Today at church, it was just… cool. I can’t really describe it, except to say we were in the groove, dialed in, in the zone.

Remember, I’ve been away for a week. 2 weeks ago, we had the first instance of “10am music practice” led by our choirmistress/organist. I like Mary very much, but She Must Be Obeyed in some things. So I was a little dismayed when 2 weeks ago, the music practice portion of the service went on and on and on – it was more than a little distracting. I could tell we had “lost” the congregation early on, and was concerned that people wouldn’t get “into” the service after all the musical fossicking about.

Apparently, last week (when I wasn’t there) things got a little out of hand – Mary’s enthusiasms for the music can get away from here, something that was already happening the first week. In the current e-mailed bulletin, which is also up on the new church blog, there was this item:

On many of our summer Sundays, we will be practicing music before the liturgy. Think of this as spiritual formation to assist us in participating fully in our worship.In order for this to work well, here is what the leaders of worship promise you:

1. At exactly 10 a.m., we will begin music practice, and it will last no more than five minutes.
2. No later than 10:15, Mary will begin a short prelude. This is intended to help us center ourselves and prepare for worship.
3. The prelude will be followed directly by the opening hymn.

And here is what we ask from you:

1. Please try to be here and ready to go at 10.
2. Out of consideration for parishioners who use the prelude and time before the liturgy to center themselves and prepare for worship, please hold conversations in the gathering space, not the worship space.

And this morning, it went smooth as silk – Steve, our vicar, was timekeeper but I was also backup. We practiced singing “Now (music will play if you click)” with the congregation; instead of the choir getting to sing it as the post-Eucharist anthem, they joined with us. We sang it responsively; it worked out just fine.

Everything went, as I said, smoothly. In spite of the power outage that happened right in the middle of Paul’s sermon!

As it happened, Paul was preaching on the story of Elijah’s forty days of fasting, and how the Lord passed by with a great wind, earthquakes, and fire, followed by a sound of silence. Paul was elaborating on how modern life is filled with noisy sound all the time, where we never take time to listen to interior silence.

At that moment, the fans and lights cut out, and for a few seconds, we had actual silence… but Paul, after a short pause, went on in a stronger voice, and for the rest of the service we went on “old skool” with no electric power. A couple of people got up quietly to check on the breaker box, but it appeared to be a real power cut and not just a blown breaker. Meanwhile, we had 2 gallon buckets of ice cream in the freezer for a little impromptu ice cream social afterwards – they gave out coupons at a recent local parade, tucked into little mini-Frisbees. Steve during the announcements wondered if we should get the ice cream out at that time so that it would be softer – a loud chorus of good-humored (heh) “Nooooooo” rang out. We went on with the service, and Mary played piano instead of organ. There was no coffee, but we had plenty of ice cream, which was quite soft and scoopable after the service.

One other really cool thing that happened: I noticed Mary Anne talking to a diminutive little lady just before the service, and she beckoned me over. “This lady speaks no English,” she said. “Hello…” I offered tentatively. A stream of greetings in Spanish came forth, and I had it sorted out fairly quickly. My Spanish is rusty, but serviceable enough for what I was able to say after half a second to change mental gears.

“Welcome! My name is Virginia. What is your name, please? Where are you from?”

Her name was Mariana, she was happy to have found us, and she was traveling, a “turista.” From Ecuador.

I introduced Mary Anne, who shared her name, made sure she knew this was an Anglican, Episcopal church, and she said in Spanish, “yes, yes, I was looking for a church like this.” Then I managed to express regret for not having prayer books in Spanish, but I pointed to the bit of stained glass someone had made years before that’s above the entrance to the sanctuary and translated it – “Una casa de oraciones para todo el mundo.” Well, close enough. She got it and repeated another word – which I think might have been the correct one, “rezos.” We got on like a house afire. I invited her to seat herself in the sanctuary  – thank God for my junior high Spanish teacher, who drilled us on reflexive verbs like “sentar,”  and then it was time to practice the music. I walked back over to Mariana and added “we’re practicing the music now, and then we begin.” So very helpful, that junior-high level  Spanish!

She looked a bit lost during the service – readings, sermon, announcements were all probably a confusing jumble for her, but the part she understood came soon enough. Vernon, who’s on immunosuppresants, was invited forward first and then we in the choir lined up as we normally do, so that we can get back and ready to sing whatever anthem we have planned.  I turned and beckoned to Mariana to come with me, so she could at least understand this one part.

Steve bent down and handed her a piece of the wheat bread someone baked at home, and spoke the words slowly in English, as if to a child. “The… Body… of… Christ,” he said.  “El Cuerpo de Cristo,” I muttered, not remembering in time to add “el pan del Cielo,” but pointing her to the chalice filled with “vino,” instead of toward the one filled with “jugo;” we always have a stoneware cup with juice because of the big emphasis on recovery from addictions at St Nicholas, and the many people that come to us via one of the AA groups we host during the week.

Mariana seemed rapt, transported. We moved over to stand in front of Paul, who was chalicer for the goblet of white wine they had today.  Paul spoke the words, and I muttered “el Sangre de Cristo, la Taza de salvacion.” “Gracias…” murmured Paul to me. “De nada,” I chuckled after I took the wine.

Afterwards, we chatted and hugged. “Soy muy contento,” she said. She was contented, satisfied, happy.  There was no coffee, and I referred somehow to the power being out. But no fear, I knew the word for ice cream, so all was well. We chatted, and she mentioned that someone was going to pick her up at 1130, but she was going to walk back to where she was staying. It’s not far, she was saying, and then went on to say how she had been driving around with someone – a son or husband – and when they went past St Nicholas, she used the word “discovered” to finding it. So she came to us this week, but I’m not sure if she’ll be there next week. She took off, and quite a bit later, her son came by looking for her – he seemed really nice, too. “Mariana? Esta caminando…” and he smiled and went off in that direction. She had seemed to know her way and was clear on wanting to walk home, so I hope that she made it back in good time.

We sang 2 hymns out of the 1982 Hymnal – the rest of the service was all taken from “Gather,” including one that has a line that sounds exactly like part of the Brady Bunch theme. Yeah. And then there’s another part that’s in the service music in Gather that sounds like the “S.W.A.T.” theme – another golden oldie. Anyway, we sang an old chestnut in harmony  – can’t remember what, now. But it sounded really, really good, and we had a wonderful tight blend. We could do no wrong in that hymn, so it was wonderful to lean back and let it pour out, moderating and modulating effortlessly with everyone around me and with Mary’s piano accompaniment. By telepathic agreement, she let us know she was going to add a little improvised “solo,” and we listened as she played a nice little melodic meditation, and then again by that unspoken communication you get between choir and director, we knew when to come in again with a big, swelling finish. We didn’t really rehearse it earlier, just banged through the first verse and decided it was fine “as is.”

It was a good day. In spite of the power being out, it was just…. cooooooool.

Okay, now that I'm finally fed up with tinkering with CSS and getting Firefox and IE6 to play more or less nicely…

This morning started oddly; David had to take off reeely early in the morning on a sekrit mission (no gurlz aloud) so the morning routine was a little different. He was all "Love you, bye!" and I was all "Whaaa… huh… ::smack smack scratch scratch:: love you too mmm bye." 

I don't do mornings very well at all, see. And then all too soon it was time to jump in the car and get to church for rehearsal, since I skipped the midweek one. 

When I got there, a couple of my favorite regulars were there with a younger guy at the "greet and sign-up" table. As all three of them are black, I stupidly assumed at first he was a nephew or something visiting from out of town, but it turned out he was a first-time visitor, 45 minutes early for church! 

So we welcomed him and made him feel comfortable, chatting while the other choir people wandered in and the choirmistress wandered over to say hello. In passing, he mentioned that he'd just moved to the village, and "he and his partner just moved here, and were looking for a church" and had found us via the new website. A little light went on deep in the lumber-room that is my brain and I thought to myself, "oh, you're going to be just fine here." 

He said he wouldn't mind listening to the choir rehearse, and I actually was kidding when I said "well… do you sing? Because if you want to sit in with the choir, you're welcome to join us." 

To my amazement, he said "Uh, yeah… I used to sing bass in the Baptist choir in St Louis."

Bingo! We laughed and offered him an out, but the choirmistress was in range and pounced. Next thing I knew, he was hustled off to the combination nursery and choir room with one of the other guys and came back wearing somebody else's robe. Heh. They even got him to fill out the visitor card with his email address, so he'll get the newsletter (I made sure to hand that off).

We don't normally pounce on visitors like that, but something in his manner was just so engaging, it was like laughter between old friends.

He was a really good sport about being choirnapped, I must say. A little shy about singing at first, but he seemed to be having a good time with the "boys" in the back bench.

I've noticed over the years that men in church choirs often turn out to be characters, by the way. Choirmistresses roll their eyes, try to keep order, and laugh with everyone else.

Anyway, they were chuckling and kidding around back there with him (and also explaining how the service went, and which hymn book to juggle). He seemed familiar with some Episcopal norms and forms, anyway. 

From things he said, it was clear that the warm welcome we were offering him put him at ease in a lot of important ways.  

We had no Eucharist today, because of a tricky scheduling problem. Stephen was off at the Jungian Institute on something to do with his certification (almost the very last thing except for a dissertation defense in June). Paul, another priest assocated with us (I think he's retired) was elsewhere. Manny, a third priest who's part of our community, isn't yet licensed to celebrate Communion (he's apparently still in the process of being received as an Episcopal priest from the Roman Catholic church). And Ethan, who preached, is still at the discernment level, but very far along in the process (he's also Senior Warden).

Yeah, we have a pretty deep bullpen that way, but only Stephen is salaried on a quarter-time basis. I'm not sure what the deal is with stipends for the others, I'll have to look more closely at the financials. I think the others were attracted to this community because it's either a safe haven, or a pleasant place to spend Sundays "off" when not filling in somewhere else in the Diocese of Chicago as a supply or substitute priest. 

Anyway, Ethan's sermon today was really engaging and personal and heartfelt, in a way that he hasn't done before – usually, he likes to show how hard he's worked on researching and analyzing the text like a true Biblical scholar. Today, it touched on his background and his whole being or personhood. It resonated well with what we had discussed earlier with our visitor, too. It was synchronicity with capital S. 

After we got through the service, which was Morning Prayer with a lot of additional psalms and things, there were the usual announcements – they needed volunteers to make up more grocery bags for the supplemental food pantry ingathering, the rummage sale in July is coming up.

And then our young visitor stood up and said "Yeah… I'd like to announce that I am today's draft pick for the choir, and I'm looking forward to next week. I wanted to thank you all for the welcome and letting me suit up today."

There was a huge laugh from the congregation and applause. He's not a big guy – quite a bit shorter than me – but he looks like he might have wrestled in high school.  

During coffee hour, everyone from the 11 o'clock service arrived for Adult Ed and Sunday School, and several of us were helping to finish stapling the food pantry pamphlets on the grocery bags, count them, and stack them up with route maps.  As I wandered around chatting and setting up a place to work on the bags, I could see our visitor talking to everyone. He wasn't exactly a captive audience, but he was waiting for his partner to pick him up, I think. He's got an amazing gift for talking to people and making them laugh.

He was still there when I left, happily talking to Stephen's sons about sports and music.  

Yesterday a large group from St Nicholas with the Holy Innocents (man, we really need a snappy nickname) visited the nearby Buddhist temple to attend their Setsubun celebration and participate in the morning chanting. I got there late, as I had a severe miscommunication between my brain and my GPS unit – problem existed between driver’s seat and Magellan. It was a bitterly cold, windy day, and when
I finally got to the temple, trying to stop kicking myself for my inability to enter the address correctly, I was about 15 minutes late and had missed any explanation.

The temple is quite modern and Western-looking, with the exception of the Buddhist symbol high over the door, a golden dharma wheel. In the vestibule, there was a red granite water feature with thin streams of cold water. Although it looked like a decorative fountain, it was something like I’d encountered on my trip to Japan years ago outside Buddhist temples, so just in case I rinsed my hands and wiped my mouth as a Japanese friend
had shown me how to do. However, I now see that that was the procedure for visiting a Shinto shrine, so I washed my hands in an ornamental fountain. I hope the people waiting in the entrance hall were amused.

I was welcomed by an enthusiastic man and woman, handed a prayer book and an information pamphlet, and ushered into the main hall, where a largish congregation was chanting in Japanese. I looked around for the place where all the shoes would be left, but they were on the American plan in that part of the temple: everyone sat on comfortably padded chairs with their shoes on. I sat with some of the others from church in a side section. With the help of a friendly lady from across the aisle, I managed to stay
on the same page with everyone and even chant along quietly (I can pronounce Japanese adequately enough if it’s transliterated). Most of the rest of us gamely tried to keep up with what was going on.

There were television screens, and the chanting was done by a man, but there was also a woman on the screen conducting the ceremony remotely. It was confusing at first because I got there late, but what was happening was a world-wide satellite transmission live from Japan. Or, it may have been delayed and edited, as there were several locations shown. At first, I couldn’t figure out who was leading the chanting, and thought the TV screens showed a recording of a previous service at the same temple. Turns out
they must have carefully duplicated their main altar to match the one in the main temple in Japan.

The chanting went on for a while, and then beans were thrown into the congregation in Japan (actually, several congregations – it appeared that there was some editing done so the woman conducting the service could quickly go to other nearby temples and throw the beans there). I learned later that she was the head of the order, Shinso Ito. It seemed like a fun, happy celebration, and she called out something as she started to throw the beans. First, she threw them at three people who seemed to be dressed
as demons. After the video was over, we got a little more explanation from the local priest of the temple. He was a genial guy who seemed like in another life he wore a letterman’s jacket and sold insurance in Omaha. He explained that the beans being scattered were to drive away the demons and invite good luck, and we would shortly get beans tossed at us, and we should try to catch them in the plastic bags. He gathered some people who were all born in the Year of the Boar to scatter beans from little
wooden boxes, and then the fun began. They called out “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” and tossed beans high and low. There was a lot of laughing and horseplay, especially where there were little kids.

Beans everywhere. Beans in our hair. Beans crunching underfoot. Beans, no doubt, in my purse and pockets. I’m sure I’ll find them later. I was pretty into trying to catch beans and laughed with the others when I was able to catch them falling from on high. It was a ball, frankly. It didn’t need much translating at that point. It was just lighthearted fun.

The people at this particular temple are part of the Shinnyo-en denomination of esoteric Japanese Buddhism. It was really interesting, and afterwards the priest took us on a tour of part of the temple, where we got to an area where, at last, the shoes came off. That was oddly homelike and comforting, because it reminded me so strongly of my trip all those years ago.

Then afterwards, I was able to get a temple stamp in my little book – in Japan it’s customary to get an elaborate calligraphy and rubber-stamped temple name and logo in a little memory book that they sell – I got several of these when I was in Kyoto and Nara, and even from a Catholic church in Nagasaki.

Today after the early service at church, which was surprisingly well attended considering how FRICKIN COLD it was (below zero, with a big windchill), there was a lively discussion during the Adult Ed session. I sat in with a bunch of the people who had been at the temple yesterday, and apparently they’d been discuussing Buddhism several weeks ago before Advent and other things forced them to put that particular topic aside. One of the most knowledgeable was one of the younger kids, who had been studying other
religions on his own. It made for a satisfying adult ed session, because it wasn’t just a bunch of middle aged people.

All in all, it was a pretty neat couple of days, other than the FRICKIN COLD weather.

Buddhist, Shinnyo-en

I’m debating whether to post this on the church blog, partly because the blog URL will be changing soon to be in line with the rest of the St Nicholas site, and partly because I’m not sure E-Z the Answers Squirrel can “fly” without getting shot down by the Warden and the vicar.

Via Dylans Grace Notes: ask the squirrel