As it goes with all organizations lately, we been posting information which quickly becomes obsolete. The work is complicated when buggy things happen to text copied from one host to another. The Dean’s original letter to the Cathedral congregation, as it was pasted into this website, appeared as a ballad arranged in stanzas.
Though we reformatted it, the letter seemed to me like a ballad unfinished—an account of our present situation with an unknown end. Stanzas from other ballads were called to fill in where the letter ended—these were prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. Click here to read the Dean’s most recent letter.
Sharing prayer is joining together like a Roman neighborhood singing Volare from its balconies. It is the practice of knowing that being a child of God is being loved by many—that each other, the communion of saints, make us who we are.
No wonder my heart sings, your love has given me wings—this truth is something no moment can contain.
And so, the Dean has recorded himself saying the Great Litany so we can say it with him, and The Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys has posted music for us. Click here for links to these and other prayer and meditation resources.
And Cathedral Arts will be making more frequent use of this space for sending out posts on art and contemplation. Perhaps you have time now to send me a reflection or a memory from a program you attended at the Cathedral...
For the present we have this ballad of mine which has slid toward obsolescence since I began writing it—I have since become aware of job losses for family and friends. Writing about a pandemic as an opportunity risks insensitivity toward people’s pain and worry.
But if we remember the gospel stories of desperate parents and friends beseeching Jesus for healing for their loved ones, we remember that within desperation—even within a sense of God’s absence—there is space for God to show Himself. And for us to notice it when He does.
Inasmuch as waiting makes a clearing in our lives, the present opens space. Many of us have not planned so well to stay home since we prepared for the arrival of a newborn. Now that cancellations are made and food is stockpiled, there is time for poetry, petting animals, remembering being in love and interests and books that fell by the wayside.
The time is wound back, seemingly medieval. For all our technology we have little understanding of when we will abruptly find ourselves called to battle. We are told our armor is primitive and inadequate. But this is always true of life—we never know—our control over its course is so limited as to have certain end.
Yesterday was St. Patricks’ Day. If want to know something about the fearsome roots of Celtic Christianity and have never read it, How the Irish Saved Western Civilization by Thomas Cahill is a fun read. It is good to remember that, despite the primitivism of our times, we need not fear being charged with naked Picts or Celts painted blue.
While the above image may be more cinematic than historical, St. Patrick must have lived a terrifying life. I remember now that in a frightened time of my life I prayed St. Patrick’s Breastplate in its entirety every morning. This prayer (click here for it) is featured in shorthand in our Presiding Bishop’s weekly video series, which you can watch by clicking here.
Is it not fascinating to notice how, as living is thrown into relief by the shadow of death, our culture remembers that prayer and reflection is relevant to living? The March 13 episode of the NY Times podcast The Daily ends with an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’s essay “On Living in an Atomic Age” which recalls the wisdom book Ecclesiastes:
If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things — praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts — not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
Many of us who know little of the Bible know Psalm 23 by heart: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
This time might remind us of our simplicity and how we are like sheep—reliant, tending to look to those in authority to save us, hungry for something fresh. As we see the gap between salvation and safety widen beneath our feet, what are the rod and staff that correct, pull, and comfort us?