Of Carpets, Journeys, and Narrow doors (What I learned)

Whether I remember to continue this particular variety of blog entry or not, I think it might be a good idea...to go back and take a look at a given Sunday and consciously think about how the morning went and what happened.

So: yesterday, two main things come to mind:

1. I learned that Marty Haugen's "Come and Journey with a Savior" is a really solid and well-written hymn. We used it through all of Lent a couple of years ago and haven't revisited it much since then. Yesterday we pulled it out as an opening song, and I played it on the organ rather than piano. The people sang it solidly and well, it was easy to adapt for organ, and it felt as well-rooted and solid as any "traditional" hymn. I hope more people discover this piece...the verses are a bit odd (not bad, just odd), but it sings very very well.

2. I learned that carpet which looks dry isn't necessarily dry, so if your church flooded in the wake of a terrible storm and the sewage system backed up and soaked the carpet around the font and music area, it's better to forego receiving Communion if that means you have to walk on the wet carpet in your organ shoes and soak the soles so they don't slip nicely on the pedalboard and your rendition of "Here I am, Lord" sounds about like you used to play it 16 years ago when you were just figuring out this foot thing. (Plus, it's just gross to walk around in sewage-soaked carpet.)

I also heard a new take on the "Narrow Door" theme, something I somehow haven't heard before. (It's not too often at this point that I discover a new metaphor:-). Ken approached the idea sort of from the perspective of "the road less travelled"--that we are given the choice between taking the habitual, expected, path of least resistance, or to deliberately choose to take the path that seems less popular, less anticipated, less expected of us. I liked it.

I love how much the assembly sings during late summer, when people are getting back from vacations and the different liturgies are filling up again. Sometimes it was almost thunderous. I remember how for several months I had to get on the cantors right and left about not singing the people's part of the Alleluia with them, to strengthen the sense of dialogue and the assembly's own role--no reason to "support" people's singing of something they can sing in their sleep. The cantors are starting to forget, or else some of them never quite "got" it to begin with, but the job has been done--the people sing their part so loudly that it no longer even matters, which is the best thing in the world, as far as I'm concerned.

This is a good parish.

peace,
Jennifer