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Church Bells

Church Bells

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My church backs into a many-pathed woods poised on a rise above a creek called The Glade. Some weekends I drive over there early, park in the near-empty lot, and take a walk before mass begins. 

The last two weeks, I’ve attended the latest service. The sun has set while I’m strolling, the air grown still. I know I’m preparing to pray, not actually praying, but it’s hard to convince myself of that. The sauntering feels just as holy, the forest just as much a cathedral. 

As if to emphasize the point, church bells toll as I finish the walk. These are real bells, not recorded ones. I feel like a medieval serf being called from the fields, drawn from drudgery to the promise of eternal life. 

Already Advent

Already Advent

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We come now to one of my favorite times in the liturgical year. It’s a short season, one ever more likely to be buried in tinsel and outdoor lighting. It’s the season of Advent, of preparation, of prayers and devotionals.

It is almost lost in this world, buried by frantic list-making and shopping.By nonstop carol radio and the Hallmark Christmas movie channel. Every year I hope the prayer and devotional part wins out. Every year it does not. But Advent is early this year, so maybe it has a chance.

Advent reminds me of medieval stone abbeys, of kneeling on hard surfaces, of chanting the divine office in the wee hours. No doubt informed by once reading The Cloister Walk, a fine book by Kathleen Norris, during early December, but also, I think, by the hymns and carols of my youth. 

Now these are mostly memory, but still captured in a few plaintive melodies — O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, for one. I played it on the piano last night, trying to capture the hope and longing of this fleeting season. 

Made by Walking

Made by Walking

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We make the road by walking. That was the sentence beamed on the wall of the Methodist church in Arlington where Bernadette was baptized on Saturday. Bernadette like an old-fashioned baby in her long white baptismal gown and cap. Bernadette who reaches out her arms to be held, who crawls like a house afire and pulls herself up to stand. She is a delight, though she can still cry with the best of them.

While she has perfected the piercing wail, her cousin Isaiah has mastered the wild bird shriek, his way of letting folks know he’s not getting his way. And he used this to perfection during the baptism, even as his parents fed him Cheerios, age-old food of parents in distress, and did everything else they could to occupy him during the service.

It seems like not that long ago we were the parents on the front lines, we were the ones grabbing those little pencils and envelopes in the pews, handing kids keys and trinkets they would never be allowed to touch otherwise. We were the ones carrying a screaming baby out of the sanctuary. We were the ones making the road by walking.

During the sermon, the pastor talked about how those who come before us make the way … just as we make the way for those who come after us. A lovely image not only for the Path of Life, capital P, capital L, but for every little lower-case section of it.

All Souls

All Souls

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With Halloween and All Saints Day behind us, we come one again to a more humble celebration in the liturgical calendar: All Souls, the day set aside each year to honor the dead. Not just the famous or the pious but everyone. 

That’s a lot of souls. According to the Population Reference Bureau, about 109 billion.  And every one of them once a life, a presence, a story. 

I don’t know about you, but this day feels more sacred to me than all the others. 

Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday

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I write today as the eggs are boiling, before the bulk of the cleaning starts and the cake goes in the oven. There will be 16 people here tomorrow. That’s a big gathering when the number is usually two. 

And it’s a big moment in this slow return to normalcy. It’s not exactly like the opening of the gates in Oran from Camus’ The Plague. Our experience with disease has been longer but less acute than what those poor fictional souls experienced. 

But it’s been enough, thank you very much. And our hope that this might be the beginning of the end will make tomorrow’s alleluias ring out all the louder. 

Wisdom from the Verse

Wisdom from the Verse

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As we continue through our second Lenten season of the Covid Era, I notice that today’s reading is the story of Abraham taking his son Isaac to the mountaintop to slaughter him. It’s never an easy Bible verse for me — or any parent — to hear. The amount of faith and obedience required is way beyond what I or, I hazard a guess, most of us, might have. 

But the story does come at a good time. With most of a penitential season still ahead of us, we could use a reminder of the power of faith to, if not move mountains, then come pretty close. Because, of course, Abraham is richly rewarded for his obedience. He is told that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars. 

Lent on top of Covid seems redundant. We are already giving up so much! I’ve struggled this year, as I did last, for a way to make the season meaningful. One of them is to keep up with the daily readings, to seek wisdom from the verses. This doesn’t always work … but sometimes it does.

Ash-Free

Ash-Free

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It’s an ash-free Ash Wednesday here. Instead of spiritual reading, I’ve been trying to change a password and perform various other online acrobatics with all the attendant trials of patience that requires. 

Perhaps there is such a thing as a prayer for online patience. There are indeed prayers for calmness in the storm and for patience in times of confusion. I don’t see exactly what I’m looking for, though, something like this:

Oh Lord, I know that in the vastness of your creation there are answers to the technological problems that beset me. Fill me with calmness and understanding as I yet again attempt to _____(change my password/check on my order/request information/insert need here). I know that these bits and bytes are but a small part of the marvelous world we inhabit. Help me to put them in perspective as I live a full and meaningful life in the real world. Amen.

Rejoice!

Rejoice!

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Yesterday was Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, when the message shifts from one of “beware and prepare” to “rejoice and prepare.” 

I love both Advent messages. For that matter, I love Advent. It’s a season of anticipation — and isn’t anticipating an event usually always better than the event itself? 

More than two decades ago, I happened to read Kathleen Norris’s book The Cloister Walk during Advent. It was a busy time for me as a writer and a parent, and when I’d collapse in bed each night I’d savor a chapter or two of this fine volume and be transported into the silence of the cloister.

The image I have of Advent is one of cold stone and plainsong, of middle-of-the-night awakenings for prayer and devotion. Though Norris spent time in a monastery in Minnesota, it was the old churches of Europe that came to mind as I visualized her progress through the liturgical year. The long centuries of hope condensed into an annual calendar. 

By the reckonings of that calendar, we have already begun a new year. 

The Bells

The Bells

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I found a new online Mass this morning, the first one to pop up when I did a search. One of the ways it  recommended itself was by the playing of church bells at the opening.

In earlier times, the sound of bells was far more a part of life. Bells marked times to rise and work and pray. They commemorated the passing of lives and eras.

Of course, now we are in unusual times, but even in pre-pandemic days I seldom heard church bells. In fact, my church was taken to task for their modest bell-ringing. As a result bells are rung shortly before services for a couple minutes at a time.

Thus are we deprived of one of humankind’s more sonorous sounds — and of the reminders they provide us.

(The bells of Notre Dame during an exhibition in 2013.)

Left with a Melody

Left with a Melody

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Like so much else these days, deciding whether to go to church is fraught with questions. Since last week, we have been allowed to attend in person, but seating is limited and the experience is so different that I think I would miss Mass more sitting there than I would watching it on my laptop.

Which is why I keep tuning in … as evidenced by yesterday’s post.  It’s imperfect, but the experience still leaves me with something to think about, and, maybe just as important, something to listen to.

Yesterday, it was “Let All Who Are Thirsty Come,” a haunting melody that stayed with me as I swept the deck and mowed the yard and walked through the June afternoon.

Left with a melody … there is a power and a purpose in that.