Wow! They broke ground at church while I was on vacation for the
addition!

Ginny
I can has iPhone?

Via: Flickr
Title: St Nick’s on the Move
By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 7 Jun ’09, 10.31am CDT PST

UPDATE: And it’s about frickin’ time. This morning was my first day back after vacation – we returned late last Sunday. I knew that ground had been broken but wasn’t prepared to see the big mound of dirt, two earth moving machines, and the Honey Bucket tactfully screened by the sign provided by the Diocese of Chicago. Ahem, I see there’s a rather “The Episcopal Church in Northern Illinois” tag added, too. Good for them. My only regret thus far: the big pine tree that was to the right of the entry is gone. What a shame.

The service today was a typical summer one: the 9am “traditional liturgy” holdouts (Yay! that’s me and most of the choir) and the 11am “contemporary liturgy” people (everybody else that never had music in school… ) combine in the summer for a 10am service, which means one whole extra hour at home before choir practice. Also in summer: no Wednesday choir practice.

Of note today: one of our associated priests was presiding and giving the sermon, because there was a couple of people in attendance as a search committee from a parish in another state. I hope and pray that if it’s a good fit, they call her. She wasn’t feeling well and our main priest tends to throw things in at the last second to confuse people out of enthusiasm, but she coped all right. I did like her sermon, and I hope her interview with them after church went well. Fr. Steve had decided to throw a parish barbecue at VERY little notice (it wasn’t even in the email that went out on Wednesday or Thursday) and he called for volunteers to start the coals in the grills (they cooked under the overhang in front, and all the smoke came rolling inside at the end of the service). Oh, dear. But it seemed like it was all pulling together at the last second, just like usual. I think in the end our supernumerary priest and her search committee cancelled their lunch reservation and just threw in with the parish barbecue. When I left, they were all smiling at all the hubbub and activity, so I hope that it all helped with forming a favorable impression.

It was good to see my church frenz again and I maked the musics la la la. Actually, we all had to laugh at some of the plans for the summer; apparently several Sundays, we will be singing show tunes instead of hymns. Well, we heard the first few choices and thought “Okay, that could work, and people really relate to stuff like that…” but then we got to the “Sound of Music” selections for one particular Sunday, and all was hilarity. Sure, you could imagine “The Hills are Alive” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” and the nuns’ “Alleluia,” but the kicker was that the suggested number for the recessional was… waaaait for it! “So Long, Farewell.”

All pretense of musicality, oppenness to new ideas, and pro-am churchy decorum dissolved. We all broke into bits of the chorus – different bits, in different keys – and then the men hit on the same verse and did the hand motions and the “Adieu, adieu, to yieu und yieu und yieuOOOH!” and we fell about laughing. Choir dominatrix Mary lost it big time when I asked if we couldn’t convince the Liturgy Committee to let us do “The Lonely Goatherd,” since… “we could do a puppet show from behind the piano!!!” And frankly, we really could do a puppet show the way Mary’s arranged the instruments. She could even play the melody with one hand, since they’re giving her plenty to do anyway finding arrangements. Oy.

There were more suggestions for other Sundays – a lot more of highly improper songs and improvised pastiches – and aside from how funny it was, it’s a serious matter to convince somebody whose enthusiasms have run away with them that it really wouldn’t be appropriate at the Gospel reading for the choir to break into “So You’re Jesus Christ, The Great Jesus Christ?”

Some of the other suggestions are intriguing and we don’t want to completely balk at the idea; there would be something from “Big River” that would be pretty nice, but there are problems with pulling off “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat” or any other songs from “Guys ‘n Dolls” in a liturgically appropriate way. For one thing, where would we get all the gamblers, streetwalkers, and mobsters to pretend to be a revivalist congregation? See? Problems.

All this happens this month and next month, so there will probably be more later after the dust settles, both from the construction site and from the impending discussion betwixt Mistress Mary and the committee member. She’s gonna be rockin’ their boat for sure.