Becoming the Nomad

With my retirement has come a spiritual dilemma.  At the end of February after over 35 years  ordained ministry and 31 years in the Parish of Lantz, I retired.  The Parish was my spiritual home, and the congregation were my family.  Through a marriage, divorce, re-marriage, child-rearing, conferencing, discernment and formation for the Diocese, joys and delights, tragedies and disappointments, and all the engagements of pastoral ministry that had been my life for almost all of my career, I had not had opportunity to be part of another spiritual community. And at the beginning of March, I began my quest for a new spiritual home.

Do you know a Venn diagram?  Consider three interlocking circles with a common triad at the centre.  I was looking for music, preaching and liturgy in a loose balance with a coherent centre.  As both a priest and church musician, I have been part of religious communities all my life, and I have always thought that a parish would be at the heart of my sense of spiritual belonging, where I could be, to use the overused phrase, "spiritually fed" by music, preaching and liturgy.  The quest had become harder than I expected.  

As I started looking for a spiritual home, I started with the internet...and the first thing I discovered is that a lot of parishes either don’t have a web-site or Facebook presence, or don’t keep it up to date, or have outdoor signs that don’t actually say when their Sunday worship takes place.  There are buildings that don’t use the street doors and expect everyone to enter from the parking lot.  It is hard to look for a place to worship if you can’t find out where it is or when they worship.  If I can’t find this information  without more than two or three mouse-clicks, then I start to surf.

When I enter the building, I usually look for a guest offering envelope, an order of worship, and if it is not clear, some direction about seating (especially if there are Covid guidelines), and if there is a greeter, an appropriate welcome.  I tend not to wear a clergy collar, and so I’m just a visitor.  Sometimes I am recognized as clergy, sometimes not, and it shouldn’t make a difference (although I have noticed that I get a better welcome if I look like clergy).

Musically, I prefer hymnody and don't much care for "praise music," whose challenges were detailed in a Liturgy Canada publication that I edited many years ago (http://www.liturgy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Michaelmas-07.pdf), and I expect that the church musician and presider will have some harmony with the season, readings or other theme of the day.  As a singer, I like to have a copy of the score for the hymns or mass setting, especially if they are not commonly known outside the parish. Rejecting hymnody is difficult for me.

Preaching is, perhaps, the most subjective criteria that I have in seeking a spiritual home.  Good preaching is well prepared, and whether the delivery is read from notes or a text, or is more spontaneously delivered without notes, must be related (as must be the music) to the season, readings or theme of the day.  If a homily or sermon is part of a series, some reference to the previous preaching should be included.  Good preaching, while reflective of the preacher's own reading and experience, must not be overly self-referencing nor speak as though familiar with an experience that could not possibly be their own -- a good example would be for me, as a man, to speak about the intimate experience of pregnancy and childbirth.

Of music, preaching and liturgy, I take liturgy most seriously.  The Anglican tradition is based on commonly used texts and readings that vary by Sunday and season.  In Canada, two authorized books of texts (The Book of Common Prayer (c) 1962, and The Book of Alternative Services (c) 1985), with subsequently published Supplementary texts (2001), the Inclusive Language Psalter (2019), Occasional Celebrations, For All the Saints (c) 2007, and Alternate Collects from other Provinces of the Communion, are all available.  Several years ago, the Diocesan gave permission for other authorized texts from any other part of the Communion to be used with discretion.  But this doesn't mean that anything goes.  When I go to an Anglican liturgy, I (not unreasonably) expect to recognize the structure, if not the specific texts, the calendar and lectionary (either from the Book of Common Prayer or the Revised Common Lectionary), and when words like "absolution" and "blessing" are used, not simply given an assurance of pardon or non-Trinitarian benediction.  The elimination of readings or the Psalm on the principle of expedience is ill-advised but apparently not uncommon.  Eliminating a statement of faith (usually a credal affirmation) at the principal weekly liturgy is an unfortunate disconnect from the history and tradition of the church, and suggests that stating what we believe is unimportant, even though it is a criteria for being part of the Christian community (cf Baptism).

My experience over the last ten months has been two out of three on most Sundays.  Repeatedly.  And to paraphrase Meatloaf (the singer, not the entrée) "two out of three ain't good enough."  Strict adherence to the Book of Common Prayer is part of my heritage, but after almost 40 years of the Book of Alternative Services, I can't thrive on just two Sunday readings repeated on an annual cycle.  And then there are priests/presiders that don't know when to use (or not use) an Alleluia at the dismissal or other points in the liturgy (like before the Gospel); they fail to understand that the Collect (prayer) of the Day is the presider's, and to turn it into a congregational prayer is like reading along with the actor playing Hamlet when you go to the theatre; they don't know the importance of manual gestures, ritual and ceremonial while presiding (or seem not to care).

And then there is the matter of screens.  There are good reasons for using projections -- illustrating a homily, providing a translation of texts (a good example is at Our Lady of Lebanon, where an English translation is put on a side screen for those that are not fluent in Lebanese-Arabic), or providing announcements or video clips.  But far too many Sunday liturgies that I attend decide that everything must be on the screen, not just the parts in which the congregation participate, like the hymns, mass setting or icons/images.  It is profoundly disturbing to try to focus and centre on the reader, the presider, or the intercessor when a flashing screen displaying unnecessary texts cannot help but pull the focus out of the moment and on to a screen.  It turns the experience of worship into something that I can replicate in my own living room (or work) with computers and screens.  There is nothing that brings the sacred into the worship space when all the people (including the presider) are looking at a screen.  I have been told that this is an accommodation for those that are hard of hearing, but this is a specious distraction -- provision of a printed version of the liturgy on a recylcable medium for those that identify their need should be no more difficult than editing the projections that would be used, or, perhaps even have books or Bibles available.

And so I've given up looking for a spiritual home and embraced the concept of Nomad.  Cherish the journey; find the oases; seek where you can be fed; bring an offering for others (my skills as a church musician are apparently more valuable in my retirement than my charisms as a priest); live in Christ; and cherish the Spirit as the journey continues.

Today's weigh-in: 215 Getting there.