Gregorian Chant workshop

We went to a two day workshop on gregorian chant, led expertly by Scott Turkington, at Saint John the Beloved in Mclean. There were 100 people at the workshop, with the knowledge of chant generally far above our own; nevertheless, we had a great time and learned a good deal. It was also a good opportunity to make connections with future friends. I'll be posting more on this later and also on questions about parish liturgy and ecclesiology which arose or gained more prominence.

How to effectively broaden and deepen the liturgical practice in one's parish is a difficult matter and, I think, there are lots of ways to get off track if one loses patience and charity.

Even if one is in a parish where latin is rare or non-existant, it seems to me that gregorian chant is excellent voice training for the choir and, for that matter, for anyone wanting to improve their vocal skills. That's the track I'm probably going to take, concentrating on the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Pater Noster using versions in the Liber Cantualis. And just for variety, the beautiful hymn, Adoro Te Devote. There are some useful midi files here and some mp3 files here. More advanced material is at Musica Sacra.

On Willow Creek

As Fr. Robert Hart says, Oops:

Everyone from plumbers, to doctors, to generals, knows that to "rethink all of our old assumptions" is to choose the path of unlearning, to un-educate and "dumb down" your own mind. It is to throw away the wealth of knowledge gathered over many years that is essential to doing the job.

The Spirit Catches You

Speaking of Kant, I'd intended to leave science & technology out of the library altogether; however, that proved unrealistic. So, having added the Critique, I also added Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You, and You Fall Down in order to maintain the little library's balance. Given the restriction to a dozen books, and wanting to interact with current society without being restricted by it, a certain amount of breadth has to be given up.

The short brush strokes on this blog aim for an impressionistic oil of folks enjoying a dinner, of Fish Soup of course.

Kant's Critique

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason may seem lonely and out of place in my little library. It will be a good while before I get back to it. For now, I just want to remark that while philosophers may have particular uses, within their systems, for the virtual instruments they create, the tools can often be used in quite a different fashion than is customary in the world's traditions. In particular, the Critique of Pure Reason is useful for waving away various overconfident or even atheist nonsense, irrespective of the other critiques, once one acknowledges God's initiative.

Gospel Hymn

1 WRETCHED, helpless, and distrest,
Ah! whither shall I fly?
Ever gasping after rest,
I cannot find it nigh:
Naked, sick, and poor, and blind,
Fast bound in sin and misery,
Friend of sinners, let me find
My help, my all, in thee!

2 I am all unclean, unclean,
Thy purity I want;
My whole heart is sick of sin,
And my whole head is faint;
Full of putrefying sores,
Of bruises, and of wounds, my soul
Looks to Jesus, help implores,
And gasps to be made whole.

3 In the wilderness I stray,
My foolish heart is blind,
Nothing do I know; the way
Of peace I cannot find:
Jesu, Lord, restore my sight,
And take, O take, the veil away!
Turn my darkness into light,
My midnight into day.

4 Naked of thine image, Lord,
Forsaken, and alone,
Unrenewed, and unrestored,
I have not thee put on;
Over me thy mantle spread,
Send down thy likeness from above,
Let thy goodness be displayed,
And wrap me in thy love.

5 Poor, alas! thou know'st I am,
And would be poorer still,
See my nakedness and shame,
And all my vileness feel;
No good thing in me resides,
My soul is all an aching void
Till thy Spirit here abides,
And I am filled with God.

6 Jesus, full of truth and grace,
In thee is all I want;
Be the wanderer's resting-place,
A cordial to the faint;
Make me rich, for I am poor;
In thee may I my Eden find;
To the dying health restore.
And eye-sight to the blind.

7 Clothe me with thy holiness,
Thy meek humility;
Put on me my glorious dress,
Endue my soul with thee;
Let thine image be restored,
Thy name and nature let me prove,
With thy fulness fill me, Lord.
And perfect me in love.

(Charles Wesley)

Communion of Saints

Of course, any discussion of community also reminds me that "I believe in the communion of saints." There is both an "already" and a "not yet" aspect to this and one holds both with a bit of tension. Folks who say the Apostle's Creed have, no doubt, a range of understanding of what this communion of saints means. The Catholic Church teaches, in the compendium:

194. What is the meaning of the “communion of saints”?

This expression indicates first of all the common sharing of all the members of the Church in holy things (sancta): the faith, the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, the charisms, and the other spiritual gifts. At the root of this communion is love which “does not seek its own interests” (1 Corinthians 13:5) but leads the faithful to “hold everything in common” (Acts 4:32), even to put one’s own material goods at the service of the most poor.

195. What else does “the communion of saints” mean?

This expression also refers to the communion between holy persons (sancti); that is, between those who by grace are united to the dead and risen Christ. Some are pilgrims on the earth; others, having passed from this life, are undergoing purification and are helped also by our prayers. Others already enjoy the glory of God and intercede for us. All of these together form in Christ one family, the Church, to the praise and glory of the Trinity.

Communities

Most folks are part of multiple communities: family, friends and work communities being dominant for many with Church overlapping for some. The overlapping of various sorts of communities contributes to general well-being and institutional vitality.

New Friends

Friday we went up to Winchester to get Timba

who is very happy in her new home with us.

Yesterday we took our new friends from Wales, Mike and Kathy, on a country drive up Big Stoney Creek Road to the buffalo farm near Paint Bank

and then we took the mountain road across to Gap Miles. We'd intended to eat at the Moxie Cafe in Union, WV but they're in the process of moving, perhaps to near Lewisburg. We got various goodies at the Mennonite stores in Gap Miles and then went to Moncove Lake to have our tea and cinnamon buns.

We went on up Route 3 and then went back across the mountains on Route 311 into New Castle and then headed back to Shawsville. It's wonderful to meet new friends and also to have beautiful little country roads to explore with them, with fall leaves still on the trees under the crisp, bright blue sky.

It turns out that Mike & Kathy are good friends of Mom & Dad's old friends Al and Kay. When we first met them yesterday, they greeted us with "and how are Nancy and Marjorie?" and it was great to find out the particular way we're connected to them in this small world. Maybe sometime we'll be able to visit them in Swansea. If so, I'd probably worship at Saint Joseph's whereas MaryAlice is more inclined toward West Cross Community Church. If an Evan Roberts were in Swansea nowadays, might he possibly visit both?

Baby Skibitsky!

Wonderful news: Megan and Jeff are expecting!

One of the things I'm looking forward to is painting with our grandchild. Fingerpainting with vivid colors on long sheets on what will become Christmas wrapping paper. And later, perhaps, learning to do more than that, myself. We can learn together which is one of the joys of having children, and grandchildren: one can relive one's childhood, consciously. Not manipulatively or with an agenda but just participating in the whole joy of life.

I've long thought that The Oxford Book of Children's Verse should have included some of Shakespeare's sonnets: From fairest creatures we desire increase, etc. A pregnant etc.

Also, there's the wonderful ontological category change: one's own child now becomes a parent, a peer, and we can talk more equitably. And pray for all with fervent joy.

Fetus is, of course, a good Latin baby name and one hesitates perhaps for more, not yet knowing appearance or personality. Still, there is the urge for the name. I've no preference myself, except for twins - how can you say such a thing, I think to myself! Anyway, to celebrate I think I'll type a poem, not about naming but it's relative, linguistics. And not by me, but Wystan Hugh Auden (when he was 62):

Natural Linguistics

Every created thing has ways of pronouncing its ownhood:
   basic and used by all, even the mineral tribes,
is the hieroglyphical koine of visual appearance
   which, though it lacks the verb, is, when compared with
                                                     our own
heaviest lexicons, so much richer and subtler in shape-nouns,
   color-adjectives and apt prepositions of place.
Verbs first appear with the flowers who utter imperative odors
   which, with their taste for sweets, insects are bound to obey:
motive, too, in the eyes of beasts is the language of gesture
   (urban life has, alas, sadly impoverished ours),
signals of interrogation, friendship, threat and appeasement,
   instantly taken in, seldom, if ever, misread.
All who have managed to break through the primal
                                          barrier of Silence
   into an audible world find an indicative AM:
though some carnivores, leaving messages in urine,
   use a preterite WAS, none can conceive of a Will,
nor have they ever made subjunctive or negative statements,
   even cryptics whose lives hang upon telling a fib.
Rage and grief they can sing, not self-reproach or repentance,
   nor have they legends to tell, though their respect  for  a rite
is more pious than ours,  for a complex code of releasers
   trains them to walk in the ways which their un-ancestors trod.
(Some of these codes remain mysteries to us: for instance,
   fish who travel in huge loveless anonymous turbs,
what is it keeps them in line? Our single certainty is that
   minnows deprived of the fore-brains go it gladly alone.)
Since in their circles it's not good form to say anything novel,
   none ever stutter or er, guddling in vain for a word,
none are at loss for an answer: none, it seems, are bilingual,
   but, if they cannot translate, that is the ransom they pay
for just doing their thing, not greedily trying to publish
   all the world as we do into our picture at once.
If they have never laughed, at least they have never talked drivel,
   never tortured their own kind for a point of belief,
never, marching to war, inflamed by fortissimo music,
   hundreds of miles from home died for a verbal whereas.

"Dumb" we may call them but, surely, our poets are right in assuming
   all would prefer that they were rhetorized at than about.

Chicken Soup

The recipe over at Meanwhile, Back at the Kitchen prompted MaryAlice to say:

...
This is the way "real" soup is made not poured into a saucepan from a can & whisked around with some water! This is why "gourmet" restaurants charge so much for their food - it is tedious and takes time but most of it is not really "hard".

I thought of the old song, This is the way we wash our clothes, etc, this week, and looked it up. There is an order of housewifely duties set forth in it that women have been doing for centuries, that gave focus & so-called "meaning" to their days, and eventually added up to a life well lived taking good care of their families. Part of this taking care includes the preparation of food - very time consuming but overall, important. O, yes, we eat to live & not live to eat; this I have to remind myself of constantly.
...

And for me to reply:

Yes, I agree. While William Blake asserted that architecture is the foundation of culture, the part that best survives barbarism, I think he is definitely wrong. Cuisine is the foundation of culture. Not the haute cuisine of restaurants and royalty but the kitchen cooking that sustains life and spices it with time consuming dishes, as you say. The cooking of simple dishes that have simmered centuries and which coordinate with community and season.