The Elephant's Child

Sunday Moments.

Mad Musician improvising a baritone tune for the "Smash the Plates" song from The Hobbit:

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
Pound them up with a thumping pole;
And when you've finished, if any are whole,
Send them down the hall to roll!
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
So, carefully! carefully! with the plates! 

Communion service at church today.  "Love caused Your incarnation; love brought You down to me. Your thirst for my salvation procured my liberty." (Lutheran Service Book, our hymnal, hymn 334.)

Spotted some people putting on jackets and leaving right after Communion.  I hope they had a family party to get to or something and weren't just leaving because the service ran 15 minutes past the one-hour mark.

During Altar Guild, I got a "We've never, ever done it that way, ever" response for demonstrating that the napkins *cough* purificators can be folded in thirds to represent the Trinity.  Oops.  I must work harder at keeping my head down. 

I took the last cup of real coffee after coming down from Altar Guild duty. Bwahahaha! Oh. Wait. I got the last one because the crew had carefully set aside a cup for the lady I work with.  I had to ask for what was left in the pot and about to be throw out.

Pastor sidetracked into a history lesson on the intertestamental period during Bible class because someone asked what Hanukkah was. I was surprised that someone didn't know about Hanukkah.  And I thought I lived under a rock.

Mad Musician chanted Psalm 85 today using an Anglican chant melody.  "What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome my husband is. "

Pizza for lunch; thick crust for Sparkle and Mad Musician, super-thin cracker crust with an enzyme chaser for wheat-intolerant me. 

We shuffled the desks again, and put Mad Musician back downstairs, this time in the dining room. I think we're done now.  Just have a bunch of tidying up to do in the upstairs office-den-school-computer-work-guest room.

I've lost my voice. Off to Le Wal Marte tomorrow for Tazo Wild Orange and Tazo Zen to brew together for the perfect cure. (HT to Melody for that one.) 

I'd run out for the teas tonight, but I'm too tired and I've just had a Sam Adams Blackberry Witbier.  The witbier is ok.  I'm not a huge pale-ale and weiss beer sort of girl, paritially because that style seems to be quite trendy right now.   These crispy, hoppy, fizzy, shandy-style beers are for people who would rather be drinking a white zinfandel. (Oh, Cheryl... are you listening? I know you don't like beer, but you might like the pale ales.  They're different. Sparkly and shimmery. Think Asti. )  I'll take the pale ales when I'm at the beach in the summer time. For anything else, give me a brew you can scrape off the floor if you spill it.

And last but not least, Pastor's side-tracked Bible class has got me obsessing about history again. Time to hit up the library. Yay!

It's Coming. Doom!

It's coming, sooner than you'd think, and about three weeks before you're ready for it.  Driving, wailing, syrupy stick-sweet waves of creeping earworm torture, poking into your brain while you're trying to fight the crowds for the one special thing that will make your husband's Grandma Edsella hate you slightly less.

It's Christmas music, playing incessantly on the radio and in the stores, day and night and day.   It will start no later than Black Friday, that crazy day of shopping the day after Thanksgiving, and continue until midnight on December 24th, immediately after which all the music will return to normal, in mid-song if necessary.  Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum. A new born King to see, pa rum pum never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down...

Mad Musician hates the Little Drummer Boy, the poor man.  I don't mind it so much, although it's not one of my favorites, certainly.  I can't stand Feliz Navidad.  It should be banned by the Geneva Convention.  Rocking Around The Christmas Tree drives me batty. 

Please. Stop the rocking.  Get a hotel room already.

In fact, I can't think of one single commonly-played Christmas song that I really like.

Maybe White Christmas.  But even that is schmaltzy and annoying when heard in isolation, by itself, without a soft couch, a warm blanket, a husband, an ottoman (not an automan or auduban), and an adult beverage to go with it.

What Christmas song makes you want to break a certain locked glass cabinet in the back of the Walmart and shoot out the store's speakers?

Sacred Harp: That Much Fun Shouldn't Be Legal.

Mad Musician and I saw "Awake, My Soul" this weekend. We've sung a few Sacred Harp pieces here and there over the years, and have some CD's, but we've never been to a singing. I think we need to go!

Bookmarked This Week

My friend Brenda has some very good advice for lay people when calling their pastor's home phone.

If you haven't found the Really Bad Vestments blog yet, you really must add it to your rotation. 

A friend of a friend is involved with a project to produce the first Lutheran hymnal ever for the Lutheran Church of Kenya.   It will be the first time many of these Swahili hymns will be written down. 

There's a website for everything. This one is tracking the death of malls all over the country. 

There are few modern ecclesiastical artists that I can warm up to. But I could look at Edward Roijas' work all day.  His "The Prodigal Son" can be bought in high-quality print form here.  (Hint to family near and far- that would make a great gift....)

I'm a fan of cutting-edge Scandinavian design, but this is just beyond me. 

Worst church website. Ever.  You should have to have a license to use Flash. Or electric guitars. And yikes! was that Kennie Rogers?

After that little bit o' fun, you'll need this YouTube palate-cleanser: Baby laughs at Wii.

Have a great weekend.  Don't fall asleep.

This is a Holst-Up: Lutherans Sing Better.

"We Praise You and Acknowledge You, O God." Lutheran Service Book (LSB) #941. Text by Stephen Starke. The tune is THAXTED, by Gustav Holst. The event was the Higher Things: Sola youth conference. That's right, youth. Lutherans sing, and Lutheran youth sing.  They sing with an ORGAN, and they sing hymns that are published in HYMNALS. Gasp!

Scandalous, just scandalous!  Enjoy the hymn; it's one of my many favorites, and just the lift I needed today. Some wag out there has dubbed the new Lutheran hymnal the "Lots of Starke Book" since many of the newer texts in our hymnal were indeed written by Pr. Starke.  So be it. They're good, strong texts.  I'd rather have "Lots of Starke" than "Lots of CCLI numbers" in tiny print on my bulletin.

UPDATE: For a completely adorable version of this same hymn, see here. Who says little kids can't learn real hymns?

Ten Songs for Summer.

(With links for the ones less familiar)

You Can Call Me Al, Paul Simon.
Bloody Sunday, U2
One Week, Barenaked Ladies.
Blister in the Sun, Violent Femmes.
Desert Rose, Sting.
Policy of Truth, Depeche Mode.
In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel.
Cecilia, Simon and Garfunkel.
Far and Gone Out, Jesus and Mary Chain. (No, I don't have any of their albums save the one I bought in Germany in 1992. My record cabinet *cough, cough* can only handle so much distortion.)
If I Should Fall From Grace With God, The Pogues.

Bonus: I also like weird stuff guaranteed to annoy neighbors.

Tell Me How You Really Feel, Honey.

After listening to a Choral Evensong some time back, Mad Musician told me:

"I think Herbert Howells is full of it. His choir music is better than his organ music. His organ music meanders on and on; it offends my Germanic sense of order."

I don't have a music degree like Mad Musician does, so I'm not really qualified to opine, but I'd still have to say I agree, from what I've heard so far.

I guess we're both Baroque snots at heart.

One of The Best Christmas Hymns You've Never Heard.

1. Hail the blest morn, see the great Mediator,
Down from the regions of glory descend!
Shepherds, go worship the babe in the manger,
Lo, for his guard the bright angels attend.

2. Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining;
Low lies his bed with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore him, in slumbers reclining,
Wise men and shepherds before him do fall.

3. Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Eden and offerings divine?
Gems from the mountain, and pearls from the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, and gold from the mine?

4. Vainly we offer each ample oblation;
Vainly with gold we his favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart's adoration;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

5. Low at his feet we in humble prostration,
Lose all our sorrow and trouble and strife;
There we receive his divine consolation,
Flowing afresh from the fountain of life.

6. He is our friend in the midst of temptation,
Faithful supporter, whose love cannot fail;
Rock of our refuge, and hope of salvation,
Light to direct us through death's gloomy vale.

7. Star of the morning, thy brightness, declining,
Shortly must fade when the sun doth arise:
Beaming refulgent, his glory eternal
Shines on the children of love in the skies.

"Hail the Blest Morn"  is #310 in Southern Harmony. The tune name is THE SHEPHERD'S STAR.   The music is available here, from the Calvin Hymnary Project, as a full size image.  See the shape notes?   And isn't "refulgent" the best word you've heard all year?

Friday Palate Cleanser.

Posted mostly for my friends in the Depressive Lutherans Club.  Chant helps, both Gregorian and Anglican.  I sometimes like Anglican chant better because I can understand the words, and English texts just don't fit to the the Gregorian melodies as well as the original Latin does.  No offense,  Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood.

Choir Practice: Joy and Sorrow.

Joy, pure joy:

(Better quality on the pop-up.) A setting of Psalm 24, in Anglican chant form, which uses the Coverdale Bible translation.The whole notes are the reciting tones, and this a double chant, which covers two verses at a time.

And here we have the "sorrow" exhibit, the piece chosen for the area's Reformation service, for the joint choirs to sing. This was not chosen by Mad Musician, our congregation's choir director.  Our congregation usually gets very little say in the planning of the area Reformation service. (It's a four minute clip, but you can get the idea of it in about 40 seconds.)

We have been told to change a few words in the piece - in the first verse there is some distinct Decision Theology: "I give you all I am/ for my soul will never doubt" so we've been told to change it to "Your Word will be my rock/ to its promises I'm bound."  Why, with 500 years worth of some of the best church music in the world written by members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, are we using something that needs to have alternate words written in?   The other problem is that the tune itself is very love-ballad-y and doesn't fit in a service alongside "A Mighty Fortress," a setting of Psalm 91 and "Salvation Unto Us Has Come."

Change happens slowly. Things will be different next year, I think. Ah, well. The Anglican chant piece more than makes up for it.

We also started rehearsing "E'en So Lord Jesus Quickly Come." I told the lady next to me that I wouldn't be able to sing it without weeping.  She didn't know the story behind the piece, written while Paul Manz's son was near death, so I told her.  And glory be, I was right. I was all choked up by the top of the last page.  "...They need no light, no lamp nor sun, for Christ will be their all."