The Small Town Metropolitan

I have been to my first mass...

...since returning to The Small Town.  And I will post a few thoughts on it when I have a more rested brain.  Nothing like this happened there. 

Via

Happy Easter

Mandátum novum do vobis dicit Dóminus...

Pange Lingua

Have I mentioned that I've been roped into singing in my church choir?  Of course not.  I haven't mentioned anything lately.  Sorry about that.

So yes, my church's once-glorious choir disbanded several months ago and has been reconstituted with a new director and a very small group of (mostly new) singers.  I am one of these.  Now, as far as vocal ability goes, I am most assuredly playing on the B team.  And as far as musicianship goes, I'm a semi-literate fool.  But I can carry a tune and I love, love, love choral singing - blending my voice with other voices, being a part of something greater, avoiding the pressure that soloing brings. 

It  also offers great potential for the observation of the human animal.  You might think that all is sweetness and light and good cheer in a church choir.  Ha!  Think again.  Right now there is unrest and unease among my fellow denizens of the choir loft.  What I find interesting about the situation (apart from the fact that cat fights between old women are inherently amusing, especially when one of them is wearing a mantilla - or is it just me?), is that it is in many ways reflective of certain tensions currently at play in the Western Church as a whole.

Grandiose enough for you?  Because it isn't really.  What it comes down to in practice is sniping and passive aggressive remarks delivered sotto voce.   But it matters.  And even though I am no expert and even though I keep my mouth shut in choir practice (except when singing, natch) I do have thoughts on the subject.  (There's a shocker). 

It's all about the choice of music.  One of the things my church is known for is its liturgy: solemn, reverent, done according to the rubrics.  In LA such a thing is rare and precious.  Our music has tended to match the liturgy - at least to a certain extent.  The hymns chosen have been mostly "classics" - stuff from the 19th century and earlier.  Now there are vast problems with this "four hymn sandwich" model - as these folks could tell you.  BUT at least we avoid some of the worst depredations of the 70s and 80s - hymns that sound like they were composed to serenade a velvet Elvis in a cheesy roadside lounge by a composer who held a long-shouldering grudge against the lounge singer and hated Elvis.

To be continued...

Quotes for a Grey Saturday Evening

Just returned from confession at a local church with a priest I don't know. The skies are grey and rain threatens. I never go to confession without wondering why I put it off so much. I always tell myself that I will go more often - then months go by, months in which I keep telling myself: "next week, I'll go."

Anyway, here are two quotes that always seem to spring to my mind, as I start to dredge my conscience and prepare for the sacrament.

First, a bit of Auden's As I Walked Out One Evening:

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

And then, a bit of The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

"For if this God exists, I thought, and if even you - with your lusts and your adulteries and the timid lies you used to tell - can change like this, we could all be saints by leaping as you leapt, by shutting the eyes and leaping once and for all: if you are a saint, it's not so difficult to be a saint."

"Since we have our accuser...

...we need an Advocate as well." - Saint Irenaeus.

"Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth." - The Cowardly Lion

Image Source.

What She Said

Lionel Shriver, writing in the Wall Street Journal, notices something that (cough) I (cough) pointed out last summer.  Ms. Shriver writes:

"Most Americans these days agree that couples should stay together only so long as both parties love each other. That should you fall deeply and irretrievably in love with someone else, you owe it to yourself to follow your heart. That you shouldn't remain in an unhappy union purely for the sake of the children. Marriage, the thinking goes, should entail joy and mutual self-fulfillment.

Yet there's a hitch--so to speak. When characters in film or fiction act on these precepts, the audience usually disapproves. Why is that?

In our private lives, we consider it our right to leave even long-term relationships if we're miserable; with imaginary people, we apply the stricter, fustier mores of the 1950s. So, deep down, might Americans still prize loyalty over the pursuit of happiness?"

She has lots of other good observations, so you should go and read the whole thing.  (And I think I should go and read one of her novels).

This his how I put it in July, reporting on the new Superman movie:

Also, some have complained about Lois’s – ahem – living arrangements. I think this one would bug me more if I had kids of a certain age, kids to whom I’d rather not explain the whole “extended engagement with child” thing not to mention the “who’s the father” thing. But what I find interesting (and what I’m surprised more conservatives haven’t noticed) is that the whole iffy set-up is really a compliment (albeit a backhanded one) to the sanctity of marriage. I mean, it’s not supposed to matter, right? Marriage is just a piece of paper, words mumbled over you by a judge/priest, isn’t it? Marriage, long-term committed relationship – what’s the difference? But there is a difference and everyone knows it. The writers know it and the audience knows it. If Lois had actually married Richard, there would have been no hope for Superman, short of death (and who wants to hope for that nice Richard to die?). For all our vaunted sophistication/degeneracy (take your pick) we still know that it would be unthinkable for any true hero to break up a marriage. As unthinkable as it would be for any true heroine to walk out on a husband. Though our own behavior may have evolved over the past few decades, our myths are still back at the Casablanca airport watching Shane ride off into the night. Curious, no?

I still think it's curious.  But kind of nice.  Happy belated Valentine's Day!

These Made Me Smile

From The New Liturgical Movement:

I chant a bit myself, as part of a small chant group at my local parish.  (I say "chant group" because I don't think three people a schola make).  I find the form particularly congenial and almost perfectly suited to my unimpressive voice.

Dying as We Live?

James Blunt Ballad Voted Most Popular at Funerals

British singer James Blunt has topped yet another musical chart, with his song Goodbye My Lover voted the most requested tune at funerals and memorial services in the U.K.

[snip]

The poll surveyed 5,000 people and, rather than unearthing a slate of dirges or elegies, turned up a list of mostly contemporary picks.

"The top 20 really shows how far we have come in terms of saying goodbye," said group founder Mark Roy, according to Reuters.

"Everyone has a favourite song that means something very special to them, often connected to a particular time and place. When the song is played, this can be a very emotive reminder of that person," he said in a statement.

The top 10 most requested songs were:

1. Goodbye My Lover, James Blunt.
2. Angels, Robbie Williams
3. I've Had the Time of My Life, Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley
4. Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler
5. Pie Jesu, Requiem
6. Candle in the Wind, Elton John
7. With or Without You, U2
8. Tears from Heaven, Eric Clapton
9. Every Breath You Take, The Police
10. Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers

My first response: can this possibly be true?

My second response: in England?

My third response: who exactly did they ask? 

Now, let me try to make myself clear.  Although I am, in many respects, an elitist, I am not (I think) a snob.  I love popular entertainment, in theory and practice.  Indeed, I think that much of the best art is (or was) popular entertainment.  Shakespeare, to pull a name out of a hat, wrote crowd-pleasers. 

I wonder, in fact, if it is possible for any work to become a "classic" if it does not have certain degree of popular appeal.  (This is not to say that everything that appeals to the popular imagination has staying power.  But I'm not sure staying power is possible without such appeal.  C.S. Lewis wrote about this question, far more eloquently of course, in his essay A Panegyric for Dorothy L. Sayers).  One of the things I think we are in desperate need of as a society is better popular entertainment.  Also, I quite enjoy several of the songs on the above list. 

But at a funeral?  It just seems careless somehow. 

I guess what bothers me about this is the attitude of "lightness" it would seem to indicate.  That isn't to say that death is all mourning and weeping; I've had some of my best laughs at wakes.  But so many people today are living and, it would seem, dying without a sense of dignity or tragedy or nobility or purpose or grandeur.  And if you don't have those things, what does the lightness lighten?

De gustibus.

And for my own funeral?  I honestly haven't given it much thought.  I guess I'm going to have to go for a good old fashioned Dies Irae, just to bring a little balance to the universe.