Why is it that sometimes I can have five projects going, and I am gung ho on all of them, and am simultaneously yearning to do act on five more great ideas for other projects I can't squeeze in just now, but just wait until I have a free momen... And then there are times, I'm not in ill health, I'm not depressed, I'm not even physically tired -- but hanging a fresh hand towel seems beyond my initiative?
No, it's not depression, but maybe it's fed-upedness.
The Colloquium was such a "mountain top" experience, and many of us joked about how hard it might be to go back to the real world, (I personally made a great contribution toward easing everyones re-entry into normal society by taking some of the glamor off the otherwise magical musical experiences, with the Alleluia our chant schola butchered one morning...)
And I've always known I couldn't make any serious, overt improvements, or changes in my situation, but a Stealth Liturgical Music project with equal parts attention to kids not already indoctrinated in the Cult of What's Happenin', (or rather, the Cult of What Wuz Happenin' 20 Years Ago,) gradually shifting the balance of congregational song from "what do we like best?" to "what's the closest we can come to what's called for?", and getting the choir and cantors to learn that liturgical music should be our priority, and only after that, old favorites or attractive new anthems.
But I could deal with that partially because somewhere out there, things were better, right? and they were becoming... More Better, all the time, right?
Yeah, somewhere over the rainbow.
Perhaps Himself is correct, and righting what's rong with the Rites is trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.
Since the colloquium I know of three musicians who have either given up, or been told their employers, (be it pastor or parish,) had given up on them, (none of them were CMAA types, but they were doing or trying to do good work.)
And that's not even counting the people I only "know" on line.
Learning that a program of over a decade and a half standing was "not what we have in mind."
Being quashed by musically and liturgically illiterate committees of Church Ladies, (of both sexes.)
Seeing a change at the chancery turn the clock back to the glory days of GLOP for all diocesan functions.
Driving trucks.
And yet.
And yet, and yet, and yet...
I'd like to think it's the last gasp of the dinosaurs, that the current commotion is really the circling of the wagons by the Forces of Dimness.
Meanwhile, can we all hang on?
And what is best to do, hang on where we are?
or stick together, marshall our forces, gather on the Forest Moon of Endor or Yavin IV?
I have mistakenly called Fr Phillips "Monsignor Phillips" any number of time... perhaps I should start saying Obi-Wan Phillips?
Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...
4 comments:
with the Alleluia our chant schola butchered one morning
I was in the vestibule when that happened; frankly, I had more internal pain for you singers than for myself.
So happens that is a particularly difficult Alleluia to 'catch,' even if you've sung it more than a few times.
Sorta like tritones. You can intellectualize 'em a lot easier than you can sing 'em.
Hi G-
Thought I'd send you a bit of good news. A neighboring parish is doing its second EF Mass and our little nameless schola will be singing again (Christ the King- eeek!)
Also, our main parish is adding a Mass in Sept. and the pastor wants cantor/organ (which in itself is great) and then the music director tells me she has the idea of doing the Ordinary in Latin at that Mass at least once a month! Completely out of the blue. When she proposed it to the pastor, he said he was behind it- especially after she told him that I already knew how to do it.
Now, it's true that neither of those things has actually happened yet but I am going out of character and being hopeful. Yes, I do think things are going to get better but the devil always fights harder when he sees his grip is slipping.
And whenever I start to feel too pleased with myself, I just think of that Alleluia :)
Jenny
Fantastic, Jenny!
(Save the Liturgy, save the world)
Post a Comment