I dunno, ya think Mass or a Margarita?

Which will make me feel better?
That's what matters most, right?
http://musicasacra.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=607&page=1
Some wonderful thoughts from one David Andrews, writing on the CMAA forum. (Someone I hope to meet at the colloquium -- there are so many people I would like to thank for their words in cyberspace.
A colleague had opined to him,
that as church musicians, we're not entitled to have a "bad day," because it is so quickly and easily reflected in our music and how we do our job.
This got me to thinking about two very important aspects of what we do as assistants in the liturgy: 1) objectivism versus subjectivism in the liturgy and its music, and 2) humility versus pridefulness.
On the first subject, ISTM that since the Second Vatican Council we (or should I say, progressivists) have spent entirely too much energy on making the music of the liturgy "moving." Indeed, how many of us who support the advancement of chant and chant-based polyphony have been accused of wanting "tired, old, boring" music rather than promoting "music that feeds and nourishes the people," whatever that means. Over the last two years I've come to the conclusion that chant and its children and grandchildren found in polyphony and hymnody are timeless precisely because they do not rely upon moving the "passions" in the post-modern, new-age understanding of the term. Quite the contrary, I believe that the beauty of chant, etc., lay in the fact that it lives in a realm of purity and objectivity, which has the power to stir the soul, not merely move the "humors."
This notion of objectivity versus subjectivity I think quite easily leads one to the concept of true humility. I've been reading and re-reading a little article that appeared over at NLM (Nicola Bux: The Liturgy is the Manifestation of the Sacred Reality of God). In it, we read, "Kneeling becomes the most eloquent expression of the creature before the present mystery. And for that reason obedience to the sacred liturgy is the measure of our humility. How often are those of us dedicated to a restoration of the use of the music of the liturgy accused of being insensitive to the needs of the many in the congregation? How often are we tarred with the broad brush of snobbery, elitism or arrogance when we dare to speak the truth regarding the mind of the Church in matters of music and liturgy?
While charity and humility are sisters, and we must do everything with charity, we nevertheless must not permit those who exercise pridefulness and arrogance in their tampering with the liturgy to their own ends attempt to deflect the true destructiveness of their actions by accusing us of the very vices they demonstrate on a regular basis.
Take heart, then, and quietly measure your work with all humility, honoring the mystery of God, and let us not fear the truth which S. Paul tells us, passes all understanding.

My own lesser contribution (I do tend to say the same things, over and over....)
I read, somewhere online, long ago, a young priest, relating words of wisdom from a mentor -- Don't make a god of your "feelings."
I am sometimes so wearied by liturgists, musicians, priests, congregants, whoever, this great mass of people who treat Liturgy not as worship of the Triune God, not even as a vehicle for their own and others' sanctification, but as some kind of communal Zoloft.