Parish Christmas Letter

Grace and peace to you all in this Advent season!

Someone has just sent me an email complaint from a mother who felt that she had become invisible to her children and her husband. They seemed to see, not a person, but a source of food, clean clothes, and assorted help: “Can you fix this?” “Can you tie this?” “Can you open this?” At other times she felt like a mere clock, a car, or a TV guide. The sense of “no one seeing” afflicts more than just busy mothers. You may remember the climactic scene in the movie Joy Luck Club when the dutiful daughter finally cries out to her mother, “You never SEE me.” And that same “no one seeing” is what drives the belief – we learn it young -- that even negative attention is better than none.
This sense of invisibility is especially trying in a community of faith: hard when we feel our individual efforts have no effect, harder when we fear that our collective witness as disciples of Jesus Christ is invisible to the world, and perhaps even to God.
The troubled Mom in my email is comforted when a friend gives her a beautiful book about European cathedrals, “with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.” The book reminds her that builders were often anonymous, and few lived to see their work finished, but they worked with passion because they believed that God saw – what even generations of worshipers would not and could not see, tiny details of carving, detailed mosaics, far over anyone’s head. “Why do you take the trouble over something no one will ever see?” “Because God sees.”
Part of the joy of this season, part of the blessing of the birth of Christ, is its assurance to us that “God sees”; like the mother in Joy Luck Club, who proves to her daughter that she DOES see, God sees us, and is delighted to see us—not peering anxiously to catch us doing wrong, but noting graciously all our fumbling attempts to want to be the people he created; all our stumbling choices for life over death, for faith over fear, for hope, for peace, for joy, for love. God, we may be sure, hangs around to see how it all turns out. God has the patience for outcomes beyond our imaginings.
So let us hope, make peace, rejoice, and love one another with confidence in the sight of God, walking forward steadily together into the New Year.

In this season, I wish you all joy and peace in believing!

Oh Christmas Three, Oh Christmas Three

I was tagged for this by Yearning for God -- so here goes:

What are your three favorite Christmas songs and who sings them?
"Let It Snow" was the first song I ever sang, according to my mother...
"Once in Royal David's City" -- whoever sings it (not me, cuz I'll be crying) -- a nice English boy treble is good, though!
"Of the Father's Love Begotten" --sung by any good choir


What are your three favorite Christmas foods?
Marzipan on or off fruitcake
Plum pudding and hard sauce
The whole nine-yards Christmas dinner thing -- turkey and stuffing and spuds and gravy and sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts and tomato aspic and whatever else can find room on the table!
OR Canadian pea-meal back bacon, cut thick, for Christmas breakfast.

What are your three favorite Christmas movies?
Miracle on 34th Street--the original version
A Christmas Story
When we lived up north, the mining company brought in a movie to show as a treat after the school Christmas concert, which was short; total enrolment in the school = six of us. And what they chose was a kind of musical hodgepodge called Carnegie Hall. It had a plot, which was unnecessary and foolish, but it also had wonderful cameo appearances by Lily Pons, Rosa Ponselle, Jose Iturbi, Artur Rubinstein, and who-all else. For a very long time I thought that was about the acme of cinematic art.

Let us now praise famous men

We had a memorial service this afternoon, only about 20 people at it, nearly all family or very near friends of an elderly man whose father had been Rector here in this parish before WW2. There were two sons and a daughter in that family; only the daughter is left. Their father was apparently the very model of the Muscular Christian ...brilliant, athletic, active, devout, vital...and shattered utterly by his experience in the trenches of the first World War. It is sobering to think that when he died in 1941 he was considerably younger than I am now.
We buried the younger son a few months ago. In a way I think his relationship with the church was always entangled with memories of his father in a way that wasn't totally helpful... his attitude was proprietary, certainly, but at the same time ironic and jokey. Or maybe he just didn't like ordained women.
The elder son I never met, but I've met HIS sons, and we got on very well. This man spent his working life in research on behalf of Major Mining Corporation, inventing all sorts of things that improved productivity and miners' safety. His relationship to the church seems to have been much more positive and straightforwardly devout.
SO interesting to contemplate.
We had a nice service with Holy Communion, 3 classic hymns AND the Nunc Dimittis--with the discreet and tuneful help of the Director of Music/Organist, I managed to sing it, to the chant by Joseph Barnby, which is just about the most basic, generic sample of Anglican Chant (which rocks) that heart could desire.
The readings were the Eucharistic readings for today -- Isaiah "on eagles' wings" and the Comfy Words out of Matthew 11. Lovely and consoling and Advent-itious all at once.
And the family have been generous. We ask for a donation to the parish for funerals/memorials, out of which we pay the musician[s] a decent honorarium. There is no "stole fee" for the clergy, funerals not being an elective procedure in the way weddings are...clergy do collect a fee from the specified donation for a wedding. So usually families then make a "gift" to the clergy.
And I admit it does come in very handy at times.

very much joy

On Sundays here we have two services, like many parishes of this persuasion -- paid organist, choir, modern liturgy at the later service; and at the early service the old Prayer Book, no choir...but, most unusually, a volunteer organist of very long service, over twenty-five years.
Each week he picks two hymns, one for an Offertory and one for a Recessional. He plays some hymn tunes by way of prelude; accompanies the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, and plays during communion and during the ablutions. Most Sundays -- it's a nice example of "tacit bargaining" -- he and I come to the end of the ablutions neck and neck: he finds the tonic chord just as I set the burse back on top of the Sacred Stack.
And his music is GOOD: the offertory hymn is often an effective precis of what the sermon was supposed to be...his accompaniments are sensitive and restrained...his selections always seasonally apt.
Unfortunately, his health is NOT good: arthritis, asthma, diabetes...and what with ongoing physical discomfort, and plenty of practice, his outlook is usually of such gloom that Eeyore is a Mexican Jumping Bean in comparison.
Matters came to a head about a month ago; he was too ill to come in and play for us one Sunday, and later that week I had a carefully typed letter from him resigning his post as of December 30th, Advent and Christmas being his very favourite seasons, hymnodically speaking.
But last week he asked whether he could prepare a Processional Hymn for December 30th, as well as the usual two; and this afternoon he met me in the hallway and said, "You know that letter I sent you? Could I ... have it back?"
I said I thought he could; we both had recourse to our handkerchiefs; and then he went and practised on the organ, and if ever I heard happiness in music, that was it.
God is entirely good, and the people of God have their moments too.

edifying in the edifice

"The guys" who look after the building -- male parishioners in their mid-years and upwards -- are here in force this morning, charging about, putting various little maintenance and security thingies to rights. In the meantime they are bonding and fellowshipping and all that good kind of stuff. Serious technical discussion going on about the replacement of very high-up light-bulbs in the chancel arch--this is BIG LADDER work.
Presently the feminine counterparts will arrive, and knit, much to the same effect.
I've been asked this morning to help someone trace a private adoption from about 40 years back -- an adoption that may have been arranged through this parish. This is going to involve some very discreet consultation...
It's relatively mild today, no need to plug in block-heaters. Tomorrow we may get close to a thaw.
Arrangements are in place for tomorrow's memorial service, for the son of a former Rector (1927-1941); it should be quite small, mainly family members still living in Prairie Metropolis...but they've asked for 3 rousing hymns AND the Nunc Dimittis sung, so here's hoping the organist and I are in voice tomorrow afternoon!
Lots of paperwork still besetting us...

The week begins

A miscellanea, today.
~ first of all, it's milder -- ten above, Fahrenheit, this morning -- a long way from a thaw, mind you, but so much easier on people, and vehicles, than the below-zero of the past week. Some new snow also. Rabbit tracks in the front yard, but not in the back.
~ I took the first part of the morning for some domesticity: ironing, reloading the dishwasher, sorting bills to be paid, feeding the recycle bin and the shredder, cleaning the litter-box.
~ the old cat, as seen above, appears to be holding her own; we're not sure that her eyes respond to changes in light-levels quite as thoroughly as when she was younger; sometimes her pupils seem to be "stuck on fully dilated."
~ and the business of the church goes on. First of all, consultation with the music director and the band leader on microphones and sound board. Firm, clear, e-mail composed by music director for distribution to lectors and intercessors to leave the lectern microphone strictly alone...even though they pride themselves on their diction and their projection (and therefore turn the mike off, or point it the other way, or mess with it generally).
~ then the phone -- message about one of the parish teenagers who has been ailing for a month, nobody knows why, can we add her name to the prayer list. Message from a prospective bride asking for information. Message from a parishioner announcing we are sold out of international-aid Christmas cards, and do we have his correct financial information?
~ live phone call from elderly parishioner asking to have another parishioner's sister added to the prayer list as she starts treatment for colon cancer.
~ live phone call from elderly parishioner reporting that she has had a hard day: she attended the funeral of one of her bridesmaids this morning, when she went to put her glasses on one lens fell out ("and there I was, as blind as a mouse"), she went and got her groceries and took a taxi home, and why hasn't she received her offering envelopes for next year? (that one was easy, they haven't come in yet)
~ live phone call from another prospective bride planning a September wedding. E-mailed her our wedding policy brochure.
~ checked on activity on Facebook and in the blogosphere.

~ letters to write and a half-dozen phone calls to make, and some excavating of the top of my desk...clearing the decks for the week ahead.
~ there is also HEAT in my office, hurray, a respectable and livable 68. I was getting a little bored with 55...

Advent Two...

I don't think this shot is going to give away any identities; but this is my mother, and me, probably in the spring of '45. NINETEEN forty-five, that is, not 1845...

A good couple of services this morning, some new folks checking us out, some young people looking for a wedding venue...I always feel encouraged when they come and worship FIRST, instead of phoning to ask when the church might be "open." "Well, how about Sunday morning?" I ask...and have had them hang up in my ear, right then and there. Good rollicking Advent hymns; and St. Nicholas arrived betimes, and distributed chocolate coins to the good, and dog-biscuits to the "faulty" -- in this case a representative of the heating system in the building, and the tenor section in the choir. Much mirth.

Our new honorary assistant celebrated, leaving me "nothing to do but preach"...and that was sufficient...he does good liturgy and is a quick study of the local anomalies in how things are done.

Fun of the morning was the long-experienced lay assistant, reading the Intercessory Prayer from the prayer book at the early service, who besought the Almighty that all Bishops, Priests and Deacons might "rightly and DULLY administer thy holy Sacraments." Duly, you goober, the word is DULY. sigh...

We have survived the panic over WHY THERE IS NO HOT WATER; and the panic over WHERE ARE THE LEAVES FOR THE FANCY TABLE IN THE UPPER HALL; so I think I'll go home. The ladies of the parish celebrate WINE'N'CHEESE this evening, aka "whining and cheesiness" at which I had better make at least a token appearance...

and tomorrow is also a day!