, it was a 45 minute commute.  It took great will power for me not to blurt out that grooming is a personal matter but I had my self censor button firmly pressed. I proceeded to get more steamed as my station neared.  The men didn’t seem to notice or pretended not to.  She was getting a few raised eyebrows from the women who weren’t botoxed & could still grimace, but no one said a thing.  NOT ONE WORD.  Is it because the bar has fallen so low on socially accepted behaviour that no one cares anymore?  Or is it because of my age and the rules & norms that I grew up with are not applicable to a younger demographic?

This brings me to church behaviour because I spend almost as much time in churches as I do on city transit. 

I  always wore a dress to church even on the most bitter Canadian winter days except for one particularly cold morning about 25 years ago.  The wind was howling and it felt like minus 1000 when waiting for the bus to take me to my church gig.  I put on trousers thinking it was the sensible thing to do.  I figured I’d be robed & at the organ bench so who would know?  That Sunday,  the organ broke down (see previous posts on my bad luck with church organs) & I had to make my way to the piano.  I was self-conscious standing in front of everyone in my pants thinking that the congregation would assume I had a first class ticket to hell.

Fast forward a number of years.

One Sunday morning when I wasn’t playing the organ I found myself in a pew supporting a clergy friend of mine.  I was sitting in front of an elderly retired priest who always attended church in full black clericals .  During communion people were  making their way up the aisle to receive the elements.  My head was lowered and I heard an audible gasp &  the words,  “My Lord, saints preserve us!”  I looked up and there were 2 people of ample proportions dressed in lime green exercise tights that were about 3 sizes too small, left nothing to the imagination, and red sweat shirts that hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in quite some time.  I had to stifle a laugh.  Not because of how these people were dressed because frankly, I didn’t care.  The days of wearing dresses and gloves had long passed, but I was amused at the priest’s reaction.  For him, it clearly wasn’t what he had been accustomed to seeing when he had spent his days in the pulpit.

Then there was the choir member whose Sunday morning ritual involved clipping his nails during the sermon.  His wife was the choir director.  Why she didn’t say anything to him, I’ll never know.   But I do know for a fact it drove the clergy crazy.

Now it is all about Social Media.  I listened to a radio documentary fairly recently where ministers of hip churches, especially in Calgary, discussed the benefits of using Twitter in the actual church service.  Their enthusiasm for immediate connection to their congregation could only have been surpassed if they were announcing the Second Coming.     What was interesting to me, was that a few weeks before I heard this radio doc,  I witnessed an elderly woman tearing a strip of a young person for using their IPhone  during the service.    I started to think, do we need to get with the programme and expect our seniors to do the same or have we somehow lost a sense of being still and taking time to be holy?

Check out a few of these articles for various thoughts on this topic.  Please let me know what you think the role Social Media should play in an actual service.

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0065.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/phones-in-church_n_3781132.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57593128-71/one-in-five-americans-use-phones-in-church/

Gory, Gross & Grim

I am a vegetarian and someone who hurls at the first sign of blood so I would not be on your speed dial in a health emergency. My aversion to any and all bloody images is visceral.  As I student I worked for several  years in a fast food  joint. My compadres would rush me out of the kitchen if someone cut their fingers while cleaning chicken guts.  They didn’t want to have to clean up two messes.   This phobia of mine poses a problem as a supply organist as it isn’t my place to make editorial asides on the clergy’s bad hymn choices.  I can and do hold my nose and pound out the ‘insipid ‘In the Garden’ , which I refer to as the Andy song. (And he walks with me.  And he talks with me).  I’ll think of my cheque as I plow through the down right comical ‘A Little Less of Me’ .  (The word ‘me’ occurs 16 times not counting all of the repeats and the ‘I’s’.  Score zilch for God or Jesus.)

Let me be a little kinder let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those about me let me praise a little more
Let me be when I am weary just a little bit more cheery
Think a little more of others and a little less of me
Let me be a little braver when temptation bits me waver
Let me strive a little harder to be all that I should be
Let me be a little meeker with the brother that is weaker
Let me think more of my neighbors and a little less of me
Let me be when I am weary just a little bit more cheery
Let me serve a little better those that I am striving for
Let me be a little meeker with the brother that is weaker
Think a little more of others and a little less of me.

The church hymnal supplement ‘Songs for a Gospel People’  has some truly horrible tunes and lyrics.  The popular  ‘Family of God’ is one such gross out hymn.  “I’m so glad I’m a part of the Family of God,
I’ve been washed in the fountain, cleansed by His blood!”
There it is – ‘washed in the fountain, cleansed by his blood.’  Yes, I know why hymn writers pen these lyrics, atonement and all of that stuff, but it doesn’t  mean I have to like them! I’ve played both of these gory hymns in 3 denominations, ‘There is a Fountain Filled with Blood’  and ‘Are you Washed in the Blood’.  Proving yet again that bad taste crosses all theological chasms. 

 

So clergy friends, if I happen to supply for you one Sunday in the future, please, I beg of you. keep the bloody references for another day.  I need  all of my intestinal fortitude to get through the communion images.

‘

Thank you to my Facebook friends who have offered some of their suggestions!  Let’s get a list going people!  Hymns that should be banned.

Normal

http://www.puritanboard.com/f67/questionable-hymns-54739/

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/bad-poetry-bad-theology

http://www.christianforums.com/t3120506/

The perils of a wireless mic!

Having spent over 20 years as a radio music producer, I am very aware of the golden rule.  NEVER say anything in front of a mic that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to hear.  ALWAYS assume the mic is on, even if you are in the studio by yourself.    Every faux pas is embellished in the retelling and echoes in the halls of a broadcasting building for decades.

Most churches built from the 1950s to the present day resemble God’s living room.  Flying buttresses and domed apses have given way to auditoriums or less grand buildings where the floors are carpeted and the pews cushioned.  A large video screen is given more prominence than a cross or altar.  Because the acoustics are so poor in many contemporary churches, and the aging congregations are suffering hearing loss, clergy have to equip themselves with wireless mics like the type that pop stars wear.

Most clergy have never been trained in mic usage.  They don’t have a producer on the other side of the glass to double-check their mic to see if it is on or off at the appropriate moment.

One particular Sunday, I was supplying for a congregation that was larger than usual because of confirmation.  There were friends and family members of the confirmation candidates and of course, the bishop was presiding.  During the playing of my fancy pants prelude, I heard voices.  Not the normal din of a congregation that chats away instead of praying or listening, but a full-fledged animated conversation.  My attention was diverted from my Bach to the details of a cocktail party that was being held later in the day.  My heart stopped when I realized it was the bishop and the rector.  Knowing both of them rather well, and their sense of humour and enjoyment of fine scotch, I stopped playing midstream, started a coughing fit so I could run out and boot it down the back stairs with my gown flying behind me.  I think it took all of 15 seconds before I made it to the rector’s study.  As I continued to cough to cover their conversation, I ran up, frisked them, and turned their mics off.     During the procession, I think both the clergy and rector matched their red vestments.

Another Sunday, at yet another church, after the opening hymn, and lighting of the Christ candle, the Youth Pastor started in on his children’s talk.  You know the one, where the conversation is tailored more for the adults and the children are just anxious to escape and work on their crafts.  The Senior Pastor got up from his chair and went out the side door.  About a minute later I heard, and so did everyone else in the sanctuary, the unmistakable sounds of someone taking a whiz and then the toilet flushing.  I have a very loud laugh as anyone who knows me can attest to.  I think I broke something inside trying to hold it together as I was hoping I’d also hear his hands being washed.

So my clergy friends, unless you would rather your organist didn’t launch into Handel’s Water music as the Postlude, ALWAYS check your mics.

Do you have some mic stories you’d like to share.  Feel free to change the name!

Altar Call: How many times can one be saved?

I have been a church musician for over 30 years and much of that time I’ve been sitting on the organ bench as a supply organist.  Because I had a full-time job that I loved, and 2 choirs that offered programming and conducting opportunities, it was the perfect mix.  I could keep my fingers in shape and have various ‘religious’ experiences.  Through the years I have played for pretty much all denominations, from the smells and bells of the high Anglicans to the bible thumping Baptists. I’ve listened to a thousand sermons, if I have heard one.   And the reading from John 14 vs:2   ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions’  has to be true.  Some congregations feel that they will be the only ones in heaven.

One particular Sunday I was supplying at a church where I was very familiar with the personalities of the congregants.  It was an evangelical church with a decent choir and a respectable number of bums in the pews.  The senior pastor was away and a guest minister (whom I shall name) The Rev. Thurston Narcissist, was going to be the homilist.

Before the service began, as was the practice of this church, a prayer was given with the choir to prepare for the service.  Heads were bowed and he began to wax eloquent, not asking but telling God that souls were going to be saved today.  Though my head was bowed, I opened my eyes and caught him re-arranging his pompadour as he was offering up his blessing.  The choir filed out and he took me aside and said, “During the altar call, keep playing ‘Just as I am’.   It gets them every time.”  Being a musician for hire, I do what I am told.

The sermon was long, not theologically very sound, but full of fire and brimstone. The Rev. Narcissist had one of those soft covered bibles, with gold trim on the edges and where Jesus speaks in red.  He made a mighty wallop as he hit the pulpit to emphasize a particular sin that would damn you for all eternity.  Then came the altar call.  I think he was using it as a measure of his success.  The more sinners that walked up the long aisle, the more he could justify his cheque.  I started playing.  After about 2 minutes, still no soul ventured up the aisle.  He took off his jacket, removed his tie, and took his hanky from his breast pocket mopping up a brow that was bathed in sweat.   I glanced in the mirror trying to catch his eye.  How many times could I sustain a theme and variations on this tune.  Finally, *Polly (not her real name) saved the day by getting saved…yet again.  I had played before at this church and witnessed her salvation at least 4 times.   I was happy that this meant that the service was drawing to a close as the deacons came forward to lay their hands on her.  But it did give me pause.  Yes, I believe in conversion experiences, that people can be ‘saved’.  But I am putting it out there.   You can ask forgiveness for your sins, anytime, all the time, but can you be ‘saved more than once?

All thoughts welcome.