Somewhere over north or maybe central Florida, we're on our way to visit my wife's folks. It's rather shameful that we haven't done this much more often, at least since moving away from Florida. One time won't make up for it, but we're off anyway.
It's a makeup trip, covering for the one I was no way able to make after surgery. In this case the rescheduling also has the benefit of allowing me to take in a couple of spring training games with my father-in-law. This will make the trip a raging success no matter what.
The oddity is, of course, that the trip more or less obliterates Holy Week, or a liturgically official observance of it, for us. We could seek out a Maundy Thursday service, but Good Friday will be spent flying back to Richmond.
In a way this is only fitting, as the onset of chemotherapy more or less obliterated Lent, or what I had thought Lent was going to look like. I had a balanced plan, so to speak; one thing to give up, one task to take on. Once chemo kicked in, though, giving up any kind of food gave way to "eat whatever your body tolerates and don't ask questions." As to the other, frankly, I wasn't in the mood to take up the hymn-writing project I had planned. I got petulant and junked that plan. Not my finest hour. I'm still not all that ready to be terribly penitent about it, though.
Still, I have to admit I've felt the absence of these elementary rituals of the liturgical season. I won't say it's been ruined or anything quite so melodramatic, but it hasn't been "right" in some way. There's a noticeable hole.
Rituals matter. If they didn't exist we would have to invent them. (And those who claim to scorn or debunk ritual are typically the most ritual-bound people I know even if they don't admit it, so don't go there.) They mark things, remind us of what means something, and provide a kind of identity for those who observe them. They provide gathering points in lives that might otherwise remain adrift from one another.
So yes, I've missed Lent. And I'll miss Holy Week. I suppose I will be engaged in a kind of healing ritual, though (as cheesy as it sounds baseball games really do function that way for me, when all goes right). And being with family is not a bad thing, in the right doses (imagine a grinning emoticon here).
In short, no ponderous Lenten reflections here. I've gotten dislocated, one might say, and yet I still feel its pull. But there is a promise that Easter is almost ready to explode upon us. Hope lives anyway. I can be thankful for that. The promise of Easter, fortunately, does not rely upon my ability to prepare for it. That doesn't mean I'm happy about having missed out on it this year.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
What I can handle
Chemo week two is in progress. The "pump" (I don't hear it pumping, but apparently it is) is delivering the last of my chemo cocktail between now and some time Wednesday, and it remains attached to me until then. It's a bit of a bundle, not large but awkward, and keeps me from sleeping on my right side if nothing else.
It can be a long day in the transfusion chair. Fortunately, my professors are kind enough to supply me with plenty to do while in that chair. In my approximately four-and-a-half hour stint there today I read for Old Testament and Sacraments and completed a morning prayer service to lead the week after spring break (and worked Ray Bradbury into it). Not bad, but not a form of study inducement I recommend.
Today was different from two weeks ago; at least one patient in the transfusion room was not old enough to be my parent. For the most part they either have company with them, are glued to the TV (the two are not mutually exclusive), or are asleep or trying to sleep. At least I add variety to the room, I guess.
The thing about being treated for cancer in one area -- the rectum, in my case -- is that the area in question is not, by a long shot, going to be the only one affected by the course of treatment. My bladder had nothing to do with this and is yet getting freaked out by the treatment, if nothing else than by getting a continuous feed of liquid for four and a half hours every other Monday. It isn't the only part in that region, either. It gets a little difficult to keep up with so many body parts in rebellion.
Eating is also becoming an interestingly unpredictable experience. I truthfully have no idea at this point what will settle well with me and what will create problems. Fruits have been cooperative so far, but vegetables far more unpredictable. A nice salad might sound good right now, but only if I can camp out near the bathroom for the following 24-36 hours. Beans and peas seem to be o.k., but corn is a raging disaster. Meats seem more or less cooperative, breads problematic at times. It's an adventure, and not always one I'm ready to handle.
More than once of late I've seen riffing on the horrid platitude that people exchange, in a well-meaning but disastrous way, with those who have been beset by some hardship or tragedy:
"God won't give you more than you can handle."
One such riff is humorous: a Facebook card that adds the sentence "Apparently God thinks I'm a badass." The other approach, in more than one source, is a sound and well-needed theological debunking and dismantling of the saying itself.
Let's be clear: I am NOT "handling" this, certainly not by myself. My wife needs to be elevated to sainthood, I don't give a tinker's damn if she isn't Catholic. Not only is she taking on even more of the everyday things, she's also handling the business side of the cancer, which should be an automatic in for sainthood. You believe in supporting the poor, Pope Francis? Get on it. By the time this is over we will qualify for sure.
Professors have gone out of their way to keep from drowning me and have been far above accommodating. Fellow students have quietly stepped in to keep me from wiping out of classes when I've had to miss more than once. My little on-campus job is still there. The ministry development office has adjusted to my need to change my plans for internship this summer and next year. Folks at the church(es) we've attended have constantly been there for support.
Hell, no, I'm not "handling" this. Not even remotely.
It might seem cruel to say that God deliberately does give us more than we can handle (though not nearly as cruel as saying God creates some specifically for eternal torment, and Calvin got away with that), but maybe it's so. Of course, it isn't a random bit of torture; we are reminded precisely that we cannot handle things by ourselves. We aren't lone rangers, and those who insist on riding that way are completely divorced from what God wants us to do and how God means for us to live.
We live dependently on our sisters and brothers in Christ.
We do not handle it by ourselves. We do not "in our own strength confide" to borrow from Luther's hymn. We do not beat cancer by ourselves, we do not beat unemployment by ourselves, we do not beat prejudice by ourselves, we don't beat anything by ourselves.
And when we aren't the ones being beset by tragedy or hardship, we're supporting and carrying and bailing out our sisters and brothers who are.
And I have just typed about the most anti-American bit of scribble I've done yet in this blog. We are the land of "rugged individualism" and all that. This probably explains why we have done such garbage in the name of Christ.
I've railed against establishment Christianity before. I'll spare you. But American Christianity had more or less the culture for much of America's history and absolutely squandered it on comfort and power and moralizing. We don't know how to live dependently on one another. We don't know how to trust one another that much. We have no concept of how those Christ-followers lived in Acts 2, and we'd probably be horrified if we did.
I have not "handled" this illness and treatment, not at all. I've been carried through it. I've been bailed out.
And that's what living in the body of Christ means.
It can be a long day in the transfusion chair. Fortunately, my professors are kind enough to supply me with plenty to do while in that chair. In my approximately four-and-a-half hour stint there today I read for Old Testament and Sacraments and completed a morning prayer service to lead the week after spring break (and worked Ray Bradbury into it). Not bad, but not a form of study inducement I recommend.
Today was different from two weeks ago; at least one patient in the transfusion room was not old enough to be my parent. For the most part they either have company with them, are glued to the TV (the two are not mutually exclusive), or are asleep or trying to sleep. At least I add variety to the room, I guess.
The thing about being treated for cancer in one area -- the rectum, in my case -- is that the area in question is not, by a long shot, going to be the only one affected by the course of treatment. My bladder had nothing to do with this and is yet getting freaked out by the treatment, if nothing else than by getting a continuous feed of liquid for four and a half hours every other Monday. It isn't the only part in that region, either. It gets a little difficult to keep up with so many body parts in rebellion.
Eating is also becoming an interestingly unpredictable experience. I truthfully have no idea at this point what will settle well with me and what will create problems. Fruits have been cooperative so far, but vegetables far more unpredictable. A nice salad might sound good right now, but only if I can camp out near the bathroom for the following 24-36 hours. Beans and peas seem to be o.k., but corn is a raging disaster. Meats seem more or less cooperative, breads problematic at times. It's an adventure, and not always one I'm ready to handle.
More than once of late I've seen riffing on the horrid platitude that people exchange, in a well-meaning but disastrous way, with those who have been beset by some hardship or tragedy:
"God won't give you more than you can handle."
One such riff is humorous: a Facebook card that adds the sentence "Apparently God thinks I'm a badass." The other approach, in more than one source, is a sound and well-needed theological debunking and dismantling of the saying itself.
Let's be clear: I am NOT "handling" this, certainly not by myself. My wife needs to be elevated to sainthood, I don't give a tinker's damn if she isn't Catholic. Not only is she taking on even more of the everyday things, she's also handling the business side of the cancer, which should be an automatic in for sainthood. You believe in supporting the poor, Pope Francis? Get on it. By the time this is over we will qualify for sure.
Professors have gone out of their way to keep from drowning me and have been far above accommodating. Fellow students have quietly stepped in to keep me from wiping out of classes when I've had to miss more than once. My little on-campus job is still there. The ministry development office has adjusted to my need to change my plans for internship this summer and next year. Folks at the church(es) we've attended have constantly been there for support.
Hell, no, I'm not "handling" this. Not even remotely.
It might seem cruel to say that God deliberately does give us more than we can handle (though not nearly as cruel as saying God creates some specifically for eternal torment, and Calvin got away with that), but maybe it's so. Of course, it isn't a random bit of torture; we are reminded precisely that we cannot handle things by ourselves. We aren't lone rangers, and those who insist on riding that way are completely divorced from what God wants us to do and how God means for us to live.
We live dependently on our sisters and brothers in Christ.
We do not handle it by ourselves. We do not "in our own strength confide" to borrow from Luther's hymn. We do not beat cancer by ourselves, we do not beat unemployment by ourselves, we do not beat prejudice by ourselves, we don't beat anything by ourselves.
And when we aren't the ones being beset by tragedy or hardship, we're supporting and carrying and bailing out our sisters and brothers who are.
And I have just typed about the most anti-American bit of scribble I've done yet in this blog. We are the land of "rugged individualism" and all that. This probably explains why we have done such garbage in the name of Christ.
I've railed against establishment Christianity before. I'll spare you. But American Christianity had more or less the culture for much of America's history and absolutely squandered it on comfort and power and moralizing. We don't know how to live dependently on one another. We don't know how to trust one another that much. We have no concept of how those Christ-followers lived in Acts 2, and we'd probably be horrified if we did.
I have not "handled" this illness and treatment, not at all. I've been carried through it. I've been bailed out.
And that's what living in the body of Christ means.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Putting the "fool" in "fool's errand"
There are times when I, even amidst all the cancer stuff, look ahead and get absolutely giddy with anticipation of whatever pastoral vocation may lie ahead. I'm never so naive as to think such a vocation won't have its perils and pitfalls, but the idea of being in the church, living out a ministry that begins with presence and patience and listening and reflecting and waiting for that little twinge that says "now, the Lord is doing that new thing -- watch! pay attention!" gets a little thrilling, particularly for someone whose existence has been a bit peripatetic up to now.
Then there are the times that make me shake my head and say "You're kidding, right? You? What makes you think you're ever going to get there?"
Seldom is there any one thing that makes me go there. And it's not so much that that's a sad or frustrated place, as much as it is a place that makes me take a deep breath (as every person, nay even ever sentient being, even those out there in the universe whose physiology doesn't even require breathing, must do on occasion) and see myself as the most oddly-shaped peg (nothing nearly so simple as "square," not me) possible in a world of varying sizes of round holes.
For example: for our section this past Thursday in my Sacraments independent study, the assignment was to prepare and deliver a prayer of Thanksgiving Over the Water, part of the baptismal liturgy. It could have been one of the prayers from the Book of Common Worship, it could have been from some other liturgical source, from another denomination or none at all; it could have been an original prayer (and I had written one the previous week, so that was already available). Monday during my chemo transfusion I took to the web, to make one last sweep, so to speak, and see if anything promising turned up before I went back to one of the above. I did find a compelling responsorial prayer from an Australian prayer book, which looked like a strong possibility to use.
Then, to my surprise, turned up a version of such a prayer from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, set for intonation. Of course I had to go for it. The issue was settled before I even knew what I was doing.
In a world where the church is constantly under pressure to adapt and change and morph boldly into the future, where a whole Presbyterian organization is devoted to figuring out what "NEXT Church" looks like (they just had a big meeting this past week), where the past is something to be treated as if it carried bubonic plague, I'm off in my little corner chanting prayers like an addict. Who am I kidding? They don't hold meetings devoted to "PAST Church," and I'm off chanting almost by reflex. I'm not that far from fifty. My middle year of seminary is getting whacked around by cancer treatment. My car CD player is far more likely to be occupied by Coltrane or Mendelssohn than by whoever this Mumford & Sons outfit is. I am not a polished or highly refined physical presence by anybody's standards. I'm not what anyone would call a particularly inspiring dynamic or outgoing leader type (my style, such as it is, is rather more quiet with much question-asking). I'm not particularly well-connected. I don't have any grand visions for the future. Who am I kidding?
And yet the fool's errand continues. There is no turning back, not because I haven't thought very hard about it at times, but because the thing, whatever it is, is still out there. I'm less certain what "the thing" is anymore; I still imagine some form of pastoral calling, but my life has been so whacked around of late that I have to be open to different avenues by which such a vocation may be lived out. Whatever that might be, I'm still on the path towards it, wherever that is.
I'm still here because every now and then my mind explodes in class, or in chapel, or just sitting and reading or talking -- not a destructive, waste-laying explosion, more like the Big Bang, with pockets of life springing out where there was only chaos and void before, and I know that another piece of the puzzle, another building block, has fallen into place.
I'm still here because I cannot get free of that sense of vocation, acting much like a particularly strong undertow, pulling me in directions I would not have imagined before, drowning me in a hope and a passion from which I have no desire to be rescued.
I'm still here because I can't imagine being anywhere else. Even if I don't see anyplace for the bizarrely-shaped peg that I am to fit into.
Then there are the times that make me shake my head and say "You're kidding, right? You? What makes you think you're ever going to get there?"
Seldom is there any one thing that makes me go there. And it's not so much that that's a sad or frustrated place, as much as it is a place that makes me take a deep breath (as every person, nay even ever sentient being, even those out there in the universe whose physiology doesn't even require breathing, must do on occasion) and see myself as the most oddly-shaped peg (nothing nearly so simple as "square," not me) possible in a world of varying sizes of round holes.
For example: for our section this past Thursday in my Sacraments independent study, the assignment was to prepare and deliver a prayer of Thanksgiving Over the Water, part of the baptismal liturgy. It could have been one of the prayers from the Book of Common Worship, it could have been from some other liturgical source, from another denomination or none at all; it could have been an original prayer (and I had written one the previous week, so that was already available). Monday during my chemo transfusion I took to the web, to make one last sweep, so to speak, and see if anything promising turned up before I went back to one of the above. I did find a compelling responsorial prayer from an Australian prayer book, which looked like a strong possibility to use.
Then, to my surprise, turned up a version of such a prayer from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, set for intonation. Of course I had to go for it. The issue was settled before I even knew what I was doing.
In a world where the church is constantly under pressure to adapt and change and morph boldly into the future, where a whole Presbyterian organization is devoted to figuring out what "NEXT Church" looks like (they just had a big meeting this past week), where the past is something to be treated as if it carried bubonic plague, I'm off in my little corner chanting prayers like an addict. Who am I kidding? They don't hold meetings devoted to "PAST Church," and I'm off chanting almost by reflex. I'm not that far from fifty. My middle year of seminary is getting whacked around by cancer treatment. My car CD player is far more likely to be occupied by Coltrane or Mendelssohn than by whoever this Mumford & Sons outfit is. I am not a polished or highly refined physical presence by anybody's standards. I'm not what anyone would call a particularly inspiring dynamic or outgoing leader type (my style, such as it is, is rather more quiet with much question-asking). I'm not particularly well-connected. I don't have any grand visions for the future. Who am I kidding?
And yet the fool's errand continues. There is no turning back, not because I haven't thought very hard about it at times, but because the thing, whatever it is, is still out there. I'm less certain what "the thing" is anymore; I still imagine some form of pastoral calling, but my life has been so whacked around of late that I have to be open to different avenues by which such a vocation may be lived out. Whatever that might be, I'm still on the path towards it, wherever that is.
I'm still here because every now and then my mind explodes in class, or in chapel, or just sitting and reading or talking -- not a destructive, waste-laying explosion, more like the Big Bang, with pockets of life springing out where there was only chaos and void before, and I know that another piece of the puzzle, another building block, has fallen into place.
I'm still here because I cannot get free of that sense of vocation, acting much like a particularly strong undertow, pulling me in directions I would not have imagined before, drowning me in a hope and a passion from which I have no desire to be rescued.
I'm still here because I can't imagine being anywhere else. Even if I don't see anyplace for the bizarrely-shaped peg that I am to fit into.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Prisoner of the good face
I've had a few responses to the last post I put up here, all from friends of various amounts of history. Some by Facebook comment or message, and even some by regular old email, a technology I'm beginning to forget how to use (sadly, no comments directly on the blog, alas). All contained varying degrees of support or encouragement as well as making some kind of response to the content of the post.
One of those responses, from a longtime friend and confidant, put out the idea that (at least in his case?) what might be called "inspirational" about my current circumstance and response to it is my honesty. Apparently some of the posts along the way have come off as more direct and unfiltered than one is accustomed to seeing. I suppose there might be some truth in that. Even if I'm not dying from this cancer, I guess somehow I've come to the point of being unwilling to be anything less than direct about this illness and how it is affecting me, mentally and emotionally as much as physically. That may put some people off, but it may draw more people, if the page view stats this system provides are any indication.
In its own way, that's a little sad. Or perhaps, it points to something the church needs to think about.
I've been fortunate that, with one or two exceptions, no one has really found anything unacceptable or unforgivable in any of my rants to this point. I've been surrounded by a community that has been unbelievably supportive and caring, both at the seminary and in the church we attend. I know of many churches that offer services of healing and wholeness, specifically designed for the kind of persons going through illnesses like mine and much worse. Churches visit, they provide meals or rides or all sorts of other support. Churches do a lot for people in suffering, I'm not so naive as to deny that.
I wonder, though, if there is something we sometimes overlook.
Church can, at times, be the hardest place to be for a person going through difficult times, physically or otherwise. It can be a place where one feels compelled to put a good face on things. Your soul may be tearing you apart, you might only barely be able to look another in the eye, but it's church, and you can't go around disrupting things, so you put on the good face. Then you do it again the next time you're at church, or if you run into some of your fellow church folk at the supermarket or elsewhere. More good face. (Then there are some who can't stop themselves putting on the good face even when they are among dear friends and fellow sufferers begging them to be real and open up. But that's another issue.)
Is there a space where the suffering can suffer out loud? Can we be so closely knit a body of Christ that we can go ahead and feel that screaming pain from our brother or sister without being scandalized or finding that person's pain and anguish somehow scandalous or improper?
I've been told that for Americans, the default, almost mindless answer to the usual greeting question "how are you doing?" is an almost reflexive "fine" or something similiar, whereas if you ask that of a British chap he'll immediately tell you not only that things are lousy, but exactly why -- awful pain in that left knee, cold that won't go away, rotten week at work, and so forth. An American might be taken aback in the face of such directness.
I guess that my own situation is making me think more about what kind of space we allow for suffering and the anger and sadness that comes with it. Are we too ready to imprison the sufferer, or ourselves for that matter, in the good face? I can't say that I really have anything specific to propose here. I have said many times before in this blog that I don't have answers and I don't have anything original to say. I can only wonder if among all the things the church as a body of Christ-followers for those in suffering or pain or sickness or despair, if there's some way to create space for the anger and sadness and raging that goes on inside the soul of the sufferer, instead of too easily pointing to some supposed saintly model of suffering in which the patient shows nothing more than a beatific smile and heavenward glance, like something out of a martyr myth. (For one thing, being martyred for your faith is nothing like having cancer or having your spouse killed by a drunk driver or any number of other sufferings.)
I don't deny it's hard. It terrifies me every time I let loose with one of these, hearing voices from way back in some (imagined?) past castigating me for being so weak or faithless. Or some imaginary "coach" telling me to "suck it up" and "quit being a sissy" (or worse) (and I never really was an athlete, so I have no idea where that comes from).
But I've learned enough to know that the longer that anger stays imprisoned behind the good face, the longer it will corrode me from within. Even now, with a little better health for the moment and a couple of days of release, I'm in at least a decent place for now as chemotherapy starts tomorrow. I'm not looking to run off and do Gene Kelly's Singing in the Rain routine by any means, but I'm in a place where the anger has run its course. We'll see how things go tomorrow, mind you.
And I guess I've been challenged to try to be more perceptive and more open to others who are in the depths of suffering or anger or sadness or despair. I can't say I've got a great track record there myself.
Darn it, this growing up business is difficult.
One of those responses, from a longtime friend and confidant, put out the idea that (at least in his case?) what might be called "inspirational" about my current circumstance and response to it is my honesty. Apparently some of the posts along the way have come off as more direct and unfiltered than one is accustomed to seeing. I suppose there might be some truth in that. Even if I'm not dying from this cancer, I guess somehow I've come to the point of being unwilling to be anything less than direct about this illness and how it is affecting me, mentally and emotionally as much as physically. That may put some people off, but it may draw more people, if the page view stats this system provides are any indication.
In its own way, that's a little sad. Or perhaps, it points to something the church needs to think about.
I've been fortunate that, with one or two exceptions, no one has really found anything unacceptable or unforgivable in any of my rants to this point. I've been surrounded by a community that has been unbelievably supportive and caring, both at the seminary and in the church we attend. I know of many churches that offer services of healing and wholeness, specifically designed for the kind of persons going through illnesses like mine and much worse. Churches visit, they provide meals or rides or all sorts of other support. Churches do a lot for people in suffering, I'm not so naive as to deny that.
I wonder, though, if there is something we sometimes overlook.
Church can, at times, be the hardest place to be for a person going through difficult times, physically or otherwise. It can be a place where one feels compelled to put a good face on things. Your soul may be tearing you apart, you might only barely be able to look another in the eye, but it's church, and you can't go around disrupting things, so you put on the good face. Then you do it again the next time you're at church, or if you run into some of your fellow church folk at the supermarket or elsewhere. More good face. (Then there are some who can't stop themselves putting on the good face even when they are among dear friends and fellow sufferers begging them to be real and open up. But that's another issue.)
Is there a space where the suffering can suffer out loud? Can we be so closely knit a body of Christ that we can go ahead and feel that screaming pain from our brother or sister without being scandalized or finding that person's pain and anguish somehow scandalous or improper?
I've been told that for Americans, the default, almost mindless answer to the usual greeting question "how are you doing?" is an almost reflexive "fine" or something similiar, whereas if you ask that of a British chap he'll immediately tell you not only that things are lousy, but exactly why -- awful pain in that left knee, cold that won't go away, rotten week at work, and so forth. An American might be taken aback in the face of such directness.
I guess that my own situation is making me think more about what kind of space we allow for suffering and the anger and sadness that comes with it. Are we too ready to imprison the sufferer, or ourselves for that matter, in the good face? I can't say that I really have anything specific to propose here. I have said many times before in this blog that I don't have answers and I don't have anything original to say. I can only wonder if among all the things the church as a body of Christ-followers for those in suffering or pain or sickness or despair, if there's some way to create space for the anger and sadness and raging that goes on inside the soul of the sufferer, instead of too easily pointing to some supposed saintly model of suffering in which the patient shows nothing more than a beatific smile and heavenward glance, like something out of a martyr myth. (For one thing, being martyred for your faith is nothing like having cancer or having your spouse killed by a drunk driver or any number of other sufferings.)
I don't deny it's hard. It terrifies me every time I let loose with one of these, hearing voices from way back in some (imagined?) past castigating me for being so weak or faithless. Or some imaginary "coach" telling me to "suck it up" and "quit being a sissy" (or worse) (and I never really was an athlete, so I have no idea where that comes from).
But I've learned enough to know that the longer that anger stays imprisoned behind the good face, the longer it will corrode me from within. Even now, with a little better health for the moment and a couple of days of release, I'm in at least a decent place for now as chemotherapy starts tomorrow. I'm not looking to run off and do Gene Kelly's Singing in the Rain routine by any means, but I'm in a place where the anger has run its course. We'll see how things go tomorrow, mind you.
And I guess I've been challenged to try to be more perceptive and more open to others who are in the depths of suffering or anger or sadness or despair. I can't say I've got a great track record there myself.
Darn it, this growing up business is difficult.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
No, I'm not, really
Health issues intervene again. Turns out surgery wasn't enough, and I get to spend the next four months undergoing chemotherapy.
Tomorrow I'll go for surgery to have the requisite port installed somewhere in my upper body. Providing all goes well, Monday will be the first of eight infusions, every other week, in which a cocktail of chemicals I can't pronounce will be injected into my body to fight whatever cancer may remain (two lymph nodes came back positive before, and who knows what's happened in the last two months?). Since I'll have the port I'll supposedly be relatively free to do other things while receiving those transfusions (the first, being first, will take longer, but mostly they will take three and a half to four hours each time). Maybe I'll live-blog a transfusion. Most boring post ever.
As always, the unknown is the monster here. I have no idea what this stuff will do to me. I got lucky with the radiation in the fall; it really had minimal effect at best on me. No guarantee that will be so this time around. It might make me nauseous. It might make me more tired than I can bear. It might eat my brain.
You have to understand, this would probably the one fear I have that gives me cold sweats. My body is pretty much broken at this point. This week it has put me through some of the most humiliating foolishness possible, in terms of a complete lack of control of things that don't make for pleasant conversation. I've been angry, I've been depressed, I've gone through a whole raft of emotions some of which I don't even have names for.
But tell me I've got Alzheimer's, or dementia, or some similar disease, and you get a whole different person. You don't even want to be around me in that case.
Anyway, that's not the case yet, so far as I know. Dealing with a malfunctioning body has been frustrating and anger-inducing enough.
There are times in conversations these days when people -- friends, well-meaning people -- use words that make me extremely uncomfortable. Words like "inspiration." Words like "model." So far I don't think anyone's used the word "hero," so at least there's that.
They are friends. They have been as supportive as any human being could ever be. They love me. I know these things. I certainly know there is no intent to make me uncomfortable.
Still, I cannot help but wince, or worse, when I hear or read these things.
It really isn't my place to criticize people who are trying to encourage me or lift me up. That's being a poor recipient of pastoral care, if nothing else. But the trouble is, I know better.
I know the doubts. I know the regular, routine, gnawing sensation that I really can't stand this much longer. I know the nagging fear that at some point, maybe the first transfusion, or the second, or the fifth, or the eighth, that my body will simply fold up and quit. And I know the disturbing sensation that this fear doesn't bother me as much as it should.
I know the despair. I know the increasing resignation, the sensation, whether it's a bout of extreme weariness or days chained to the toilet or food tasting strange, that this is just how my life's going to be from now on, isn't it? More treatments, more bodily humiliations, more impediments to any kind of normal life, more delays in getting that damn exegesis done, more discomfort. And these thoughts don't have answers. Nothing comes wafting back to me in answer. I don't remember what normal feels like anymore.
I know the hopelessness. I know the sense that, even if this chemotherapy regimen is deemed a "success," I'm never off the hook. One of the most likely predictors of having cancer is still having had cancer before. I'll always be one colonoscopy away from going through the damn death spiral all over again. And next time, who knows what kind of insurance I'll have? Yes, there's the practical angle that spews all manner of hopelessness across the scene. I have to say the plan the seminary offers is pretty decent, once it lumbers into action, but is quite limited, and I may be testing its limits in the next few months.
I know the doubts. Even as I struggle to keep up some pretense of regular class participation, I know the furtive demons of presumed pointlessness. So, really, why are you still on this damned fool's errand? What can you possibly hope to accomplish? You really think any church will even touch you with a ten-foot pole? You'll be almost fifty, and your health will be a huge black hole. "Cancer survivor," my ass. All that is is a bullseye on your back. And you'll be surrounded by classmates and fellow graduates, not just from Union but from all the seminaries, who can preach rings around you AND be youth workers or Christian educators and fit snugly into a nice multi-staff starter call.
I know the hopelessness. I know the sense that this cancer bullseye is limiting my future. Do I dare take a call, should one even come open, in a rural area? All along I've been prepared for the possibility of some kind of bivocationality. I have a few past careers I could fall back on if need be. But is my field limited by the need to be near some hospital of at least a certain capability? Can I be a hundred miles or more away from the nearest oncologist? Or is that a risk too far? As if my prospects weren't already bleak enough, there's another possible limit on any future call.
I know the despair. I know the helpless feeling that I will break, no matter how much I attempt to carry on as normal. Or I know that I don't come equipped with a long list of references in Presbyland, to begin with; I'm struggling to find any kind of internship that won't be throttled by these ongoing health travails; if anything I'll be staggering to the finish line of seminary, if I'm even that fortunate; in other words, I'm just not going to come out of here with any kind of good new-preacher smell. While all manner of churches will be zipping off the lot with these shiny new models, I'll be the beater in the back corner. Full circle; why am I still on this fool's errand?
So, my apologies. I know you mean well, and I know you are trying to encourage me. But when I hear words like "inspiration" I can't help but wince or worse, because I know all the things that are going on inside, and I know they're not inspirational.
Tomorrow I'll go for surgery to have the requisite port installed somewhere in my upper body. Providing all goes well, Monday will be the first of eight infusions, every other week, in which a cocktail of chemicals I can't pronounce will be injected into my body to fight whatever cancer may remain (two lymph nodes came back positive before, and who knows what's happened in the last two months?). Since I'll have the port I'll supposedly be relatively free to do other things while receiving those transfusions (the first, being first, will take longer, but mostly they will take three and a half to four hours each time). Maybe I'll live-blog a transfusion. Most boring post ever.
As always, the unknown is the monster here. I have no idea what this stuff will do to me. I got lucky with the radiation in the fall; it really had minimal effect at best on me. No guarantee that will be so this time around. It might make me nauseous. It might make me more tired than I can bear. It might eat my brain.
You have to understand, this would probably the one fear I have that gives me cold sweats. My body is pretty much broken at this point. This week it has put me through some of the most humiliating foolishness possible, in terms of a complete lack of control of things that don't make for pleasant conversation. I've been angry, I've been depressed, I've gone through a whole raft of emotions some of which I don't even have names for.
But tell me I've got Alzheimer's, or dementia, or some similar disease, and you get a whole different person. You don't even want to be around me in that case.
Anyway, that's not the case yet, so far as I know. Dealing with a malfunctioning body has been frustrating and anger-inducing enough.
There are times in conversations these days when people -- friends, well-meaning people -- use words that make me extremely uncomfortable. Words like "inspiration." Words like "model." So far I don't think anyone's used the word "hero," so at least there's that.
They are friends. They have been as supportive as any human being could ever be. They love me. I know these things. I certainly know there is no intent to make me uncomfortable.
Still, I cannot help but wince, or worse, when I hear or read these things.
It really isn't my place to criticize people who are trying to encourage me or lift me up. That's being a poor recipient of pastoral care, if nothing else. But the trouble is, I know better.
I know the doubts. I know the regular, routine, gnawing sensation that I really can't stand this much longer. I know the nagging fear that at some point, maybe the first transfusion, or the second, or the fifth, or the eighth, that my body will simply fold up and quit. And I know the disturbing sensation that this fear doesn't bother me as much as it should.
I know the despair. I know the increasing resignation, the sensation, whether it's a bout of extreme weariness or days chained to the toilet or food tasting strange, that this is just how my life's going to be from now on, isn't it? More treatments, more bodily humiliations, more impediments to any kind of normal life, more delays in getting that damn exegesis done, more discomfort. And these thoughts don't have answers. Nothing comes wafting back to me in answer. I don't remember what normal feels like anymore.
I know the hopelessness. I know the sense that, even if this chemotherapy regimen is deemed a "success," I'm never off the hook. One of the most likely predictors of having cancer is still having had cancer before. I'll always be one colonoscopy away from going through the damn death spiral all over again. And next time, who knows what kind of insurance I'll have? Yes, there's the practical angle that spews all manner of hopelessness across the scene. I have to say the plan the seminary offers is pretty decent, once it lumbers into action, but is quite limited, and I may be testing its limits in the next few months.
I know the doubts. Even as I struggle to keep up some pretense of regular class participation, I know the furtive demons of presumed pointlessness. So, really, why are you still on this damned fool's errand? What can you possibly hope to accomplish? You really think any church will even touch you with a ten-foot pole? You'll be almost fifty, and your health will be a huge black hole. "Cancer survivor," my ass. All that is is a bullseye on your back. And you'll be surrounded by classmates and fellow graduates, not just from Union but from all the seminaries, who can preach rings around you AND be youth workers or Christian educators and fit snugly into a nice multi-staff starter call.
I know the hopelessness. I know the sense that this cancer bullseye is limiting my future. Do I dare take a call, should one even come open, in a rural area? All along I've been prepared for the possibility of some kind of bivocationality. I have a few past careers I could fall back on if need be. But is my field limited by the need to be near some hospital of at least a certain capability? Can I be a hundred miles or more away from the nearest oncologist? Or is that a risk too far? As if my prospects weren't already bleak enough, there's another possible limit on any future call.
I know the despair. I know the helpless feeling that I will break, no matter how much I attempt to carry on as normal. Or I know that I don't come equipped with a long list of references in Presbyland, to begin with; I'm struggling to find any kind of internship that won't be throttled by these ongoing health travails; if anything I'll be staggering to the finish line of seminary, if I'm even that fortunate; in other words, I'm just not going to come out of here with any kind of good new-preacher smell. While all manner of churches will be zipping off the lot with these shiny new models, I'll be the beater in the back corner. Full circle; why am I still on this fool's errand?
So, my apologies. I know you mean well, and I know you are trying to encourage me. But when I hear words like "inspiration" I can't help but wince or worse, because I know all the things that are going on inside, and I know they're not inspirational.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
The program trap
It's been a bit more than five years now since Willow Creek Community Church, the seminal megachurch in the Chicago suburbs, released a report of its own investigation of the success (or not) of its church model in filling the church regularly and bringing those who came to the church as "seekers" towards a fuller life of discipleship. The church leadership was a bit floored by the results. WCCC could put butts in the seats regularly, no problem there. What was a problem was that the occupants of those seats were often not satisfied with the church when it came to growing in discipleship. While the church could shuffle its participants into one of any number of well-tailored programs for activity and for developing a sense of belonging and community, those programs were not fulfilling the task of leading folks towards discipleship. (Googling "Willow Creek Reveal" or some similar combination will turn up oodles of essays or articles or blogs on the subject.)
Some shoved off for another megachurch more stimulating or satisfying. Some remained at WCCC, but grew increasingly frustrated. Some simply dropped out altogether. (Hearsay has it that a brave few, deciding they needed something that would point them towards a deeper experience of faith, turned to -- shudder -- mainline churches. Horrors!).
I come neither to praise Willow Creek nor to bury it. It is commendable that they have the nerve to take such an unflinching look at the lack of fruits of their labor and to be so publicly accountable about it (you can buy the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or other such outlets). Whether they have the resources within them to go the distance that may be necessary to transform their model into one that actually fosters spiritual growth I don't know. What I am struck by here is that, for all the trappings of newness and "contemporary" style and the perceived willingness to "rethink everything" and transform completely the experience of church in pursuit of those precious seekers, in this respect at least Willow Creek turned out to be anything but contemporary; it was in this one way a very traditional church.
This next paragraph is directed primarily at folks who grew up as a consistent and regular participant in some kind of "traditional" church (i.e. not a contemporary program). Evangelical, mainline, in between or past either extreme; I'm curious how many of you (and you might have to be of a particular age like for this to hold) had an experience similar to mine, growing up in a sizable downtown church in a prominent evangelical denomination (some of you will recognize which one when I begin to describe the programs).
The nursery is available as soon as one is born of course, but it doesn't take too many years to be channeled into an age-appropriate Sunday School class. These would be present at every age and stage of development right into one's senior years if one should remain in the church one's entire lifetime. Since Sunday mornings weren't enough backintheday, one could precede the Sunday evening service with a program called "Church Training." (I admit I was never completely clear on what the difference was between the two, and this might have been true for the hundreds of others who made it to one but not the other.) This primary Christian education model, again, was largely made available for every age group found in the church.
If all day Sunday wasn't enough, there were programs to draw one back on Wednesday nights as well. Frequently a church-wide supper was the principal inducement (it was called "Family Night Supper" back then at this church). Afterwards a passel of age-appropriate activities might be available. Adults could be shepherded into a more in-depth Bible study; youth might engage in a kind of mission activity (taking those dinners to the church shut-ins who couldn't come, for example) or possibly a recreation time; children were generally off to their appropriate graded choir. This, like the Christian education programs, existed all the way up the ladder, from the earliest age children could reasonably be said to "sing" together to a senior adult choir, though not all ages met at the same time. Adult choir rehearsal finished the evening. Youth choir typically met on Sunday nights.
Other nights of the week might include more lighthearted fellowship events for adults, a Boy Scouts-lite program called "Royal Ambassadors" (girls had the similar knockoff "Girls in Action") replete with badges and levels of achievement (I still have a bookshelf I built in RA's one year), and possibly specialized events at different times of the year. Was I a middle-schooler with a competitive streak? Hey, try "Bible drill" (an exercise in competitive searching for and learning Bible books and passages -- second place in the state of Georgia in 1980, baby -- by just one point!). When you outgrew that you could try the speaker's tournament, in which one was encouraged to develop and deliver an original essay on some religious subject. I always presumed this was supposed to be some means of identifying future preachers, but I never did get into it -- I think I was burned out after Bible drill.
In the face of so many demands on a person's time outside the church, I don't know how many churches successfully maintain such an intensive program model today. For me, the time tension only became particularly difficult in high school, as I began to participate in activities like band or drama club that made their own schedule demands.
So yes, I was the product of a pretty thorough program of church activities by the time I headed off to college. And when I did...I completely foundered. I had no idea what I was doing. What I had developed was acres and acres wide, but perhaps a half-inch deep. I knew a lot of Bible verses and could remember a lot of Bible stories, but getting from that memorized knowledge into something that animated a more profound and vital faith was quite beyond me. In fact, thanks to a few youth retreats spread out across my junior-high and high-school years, if anything I had the idea that a "real" faith involved some sort of highly emotionalized experience of undefined religious passion, something I could not generate on my own and that subsequent experiences of which were progressively less satisfying or edifying.
I wonder how many others had experiences like mine. Or how many others had a different experience; one in which they were conditioned to be perfectly receptive vessels for whatever instruction or direction or, dare I say, propaganda the pastor might decide to impart at a given time. Persons who could follow the program to a "t" but had not a whit of intellectual or spiritual initiative or even capacity for original insight. Mind you, some churches or denominations thrive on this kind of member, but on the whole I'm not sure it benefits the church as a whole merely to spit out cogs for the ever-growing and ever-grinding machine. Or maybe others you might be able to describe. And I'm sure there there are many who came out of such program-oriented churches with something like a mature and working faith.
Programs are not inherently bad. If a particular program can be a means to induce a newbie to move beyond initial enthusiasms and into a process of study, prayer, and service that leads to actual spiritual growth and maturing, and surrounds that person with fellow pilgrims for support and nurture, it can be quite possibly be a good thing. A program is not, by itself, enough, no matter if you're at First Ultra-Traditional Church or Happy Happy Rock-n-Roll Church.
So what, then? A church that points to the world that Christ demands we serve; that worships God in a way that engages our profound need to worship what is far greater and deeper than any comfy box we can devise for it; that confronts its members with the whole church, in all its glory and tarnish, rather than pretending to be a new and separate thing; and that prods each person towards a life engulfed in prayer, meditation upon the Word, listening intently to silence, letting mystery be mystery, and holding each other accountable for that terrifying and exhilarating pilgrimage.
Good luck finding a program for that.
Some shoved off for another megachurch more stimulating or satisfying. Some remained at WCCC, but grew increasingly frustrated. Some simply dropped out altogether. (Hearsay has it that a brave few, deciding they needed something that would point them towards a deeper experience of faith, turned to -- shudder -- mainline churches. Horrors!).
I come neither to praise Willow Creek nor to bury it. It is commendable that they have the nerve to take such an unflinching look at the lack of fruits of their labor and to be so publicly accountable about it (you can buy the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or other such outlets). Whether they have the resources within them to go the distance that may be necessary to transform their model into one that actually fosters spiritual growth I don't know. What I am struck by here is that, for all the trappings of newness and "contemporary" style and the perceived willingness to "rethink everything" and transform completely the experience of church in pursuit of those precious seekers, in this respect at least Willow Creek turned out to be anything but contemporary; it was in this one way a very traditional church.
This next paragraph is directed primarily at folks who grew up as a consistent and regular participant in some kind of "traditional" church (i.e. not a contemporary program). Evangelical, mainline, in between or past either extreme; I'm curious how many of you (and you might have to be of a particular age like for this to hold) had an experience similar to mine, growing up in a sizable downtown church in a prominent evangelical denomination (some of you will recognize which one when I begin to describe the programs).
The nursery is available as soon as one is born of course, but it doesn't take too many years to be channeled into an age-appropriate Sunday School class. These would be present at every age and stage of development right into one's senior years if one should remain in the church one's entire lifetime. Since Sunday mornings weren't enough backintheday, one could precede the Sunday evening service with a program called "Church Training." (I admit I was never completely clear on what the difference was between the two, and this might have been true for the hundreds of others who made it to one but not the other.) This primary Christian education model, again, was largely made available for every age group found in the church.
If all day Sunday wasn't enough, there were programs to draw one back on Wednesday nights as well. Frequently a church-wide supper was the principal inducement (it was called "Family Night Supper" back then at this church). Afterwards a passel of age-appropriate activities might be available. Adults could be shepherded into a more in-depth Bible study; youth might engage in a kind of mission activity (taking those dinners to the church shut-ins who couldn't come, for example) or possibly a recreation time; children were generally off to their appropriate graded choir. This, like the Christian education programs, existed all the way up the ladder, from the earliest age children could reasonably be said to "sing" together to a senior adult choir, though not all ages met at the same time. Adult choir rehearsal finished the evening. Youth choir typically met on Sunday nights.
Other nights of the week might include more lighthearted fellowship events for adults, a Boy Scouts-lite program called "Royal Ambassadors" (girls had the similar knockoff "Girls in Action") replete with badges and levels of achievement (I still have a bookshelf I built in RA's one year), and possibly specialized events at different times of the year. Was I a middle-schooler with a competitive streak? Hey, try "Bible drill" (an exercise in competitive searching for and learning Bible books and passages -- second place in the state of Georgia in 1980, baby -- by just one point!). When you outgrew that you could try the speaker's tournament, in which one was encouraged to develop and deliver an original essay on some religious subject. I always presumed this was supposed to be some means of identifying future preachers, but I never did get into it -- I think I was burned out after Bible drill.
In the face of so many demands on a person's time outside the church, I don't know how many churches successfully maintain such an intensive program model today. For me, the time tension only became particularly difficult in high school, as I began to participate in activities like band or drama club that made their own schedule demands.
So yes, I was the product of a pretty thorough program of church activities by the time I headed off to college. And when I did...I completely foundered. I had no idea what I was doing. What I had developed was acres and acres wide, but perhaps a half-inch deep. I knew a lot of Bible verses and could remember a lot of Bible stories, but getting from that memorized knowledge into something that animated a more profound and vital faith was quite beyond me. In fact, thanks to a few youth retreats spread out across my junior-high and high-school years, if anything I had the idea that a "real" faith involved some sort of highly emotionalized experience of undefined religious passion, something I could not generate on my own and that subsequent experiences of which were progressively less satisfying or edifying.
I wonder how many others had experiences like mine. Or how many others had a different experience; one in which they were conditioned to be perfectly receptive vessels for whatever instruction or direction or, dare I say, propaganda the pastor might decide to impart at a given time. Persons who could follow the program to a "t" but had not a whit of intellectual or spiritual initiative or even capacity for original insight. Mind you, some churches or denominations thrive on this kind of member, but on the whole I'm not sure it benefits the church as a whole merely to spit out cogs for the ever-growing and ever-grinding machine. Or maybe others you might be able to describe. And I'm sure there there are many who came out of such program-oriented churches with something like a mature and working faith.
Programs are not inherently bad. If a particular program can be a means to induce a newbie to move beyond initial enthusiasms and into a process of study, prayer, and service that leads to actual spiritual growth and maturing, and surrounds that person with fellow pilgrims for support and nurture, it can be quite possibly be a good thing. A program is not, by itself, enough, no matter if you're at First Ultra-Traditional Church or Happy Happy Rock-n-Roll Church.
So what, then? A church that points to the world that Christ demands we serve; that worships God in a way that engages our profound need to worship what is far greater and deeper than any comfy box we can devise for it; that confronts its members with the whole church, in all its glory and tarnish, rather than pretending to be a new and separate thing; and that prods each person towards a life engulfed in prayer, meditation upon the Word, listening intently to silence, letting mystery be mystery, and holding each other accountable for that terrifying and exhilarating pilgrimage.
Good luck finding a program for that.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
More thinking out loud on music and the church
So I have had a week to think about the Church Music Conference and all it had to offer, and to think more about the general state of music in the church or at least that corner of the church in which I am situated.
Well, no, not really. I've had a week to try and recover physically from the trip, try to get back into my regular class schedule, discover that I wasn't necessarily totally recovered from the trip, catch up with assignments, and try not to forget everything from last weekend amidst all of that tumult.
How successful I was at the latter remains to be seen. Still, while claiming no expertise beyond the minimum (my M.C.M. degree was long ago and not in a particularly liturgically inclined denomination, and I'm a long way from being a pastor yet), I do have some wonderings about the state of music in the (liturgical, non-Catholic, mainline-ish) church and how it can be made better, if at all.
Picking up a thread from the last post, for how many churches is it true that the song of the congregation is the primary musical focal point of the church? How many churches can truly say that any and all of the musical activities that exist in the church -- the sanctuary choir under whatever name it may be given, any choirs for youth and/or children that may exist, the organ, the piano or any other instruments that may be used -- are primarily intended for and designed for the enhancement and support of the song of the congregation?
I have not been to that many churches in my years in the mainline tradition. I can only go by what I have seen, and to a much lesser degree from secondhand sources -- what others have had to say about the subject. With those caveats, I'm going to guess that the answer to the questions of the previous paragraph is a pretty small number. Whatever good intentions might be out there, choirs pretty quickly tend to exist for their own sake. If the choir gets through the anthem, however movingly or effectively or beautifully it might be rendered, then the choir has done its job. Unless the pastor has gone off on a wild hair and put in some crazy unknown hymn, the choir is most unlikely to crack a hymnal at all (and I've seen some choirs where the members can't even be bothered to sing the hymns with the congregation -- an extreme and unrepresentative example, but out there nonetheless), or to do so only with minimal energy or concentration.
Here is a point at which something should be made quite clear; the impulse to "put on a show" and rely heavily on entertainment value is not at all limited to those churches which trade in the so-called "contemporary worship" idiom. Showmanship, or performative priority, is just as much a danger in a church steeped in classical tradition and singing from the masterworks for their services as in your basic happy-happy-rock-and-roll church. For that matter, it is a pitfall for the church with the fully-stocked graded choir program putting the smallest kids out there on a rather frequent basis in the knowledge that their unbeatable cuteness will put lots of family members in the pews and maybe even draw applause from the congregation (o.k., that's going to have to be a subject for a post unto itself, the whole applause business). To the degree that the musical program of church becomes a butts-in-the-seats proposition rather than a songs-in-the-hearts endeavor to lead and edify those who are in those seats, maybe there's a problem. Maybe something is out of whack.
Before you say anything; no, this is not to say that the only thing a choir can do is sing the hymns to lead the congregation. Yes, it's perfectly appropriate for the choir to bring forth anthems in the service. To the degree that anthem "performance" becomes the choir's main or only reason for existence in the church that's a problem, but the choir can be an effective proclaimer of the word with well-chosen and well-prepared anthem material (and yes, there's a pretty good chance the message they proclaim may well stay in the memory of the congregation better than anything I say as pastor). Personally, I don't even have a problem with a choir doing extra-liturgical things like concerts, or performances of large works outside the worship service. Anything that makes the choir a more skilled musical instrument, so to speak, will be of benefit to the congregation that is led in musical worship by that choir. Again, the question is one of priority. If the scheduled performance of the Rutter Requiem or the Vivaldi Gloria keeps the choir from its primary role of worship and song leadership, then it probably needs to go, but the two are not necessarily incompatible and may even enhance one another. It is about remembering what comes first and foremost.
I have a feeling there will be more later.
Well, no, not really. I've had a week to try and recover physically from the trip, try to get back into my regular class schedule, discover that I wasn't necessarily totally recovered from the trip, catch up with assignments, and try not to forget everything from last weekend amidst all of that tumult.
How successful I was at the latter remains to be seen. Still, while claiming no expertise beyond the minimum (my M.C.M. degree was long ago and not in a particularly liturgically inclined denomination, and I'm a long way from being a pastor yet), I do have some wonderings about the state of music in the (liturgical, non-Catholic, mainline-ish) church and how it can be made better, if at all.
Picking up a thread from the last post, for how many churches is it true that the song of the congregation is the primary musical focal point of the church? How many churches can truly say that any and all of the musical activities that exist in the church -- the sanctuary choir under whatever name it may be given, any choirs for youth and/or children that may exist, the organ, the piano or any other instruments that may be used -- are primarily intended for and designed for the enhancement and support of the song of the congregation?
I have not been to that many churches in my years in the mainline tradition. I can only go by what I have seen, and to a much lesser degree from secondhand sources -- what others have had to say about the subject. With those caveats, I'm going to guess that the answer to the questions of the previous paragraph is a pretty small number. Whatever good intentions might be out there, choirs pretty quickly tend to exist for their own sake. If the choir gets through the anthem, however movingly or effectively or beautifully it might be rendered, then the choir has done its job. Unless the pastor has gone off on a wild hair and put in some crazy unknown hymn, the choir is most unlikely to crack a hymnal at all (and I've seen some choirs where the members can't even be bothered to sing the hymns with the congregation -- an extreme and unrepresentative example, but out there nonetheless), or to do so only with minimal energy or concentration.
Here is a point at which something should be made quite clear; the impulse to "put on a show" and rely heavily on entertainment value is not at all limited to those churches which trade in the so-called "contemporary worship" idiom. Showmanship, or performative priority, is just as much a danger in a church steeped in classical tradition and singing from the masterworks for their services as in your basic happy-happy-rock-and-roll church. For that matter, it is a pitfall for the church with the fully-stocked graded choir program putting the smallest kids out there on a rather frequent basis in the knowledge that their unbeatable cuteness will put lots of family members in the pews and maybe even draw applause from the congregation (o.k., that's going to have to be a subject for a post unto itself, the whole applause business). To the degree that the musical program of church becomes a butts-in-the-seats proposition rather than a songs-in-the-hearts endeavor to lead and edify those who are in those seats, maybe there's a problem. Maybe something is out of whack.
Before you say anything; no, this is not to say that the only thing a choir can do is sing the hymns to lead the congregation. Yes, it's perfectly appropriate for the choir to bring forth anthems in the service. To the degree that anthem "performance" becomes the choir's main or only reason for existence in the church that's a problem, but the choir can be an effective proclaimer of the word with well-chosen and well-prepared anthem material (and yes, there's a pretty good chance the message they proclaim may well stay in the memory of the congregation better than anything I say as pastor). Personally, I don't even have a problem with a choir doing extra-liturgical things like concerts, or performances of large works outside the worship service. Anything that makes the choir a more skilled musical instrument, so to speak, will be of benefit to the congregation that is led in musical worship by that choir. Again, the question is one of priority. If the scheduled performance of the Rutter Requiem or the Vivaldi Gloria keeps the choir from its primary role of worship and song leadership, then it probably needs to go, but the two are not necessarily incompatible and may even enhance one another. It is about remembering what comes first and foremost.
I have a feeling there will be more later.
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