Reflections from Lent

I gave up Facebook for Lent.

I didn’t really miss it.

On Saturday evening, I wasn’t well, and thus was awake when the clock turned to Sunday. To occupy my mind, I decided I could go on Facebook.

I don’t like Facebook;

It eats time.

It makes me feel more depressed.

It eats more of my time.

It keeps me up at night when I should be in bed.

It makes me more ill.

It inhibited my ability to get to church on Sunday and thus celebrate THE END OF LENT. Ironic, huh?

I would thus like to thank all my real-life friends who were able to keep in touch with me via the medium of noFacebook. You are ace.

I wish to know why, when feeling low, why I automatically turn to things which make me feel worse?

I am also confused why, two years in a row, I have found no pictures of me at the LST Ball on Facebook. I don’t know why I bother to make an effort?

I would like to go home, to LST, now, please?

Good Friday?

I will alway remember my Dad writing ‘Not a very Good Friday’ on the cast of my broken arm, having fallen from my bike…

I have some amazing friends who have communicated some pretty powerful things about Good Friday here and here.

Yet I feel lost.

I never quite know how to deal with Good Friday?

A number of Anglican churches hold a 3 hour mediation/vigil/reflection type service meant to emulate the time Jesus hung on the Cross before he died. When I was a Verger at the Minster, it was one of those frustrating services; we had so much ‘to do’ before Sunday; cleaning, moving furniture, dressing tables, hoovering, brasses, silver… but we couldn’t do anything while this service was on. Both the Vergers and the Organists would divide up the hours, taking an hour each on the door or at the organ respectively, so it wasn’t down to two members of staff to hold the show. I remember the hour I did; asking visitors politely to ‘come back later’ or ‘enter quietly to join the service’ or to ‘use the other door’ as the Minster is a living Church. I remember sitting there, thoroughly bored. Yet I had deep respect for the members of the congregation who were really engaging with it; knowing that I couldn’t deal with it.

But what are we meant to do with this day?

I windled my Good Friday away with a hair cut, a ‘cello lesson, drinking tea with the Vergers, doing ‘cello practice and making cakes. And ‘Holy Saturday’ I’ve spent in the pub catching up with Charlotte followed by finding bargains in the village charity shop before popping round to Colette’s house for the afternoon to catch up on the last 6 weeks, make food, and watch the boat race. Then returning home to family politics (including arguments over where to go to church on Easter Sunday?!!) It just doesn’t really cut it.

I think I’m avoiding thinking about what we’re to reflect on at this point in the church calendar;

I can deal with the living Jesus, pre crucifixion.

I can deal with the resurrected Jesus.

I can deal with the living-among-us Jesus.

I can deal with the coming-again Jesus.

But what do I do with the no-longer-alive Jesus, the descended-to-the-dead Jesus?

I just can’t.

I first realised this the Easter I saw The Passion of Christ when it came out in the cinema. The brutality, the suffering, the torture, the pain… And as much as I tried, I couldn’t tell myself; ‘it’s just a story,’ because it’s not just a story.

I feel so inadequate.

So irrelevant.

So pathetic.

So miniscule.

So trivial.

So get-over-yourself.

Yet;

His Sufferring. His Pain. His Sacrifice. His Death.

… those are the things which make it so real.

The ultimate price for life.

And we know what happened next. We know that Christ defeated death. We have that Hope. But what are we to do with Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I can’t go on ignoring them forever.

Today

Is my parents Wedding Anniversary; the fools.

I finished playing around with my dissertation essay, and sent it to my supervisor again. I’m confident it’s an improvement, but I’m not so confident my conclusion says what I have actually done, or if I’ve not done what I’ve said I’ve done, or whatever. I’m meeting with my supervisor at the end of the holidays.

I got online in time to book tickets to see Have I Got News For You recording as part of Dad’s birthday present; just hope they give me tickets!! Should get confirmation next week.

I’ve done two lots of ‘cello practice. I like playing the ‘cello. I have a lesson with Sarah tomorrow, which is exciting

I’ve finished putting filler in holes in the skirting boards in the spare room; I do try and be a good daughter every now and then!

I get to go on Facebook on Sunday! It’s weird how much I haven’t missed it. Although I’ll be the first to admit that is mainly down to the timing of me returning to LST; had I tried it whilst still being at home it’d have been a different story!

I’m hoping that I get chance to do some more reading for Arts and Worship around my parents celebratory dinner. I could start that now; as Dad’s skiving off work this afternoon to go play ships (well, narrowboats!)

I’m very much looking forward to catching up with Charlotte, Colette, Sarah, Victoria and the Vergers this weekend

Protected: Not good…

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Lent; day 20

Herbert Howells – Requiem

Howell’s compositions are most well known in the world of Cathedral Music. Howells wrote the Requiem in response to the death of his 9 year old son, Micheal, who died of meningitis. He bases it entirely on Psalm 121.

1 Corinthians 15:35-49

Lent; day 19

Lent 3 in the church calendar

Johannes Brahms – A German Requiem

The text is a series of texts to help console the bereaved.

Psalm 39:4-7, 12-13, Isaiah 40:1-8

Lent; day 18

Hector Berlioz – Requiem

Revelation 3:1-6

Berlioz was honoured when he was asked to compose this Requiem by the government, although he had only been given four months to compose and rehearse the work! As it turned out, the performance was postponed, and not performed for another two years!

It is a huge work, and not often heard live, requiring hundreds of singers and instrumentalists. Berlioz’s Requiem is a case study in architectural writing, carefully planned and orchestrated for a large building with a big acoustic.

Berlioz’s main religion was his art, despite having little training in an instrument of his own. He turned the musical norms of the day, music for him was about expressing emotion. Substituting faith for art is a classic form of idolatry (Isaiah 2:8). But Giles explains that Berlioz’s use of scripture an liturgical text can aid us in directing our own devotions towards God.

Lent; day 17

Giuseppe Verdi – Requiem

Revelation 20:12-15 and 2 Peter 3:1-13

Verdi wrote this piece in memory of Manzoni, and performed on the anniversary of his death at St Mark’s Church, Milan. He received no money for the composition, or for conducting it’s premiere. It was a great success, but some say it portrays an operatic death, than a religious one. Unlike Faure’s composition, Verdi does not try to avoid the subject of judgment and hell. In some senses, it is a simple work, taking the text of the Latin Mass for the Dead, setting it with meaning and power that few others have equaled.

As famous as this work is, I have not performed in it, yet! But I would love to, someday!

Lent; day 16

Gabriel Faure – Requiem

Another Requiem… Giles is taking us on a journey through many of them over the coming week or so…!

Another Requiem I have performed in, thanks to The Minster School! I love this one, too. It reminds me of Southwell Minster, and thus I feel at home. It is one of the most popular settings of the Requiem mass. I’m sure you would recognise at least the ‘Pie Jesu’ movement, sung by a solo treble, or ‘In paradisum.’

Faure didn’t really have any reason to compose a Requiem, but when his mother died at the end of 1887 it became a more personal endeavor to him. ‘Faure was perhaps the first to express musically what many now believe in the face of death: that everything will be all right in the end…’ [p.81] But it could be argued that this is a very humanist view of heaven, more familiar to Aristotle than Jesus. But it is the resurrection with Christ we hope for, ‘hoping and dying in the return of Christ.’ [p.83]

Lent; day 15

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem

Although commissioned by the church, the Requiem is known in the concert hall than religious services these days.
I love this piece… the way he intertwines ideas throughout all the movements… It takes a lot of listening to, but there is beauty in it.

As I was listening to this work today, I was struggling to work out in what context I knew it so well. Then it dawned on me, not only did I play in the orchestra for a performance of it back in January, that day when I received a ‘phone call asking for help in the snowy weather. But I had also sung in the chorus at my first Old Southwellians Concert when I was in JD!

I have learned today that Mozart died whilst still composing this piece at the age of 36. I am two-thirds his age and I have in no way achieved anything like what he did, as a composer!
What I also discovered, is that the final parts of the Requiem were finished by Sussmayr (1766-1803) who was Mozart’s pupil. Giles links this with the Great Commission; that we are to ‘pick up the baton’ where others have left works unfinished… to continue the race, and to accept that we not see the completion of all things in our own time on earth. Humbling.