This Sunday our opening hymn is “I come with joy to meet my Lord” sung to the tune, Land of Rest.

The sequence hymn is “My God, thy table now is spread” sung to Rockingham. The closing hymn is If thou but trust in God to guide thee sung to the fine German chorale: WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT.

After a half hour or so at the organ bench yesterday, I had pretty much decided on a setting of Rockingham by Kenneth Leighton for the prelude. The postlude will be the fifth variation from William Albright’s interesting little composition “Chorale-Partita in an Old Style on “Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten”. According to the notes with the piece, Albright wrote it when he was 18 years old. It’s a solid example of baroque writing.

I was just gathering up my things to go, when I decided to read through Sowerby’s setting of Land of Rest. I had dismissed it because it’s a big piece and it’s long. Sowerby (like many composers) really needs a bigger organ than I have with more possibilities for sound colors. It sometimes takes some time and cleverness to register these larger pieces on 12 ranks.

Anyway, the more I played the Sowerby the more I was convinced that it was a vastly superior piece of writing to Leighton’s respectable setting of the melody for the sequence hymn.

Before I knew it, I had worked on it for a couple of hours and realized that I wanted to learn it and perform this weekend.

I often identify with the story of Jonah in the Bible. God called him to do something. He refused and ended up in the belly of a large fish.

When the fish spit him out, he was convinced that he should do what God asked which was prophecy to the city of Ninevah.

They ignored him. He was bitter.

Like Jonah, I keep finding myself sucked into futile tasks. In my case it seems to be the art of church music.

This morning I read a beautiful analysis of George Herbert’s poem (edited into a shorter hymn form) by J.R. Watson in his The English Hymn. Watson almost mournfully writes about hymnody. He realizes that it is a dying idea, but is nevertheless convincingly in love with it.

Here’s a link to the words of the hymn. Here’s Jpegs of the pages of Watson’s commentary that I admire.

If you look at the footnote from Rosemond Tuve’s book, it mentions Melchisidec. This is a reference I never would have gotten with out reading about this.

I tucked photocopies of these pages into my Hymnal 1982 companion.

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Mystery Tug on Pioneer 10 and 11 Probes Is Einstein’s ‘I Told You So’ – NYTimes.com

High beams and space archaeology.

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Iraq Insurgents Kill at Least 100 After Declaring New Offensive – NYTimes.com

The war continues.

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Peru – Death Squad Sentences Reduced – NYTimes.com

Wait until the world looks away, then we will exonerate the guilty.

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Recruitment is something I don’t feel very good at. This is complicated by the environment people live in and create for themselves these days. People are busy. Though they have more and more things to do with their time, they are more likely to wander in and out of things they have promised to attend regularly.

This complicates the discipline needed to learn and perform choral music. We have experimented at my church with cutting the weekly choir rehearsals and packing them around the Sunday morning service. I think this has failed. It has certainly not resulted in more members for the Chamber Choir nor has it helped my quest to make this ensemble an excellent one. It seems to have killed the kid’s choir but that remains to be seen. I have agreed to add the Kid’s choir to my duties with a small increase in salary.

So we are planning to return to Wednesday rehearsals this fall for both groups.  I pointed out to planning committees the idea of piggy backing our ministries instead of competing for the same small group of volunteers.

The church (and my boss) seemed to have decided this is an idea worth trying. We start this fall.

Now I have to beat the bushes and see if I can get any response to the new set-up.

This morning I spent my relaxing and reading time writing this possible announcement for Sunday’s bulletin:

Opportunity knocks!

Why sing in a church choir?

We live in a time when the basic act of making excellent music (choral or otherwise) is rare in our daily lives. At the same time, new understandings of how our brains work are demonstrating  that we are hard-wired for music and music making. When you or your child join a choir at Grace you have opportunities:

opportunities to deepen your faith
opportunities to learn about the worship of the Episcopal church
opportunities to learn to learn the arts of singing and music interpretation
opportunities to discover great music first hand
opportunities to experience musical ensemble under skilled leadership
opportunities to serve Grace church with your unique gifts
opportunities to lead Grace in sung prayer

These are gifts for a lifetime. Gifts that you can give and that you can receive. As you plan your fall schedule, please consider committing your time or your child’s time in this way as the Choral music ministry at Grace resumes this fall.

The Kid’s Choir reforming under the direction of our music director Steve Jenkins is going to be meeting on Wednesdays at 6:30 followed by the Chamber Choir at 7:30. Our first rehearsals are on Sept 5 to prepare to sing for Kick-Off Sunday on Sept 9. On the following Wednesday our rehearsals will be part of the multi-track Wednesday evenings (Believing, Being, Becoming) which will add a simultaneous track for learning and growing as a member of Grace.

Now is the time for you to listen carefully to God’s call to be even more connected to our unique, vibrant community.

Poor Eileen. She just got up and I regaled her with this silly announcement. The above reflects some of her criticisms and comments.

Comments welcome here as well.

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New New Yorker Martin Amis Talks Terrorism, Pornography, Idyllic Brooklyn and American Decline — Vulture

This interview is poorly edited (typos and one entire paragraph of interviewer comments not bolded out), but I do like Martin Amis.

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