Music & Worship

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“‘Ah, music,’ [Dumbledore] said, wiping his eyes. ‘A magic far beyond all we do here!'”

– Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The Harry Potter binge continues; I’m now on book 4, but #1 still has my heart.  How can you not give a hearty “Amen!” to this sort of one-line-gem?  There’s much to be said about the power of music, studies to cite of the effect of melodious sound on heart rate and personal stories about how hearing a particular song immediately shifts one’s mood or triggers a memory; Emile Durkheim could even chime in, noting music’s power in creating the all-explaining “collective effervescence.”

Having held Dumbledore’s quotation with me this week, turning it over in my mind with special reference to worship, an embodiment of what I’d been trying to understand and articulate was plopped into my lap this morning:

A recent prayer practice in the Hylden household has included the book, Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals.  In Anglican Daily Office-like format, this book provides a liturgy for Morning Prayer every day of the year, often building its service around modern saints (today was Septima Poinsette Clark).  In every service, a song is included to be sung about where the Invitatory psalm would be said (or chanted) in the morning office. Though I’ve chanted Morning Prayer before, this book’s services include a variety of 50-some familiar melodies (from the first verses of favorite hymns, like, “Amazing Grace,” “All Creatures of Our God and King,” and “Be Thou My Vision,” to songs like “Solid Rock,” “Servant Song,”), which are more forgiving to froggy morning throats and, at least for me and my family, tap into a bit of that personal-story-memory.  Adding just a bit of music to the morning–joining voices together to sing and worship, nonetheless–has transformed the prayers.

Listening Lately – Edwin McCain

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This month, I’ve been on yet another Edwin McCain listening binge.  For ten years, this singer-songwriter has been a soundtrack to my life.  I’ve been playing his latest album, “Mercy Bound” on repeat, but today I share the very, very first song of his with which I fell in love, “The Rhythm of Life” (from 1997’s “Misguided Roses”):

The rhythm of life
Heaven withstanding and smiling we’re all swept away
The rhythm of life
Is not so demanding as some caught in narrows would say

Fragile as ships as we pass through Gibraltar
The sirens have long given way
Dark as the murky graveyard of sailors
Whispering secrets told in the crashing waves

The beating of hearts
Set walls to trembling the power of silence persuades
The stumbling feet
Stagger predestined we all end up wild eyed and crazed

And from the madness most jaded of vision
Reflections of horror invade
Running and falling relinquish your venom
The antidote surely will cause your affliction to fade

How little we know of what we are blessed with
Our shimmering island it turns
How little we look at what we see clearly
Of tragedy’s lessons not learned

Sleeping through classes we’ll make it up later
There’s still so much time left to go
Misguided roses we bloom in October
Emerging triumphant in time for the season’s first snow

Harry Potter Life Lesson

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Sometimes life feels like this:

“Harry was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had 10 minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of the station with the trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of wizard money, and a large owl.”
(- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone )

You’ve found a wonderful, new life, one that makes sense of those parts of your life that didn’t before, the transition to this new life may be painful, but in a very deep way, it fits. Then, the real test comes–you have to leave your old life behind & do something that seems very strange to the inhabitants of the world from which you came. You suspect the new world and life will be ever so much more fitting and good for you than the old one, but you don’t quite know yet. Then, on the precipice, you’re suddenly left alone between these worlds, holding the strange items (actions, convictions, perspective) that draw you to this new life, laughed at by those in your old life for these strange things to which you now ascribe.

I think someone said once, “Follow me.”

the changing tide of recipes

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2012-11-01 08.39.41popping up recently on pinterest: lots of “just one cookie” or “just two cupcakes” recipes. How is our eating changing such that we have never needed or wanted this sort of recipe before? I’ve seen some of these photo-recipes with captions like, “I live alone, so this is PERFECT!”–that’s one reason–more people are living alone today than in the past; people used to live with their siblings or their parents or have their grandparents live with them, and now, instead, we’re all living by ourselves. There’s no one with whom to share the batch of cookies or cupcakes, so we make just one or two.

I wonder if we have always eaten so many sweets. I didn’t grow up in a house that had baked goods or sweets just lying around. A box of cookies was a big treat, as was birthday cake. Pies were never seen, and dinner had no regular connection with dessert. I suspect that sugar and butter used to be less-regular items on our recipe pages and shopping lists–foodstuffs have become much less expensive in the last decades, and perhaps that’s another reason we may eat more sweets: enjoying them is not nearly the financial obstacle it used to be.

If we didn’t always used to eat so many sweets, then we probably only ate them on celebratory occasions, going out to dinner, having a party, gathering people together for a birthday or anniversary–times when we’d have a whole bunch of people who could polish off a platter of cookies or a whole cake.

A very wise woman (who lives alone) observed to me this week, “It’s all about eating together, isn’t it?”