You know, I left the house this morning, really late. As a choir member, I’m supposed to be there, suited up in my penguin duds and ready to go about 15 minutes to 10am. This fact is unchanging except for Summer Time, when we meet earlier and the other parish we’re yoked with meets later, since they have some kind of air conditioning and we don’t.
For some reason, I choose to forget this fact every week until about 940am or later, and have to rush around finding socks and purse and choosing something to wear that won’t make other people burst out laughing.
Socks, purse, and items of clothing found and applied more or less at random, I shot out the door at 10 til 10 and walked in to the church cloakroom less than 5 minutes before starting time – struggled into the cassock and surplice, grabbed a hymnal, and skidded into my place in line while the prelude was still playing.
About then the rot set in.
I noted that we had a guest organist today, and she seemed to be playing something Bach-ish pretty well. And it went on, and on. We started shuffling around in line impatiently as she finally drew to a close, and opened our hymnals in anticipation of the opening chords of the first him.
Instead, she played something else, also pleasant but somewhat lengthy. So we shuffled some more. What was going on? We were all ready. It gradually dawned on us that our regular organist, who never wears a watch, probably forgot to tell her to start playing the first hymn when a little light on the console comes on that means “we’re ready.” There’s a switch in the vestry that the priest uses when s/he judges that everyone is in place and that we can start once the prelude is over.
Well, with the guest organist having not a clue that we were ready and had been ready since about midway through the first prelude, clearly somebody had to do something. Finally, one of the other choirmembers walked out to where the organist could see her and gave a signal. I’m not sure what it was, but it involved emphatic nodding of the head (the universal symbol for “CUT!” would probably not have been appropriate).
So the organist ended the second prelude, began the hymn, and we were still in trouble: she clearly had never played it before, and the harmonization she was playing was not in synch with what we were singing, especially in the third line where something went horribly wrong every time. Also, it was really, really slow.
We forged on, found our places, and for the rest of the service, that was pretty much how it went. Too slow, and the accompaniment fought with the altos and bass. It wasn’t so much her fault as it was unfamiliarity with the way things are done at Holy Moly (we like a fairly brisk tempo and harmonization “by the book”). I think for this reason, the sopranos were being led astray somehow (not sure why, we had both of the strongest singers today) so a couple of times I slung my hook out of the alto part and joined in with the melody. The congregation, being tentative singers when they’re on unfamiliar ground, gradually gained confidence and it all got better by the end. However, the final hymn stumped the organist and threatened to throw us all into musical chaos at first – it’s one of those tricky ones that starts with a “fool’s rest” at the beginning of each verse, and she only got the very first one. She never did figure it out, but the rest of us adapted to the way she was playing and it wasn’t so bad by the end.
We (in the choir) did do a party piece today – as the Gospel reading was the Beatitudes, we sang the Richard Proulx version of a Russian Orthodox hymn after the Eucharist (#560 in the !982 hymnal). It’s simple and dramatic, and it’s meant to be chanted with some power or drama or dynamics. We did all right on that one. Not kickass, but all right. 😉
The longest Bishop’s Committee in living memory started after coffee hour and after a previous Search Committee meeting (also a long one). We were delighted to hear that there are at least 6 or 7 priests who have submitted their names and CVs for our review, via the diocesan liason. And we actually had the forms to review! Yay! The search folks had more to do with reviewing them and discussing them, but we did a bit too after our regular meeting finally adjourned officially. Which made it even longer, unofficially.
Due to a schedule conflict, the committee secretary couldn’t be there, so yours truly got to be acting secretary.
No, no, no no – I am NOT blogging the minutes. Most of it would be too boring, anyway. So we eventually ended the meeting with various tasks in mind that each of is is responsible for completing.
The things I’m responsible for are not that difficult, I just keep putting them off or forgetting about them until the next meeting. So here’s a list of things to do for the coming week or two.
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Figure out a calendar or scheduling page that lay leaders can update from home for the church website. Barring that, update the damn spreadsheet page already.
Publicity emails for upcoming concert, Ash Wednesday service and combined Lenten series with other area parishes. We’re doing a Taize service for ours.
Update webpage with same (possibility of a date switch for the service we host due to availability of choir members).
Publicity emails for Holy Week and Easter vigil. Waiting to hear times, etc. once they are decided between interim priest and both yoked parishes. Probably should ask someone if they’ve thought about that this far in advance. Mentioned cost of Easter ad to the Warden (I seem to be responsible for putting ads in the paper, too). We agreed it’s expensive and not worth the cost, so we’re not doing a paid ad this year.
Again, update webpage with same once the times and services are decided.
Find out if there’s a better alternative for an ISP for the church office computer than NetZero (someone already has it, they think it’s okay but I’m not so sure). David checked SBC/yahoodial and thinks it might be really cheap if the church has SBC phone service (this is not an official mandate, just curiousity).
Clean out all the churchcrap from purse and file it!
Some Things That Have Been Bugging Me Lately
The realities are that we are very small, and the other parish is even smaller, but we do have some resources – mostly people who are willing to keep plugging away. We’re wondering what a prospective vicar might see in us as positives – the negatives are fairly obvious. We think one of them might be the personality of Holy Moly itself, and the very personal nature of worship and fellowship there.
Or I might be talking out of my Church Lady hat, but that’s what we’re hoping. We need someone to come and just “be” with us for more than a couple of years.
So often I read articles about current events where religion comes into play, and every DANG time if a local angle is wanted, they get a quote from someone at one of the megachurches. It’s probably because it’s easy, and they’ve got the contacts (and the MC’s probably have press secretaries).
Well, we’re a minichurch. The kind of people who would be interested in a megachurch or a larger Episcopal or Lutheran or other mainstream church isn’t going to give us a second glance. Perhaps one of the things they’re looking for (besides a multimedia experience that isn’t too “churchy” in the case of the megachurches) is anonymity. Walk into a larger Episcopal parish nearby (with fairly high “smells and bells” liturgical style like ours), and it’s so busy and crowded that you’re lucky to get a parking space on arrival, and a handshake on your way out the door. Forget about being invited to coffee hour, too.
Walk into a place like ours, and people will actually greet you and hope that you’ll return. Now why does that fact tend to keep people away? We’re too small and personal, so a large and impersonal style of worship is better?
And parking is so not a problem, though the warden’s husband reports that the snowplow attachment on the front of his truck is giving up the ghost after this year (one of those resources, y’know). So the next priest either better come with a snowplow attachment, or be prepared to sit in on the inevitable meeting to decide on what to do.
::grump mode apparently on::
Maybe I’ll just go to Ship of Fools for a while and de-grumpify.
