My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-seven

Sunday, 1 January, 1989
New Year’s Day

WIEN, HOTEL DREI KÖNIGE-- I was rather surprised this morning that I was awake in good enough time to make it to church, and that I couldn’t get back to sleep, despite only having been in bed for four hours or so. So I got up and put on the dark gray dress I should’ve worn last night (thanks again, Rollo*) and beat it up towards the Stephensdom.

Turns out I could have saved time by taking the U-Bahn but I’d forgotten there was a stop close to the Stephensdom. So I hoofed it and got there a fuzz late and had to sit way back. But at least I could sit. Lots of people there.

They were nice enough to provide song sheets for the responses, so I was able to participate to a decent extent in that, even in German. Still, it would be nice . . .

Went and found some breakfast afterwards at the Aida Konditorei. Very crowded, but I got a sausage roll and a pastry and found a place at a stand up counter whereat to eat them.

After that it was back to the Schleifmühlgasse and the Hotel der Drei Könige.

Changed into my gray flannels, oxford shirt, and sweater; took my camera (Minolta) and headed back out. To be perfectly honest I would just as soon have gone back to bed-- the weather was pretty overcast and gray anyway-- but considering how little time I have here I whipped myself into action.

Paid my respects to Schiller at the Schillerplatz in front of the Kunstakademie, along the Elisabethstraße. But my object was the Kunsthistorische Museum a bit further to the west. Got there and yes, just as I’d feared, the place was closed for New Year’s, like everything else, practically. I didn’t feel quite as dumb as I could’ve, when I saw some other people, who looked like locals, going up and unsuccessfully trying the doors. I wasn’t the only over-optimistic idiot!

So I diddled back to the Opera, looking in store windows, including one of a lighting store (closed, of course) that had some really nice modern type fixtures. Myron’s* office would probably be interested to know if there’s anything there that can be had in the States.

Something that’s to be had here is Mozartkugeln and the shops selling that sort of thing were open. Shopped around and found a good deal on a box of eighteen on Tegetthoffgasse. I learned there’s more than one kind. Amazing. There’s the Salzburger kind and the Wiener kind. The Salzburger kind are cheaper. I shall have lots for tea parties at Coverdale*.

I’d shot out the rest of the film by then and hadn’t brought more with me. So it was as good a time as any to find something to eat, even though it was only around 4:00.

Ended up at a place that was nice in that it seemed aimed at the locals. Menu all in German and German language newspapers hanging on poles for people to read. The trouble is, I hadn’t brought my little German-English dictionary. I didn’t want it for the papers, no, but for the menu.

I should’ve been ok. Should’ve. I hate sauerkraut, can’t abide the stuff, and so I ordered a meal that didn’t include it, but rather Linsen, which I was pretty sure was lentils.

But when the meal came the waiter (who also seemed to be the proprietor) brought sauerkraut! And then pretty much disappeared. And without the dictionary to make sure, I didn’t feel confident in complaining. So the bowl of kraut just sat there untouched.

Had a bottle of beer with it all. Funny, but by the label it appeared to be the original Budweiser brand, from Budwar, Czechoslovakia. Similar logo and everything.

Didn’t say anything about the kraut when I paid. The cashier was different and didn’t seem to speak English.

Trotted back to the hotel and got back into my gray dress for the Beethoven concert. Decided this’d be a great time to inaugurate the burgundy red purse I bought in Florence a couple-three days ago.

Well, sort of. It started spitting rain as soon as I left the hotel and now the front of the bag has all these charming raised spots on it. Lovely.

The Ninth was being done at the Wiener Konzerthaus on the Lothringerstraße, and I took the U-Bahn the short hop from Karlsplatz to Stadtpark. Lots of other people were making their way to the concert hall, too, and I was glad I had my ticket already.

It seemed like the coat check facilities were just acres of tables in the main lobby. More than one piece was extra so I economised, so to speak, by stuffing my sweater and my scarf up the sleeves of my coat.

From the numbers on my ticket I was pretty sure I was in the balcony. And besides, that’s where I was directed by an usher. But when I got up there, I found there was no such seat. Finally I figured out that my seat was in the second row of a bank of chairs that ran parallel to the sides of the hall on the main floor, perpendicular to the orchestra seating. This meant my view of the stage was a little oblique, but not anything you could call bad.

The hall was packed for tonight’s performance, which featured the Wiener Symphoniker and the Wiener Singakademie under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, with Brigette Pascher-Klebel, soprano, Margarita Lilowa, alto, Robert Schunk, tenor, and Robert Lloyd (a Brit!), bass.

De Burgos didn’t purport to do anything new or clever, as Whatsisname (Glenn Block?) did at UMKC a few years ago. The performance was great because it was Beethoven’s Ninth. Conversely, it could’ve used more heart or something . . .

Oh, well. Most of the people there thought it was standing ovation material.

The rain had stopped when the concert let out. And I was not hailed by any Egyptian newspaper vendors during my walk from Karlsplatz back to the Schleifmühlgasse.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Thirteen

Sunday, 18 December, 1988
Paris

Woke up around 7:00 AM with a stomachache. It was either food poisoning, indigestion, the flu that’s going around, or the approach of the wrong time of month. I chose to believe the last, having pills on hand to throw at that condition. So I took them then went back to sleep.

Nevertheless I did not feel too wonderful all day. Considered not getting up for Mass (à la Mexico City, 1970†) but decided I’d regret it if I didn’t.

So I put on my gray dress and went to Mass at Notre Dame. It’s rather odd-- the organ plays and they have readings and so forth between services. Meanwhile people are walking around taking pictures-- with flash-- and it’s a real zoo. Fortunately things calmed down for the service itself.

There was a copy in French and in three other languages of the readings. What I need is that and the actual eucharistic liturgy, in French. A copy of the sermon wouldn’t hurt, either. The priest spoke, I believe, on not making Christmas a surface thing. Very edifying, I’m sure, if I could’ve understood it.

I still did not feel at all well and hoped to gracious I would not have one of my famous Raging Hormonal Imbalances right in the middle of the service. But I survived to go up and take Communion (one kind only), and to come back to my seat and lose it.

Emotionally, I mean. It wasn’t being there, per se, that did it. It was more the feeling of oh, God, what am I supposed to be doing with my life, and if You don’t let me know, who will? I asked Him to give me some kind of sign as to what He wants me to do . . . somebody bringing something up in a conversation, maybe. I don’t know. What did He give Jim Leffel*‡ when he was struggling over accepting the call to Wilkes-Barre*?

Outside afterwards there was a rather ragtag group in front of the cathedral singing Christmas carols-- in English-- for the Armenian earthquake relief (and that’s what happened there, on top of the delicate political situation).

I headed north and had a bottle of Perrier at the first café I found open. I needed the bubbles. Stomach lousy. Between the Pompidou Center and Les Halles I made myself buy a crepe and eat it, but I wasn’t too happy about it.

Still, there were things I had to do today so I pushed myself. Had to find a florist to sell me some real flowers, for one. And as long as I was fairly close, I thought I’d go up to the Boulevards and see where Berlioz went to music school.

Found the fleurs first, near the rue Montmartre. I had to decide what he would like. I settled on a bunch of those small tulips, yellow and white and dark pink and variegated, with their green stems and leaves. Freesias would’ve done well, too, but the only ones they had were all yellow and looked like cheese popcorn. Definitely wrong.

Walked on over to where the Conservatoire is supposed to be, but unless there is another place in Paris with streets named rue Bergère and rue Faubourg de Montmartre, they’ve demolished the building that was there in the early 19th century and moved the school elsewhere.§ Still, to think that he walked there once, on that pavement, and passed through that air!

Took the Métro to Havre-Canmartin, where I encountered a check. The #13 line, which I needed for both la Cimetière Montmartre and for St. Denis [to see the famous abbey church] was closed. Went on to Villiers to at least reach the former and discovered the #6 line wasn’t going today, either. Transit strike on. So I went back to the Place Europe stop and walked it from there.

The cemetery is under the Rue Calincourt overpass, unlike what is shown on my map. Found the entrance down below, though, and inquired of the uniformed porter where to find it . . . Hector’s got a lane named after him there. And he’s not under the viaduct, thank God.

French urban cemeteries aren’t like American ones. They don’t go in for green grass and well-tended plots. They tend to be little necropoles of miniature chapels and temples all jumbled in cheek by jowl with only drear, sandy soil between.

But thank God, somebody has done something about that ghastly Beaux Arts horror of a tomb that Hector originally had, the picture of which I saw in a book in the Philadelphia Free Library. It was all redone in 1970 in black Andes granite (or something similar) with gold in the incised lettering. The portrait on the medallion isn’t as beautiful as it should be, it doesn’t properly convey his character, but everything is very well tended, there are cyclamens, the pretty dark pink kind, and healthy-looking shrubbery growing in pots that are an integral part of the monument, not like the desiccated chrysanthemums on some nearly tombs, and-- oh, God, Berlioz! Berlioz! I can’t-- I wish-- Oh, Lord, I-- and he’s-- I can’t express it!

One doesn’t go to pieces totally. One mustn’t. There are other people around every so often. And it’s not like he died recently or anything . . . let us be sensible.

I could take refuge in activity. I could at least give him what I brought him. Someone who came earlier had left him a bunch of white chrysanthemums (I was glad to see that); I unbound my tulips and laid them across the other flowers. And I knew I’d chosen the right thing. They’re like him, in a way. Straightforward, unpretentious, colorful in their way, but still sensitive to the rigors of the mundane.

There’s a tree there . . . its roots probably grow down into his grave. It’s very handy when you have no other shoulder to cry on . . . Though I’ve cried on his shoulder often enough, figuratively, singing his songs and reading his memoirs and his letters, taking comfort in knowing there was one who has been through it himself, who could express it all so as to draw it up into ineffable poetry and beauty, one who despite his sins and failings took the gift that God gave him and used it, sublimely . . . I couldn’t help it, I prayed again the prayer I’ve said for the past eleven years, that please, God, in Jesus’ Name, if he can’t actually be saved-- and if there’s any proper way he could be, please effect it!-- please allow his faithfulness to his gift and all the good he’s done through its fulfillment speak grace and amelioration for him in the judgement! Please!

There’s a cross engraved above his name on his monument. I hope it is not there for naught. I wish I could believe the Roman Catholic doctrine that you can be saved by being baptised as an infant. I cannot, but it would be a comfort.

I tried to sing the Te Decet Hymnus for him but my voice broke-- "Ad Te caro omnis veniet!" Yes, but how-- and in what spirit?

There were some fuzzy cats roaming around (none of them black) and one approached now and sat a little ways off, preening herself. I went over and patted her, and, unusually for a French cat, she responded to it. If she’d been [my own cat] Didon I’d’ve picked her up, but she was not.

Then I went back and stood once more before la noire tombe-- mon pauvre Hector! Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine!-- kissed my hand to him, and departed.

Hélas!

Found la Square Berlioz after that, not far from la Place Clichy. The statue there is of him as a younger man than on the medallion of the tomb. It was not carved out of very high quality stone-- it has deteriorated badly. I dislike seeing that. And somehow, though I’m glad he is honored in public sculptures like that, somehow seeing them makes him seem more distant, unlike the portraits. I’ve read that his portrait by Courbet is said to be the only one by that artist that has a spark of life. If so, I’m glad it was Hector’s. Nothing can portray him that does not give you those piercing, wonderful eyes.

The square is largely given over to a large sandbox where children play, and sandy paths where the kids were kicking around a soccer ball. I wonder what he’d think of having his statue placed in a playground. He wasn’t much good at children, except for his son Louis.

Since going to see the abbey church of St. Denis was a bust and it was getting on towards 4:00 anyway, I took the Métro back downtown and got off at the Opéra stop. Had to look at the building which, while not the one that Hector knew, yet houses the institution that only opened its doors to him once.

Ironically, they did the Damnation de Faust, as I saw on a poster in the lobby, on the 8th. If I’d known that I could’ve come in from Chartres, no problem. Damnation, indeed.

They had tours but I just didn’t feel up to it. Browsed the gift shop; they had enamelled composer pins, even one of Hector. But they were just too expensive: 70F.

Over then to les Galeries Lafayette to see if maybe they were running the same sale on slips their branch in Toulouse was.

They weren’t; moreover the only suitable kind of slip they did have was running 225F each and was made in the good old USA. I think I’ll wait till I get back to Oxford.

Close one on the escalator there. It was full of people and as we rode upwards, a fairly good-sized man in his 60's lost his balance just ahead of me. Only my never-that-strong and presently very fatigued left arm and hand desperately clutching the rail kept him and me and everyone else from falling like dominoes. I don’t even think I was holding the righthand rail. I just stiffened up and hoped he’d get his balance before I gave way, too. When he made a grab for the rail he pushed into me worse and I had to step back, crunching the toes of the guy behind me (who wasn’t being any help, I might add). Fortunately the older man regained his footing at that point and aside from a little soreness, I was ok.

Still can’t figure out how I did that. I was feeling extremely yucky. Thank God I was able to, though.

The store was packed with Christmas shoppers and decorated to the hilt. (It’s the same all over, isn’t it?) And then it has that immense stained glass dome over the central court.

Back towards the hotel on the Métro (I might use the busses if I had a bus map. But I don’t, so I don’t). Really dragging by now. Figured I’d better find some food though so I got some junk at a croissanterie on Boul. St. Michel.

Got it and me up to the room-- and just couldn’t face it. Changed my clothes and climbed under the bedspread. Was not going to make it to the organ concert at Notre-Dame at 5:45. No. Listened to the radio, BBC World Service. They were airing their worldwide request program, and played the Hallelujah Chorus. And for the third time today I broke down and cried. Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly!

Made myself work at train schedules for the next two days but other than that accomplished nothing but sleep all evening.
__________________________
†I was part of a high school group that took an Easter weekend trip to Mexico that year. On the Saturday, I, like an idiot, Drank the Water, and woke up the next morning too sick to go to the American church for Easter service. Happily, it was a mild case of MR and passed off by late that afternoon.
‡The immediate past pastor of my home church in Kansas City.
§Turns out I'd come up with the wrong address. The old Conservatoire building was and is still there, three or four blocks away from where I was looking for it.

"We Have Heard the Joyful Sound!"

This morning I had the fun of supplying the pulpit of a little church over the border in the wilds of West Virginia. Their regular pastor was away, they needed a Real Ordained Minister to preside at the Lord's table on World Communion Sunday, so they brought me in from miles away, under hill, over dale, to be there.

I arrived in good time, met up with Ralph*, my elder contact, and began get settled.

The organist is an elderly and honorable lady who knows not a great many hymns and is no longer capable of learning many more, so the selection is always left up to her. The hymn numbers were on the board at the front, but not in the bulletin. Hmm . . . what do we have? First one was an unmemorable but innocuous devotional number . . . second was "Beneath the Cross of Jesus," a good one, though in my experience it's generally used in Lent . . . . But the third and last . . . oh boy, here's my jolly old hymnodic bête noire, "In the Garden." On World Communion Sunday, we're going to sing, "And the love we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known"? I do not think so.

I said to Ralph* (who also happens to be the son of the organist), "Do you think your mom might be willing to substitute a mission hymn for "In the Garden"? It's World Communion Sunday, and that hymn's a little inward-looking . . . I'd like to send us out with something a bit more mission focussed . . . "

He thought that could be done, but as we moved towards the sanctuary doors to get a hymnal, we were greeted by the members of the adult Sunday School class, just dismissed, including a very ancient old gentleman leaning on a cane.

"So you're to be our preacher today!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hand with his free one. "I'm a retired Church of God minister, but I've worshipped in this congregation for over twenty years! You know, the Church of God has a mission in Kenya, and there the Church of God and the Presbyterian Church are like twins in Egypt! They get along so well! Just like twins in Egypt!"

As he spoke I spared a piece of my brain to rummage around for the source of the "twins in Egypt" analogy. No luck; maybe he'd give me a clue himself? Nope, and I couldn't wait for the happy event-- we still had the hymn issue and other arrangements to deal with. So as I excused and extricated myself, Ralph* handed me a hymnal and steered me to his mother, Ilene*-- though not before I was once again waylaid by old Rev. Goodheart*.

Ilene* and I looked through the "Mission" section of their hymnal: Neither she nor the congregation knew any of them. (Oh, dear!). "Let's try 'Evangelism'," she said. Not much more success there. But she knew "We have heard the joyful sound! Jesus saves! Jesus saves!" though she doubted all of the congregation did. I told her I knew it-- mostly-- and it was a good, rousing, outward-looking hymn to finish up with, so let's do it. I'm thinking, "Anything to escape C. Austin Miles' rank and unweeded 'Garden'!"

With one thing and the other, we didn't get everyone in and seated till twenty minutes past time, but nobody seemed to care. Ralph* began with announcements, and as he spoke, it hit me, "My sermon's too conceptual as I've got it written. These people are going to need some specific, bright-colored application, or I'll fly right over their heads. Holy Spirit, help me have the right words when the time comes!"

I didn't have to come up with the right words for the children's sermon-- it was taken in hand by a woman of the congregation. Bearing a globe, she called the large band of kids to shifting and tenuous order at the edge of the platform. Two or three erratic toddlers found the platform more interesting than the talk, so I came and joined them to lend a steadying presence, sort of.

Teacher asked if anyone could find the United States on the globe. One girl about nine or ten tried and tried and tried . . . Good grief, don't they teach Geography in the public schools anymore? Teacher finally put her out of her misery and showed her where America was.

Our own nation fixed and established, the teacher asked, "Can any of you name any other countries?"

"WalMart!" volunteered one tyke, and of course the congregation just howled. As the teacher tried to recover from that one, the discountenanced little boy turned his back on the assembly, trying to draw a couple of his little friends away with him.

Ilene* the organist and I tried to get him to turn around and pay attention.

"No!" he said, "I'm not going to! They're all mean!"

Oh, dear, again. The child probably thought the teacher had asked if the children knew the names of any companies, he'd given a perfectly good answer, and he got laughed at! That was mean! I can just see it, years from now: "I gave up on religion when I was four years old and the congregation laughed at me during the children's sermon!"

(Well, I've heard equally silly excuses for turning one's back on Christ and His salvation!)

The children's talk proceeded, and was wound up with the announcement that the Peacemaking Offering they'd been contributing to for the past few weeks would go to help poor and needy people around the world. So now would they bring their offering boxes to a certain table below the platform, the one where the flowers are?

The boxes were already there on the front pew, and the children picked them up and took them . . . back to their seats . . . to the edge of the platform . . . around and around the sanctuary . . . and finally, to the designated table. And may the denomination be half so effective and organized in getting the money to the people who need it!

My sermon began with lines like, "It's all up to us to bring peace to the world, right? God's sitting back in heaven waiting for us to do it. So we'd better get busy!" And from the congregation I'm hearing, "Amen!" "Yes!" O noes! That was meant to be satirical. Good grief, we human beings fight over the best way to bring peace, and that includes us in the church! No, people, not Amen, not Yes! That is a great big NO! Only Jesus Christ the Son of God can bring true peace, not us, not even our human version of His peace. Christ alone!

Lord, help me turn this ship around before we end up on the rocks! Whew! by the end-- with the help of the added applications-- they were Amening the sound doctrine, not dodgy cultural misconceptions. Though it's not because I cut any impressive figure in the pulpit. Hey, I had to make things more interesting by having assembled my sermon text booklet with some of the pages in backwards and in the wrong order! That long awkward pause? I meant to do that!

At this church the Communion table is very small, and their set of Communion ware is very large. There was simply no place to put my Book of Common Worship, as I had noticed when I arrived. So for (I think) the first time since I was ordained eleven years ago, I said the Eucharist impromptu, from memory: Great Thanksgiving, Sanctus, Words of Institution/Consecration (always do that from memory), Epiclesis, Acclamation, Attribution, and all. Who knows, I may do it from memory the next time and the next. Saves me fighting with the small print in the worship book!

Some of the same peripetetic toddlers roamed the sanctuary during the administration of the Lord's Supper. I being a stranger, they wouldn't come to me. Sob!

The time came to sing the substituted final hymn, and Ilene* was right-- Maybe half the congregation knew it. It doesn't help that the tune features some very wide and acrobatic intervals that not even I was nailing. But we muddled through with little or no damage to the ship, and I dismissed the people to a fine fellowship hour featuring a large repast of leftover pastries contributed by a local bakery. Enough and to spare to take a few home.

And back in the little narthex-hall, I was again accosted, taken by the hand by my old friend Rev. Goodheart*. He'd loved my sermon. He was so glad I had come to be with them. The Church of God and the Presbytery Church are like twins in Egypt! The Church of God has a wonderful mission in Kenya! He was so happy to hear my sermon! Twins in Egypt! Etc., etc.

I listened to him patiently. There is honor due his years and calling, and when-- if!-- I ever reach my ninth decade, I hope people in the church will listen patiently to me, too.

But then he looked at me and said, "God gave us the night time for a blessing."

Yes?

"God wants us to use it to rest."

Uh, yes?

"You should take the blessing God gives you. The darkness is for rest."

Uh, what? Sir, I perceive you are a prophet! How did you know I was up all night Friday night-Saturday morning working on my sermon! And up till 2:00 last night making Welsh cakes?

Very strange! Sermon preached; will it now be applied?

Another member of the congregation invited me home to lunch with his family, but I couldn't take him up on it and still make a previous commitment I had for this afternoon. The invitation is open for the next time I come, however.

Which may be a long time, since I live so far away and it costs the church a lot in mileage to bring me. Still, it was a fine thing to get back down there to the little church way down at the bottom of the Presbytery Over the Border*. And if I got them thinking a little ways past their hilltop in West Virginia, past the once-a-year Peacemaking Offering, that would be a fine and worthy thing.

We have heard the joyful sound: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Spread the tidings all around: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Bear the news to every land, climb the mountains, cross the waves;

Onward! 'tis our Lord's command; Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Procedure

I'm due at the local med center at 9:30 tomorrow morning [later today], to check in for outpatient surgery for the health problem I noticed in June.

I feel fine. I'm not even worrying. That will resume when I'm waiting for the results of the biopsy thereafter.

Routine procedure dictates that I must ingest nothing by mouth after this past midnight. Not a lozenge, not a stick of gum, not a swig of toothpaste water (ick). The rule is so strict, I'm surprised they don't tell you you can't swallow your own spit.

I know what it's for. They don't want to run the slightest risk that you'll have a bad reaction with the anesthesia while you're under and throw up and choke. So I'm observing the strictures-- meaning that as soon as midnight struck, I was immediately sensible of a raging thirst, even though I'd had a couple glasses of water within the half hour!

Funny, what your mind will do to you.

I've finished the draft of my sermon for Sunday, so I can lie around Friday and Saturday, if need be. It's about two-thirds the length of my usual productions, and if anything, it needs cut down even more. The church I'm supplying this Sunday has Sunday School scheduled exactly an hour after the beginning of worship, and this is a Communion Sunday. With all three Lectionary readings. And a children's sermon, and a choir anthem. And they'll probably want at least ten minutes to get from the sanctuary to the classrooms. That leaves me fifty minutes if I'm lucky to get through everything.

Dickens of a way to do things, but it's the way it is.

Besides, the official Sunday School beginning time may be one of those merely monitory things, to keep people from showing up to class at half-past the hour.

On the other hand, the lady who called me from the Med Center said I was to be at the Outpatient Surgery door at 9:30 AM. Period, the end.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Nine

Saturday, 25 March, 1989
Iona
Day Nine, Holy Saturday

Another session this morning, which I wasn’t particularly keen to go to. The handout had a poem in it, and I had to make myself see my apathy in that I couldn’t even identify with it, though the situation the poet described could be considered very close to my own. "That’s his problem," I tend to think.

But the sun was still out afterwards, and I walked to the beach at the north end of the island, joined for awhile by Marie*, one of the other women in my dorm room. Today you could see the peaks of Mull, with one tallish one all covered in snow. And I could observe the horses out running, and the red-feathered chickens, and the sober black-faced sheep, and the shaggy Highland cattle. A lark was singing high overhead, the first I’d ever seen or heard.

Marie* turned back when we approached the beach, as the sea air breezes give her sinus trouble. But I went all the way down to the rocks and looked out at the little islands across the water. There were cattle grazing among the washed-up kelp and sea gulls crying overhead. This is what I came to Iona for . . . instead I’m spending most of my time so far sitting in church and not in particularly satisfying church, either.

After a hurried lunch (I was late getting back; it was vegetarian again) I did more handwash. Only this time the spin-dryer really got off balance and the plastic baffle affair you put on your clothes really got chewed to heck. At least it’s only that and not the machine itself.

Finally got around to writing Daddy a note for his birthday. Took it down to the village to mail it, borrowing a piece of tape from a store clerk when the envelope gum refused to stick.

There were children in the lane playing with pieces of styrofoam insulation that the wind had blown away from the Center construction materials depot yesterday. No telling where the rest of it is now.

Stopped into the Abbey bookstore and only bought a few postcards. Christine MacLean was there and I told her about the spin dryer baffle. She said not to worry; she doubted it could be that bad.

So I came back and did my best to destroy it some more, doing more wash that wouldn’t fit in the first time around. Actually, I have gotten the hang of how to stop the machine before too much damage is done.


I’m not sure what to make of Karen* and Therese*, the two other girls in my dorm. Therese* is a vegetarian but she smokes, so I suppose her motivation for not eating meat is concern for animals and not care for her own health. Karen* puts on the most outrageous airs and tells whopping tales that you simply can’t believe. Where they are as Christians I can’t tell at all, because although they seem to be into things that smack terribly of New Age spaceheadedness I couldn’t say if they’d go along with the rest of the N.A. program or if they simply have certain ecological, etc., concerns in common with New Agers. And I haven’t got the energy to get into a debate about it.

Besides, I find they have a streak of cynicism about the whole programmatic structure here that I find all too easy and amenable to identify with. They cheerfully sleep through anything they please. I have punted a seminar or two already but I don’t feel too confident about it.

But I tell myself I can sit in church meetings anywhere, and these aren’t particularly effective or fulfilling church meetings, I feel so out of fellowship here (Palm Sunday service in March was much better). But only here (in light of my schedule) can I walk along the hills and beaches of Scotland, and that’s what I came here to do.

If it would stop blowing and sleeting for an hour together!

Yes, it started again this afternoon, almost as bad as before. I’m glad I dug out my silk longies at the last minute before I left Oxford.


Saw the film The Mission in the chapterhouse of the abbey this evening. I’d been wanting to see that. Problematic picture. One knows that love is more powerful in the long run but still I found myself wanting to root for the priests who chose to fight, who left the way of peace. Maybe it’s because I’m rather angry right now, at things in particular, and those people were doing what I felt. More objectively, it seems as if the people in the story failed to ask the essential question. And that is, if we have to cease to follow Christ in order to preserve the Jesuit Order, what the hell use is the Jesuit Order?

Or any church institution, for that matter?

Marie*, who also saw it, thinks it was done from a liberation theology viewpoint and of necessity would glorify the priests who chose to fight. I didn’t see it as quite that severely slanted but she has a point, anyway.

She’s a funny person. She’s going through a divorce, or has just gotten one, I’m not sure which, and her emotions are extremely volatile. At one point she’ll be telling you how incredibly high and happy she’s feeling in the experience of being here and two hours later she’s crying her eyes out. Or she speaks of how calm she feels-- but confesses she’s been chain-smoking since she arrived.

There is something in the way of an explanation, though. She also has a friend attending the abbey program, who, like Lukas*, apparently hasn’t been acting all that friendly. But it’s worse for her-- she confesses she has been in love with him and he knows it. And seemingly he’s attempting to squelch it in that disgusting wet-blanket male way.

It was enough like my situation that in the tea time between the video and the vigil service at 11:15 PM I pointed out Lukas* and told her why I could empathise with her problem, even though mine isn’t exactly analogous. I was even so reckless as to admit that though I don’t fancy Mr. Renzberger* in that way there is another Coverdale* student I wish I could, except that he’s thoroughly taken . . .

But I think that was mostly to keep her from thinking I did like Lukas* the same way she likes her recalcitrant friend Seamus*-- as well as for the sheer pleasure of speaking about Nigel* even without actually naming him.

The rotten thing is, the more Lukas* acts like a complete jerk and вопреки, the more important he’s becoming to me. He didn’t come to the video and I found myself regretting his absence. And seeing him across the room with his new friends, acting as if I didn’t exist, made me want to slide into the attitude of a dog eagerly waiting and hoping for the least crumb from its master’s table. I try to shake myself out of this by taking the superior position that well, obviously he hasn’t learned the lesson of the old Girl Scout song:

"Make new friends
But keep the old;
One is silver
And the other, gold."

But in the general frame of mind I brought with me its very hard to maintain that. I keep thinking it’s me, something I’ve done to offend him, and I feel myself craving his notice and approval to reassure me I’m acceptable and forgiven.

It sounds as if I’ve got this all analysed out and intellectually settled, but I haven’t at all. Somehow his present caddish behavior is throwing the memory of what a dear, caring person he can be into bright and high relief, making me want to flee to that Lukas* for comfort and warmth and security-- but instead I find only this cold, heedless, aloof reality, and my sense of loss is doubled. If only he would--! I am tempted to think, and the responding "Never!" falls into the deep pit of all the other "nevers" in my limited life, a pit that threatens to swallow me up with them.

Hope of some vague, unfocussed sort does insist on rearing its head, however. Both last Saturday walking along the Backs behind Nigel's* old college of Clare and now here in this wild weather I am nudged to recall the Robert Browning poem, "Never the Time and the Place." I wonder if the abbey library has a copy of it. God, it would be wonderful if I could be sure that

This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to [him]self indeed!

But how and with whom, I haven’t the least idea.

But now it was time for the Easter vigil service. I can’t say I really like this night-before celebration business, it seems a bit previous to me. I suppose I need the sense of anticipation brought about by sleeping on the thing, both at Christmas and Easter. Anyway, here it was.

The service had more drama and no preaching and little if any Scripture reading, again. I guess they assume everyone here knows the Easter story, because a lot of it was pantomime, in the American sense, and not all that well done.

I was somewhat taken aback when in a Scripture quotation used as part of a litany the Holy Spirit was referred to as "she." I’d be awfully interested in knowing what the exegetical basis of that is. But at the moment I shall assume it is merely a fashionable affectation and like disco and polyester leisure suits will eventually blow over. There’s nothing I can do about it here and now and besides, it is only a ripple in the great pond of my isolation here . . . isolation caused not so much by evident doctrinal disagreement with most people here as by, apparently, some fatal flaw in myself. I seem to be losing all ability to make and keep contact with others, and Lukas* and his avoidance of me is a glaring, blaring symbol of my alienation. If he will not come forward and accept me as a human being and a friend, how can I ever expect anyone else to?

Well, a little early (11:55 PM) but close enough the service got to the point where the Lord could be officially declared to be Risen and the abbey bells tolled and tolled. A great continuing chant of "Alleluia" arose and the church was gradually relit, the candle flame being passed from one person to another. The ornaments were brought back as the black draperies were stripped away.

And last of all, as I’d expected, dear Lukas* himself grandly bore the silver cross back to the altar and placed it there as offstage (appropriate term) cymbals clashed and the altar spots came back on for the first time since Thursday night. And I, neither wanting to succumb utterly to my misery nor to allow myself to feel too proud of him, despite his actions toward me, dragged a bit of grim, cynical humor out of it all, thinking, "Well, his mother obviously gave him a good Swiss upbringing-- he puts things back where he found them."

But it didn’t help a great deal, as the last of the printed songs and responses were sung and the piano banged into "Lord of the Dance" and he and the other people in the worship group began to dance in the aisles. If it’d happened at my home church I would’ve said, "Great!" But here, even though I was singing along with the choruses I was growing more and more distant from it all. If Christ is risen, he is not risen in me, not tonight. Not yet.

My candle blew out at the cloister door, and with it the last of my own warmth and light. Out in the cloister people were grabbing one another in great hugs and crying, "Happy Easter!" If the greeting had been, "He is Risen!" answered by "He is Risen Indeed!" I could have coped with that. That is a statement of fact. But "happy"? That is an emotional state that has nothing to do with me.

The wind and rain were still howling, otherwise I would’ve gone straight back to the Center. But as it was, the prudent thing was to head back to the tea table in the abbey seminar room and wait for the weather to die down.

I was making my way through the crowd in the cloister, not far from where Lukas*, with a very unSwiss lack of reserve, was hugging everyone in sight. Goodie for him. And all of a sudden he was there before me and was enfolding me in his arms, exclaiming, "Happy Easter, Blogwen!" and I-- God help me, I held him tightly as if by the mute pressure of my hands upon his back I could tell him how much I needed him to acknowledge and accept me as a human being and a friend. And then I grew frightened, because if I continued I might not be willing to let him go. So I held him apart from me and asked, "How is it going with you?" meaning this week at the abbey, meaning last week in Liverpool, meaning he himself (when he is himself). He took the first meaning only and politely said, "Oh, the week’s been great. How do you like it?"

"It’s all right," I said noncommittally, knowing my attempt to break through had failed. He released me completely then and turned his attention to others, while I made my way through the painfully joyous crowd, feeling so estranged and alienated but far too present as well. I couldn’t even find any of the people from the Center program. I could no more wade in and embrace those people than if I’d been made of stone.

I am bullheaded in my way, though. I hung about in the cloister passage till Lukas* made his way out of the celebratory embraces and tried again to engage him in conversation. I tried humor, since my emotions had to be kept down at all costs. "I see your mother trained you well. You put things back where you find them."

"It is not a matter of training. It’s a matter of spirituality."

Oh, shit. Does he always have to be so blasted literal? Yes, I realise now it was bad taste to make a joke about something that happened in the service. Just because I was feeling out of it doesn’t mean he was. But he never can tell when I’m joking, and I don’t think it’s the language barrier, I think it’s his lack of imagination. It’s not me. I made another joke in front of one of the Englishmen a little later in the tea room and he got it and laughed immediately.

Hung around in the tea room reading the paper, playing with building blocks, and making polite conversation till 2:30 DST. Lukas* was back to being Mr. Aloof again and I was trying not to give a damn.

Then I and a few others made our way back to the Center. I revised the poem I wrote yesterday . . . Then was in the process of crying myself to sleep with the aid of Schubert Lieder when Karen* roused and informed me the music was leaking out around the headphones and could I please turn it off?

Sure. Right. Whatever you say.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Eight

Friday, 24 March, 1989
Iona
Day Eight, Good Friday

Funny what a creature I am of arbitrary circumstance. I felt much better this morning-- simply because I dreamed of Nigel*. I dreamed he'd adopted me as his sister and put me under his protection. It made me feel so warm and safe and cared for and secure that I could cry recalling it.

This is totally silly, I know. But not absolutely. There is precedent for this in waking life . . . oh, God, protect him!

Everyone is on a chore team here; I am assigned to the toilet-cleaning detail. I have lots of experience at that from my maiding days when I was in Architecture school. Spent much of my stint today cleaning excess grout, sealant, and sanding dust off the fixtures and tile.

10:15 was craft time. As to that, it's become obvious that when Christine MacLean told me on the phone there was a program for people staying at the MacLeod Center, she didn't just mean a special room and board rate. She meant a program-program, with a schedule and meetings and seminars and all. If the weather would behave-- like stop raining horizontally-- I'd maybe say phooey on it and go do what I came here to do. But as it is, I can't go out and there's nothing else really to do up here in the Center. Besides, it feels like since I'm getting such a cheap rate to stay here, I have to "pay" for it by going along with expectations.

Which this morning was a craft session. We were supposed to do a collage sharing the journey of our lives (vs. the life of Christ, which is what I would have expected on Good Friday) and then explain it tonight in a session. Oh, shit. Expose myself in front of all these strangers, with whom I may not even be in basic sympathy? But I decided I didn’t want to suffer another creative block like I did in January† so I made myself go to work anyway, in chalk. (Finding magazine pictures would’ve taken too long.) Depicted the truth, too, since I couldn’t begin to lie about such a thing. Wouldn’t know how.

There was tea at 11:15, then diddling around till time to go to the church for the Good Friday service at noon. It was a Stations of the Cross, thirteen or fourteen of them, with more made-up dramatic language instead of Scriptural passages.

After that there were the Seven Last Words from the Cross, followed each one by ten minutes of silent meditation. I stayed for the first two . . . Lukas* was across the choir. I wondered if he would ever think of praying for me. I’m beginning to gravely doubt it would cross his mind. I prayed for him, and for me, that I would do the right thing by him. And for Nigel*-- all blessings on Nigel*, especially with the troubles he's facing at home with his family back in S-- . . .

It had stopped raining when I left the church, so I walked into the village to see about getting some wash done. But everything was closed for lunch. I could stand on the beach and watch the tide come up, though.

It started to rain before I got back, of course. And blow.

Got myself in for lunch just in time. Soup and crackers with cheese. Soup entirely vegetable-based, very lacking in body-- and soul. I found it a bit demoralising.

Decided to try to get a little Walter Scott read, then did some handwash in the sink in the laundry room here. They don’t have a washer, which is odd, but they do have a spin dryer that takes most of the excess water out of your handwash. It got off-balance once and made the most horrible racket.

I was on the setting up and serving team for supper. Got it done somehow, despite having missed out on the description of the drill. The menu was fish, which was a nice change.

The collage-explaining thing wasn’t as bad as I’d envisioned, mostly because I do feel so out of sympathy with what’s going on here-- don’t worry, I realize it’s my own fault-- that I don’t really care what the people around here think of me. So I can tell them the truth, though of course properly dressed and packaged. One doesn’t want to be tedious, after all.

Another service in the church this evening, of Commitment. More drama, illustrating the people like Peter, Judas, and Pilate, who failed to make a proper commitment to Christ as he was going to the Cross. (Someone had asked me before dinner if I’d be willing to participate and make the noise of the cock crowing offstage as Peter denies Jesus the third time. I said No, for I was feeling too depressed to believe I’d be able to make a sound when the time came. And I couldn’t help believing the Brits were thinking, "Oh, she’s an American, she’s Loud, she’ll do fine." But whoever did it instead did such a piss poor job of it I regretted my decision. I should have gathered all my high school and college drama training about me and let that rooster rip regardless.)

It hit me how ineffective all this liturgical drama is for me when the prayers began and I suddenly realized I was hearing them as still part of the drama, something to be observed and analysed from the outside and not part of an act of worship in which I was to participate.

The burden of the prayers seemed to be towards commitment to one’s fellow man and not to Christ Himself. I suppose you can’t have true commitment to Christ without serving your neighbor. But there’s so many people who think they can achieve commitment to Christ merely by being good to others, with no focus on Jesus Himself, and I don’t think it works. Not that anybody here has said outright they were trying this method . . . One more example of my general ambivalence towards what's going on.

The only time this uncertainty was broken was when in the darkened church some actual words of Jesus from the Scripture were read out, and then the wind of the Spirit began to blow.

Tea in the refectory again. Nothing out of Mr. Renzberger* again. This fact is beginning to assume an importance it shouldn’t have. I could understand him cutting me dead if we’d been very close and quarrelled or if I’d given signs of wanting to be close when he did not, but neither of those things are true. He can't possibly think I've come to Iona just to be with him; we see each other all the time at Coverdale* and besides, I told him last month I'd always intended to come here. I certainly don’t expect him to take great blocks of time out of his fellowship with his new-found friends in the abbey program, but good grief, would it kill him to come and say, "Hi, how’s it going, how are you; well, I have to get back and talk to Whatsername or Whatsisname before they leave"? If he weren’t making me feel as if I had some sort of fatal social disease, I’d say he was being extremely rude.

I wrote a poem about this when I got back to the room, and felt better, a little.
_________________________________
†In January of '89 the married students at Coverdale* College had hosted a progressive dinner. For a party game, at each stop we diners had to execute an assigned art project in a limited amount of time. At the first house, I'd tried to prove my artistic bona fides by working a Masterpiece in the tiny piece of plasticine we were given. I wasn't happy with what I'd made and in my childish frustration smashed it. To make things worse, the host said to me, "That's all right. We can't all be artists!" Crap!

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Seven

Thursday, 23 March, 1989
Glasgow to Iona
Day Seven, Maundy Thursday

It was snowing this morning when I woke up. Lovely.

Breakfast was interesting, as the hostel seemed to have been taken over by a gang of junior high-aged boys, who made a terrible din-- and who insisted on using the women’s bathroom, despite the sign. I’m not sure the food was worth the £1.85-- it was all rather soggy from having languished too long in the bain-marie.

Only 93 miles to the Port of Oban, but I got out of town around 9:30, and good thing I did, too.

First, of course, I have to get lost trying to find the A82 out of Glasgow. But once that was located, I was fine the rest of the way. When the town was cleared you could see the snow-covered foothills of the Highlands, and it was so beautiful! It was "Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" over and over, and thank goodness I had some decent top notes to sing it with!

The A82 goes along Loch Lomond and where I wasn’t crawling along the queue due to construction work I was hopping out to take pictures. Scotland doesn’t make it easy on you, though . . . No nice designated overlooks as in Nova Scotia.

Got the A85 at Tyndrum and thereafter the weather grew entertaining again. I’m afraid I was becoming thoroughly tense and white knuckled, especially as most of the other drivers were zooming along around the curves as if it were a dry, sunny day. The landscape is beautiful, though, all bathed in mist, and I began to wonder if maybe I should’ve taken the train.

Arrived in Oban a little after 12:00. The ferry to Mull left at 1:00 and I needed every bit of that time to find the ferry pier, buy my ticket, learn where to park the car and park it, assemble my bags, and stagger with them back to the gangway and onto the boat.

On the ferry, I bought a cup of tea and, establishing myself on the upper observation deck, I drank that and ate a bun and a bit of stottie bread. There was a slight swell, though nothing unpleasant. The sea was a beautiful green color under the overcast. You never get out of sight of land on that run . . . I went out on deck despite the flecks of rain and watched the islands with their lighthouses and castles drifting by.

The bus journey across Mull is about 37 miles and takes a long time, along a one-lane road. I couldn’t see much, as the windows were all fogged up. I should’ve brought something on to read. There were a couple of boys, ten or eleven years old, in the back singing popular songs in flat, tinny voices-- they nearly got a paper was bounced off their noggins. Fortunately they were not coming to Iona.

It was raining in earnest at the ferry pier in Fionnphort (pronounced more like "Finnafort"). The Iona ferry is a little thing and I elected not to try to cram into the diminuative cabin with everyone else, but remained out on deck. The sea was indulging in the most lively of leaps and arabesques and making its presence emphatically known over the sides. My umbrella had rather the worst against the wind, so pretty soon I took it down, moved my bags to where they wouldn’t get quite so soaked, and resigned myself to a total-immersion baptism by salt water and fresh.

It’s really a pity my camera isn’t waterproof. The swells were hilarious. And again, that jaw-dropping combination of sea-green and grays and muted blues . . .

The people from the MacLeod Center had brought a blue van down for us and we all piled in. They said the magic words-- "Tea" and "Fire"-- and after a blind journey along a narrow road between rock walls, they made good on the promise.

I suppose the first thing to say is that the Iona Community is not Roman Catholic. After a few questions put here and there, I learned that it’s fundamentally Church of Scotland, which is to say Presbyterian, and was started by the Duke of Argyll fifty years ago [I've since learned that the Duke of Argyll and the Rev. George MacLeod were two different people with different roles in the founding]. But it currently has an ecumenical thrust with emphasis on peace and reconciliation. The members and staff are a mixed group, men and women, singles and marrieds. I’m still not straight on how people join, what sort of commitment they make, or how the community is funded.

The second thing is that the MacLeod Center (named after the aforementioned Duke of Argyll [my misconstrual--see above]) is a brand new building, a replacement for some derelict huts of an old youth camp across the road and up the hill a bit from the abbey, all not far from the Sound of Iona. And unlike a lot of other retreat centers, the owners got an architect to design it. Christine MacLean, the woman who is the Center’s director, told me it was someone named Joe Green, but that sounds highly unlikely in Scotland . . . The detailing of doorframes, pulls, benches and other built-in furnishings, as well as the general proportions and disposition of the spaces, shows a good eye for line, space, and detail. The building isn’t quite finished, as is obvious by the lack of curtains on the windows and all the hooks that aren’t where they should be. But it’s all on order, from what I hear.

The dorm rooms have six berths apiece, with nice new mattresses on the unfinished pine bed frames. Oh, yes, the woodwork still needs to be stained.

After tea and biscuits in front of the fire in what they call the Combination Room (I’d tend to call it the Common Room or the Great Hall), the first order of business was a shower, to wash the highly-evocative but not entirely amenable smell of sea water off my person. After that, I found the drying room (the only warm room in the place) and hung up my wet things. Tempting just to stay in there-- the wind was coming in through every crack and the hardware was not keeping the doors closed at all and the central heating wasn’t working worth a poop. Nothing wrong with that building a little caulk and some revamped hardware wouldn’t solve . . .

Dinner, aka tea, was at 5:30. And I don’t know why, but it bugged me a little that it was vegetarian. Maybe because I associate that kind of thing with political and religious views I’m not entirely in accord with. In fact, I get the strong feeling the whole thrust of this place is a little--ahem--liberal . . . but I’ve learned since coming to Oxford and Coverdale* last October not to automatically brand people heretics just because they have this or that view on isolated topics that happen to be shared with frankly syncretistic or cultish groups. So I’m going to hang loose and see what happens around here. But I really don’t like the ambivalence and find it very hard to relax.

There was a recital down at the Abbey church at 7:15. Goodness, the things I’ll do for music! I have never been out in such wind and rain before in my life, especially not after nightfall. It was sheer labor to make any headway against the gale and the rain was driving so everyone was soaked even before we reached the MacLeod Center gates. And no one in this little group had brought a flashlight with them. You get out in a wild cold dark wet windy blow like that and you’re likely to forget everything except getting in out of it. And it didn’t help that the cloister door down at the abbey has no light over it.

All got in, though, and sat in the choir stalls trying to keep the teeth from chattering while the recital was going on. Various people played: pianists, flautists, a violinist, singers . . . The wind players were rather good but the violinist needs to work on his tone.

Lukas* was not there, but I’ve never known him to be a diehard music lover. There’s time enough to see him and to do that wasn’t the point of coming here, anyway.

The MacLeod Center group had a session in the library over the chapterhouse afterwards. The purpose was to catch us up with what the abbey group has been doing all week, following in Jesus’ footsteps as He moves towards the cross. The avenue to this seemed to be more that of imaginative projection than of direct Scripture-study. And I’m afraid I was rather a вопреки† and inwardly refused to do the ‘quieting’ pre-contemplation exercise, since although quieting is probably just what I need, I associate the prescribed technique with New Age idiocy.

By the time the Maundy Thursday service started in the Abbey refectory I was feeling really out of it. I couldn’t find any of the people I was sharing the room with and Lukas* didn’t come in till the very last and sat quite far from me. And I decided I was going to wait for him to greet me first. It was his prerogative, under the circumstances. He's established his turf here since last Monday and it wouldn't be right for me to push in.

The service proceeded, featuring a bit of drama that may be ok if you know the actual New Testament story but which needed to be taken with a large grain of salt anyway. And a lot of singing. They have a highly skilled a capella choir led by a woman who seems to have perfect pitch. And the acoustics enhance the voices very effectively.

For that matter, I wish I could have gotten my camera down to the abbey without drenching it. The chinks between the stones of the refectory walls were filled with little candles that made a myriad points of light all over the long room.

After the Communion bread (leavened, wheat) and the wine (real, but golden) had gone around and some more singing was done, a chant was begun and everyone proceeded through the cloister for the ceremonial stripping of the church. And behold, Lukas* was holding the door as everyone went out. I saw it would be terribly rude not to acknowledge his presence when face to face with him. So I silently saluted him as I passed . . . he gave me no response . . . and now I’m beginning to wonder if it was a misjudged thing to do. . .

He had his part in the stripping of the church, carrying out the great silver Celtic altar cross. As a recording of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries played, one of the women danced out with a piece of the altar plate in a way that was so effectively barbaric it was almost appalling. How should that sort of thing be done? As if we were mourners ceremonially donning our black clothes, or as impersonators of the despoiling powers of darkness? I’m not sure at all.

There was tea and biscuits back in the refectory thereafter, the cold wind still howling at the windows. Lukas* made no effort to come and greet me, at which I was beginning to be a little irritated. To counteract this feeling I wanted to do something nice for him, like see that he got a cup of tea. But I couldn’t even accomplish that. When he came round to the tea table someone else had the pot and besides, he stated baldly, he was already getting tea for someone else. And that’s all he said to me.

Got wet again coming back to the Center. Stood around with some others in the Combination Room feeding the fire with bits of odd construction wood and cardboard boxes. There’s no proper firewood around here, it seems.

But the heater in the room was beginning to come on, which was encouraging.
_______________________
†"Вопреки" (vopreki), Russian preposition meaning "contrary to"; transmogrified by the characters in my high school Russian class into a noun signifying someone who willfully does the opposite of what's expected of him. It's been part of my personal vocabulary ever since.

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day Three

Sunday, 19 March, 1989
Cambridge, Ely, & March
Day Three, Palm Sunday

Not having told Mrs. Payne any different, I was obliged to unearth myself and dress in time for breakfast at 8:00 o’clock. Serves me right for staying up so ungodly late.

I have neglected to say that they have two little dogs, Katie and Emmie, and a cat, Harvey. Harvey, a girl, isn’t much seen (too bad, as she looks a lot like my cat Didon) but the terrier puppy Emmie is all over the place if you half let her. So she was shut in the kitchen this morning. I really wouldn’t’ve minded the company, if she could’ve been persuaded to sit down.

They do have a church in Little Chesterford, at the end of the village street, but Mrs. Payne told me it’d only be the Communion service, no hymns, despite this being Palm Sunday. So I elected to go to the family service at Saffron Walden.

They have a very handsome Perpendicular church down there. Very great in size, too. Painted ceiling. Acoustics leave a little to be desired, as it’s hard for the choir to be heard and so lead the congregation in singing. And no tunes in the hymnals doesn’t help. (I will be so glad to get back to America and decent hymnals!) They did do "All Glory, Laud, and Hono(u)r," which is familiar, fortunately.

The deaconess preached (I’ll have to ask at home-- at Coverdale*, I mean--what her proper title would be) on the shame of the Cross, saying we’ve romanticised that element away. Very true.

There was a young African man in the pew and I spoke to him afterwards. Discovered he’s from Mozambique and is studying at a college there in Saffron Walden. I hadn’t realized the place was big enough to have a college (though I suppose so, it has 12,000 inhabitants). He, in his turn, had never heard of Oxford. The things you learn!

After hanging my Palm Sunday cross from the Astra's rearview mirror, I returned to Cambridge to see some things I’d missed yesterday. King’s College Chapel was open till 1:00 so I made that my first stop.

I’m not sure why, but I found the space rather oppressive. Maybe it’s those slender colonnettes terminating in those flattened arches overhead, or all that weight of ornamentation and false ribbing on the fan vaults, but it made me feel as if a ponderous hand was pressing down on the top of my head. I found it neither soaringly dynamic nor statically comfortable. Trying to be both, it was neither.

So I resolved to ignore the overall effect and concentrated on details instead, the stained glass, the carvings on the furniture, the organ case. (I am collecting organs this time.)

They hurried everyone out at 1:00, as the Choir was doing a recording this afternoon. The organ was being tuned (voiced?) as I was there looking around.

Drifted around to Silver Street and to the Backs again. Saw the Mathematical Bridge (interfering Victorians! [or maybe not]) then did a northerly flaner along the far back of the Cam, up eventually to St. John’s College, to see their version of the Bridge of Sighs.

There you have a classic example of the picture that got away. For I stood in there for fifteen minutes or more, the Olympus at the ready, but every time the sun as full out (making the tracery patterns on the floor that I was trying to get), there were people in the way. Or vice versa. Of course, once I’d given up and taken myself off back towards the carpark the sun came out for five whole minutes at a stretch. Teasing creature!

Next stop, Ely. You know, you can see the cathedral from several miles away.

Oddly, the west front isn’t as overbearing as I’d expected it to be. Maybe that’s because you approach it over an expanse of grass and you’re not confronted by it above you in a little square, as in France. But no, that can’t be it. Maybe it’s just because Ely looks so castellated you expect it to be forbidding.

I took my time working my way down to the crossing with its Octagon, and inspected first the Norman nave with its round pillars and brightly-painted wooden ceiling above.

The Octagon is a wonder, and more so for my knowing something about the carpentry that went into it. You can’t stand directly under it, as that’s where the parish altar sits. But you can stand there at an angle, gaping for minutes at a time up into the marvel of its ribbing and colors. It's like a wondrous heavenly flower opening overhead. Was I transfixed by the awe-inspiring effect of the space-- or was I simply waiting for the sun to come through the lantern so I could get a better photograph?

I went up to see the stained glass museum but it was just closing. The Lady Chapel was not open at all. Renovations.

The choir boys were singing as I came in. Then they stopped, recessed, then came back for Evensong at 3:45. The Scripture was that from Lamentations, "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?" Which somehow seemed appropriate for a church full of people only there to see the sights and not to worship.

I wish I could have stayed but I still wanted to see the angel roof in March. Had a ham (Spam!) sandwich and an order of chips at a cafe first. Do you know they had the cheek to charge 5p for a little packet of ketchup? Ye gods.

Up to March after 5:00; arrived shortly after 6:00. (Took the road towards Huntingdon and got off at Chatteris). Glorious sunset through the tombstones, but I felt I’d better get inside before the light faded too much for the ceiling to be seen. At 6:05 the sexton came in to open up for the evening service and turned the lights on.

The roof is all plain oak, no polychrome or gilding. There certainly are a glorious lot of angels flying around up there. But as one man (the churchwarden, maybe) who came in shortly thereafter said, "After awhile you forget they’re there." I suppose so . . . they’d be at most a back of the mind reminder of the real Heavenly Host looking down on the people of God. After all, you can’t be looking up at the ceiling when you should be paying attention to the preacher.

It being so close to time I decided to stay for evening service. The congregation seemed to be very lively sorts of Christians, and seemed very genuinely joyful. The sermon was on Philemon and was a good one, but I think I was struck more by the words to all the hymns. They all seemed to deal with Christians, friend and stranger, all being one in Christ and all joyful together in his love. And as such seemed somehow aimed at me, and I didn’t really like it.

[ . . . Because I did not feel joyful. I did not feel happy. Why? Because . . . ]

I forgot to tell you, I discovered in Ely that I’d lost my flash attachment, apparently in Cambridge, after I’d used it to shoot the dark wood pulpitum in King’s Chapel. It must’ve dropped off the camera as I was carrying it around. This was one more pound of the ram against my defenses . . .

[Go make yourself a cup of tea while my 1989 self indulges in a short-sighted and frankly idolatrous lament over the existential devastation wreaked on her and on her attempts to be in total control of her personal universe. By what? By the loss and/or damage that was befalling her camera equipment and her credit the past two or three days . . .

Okay, it's safe to come back now.]

I receive Communion nevertheless. Second time today. The Catholics say that’s a no-no, I think, but the New Testament only says not to neglect the recognition of Jesus’ Body and Blood in the elements. Salva me, fons pietatis, for I have nowhere else to go!

The nearly-full moon was coursing through the clouds over the fens on my drive back. I was hoping they’d have the cathedral at Ely lit up like Chartres but no such luck.

Got bloody lost in Cambridge in the dark, idiot-like. Arrived back in Little Chesterford at nearly 10:00. Had all sorts of things I needed to do but only got a little route planning done before I fell asleep, nearly, on top of it.

The wideangle lens is still stuck on macro, but it will now slide back to 28mm. That’s a start at least.

Trying to Do What Matters

I picked up my repaired sewing machine late yesterday afternoon. But with all the errands I had to run, I didn't get home till nearly ten o'clock at night. No time to sew more than a couple seams in the lining of my new Easter skirt.

Tried to get it done today. But around 8:30 PM, when the zipper was in, all the side seams done, but the waistband and all the hemming and handwork yet to do, I decided the project had crossed the line.

It's a lovely and Christ-honoring thing to wish to wear a new white outfit to preach the good news of the resurrection in on Easter morning. But not when that means appearing in a crookedy hem because I didn't have any of my friends handy this evening to pin it up for me. And especially not when a new suit of preaching clothes means staying up all night finishing it and showing up at the church late and rushed and out-of-sorts. Then it's no longer something I'm doing to honor God, I'm doing it for my own ego.

So while I've gone ahead and basted on the waistband, I've decided finishing this skirt can wait. I'll wear a white blouse with my dark turquoise lightweight wool skirt. Hey, it's a festive, Easter-eggy color, right?

Besides, I've got something else to deal with tomorrow that I believe really does matter:

I just checked the email the church secretary sent me the other day with the order of worship for tomorrow. I wanted to see whether I needed to be prepared with a Collect (no, I don't). But for the first time, I noticed that they've got the Children's Sermon before the Call to Worship! Like the kids and the word I'm offering them aren't part of "worship" at all! I didn't expect to see it in such a place, and therefore, I didn't.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. If it's at all possible, this will have to be tactfully but firmly changed. Because the children matter. They matter a lot.

Painful

I have a Village Singers concert to sing in early this afternoon at a church over the other side of the metro area. No way I could make it to an 11:00 o'clock service and be on the risers on time. So I attended the 9:00 o'clock service at a large church in my area.

It's the "contemporary" service. I'd been to it a couple times previously, before the congregation added on their big new informal worship/multipurpose center.

This morning, I learned that the addition means not only a lot more space, it also means a bigger-and-better sound system and a lot more noise.

Lay aside the tunes and words of what was being sung. I'm talking about loudness. Volume. Decibels. Noise!!!

An ear-shattering, deafening force of sound that socked me in the senses as soon as I walked in the door.

And that was with only the worship team performing. This was the "prelude," after all.

I looked around to find some friends who attend this church, to see if I could sit with them. As I did, my eyes fell on infants, small children, elderly people, all folks whose hearing would be especially vulnerable to such an onslaught. But the kids' parents were sitting there quite happily with their little ones, and the white-haired elders seemed totally unfazed, all oblivious to what the amplification was doing to their ears.

Me, I could tell what it was doing to mine. By the next-to-the-last chorus, started by the praise team alone, I had to cover my ears and hope my friends would not be embarrassed to be seen sitting with me. At the first da capo, the congregation rose and joined in. I followed suit, and tried covering just one ear so I could hold my song sheet with the other. But on the second repeat (third go-round), the sound technician ramped up the volume a few dozen more dBs, and I had to drop the paper and cover the other ear as well. Jesu iuva me, it was painful. By the time the chorus was over, my left ear was ringing.

I made it through the rest of the service and greeted my friends now that it was acceptable to raise my voice over the din of the postlude and the babel of other shouting voices. Then I beat it back to the relative silence of my home, where I quietly played a hymn on my new old piano.

And to let my hearing recover in time, I hope, for this afternoon's concert.

But it's nearly noon and my left ear is still buzzing.

But I have to wonder about the hearing of all the members who attend that service every week, and services like it all over the world. Don't they know what that level of volume is doing to their ears? Or are they so used to iPod buds in their ears, surround-sound home theaters, and mega-boost car stereos all turned up to Level 10, that worship at that decibel level is only what they're used to?

More ominously, do they and all the other proponents of big loud worship services think the sound has to be cranked all the way up in order for them truly to worship? Just writing this, I have an uneasy feeling that some pastors and worship leaders would say I'm just being cranky to object to this, or old-fashioned, or worse-- that I just don't want people to worship Jesus.

But that's what I do want. I want people to worship Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who is not hard of hearing and who doesn't need the needle to fly off the sound meter in order to hear our praise. I want us to worship Jesus, the lover of our souls, who receives the sincere songs of our hearts and minds and voices but isn't impressed by the power of our technology.

Kyrie eleieson! I'm reminded of Elijah on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal:

"At noon Elijah began to taunt them, 'Shout louder!' he said. 'Surely [Baal] is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or relieving himself. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.' So they shouted louder . . . . "

We are not worshippers of Baal. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not deaf, or distracted, or asleep. Why do we Christians persist in acting as if we were, and He is?