Advent Gratitude and Glimpses of Heaven

The beauty, richness, and diversity of our liturgical and musical life at St. Mary's right now has my heart and soul so full of gratitude and almost overwhelmed by all of the beauty and loveliness in so many ways.Our liturgies this Advent season have, while being grounded in the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, included a variety of resources to help us get to the heart of what I like to call a "spirituality of Advent." Our Rector, Patrick's, preaching has, I believe, helped us to see how our lives, especially in these seemingly dark days, are Advent-ful if we but take the time to pay attention. Advent, I thnk, is more relevant now than ever.These liturgies, this preaching, and the music we have made together in the midst of it all, have really been working on me this Advent. During a time when I have often felt overwhelmed and dismayed by everything going on in the church and the world I am thankful that I haven't been able to get away from Advent. The relentless Advent refrain of hope and expectation is, I think, one of the things that has most helped me keep going.Today I feel like I got a splendid glimpse of the hope and expectation of Advent - the waiting and yearning for a time when God will be all in all, in the culmination of some of our Advent activities and preparations for Christmas. This Advent we've be singing as the Fraction Anthem, "God of promise, you have prepared a banquet for us. Happy are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb." This is one of those times when, in the midst of the daily grind of being a church musician, I feel like I've been graced with a little glimpse of heaven.Today: A Taize Eucharist with our Parish Choir and an intergenerational group of nearly 10 instrumentalists leading us in worship followed by assembling 200 or so sack lunches to help feed hungry people, and, in just over an hour from now, our children's Christmas pageant.Next Sunday the Parish Choir sings Herbert Sumsion's Magnificat in A Major and our section leaders will sing Hans Leo Hassler's Dixit Maria. In the midst of all of that we'll chant the Magnificat to the gorgeous Tonus peregrinus and sing Rory Cooney's powerful paraphrase of the Magnificat, Canticle of the Turning, set to the rollicking Irish tune Star of the County Down.On Christmas Eve, in addition to tons of carols, the Gospel Choir and friends will sing at the 4:30pm liturgy and offer Andre Thomas' Here's a Pretty Little Baby and Lynn Trapp's setting of The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy. At the 10pm Prelude/10:30pm Liturgy the Handbell Choir will ring and the Parish Choir will sing. The Parish Choir will offer Charles Wood's Ding Dong Merrily on High, Harold Darke's In the Bleak Midwinter and Bob Chilcott's ravishingly beautiful The Shepherds Sing. Also, I'm super excited that our soprano section leader will sing Herbert Howells' Come Sing and Dance.I am always humbled by the generous offering of time that our music leaders bring especially with everything else they have going on during this hectic season. The music in which all of our musicians lead us, volunteers and staff singers alike, is one of the greatest Christmas gifts I am blessed to receive.

Wait, was I supposed to be singing???

This week's submission for the eNewsletter of St. Mary's Episcopal ChurchChances are the answer is an enthusiastic "Yes!"Our liturgy/worship at St. Mary's and in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition is quite participatory. In any given service we experience what is almost like a cosmic drama with God, us, and, as the liturgy we'll be using this Sunday from the Iona Community puts it, "the whole realm of nature around us...and with our loved ones, separate from us now, who yet in this mystery are close to us..." Within our local "production" of this cosmic drama we engage in a dialogue that includes Assembly (all of us gathered), Presider, Deacon, Readers, and Prayer Leader, as well as the Choir and other musical leaders. Each of us has an integral part to contribute to this conversation or dialogue that is liturgy.When it comes to music in the context of our liturgy, the most important voice is that of the Assembly's song- the song of all of us together. A cantor (leader of song) or choir might sing the verses of a Psalm, introduce a new song to us, sing alone a verse of a hymn in order to highlight something in the text, or one of our choirs may have spent many hours rehearsing beautiful offertory and communion anthems to offer in worship, and in these cases it is the voice of the Cantor or Choir that sounds while the rest of the Assembly remains silent. These cases are the exception and not the rule. Whenever there is any music indicated in the bulletin to be sung, please understand it as an enthusiastic invitation for all of us to sing with our whole heart, mind, and voice. When it is time for a solo voice or a choir to introduce some music to us or to offer music on our behalf, I will try my absolute best to make sure to indicate that clearly in the bulletin.

Question of the week:What's the one song that, whenever you hear it, you feel compelled to sing along, no matter where you are?Email me at beausurratt@stmaryspr.org with your answer or leave it in the comments!

All this having been said, here's a saying by which I try to live and encourage you to try it out in your life, and especially when you are in the midst of the St. Mary's community: When in doubt, sing!

How Might We Use Music To Bless People?

I am delighted and honored that I was invited to submit an article for publication with Church Music Forward, a community of and resource for church musicians that claims as its mission "preserving traditions with imagination." Getting to know new friends Martha Burford and John-Westley Hodges, founders of CMF, has been a blast and I can't wait to hang out with them at the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy in July! I've included the text of my article below, but before that is a link to the entire newsletter. There are a myriad of wonderful gems contained therein, both reflections on the vocation of church music ministry and practical advice for the daily practice of church music. I encourage you to take a look and then subscribe to CMF's email list so you'll be alerted when the next newsletter comes out.Church Music Forward June 2015 NewsletterHow Might We use Music to Bless People? That was question I had never been asked before, and I was immediately intrigued and wanted to know more about what motivated its asking. I was asked this question in the context of a job interview at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Park Ridge, IL, the parish I just this week began serving as Interim Minister of Music, and I immediately knew that I was in the right place. I responded by confessing that I had never before been asked that question, had never thought about music ministry in quite that way before, and that I thought it was exactly the question that leaders of the church’s song need to be asking.Blessing is at the heart of what God does and we do in the context of the Eucharist. We offer our selves, our souls and bodies and a portion of the gifts we have been given along with the gifts of bread and wine and we bless them – God blesses them. God blesses us and we are transformed to be more and more Christ’s body so that we, that Christ, might be a blessing to the world. With all of this blessing going on, it seems meet and right that the music we offer to the glory of God and the edification of God’s people should bless people as well.A few months ago I posted the following on Facebook, “When choosing music for liturgy, one must not only concern oneself with things liturgical, musical, and theological. One must also concern oneself with things pastoral, and sometimes this needs to win out over the other three.” I received several responses to this statement – some enthusiastically supportive, some needing clarification around the intent of the statement, and others that made me feel a bit like I was being accused of heresy. I think both the statement and the various responses relate intimately to the question of how we might bless people with music, particularly in the context of liturgy.

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13:1, NRSV

Sometimes, in an effort to conform to either an actual or simply a perceived standard of liturgical, musical, or theological orthodoxy, we church musicians forget that the God we serve loves the world, God loves each of us so much that God was willing to “take frail flesh and die.” While theological, liturgical, and musical integrity is most certainly important, conforming to overly stringent standards of orthodoxy does not in any way cause God to love us more. God delights in our existence and, I believe, delights when our souls soar to the heights of heaven as we sing a robust hymn, listen to a motet, play a banjo, clap on beats 2 and 4, and enjoy a Vierne organ symphony. It is this delight of God that we are called to show forth in our music ministry. You may notice that all of this involves and is about people. All ministry – liturgical, musical, etc. involves the people whom God so loves and our ministry is to be grounded in the love of God’s people. This is people work – pastoral work. If we make the most pure, sublime, correct music, but have not the love of God’s people at the forefront of our work, are we not little more than noisy gongs and clanging cymbals?With the love of God and God’s people at the center of our calling as ones who minister through music our choice of music for liturgy will necessarily focus at least at some level around the pastoral needs of the people with whom we minister. There are times when a certain piece of music may be completely appropriate theologically, liturgically, and musically and completely inappropriate pastorally. This is not to say that any music should be sung that is theologically, liturgically, or musically inappropriate should be sung simply because it might seem to be pastorally appropriate.Like one of the people who commented on my Facebook post pointed out, there certainly is a (classically Anglican) middle way here. When we prayerfully choose music for our congregations and our choices are theologically, liturgically, and musically grounded AND ever-attentive to the pastoral needs of our people, God takes great delight, we offer to God our most humble and hearty thanks, and the music we offer blesses God and the people with whom we minister.Beau Surratt Interim Minster of Music, St. Mary’s Episcopal Churchbeausurratt@stmaryspr.org