On the trails this Sunday

This Sunday I won't be in church. I'll be running the Deadwood-Mickelson Trail Marathon in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The weather forecast is promising, and it should be a beautiful morning to run the route through the Black Hills.

It's always amazing to me how long it seems like I've been away from the church when I take a week off. The service becomes an ingrained part of the rhythm and pacing of life so that it's absence becomes notable. If only my running could always be such a consistent part of my week!

It reminds me of Aristotle's famous quote about excellence being not an act but a habit. We can only reach great accomplishments through consistent preparation and practice, which is not that different from becoming a musician. High quality repetition and practice make us better, including better at understanding our faith.

My iPod will provide music of all kinds for me during my run this week, and I look forward to getting back to the usual Sunday service next week!

This Sunday...on the beach!

The state of Florida must know that I'm coming to visit because they're going to have one of the coldest weeks of the year. For some reason, a blast of arctic air always seems to accompany my visits. But I'll be out of town this weekend, enjoying time with family and a chance to relax for a few days.

Hopefully the sun will shine enough that I can at least enjoy a walk on the beach. I love the rhythm of the waves and the blended music and sounds of people enjoying the day. It's nice to get a break from hearing the same sounds all the time, to have a short break from the cycle of music every week.

I'm sure that Cassie will be playing great music this Sunday in my place. While I will miss the church, I won't miss the snow! I'll be back next week, rejuvenated and ready to make big plans for Lent, Easter, and a great 2010.

An organist in the pew

I had promised further reflections on my experience at St. Paul's in Missouri last Sunday, so I thought I would simply bullet point some of the things that crossed my mind during the service. Here they are, in liturgical order:

• Singing an opening hymn as well as a long hymn of praise means there is a great deal of music right at the beginning of the service. This was especially evident since the church was using setting 10 of the liturgy, where the hymn of praise is itself based on a hymn tune. Perhaps the "opening hymn" works best as a call to worship that precedes the confession.
• Setting 10 is a very easy setting to learn and sing, since the tunes are already familiar. It also has a good sense of continuity through the key of F major.
• Reciting psalms can be boring, especially when mumbled in monotone. But then again singing them in a boring way isn't much better. I guess it boils down to attitude and intention.
• After years of the LBW's liturgies and singing "Glory to you, O Lord" and "Praise to you, O Christ," Luthern congregations sound awful when asked to mumble the words before and after the Gospel. If we can't proclaim them joyfully, let's go back to singing them!
• The entire hymnal should be transposed up at least a whole step. Ok, I know that's mostly because I'm a tenor who eyes the alto line with envy on many hymns. But the theory that people will sing out if we compose growly low notes for them hasn't worked out. Maybe if we asked people to project on some high notes, they'd take a deep breath and produce some sound.
• Very few people at very few churches ever do listen to a postlude.

Fellowship and stewardship, Missouri style

Last Sunday I attended a new church during my vacation. It is always refreshing to sit in a pew for a change and not at the organ bench. I hear the music so differently, and I can learn from that perspective and incorporate new ideas into my own playing. I'll be writing more about the musical experience of last Sunday over the course of this week, but first I want to share the primary feature that I will remember about our worship experience: the incredible sense of welcome and stewardship from the pastor and congregation at St. Paul's Lutheran in Lohman, Missouri.

On their home page, Pastor Ed Merckel writes "I wish to extend a personal welcome to you to experience the joyful life here at St. Paul's." That is clearly not lip service; it is part of the driving philosophy of their ministry. Upon first entering the church, we were warmly greeted by not only the pastor but also several members of the congregation. Before we had even reached our seats, we had discovered a St. Olaf connection with a congregant's son, shared information about our travels, and been informed of the location of the basement restrooms.

The service abounded with participation: the VBS kids sang at the beginning of the service and the children's sermon brought quite a large group of kids to the front of the church. People looked you in the eye during the sharing of the peace and communion, as if consciously acknowledging each other as members of one community.

After the service, a woman seated in the pew behind us introduced herself and said, "I don't believe I know you." In a congregation of approximately 150 people, she both noticed the newcomers among them and took the time to welcome us personally. It simply amazed me the number of times that we were greeted and welcomed. Their congregation should be a model for every other church in its dealings with guests. This is not only good fellowship but good stewardship and outreach, just part of keeping a congregation dynamic and growing.

The church building itself is lovely, as you can see for yourself, and it's located in a beautiful, hilly portion of rural Missouri, just outside Jefferson City. It's unlikely I'll ever return to that church, but it was wonderful to stumble upon such a joyful and welcoming Lutheran congregation on my trip.

It had better still work!

Last week, I traveled across the midwest to meet family in Missouri. No, none of us has ever lived in Missouri, it was just a place to meet in the middle. On the way, I spent two nights in Springfield, Illinois. I hadn't been there for several years, and it was fun to return to the tourist sites like Lincoln's home and office as well as Frank Lloyd Wright's Dana-Thomas house.

I also stopped by Springfield's First Presbyterian Church, which is home to the "Lincoln Pew." The building wasn't constructed until after Lincoln's death, but it was the site of Mary Todd Lincoln's funeral, and the narthex of the church proudly displays the pew that the family rented in a previous building.

After being underwhelmed by the pew, I was amazed by the beauty of the sanctuary: the eight Tiffany stained glass windows and, to my surprise, a pipe organ built by John Brombaugh (his Opus 35). Brombaugh is among the major organ builders of the 20th century, and he has a local connection because one of his organs is at First Lutheran in Lorain.

I won't bore you with geeky arcana of organ construction, but I do want to share one of my favorite stories that the docent told about the pipe organ. One Springfield tourist who was used to everything in town dating from the 1860s had commented to her that it was amazing the organ still played so beautifully. To which the docent replied, "It had better still work! We just got it in 2000!"

Yes, pipe organs still get designed and installed in churches all around the world, and they're still playing some of the greatest music and hymns ever composed, whether the music is 300 years old, composed last month, or improvised during the service.

This Sunday...outta town

This Sunday Cassie will be at the organ bench, leading the congregation in song. I'll be with my family, camping and relaxing for a carefree week of travel. I love the recharged feeling of ambition that comes from a vacation, and I look forward to being back.

Also, just a quick note today about a book I mentioned in an earlier post. Robert Wright, the author of The Evolution of God, gave an interview to salon.com that is an interesting read. I really do need to get around to reading the actual book, I know, but I think the discussions and interviews alone have been valuable among the various "public intellectuals." Anything that forces us to think about Christian apologetics, science, history, and faith is a good thing.

Back in the Buckeye State

I've returned from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, where the weather was unseasonally cold, gray, and dreary, not at all the beautiful days at the lake that I had been hoping for. But it was a wonderful visit with friends and family, as well as a chance simply to relax and be away from home for a few days.

On the drive back through Indiana, somewhere near South Bend, I noticed a billboard for a regional website www.artseverywhere.org. I know most of my readers won't be attending any of their events, but I do love the fact that the site exists and has such a great name. Art is (and should be) everywhere around us, and it only reinforced one of my original goals of this blog: to share more information about the arts in greater Cleveland. So I'll be redoubling my effort to find local events, and I ask you to send along any events that you find particularly worthy as well.

I heard Garrison Keillor quote Ben Jonson today, "Art hath an enemy called ignorance." In troubling economic times, arts organizations can struggle for funding to the point that their existence is threatened. Schools focus on the "core curriculum" and trim music and art budgets. That only reinforces the importance of church music. Some of the greatest musicians of all history were church organists, J.S. Bach being the most prominent. Gregorian chant gave rise to the earliest systems of written music. Furthermore, Vatican City is bursting with some of the greatest sculptures and paintings of history.

It's not only Christianity that has inspired great music and art, of course. The temples of Ankar Wat, the pyramids of Egypt, the calligraphy of the Quran - art and religion have a symbiotic relationship around the world. The arts can inspire and educate us, buttressing our faith with liturgies and hymns. Those are good reasons to sing out on Sunday morning and for me to get back to work planning for this Sunday's services. See you in church!