What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Joy of Evensong

23/09/2014

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.

Bath Abbey, Choral Evensong

12 responses to “Do you believe that God intervenes in the world?”

Mark Chambers

13/02/2012

I think this is probably the best way to think about prayer. When you say the world is affected by praying people, are you saying there is a link between prayer and improved behaviour or increased charity etc ?

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1. kelvin
  
  13/02/2012
  
  Well, I guess if I think that I’m changed by prayer, I probably hope that it affects me for the better.
  
  I might even be prepared to say that unless prayer changes the person praying, it probably isn’t being done right at all.
  
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Dyfed

13/02/2012

Thanks for this thoughtful piece.

I agree with you wholeheartedly that prayer is about me being silent before God for a moment. Such a silence is so necessary in the midst of our busy lives and busy minds.

But I do believe in healing – physical, emotional, and spiritual. I have no experience of physical healing but I have plenty of experience of the emotional kind. As someone who was left very angry and full of shame following an episode of abuse as a young child, I have certainly known God’s love wash away those feelings as I have been prayed for by friends.

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Ruth Richards-Hill

13/02/2012

Before I ever ventured into the concept of prayers being answered, my journey took me to a place where I asked myself “who or what is this G-d I am communicating with?”

My idea of g-d has nothing to do with an old man with a long beard sitting in the clouds looking down on us, but rather a positive spiritual consciousness that we are all connected to.

When I pray I tap into this consciousness and often prayer, when used as a form of meditation, brings to me the answers I need, even sometimes realising that they are not rhe answers I want.

Does g-d intervene? In my interpretation definitely yes. But not necessarily in the way we traditionally expect. Intervention from G-d in my life has always involved realisations as to how I should deal with the very personal things I pray about and for. I have often cleared my mind for prayer in Church and found unthought of solutions to my problems come rushing into the void.

As for tangible interventions such as g-d curing cancer, I think we find ourselves dealing with similar spiritual issues such as destiny, freedom of choice and the like which become interwoven with our concept of prayer and its use and usefulness.

I do believe prayer brings healing too, but I could write a blogpost of my own about that.

The question is a huge one, and if we can accept that the answer we get is not always the one we’re seeking then the value of prayer becomes priceless, regardless of our religious/spiritual path.

I dont comment often, but I couldnt resist replying, sorry for the long reply.

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Rosemary Hannah

14/02/2012

What do we mean by ‘intervene’??

Not perhaps a foolish question. Let me put it another way, or rather let me borrow from Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman the words they put in the mouth of their sorely tempted (to save the world) Christ figure, a small boy: ‘Seems to me, the only sensible thing is for people to know that it they kill a whale they’ve got a dead whale.’ I am fond of saying that God lets us run around barefoot in the snow until we see the good sense in wearing wellies in it. The only way the world works is if it has consequences.

That said, I think there are ways he does intervene.

As regards prejudice – I’m with Shaw and Pratchett on that too – thoughts are too powerful to be let to run into paths which corrupt and anything that stops us seeing the equal worth of the life and love of another is downright evil. While people are made miserable, or made to suffer consequences, because their skin is one or another colour, or they love their own gender, or anything else which stops us valuing the person before us, then we can never let such attitudes breed in ourselves, or go unchallenged when they pass before us, whatever the cost. This is a quite different thing from disagreeing on matters which are almost certainly so complex that we struggle to understand them almost as much as my dogs struggle to understand when happens when I to work, and how that links into the bowls of food which turn for breakfast each day.

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Mark Chambers

14/02/2012

Far be it from me to say what is and isn’t god or to doubt your experience but it could be said that your example of intervention is a common result from any meditation, religious or otherwise.

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1. kelvin
  
  14/02/2012
  
  Yes, that’s right.
  
  But that doesn’t prove a great deal either. It could simply show that God is with those who least suspect that God is with them. (Which would fit rather with some of the ways in which Christians do understand God).
  
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RevRuth

14/02/2012

Just came across this…
Lord, I do not presume to tell you what to do,
or how and when to do it.
I simply bring before you
people who need your love,
and needs which your grace alone can meet.
Let love reign, O my God.
Let grace avail.

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Rosemary Hannah

14/02/2012

All the same, I do not wholly discount the possibility that God might have so structured things that he does actually need our help in praying for actual events (healing eg.)

IF there IS ‘non-medical healing’ (and plenty of people believe in it) it would be just like God to so structure it that it is hard for him to do alone. He has, after all, structured justice that way, and absolutely enjoined us to join him in pursuing it. (FWIW, I believe that in the parable it is God who is the Importunate Widow).

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Tim

14/02/2012

I’m inclined to agree.

Panentheistic immanence implies God is already *in* (and, indeed, permeating through) the world so the idea of intervention becomes moot.

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Rosemary Hannah

14/02/2012

I believe that above all God really really wants us to grow up, take responsibility and help in his work – I believe most things are set up to draw us into this.

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Rosemary Hannah

14/02/2012

I like that Tim – I think that yes ‘intervention’ fails to grapple with immanence.

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