What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Joy of Evensong

    There are reports in the media today that a service of Choral Evensong in Bath Abbey was abandoned last Sunday because those inside the Abbey couldn’t compete with amplified music coming from outside the building. It is a bit of a sorry tale and I’m surprised that the police did not deal with it as a Breach of the Peace.

    When I came to St Mary’s I had never been in a church which had Choral Evensong as a regular service before. It had seemed to me to be something which was a bit of an anachronism- something that was dying out along with the users of the Scottish Prayer Book. I’d tried to avoid encouraging it in the churches that I’d previously worked in and was a bit suspicious of coming to a place where there was evening worship every week. It seemed like one unnecessary extra thing to do at the end of a busy day.

    However, I couldn’t have been more wrong and within a very short period of time, I had worked out that Choral Evensong was going to be one of the things that would sustain me in my ministry at St Mary’s and also that it was a devotion that was not only still relevant to some people but actively bringing people into church for the first time.

    Evensong is so different to the Eucharists we have in the morning at St Mary’s. In the morning, at the main service, there is quite a lot of activity and movement. It feels wonderfully busy and exciting. Choral Evensong feels wonderfully calm and peaceful.

    That’s not to say that there isn’t excitement at Evensong – the music is sublime. Here at St Mary’s we are lucky to have some of the most exciting singing you’ll hear in Scotland. The choir, who are all volunteers, make a passionate  sound that ranges from quiet and intimate to full-on ranting for some of the psalms. I love the diversity of music we get and I love the shape to the service which doesn’t change much each week.

    Choral Evensong is a perfect chill-out zone. You sit, you listen, you meditate, you absorb. You don’t need to be seen to do anything very much. It is  like bathing in a deep warm bath of musical spirituality.

    I’ve noticed that some people engage with St Mary’s for the first time at Evensong. I think it is because it is so easy to come to. Somehow you get time to think at Evensong – re-imagining the world that you’ve left outside the building and preparing yourself for the week ahead as the music and the peace of the building refresh you.

    I hope they sort out their troubles at Bath Abbey. Choral Evensong is a lovely thing and it would be terrible to lose it when you have it regularly.

    It is Sunday at 6.30 pm here at St Mary’s if you are looking for your soul to be soothed.

    ,

72 responses to “Baptism and the Churches”

  1. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Thanks Kelvin and all for the interesting discussion. As a member of the Episcopal Church in the US, I only ever used the Baptismal Covenant in an argument against the necessity of the proposed Anglican Covenant. For me, the Baptismal Covenant is an assent to the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, so I saw absolutely no need of another covenant. In fact, I don’t see the Baptismal Covenant as something different from the New Covenant.

    With respect to whether Baptism or the Eucharist is a/the sacrament of initiation, wouldn’t the answer be both? In the early church, the person was baptized and received the Eucharist during the same service.

    Also, I wonder if people from other Anglican churches are aware of the great diversity of views held by Episcopalians in the US. That all the orders of ministry should be open to all the baptized seems to me simply a matter of the justice and equality that all Christians should strive for as members of the Body of Christ.

    Reply
  2. Erika Baker Avatar
    Erika Baker

    Sorry, I’m posting on Erika’s computer, but the comment above is by me, June Butler (aka Grandmère Mimi).

    Reply
  3. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    It’s so refreshing to read a discussion where everyone’s listening and learning through that dialectical process. Here’s my tuppennyworth: the disparaging mention of magic by churchpeople always makes my hackles go up – mostly as our Christian legacy of persecution of wise healers as witches is still largely unacknowledged and certainly unatoned – but also because the RC in me hears this as a facile Protestant jibe against metaphysics (if you want my views on that buzzword look here: http://robertpirsig.org/Alchemy.htm ) and though Vat 2 officially u-turned on slavery (yay! who says the RC church can’t change, eventually) it didn’t move away from an essentially sacramental view of Christian ministry.
    I feel that underlying this discussion may be a difference in sacramental theology. I hold the traditional view that through the creation, the incarnation and ongoing sanctification, the Spirit of God is at work metaphysically in the world and that means neither solely spiritually nor physically but betwixt and between. The RC church is just as guilty of virulent hatred of non-clerical women healers as others but the convivial nature of the relationship which sometimes occurs between Roman Catholic and ‘curandero’ (wise traditional healer) in Latin America is for me an affirmation of the ecological connections inherent in both cosmologies – though often forgotten in the RC church it must be said.
    The part of the SEC liturgy I find most alienating is ‘Lord unite us in this sign’. This speaks to me of cognition not communion. In these words I feel the lack of belief in a metaphysical reality. I feel that this discussion may have brought up a similar divide in concept about baptism: is it or is it not efficacious?

    Reply

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