Convention 5
At the Convention Eucharist: during the offertory, everyone blew trumpets and announced their names whilst placing their offering on the Altar. Then they sang the freaking Battle Hymn of the Re Freaking Public as the closing hymn. Anglicans! Harumph! Yankees.
Sermon was good but overall the hymnody was painful.
Huw blogged this on October 25th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Category: church geekery
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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Category: church geekery
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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We lived in Maine for 3 1/2 years when I was growing up. Both Mom and Dad always sang in the choir at church (and still do). Both are native Southerners (Alabama and Mississippi). On Sundays when “The Battle Hymn” was on the hymn roster, Mom sat down and wouldn’t sing…Dad just sang “Dixie” instead. Thought you might appreciate that….
Hope you’re doing OK. I hate things like this…all the sitting around and discussing starts to get on my nerves. I’d rather be *doing* something…
Ah, yes: “When you give alms, blow a trumpet and announce your name…” “)
Convention Eucharists are generally very painful. It’s thought that they need to be extra-creative or we’ll all be bored, but what would really be special is to celebrate in a very standard way but with 1,000+ people from all over the diocese. Best convention Eucharist I ever attended was a Rite I in a church, with the Willan Mass setting. The Sanctus almost literally blew the roof off! And this was not a Rite I diocese by any means. Strong sense of collective memory, and this was a historic convention marking a definite reconciliation between the host parish (a 1928BCP one) and the diocese.
I went to one at in the Diocese of NY: we were electing a Bishop and it seemed like a fun thing (GEEK!!!) and it was a standard classic, Canon Edward N West rite, full blast, NYC-High-Church do. COuld have got the same thing any Sunday there – but the entire diocese can fit in that church. That was awesome!
This particular thing was the United Thank Offering. And when our parish rep came forward and said “Trinity Church, Buffalo” someone said, “YAY!” And someone said, “There, we have our reward.”
The odd thing is (according to the clergy) no one thinks diddly of it. The rite itself was ok, but only in that sloppy way that liturgy-in-a-non-church-space-pretending-to-be-a-church is.
Laura –
I know what you mean. I like process, but reports, presentations, and dickering over the finer points of grammatical meaning in resolutions is not my thing. (Yes, we did that grammar thing today as well.)