Other peoples' words

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening
into the house and gate of heaven,
to enter into that gate and dwell in that house,
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light;
no noise nor silence, but one equal music;
no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession;
no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity;
in the habitations of thy glory and dominion,
world without end.

(after John Donne 1571-1631)

In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, 0 Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?
Yet, 0 Lord God most holy, 0 Lord most mighty, 0 holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, 0 God most mighty, 0 holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.

(BCP)

Almightie God, we geve thee hertie thankes for this thy servaunte, whom thou haste delyvered from the miseries of this wretched world, from the body of death and all temptacion. And, as we trust, hast brought his soule whiche he committed into thy holye handes, into sure consolacion and reste: Graunte, we beseche thee, that at the daye of judgement his soule and all the soules of thy electe, departed out of this lyfe, may with us and we with them, fully receive thy promisses, and be made perfite altogether thorow the glorious resurreccion of thy sonne Jesus Christ our Lorde.

(BCP, 1549 version)

Take him, earth, for cherishing,
to thy tender breast receive him.
Body of a man I bring thee,
noble even in its ruin.

Once was this a spirit's dwelling,
by the breath of God created.
High the heart that here was beating,
Christ the prince of all its living.

Guard him well, the dead I give thee,
not unmindful of his creature
shall he ask it: he who made it
symbol of his mystery.

Comes the hour God hath appointed
to fulfil the hope of men,
then must thou, in very fashion,
what I give, return again.

Not though ancient time decaying
wear away these bones to sand,
ashes that a man might measure
in the hollow of his hand:

Not though wandering winds and idle,
drifting through the empty sky,
scatter dust was nerve and sinew,
is it given to man to die.

Once again the shining road
leads to ample Paradise;
open are the woods again,
that the serpent lost for men

Take, O take him, mighty leader,
take again thy servant's soul.
Grave his name, and pour the fragrant
balm upon the icy stone.

(Prudentius, Tr. Helen Waddell.) Howells' setting of this text was part of the repertoire of my first tour with Selwyn College Chapel Choir, to Scotland, in 2004.

This is the night…

Permit me to be a little liturgical in this Easter season…

One service whose magic many churches manage to miss out on for the sake of a few inattentions is the Easter Vigil. Here's the order it went in where I was this year, with some annotations…

1. The people gather around the new fire (which is already lit) outside the church.

Two things are unfortunate about this: firstly, everyone should see the flame being kindled from nothing, to mark the moment of new light. Secondly, the fire should only come *after* the darkness. Which means definitely not at the beginning of the vigil.

2. The newly lit Paschal Candle, with its pins in, is processed into the church and 'The Light of Christ' is chanted three times, increasing in pitch, while the people's candles (which must be new ones) are lit.

At this point there should be no light in the church. Not even in the organ loft!

3. The Exultet is sung

This is well and good, but two things are important: firstly, that it is sung with all the right words, and secondly that it is sung with meaning (that means understanding what is being sung and singing it with poise and atmosphere). THIS is the night.

4. The vigil readings

These should come right at the beginning of the service, before number 1. above. They should be read while the church is in complete darkness, with only a tiny light for the reader to see with. There should be seven readings. Seven. Not four.

5. The vigil psalms

These should be sung to plainsong, including tonus peregrinus where appropriate. They should not be sung to anglican chant (too pretty) nor responsorially, please. Most importantly, the psalms are NOT to be followed with anything resembling 'Glory be…', since these are forbidden words from Maundy Thursday until Easter and may not rise again until Jesus does.

6. The Gloria

After the vigil readings and psalms, it is either Easter, in which case numbers 1 and 2. may follow, and a MASS. Or, it is considered not yet Easter, in which case the service should conclude (possibly with the Exultet but I am not convinced by this theory).

If it is Easter, then after 1., 2. and 3, there follows the Gloria, which, being (as I mentioned before) the first risen Gloria since Maundy Thursday, should be accompanied with the switching on of the lights in the church (or the rising of the sun, if vigil at dawn), an organ fanfare and, as long as Maundy Thursday was properly celebrated*, the ringing of bells for the first time. The people's candles should not be extinguished until this has happened.

This is the celebration of the resurrection, with light and music bursting through the darkness and silence of the first 'vigil' part, and from this point it is definitely Easter. There follows the First Mass of Easter, including as many allelluias (sung and triple) as possible - this word hasn't been said during the entirety of lent!

At the habitual place in the mass, baptisms, renewal of baptismal vows, blessing of the new water, and so on, may take place. Where I was this year, however, more was made of the water than of the fire. Which is a bit of a confusion.

Ideally, the entire thing takes place not in the evening of saturday, but very early on Sunday morning: "And very early, they came to the tomb…"

I don't know of any church that does all of this entirely as I have described it, though I hear from John that such a place does exist. I do know some places that come quite close to getting it right, and when they do, it's among the most moving services of the year. Quite appropriately, I would say: after all, what more miraculous than the moment of the resurrection?



*On Maundy Thursday when the gloria is sung for the last time, the bells should be rung with glee, and from then on remain silent (the organ also remaining silent from this moment on) until the first Gloria of Easter.

'Direct' translation

Suppose we have two trees. They are exactly the same size.

This tree is as big as the other tree.

Cet arbre est aussi grand que l'autre.

Supposing one is larger than the other…

This tree is bigger than the other tree

Cet arbre est plus grand que l'autre

Supposing one is 100% larger than the other. It's 200% of the first tree's size.

This tree is twice the size of the other tree
This tree is twice as big as the other tree

but…
Cet arbre est deux fois plus grand que l'autre

which is like saying 'two times bigger' and suggests that the tree is not 200% but 300% of the original size…doesn't it?

French has a strange sort of logic :-)

Faith and Hope, and…?

This year in the office we are thinking a bit about what the meaning of Hope is. So here's a bit of a puzzle for you all (with no offense to the dear babies and family)

Last week, conjoined twins were born in London. They were named Faith and Hope. Today, the BBC reports that after the operation to separate them, Hope died.

Now what I'm wondering is what persuaded the twins' parents to call them Faith and Hope? And what determined which twin got which name? Did they have faith in Faith and only hope for Hope?

Did their decision about the names in some way determine the fate of the babies, or vice versa?

It intrigues me that Faith continues to survive while there turned out to be no hope for Hope.

I also wonder what happened to the third baby, Love, who never even existed. Is it because the greatest triplet is missing that the others are failing to thrive?

English: fluent

At work at the moment I am receiving the first few applications for one of the programmes that I will be running next summer. This particular programme is open to participants from all over Europe (and possibly even beyond) but will be run in English, and we are asking participants to apply in English.

One of the applications I received today declared itself to be from an applicant whose English was 'fluent'. Don't get me wrong, it was very good. But fluent it certainly wasn't. In particular because in formal statements of the applicant's experience I frequently found this word: "coz".

I've always wondered how one is supposed, on such applications, to state one's level in a language when the goalposts are not declared. After all, this particular applicant surely does have an English more 'fluent' than most of his(her) counterparts. Someone should invent a solid measurement of language level. And no, I don't mean an exam.

140-character creed

David Ker set up a challenge ten days ago. George followed suit, and Jane tagged me as one of her challenged few. So here we go. The idea is that I should create, in 140 characters (the length of a 'tweet' and worth c. 4€ to a translator) a statement that every Christian could confess, and such that, were someone to confess this sincerely, one would:

1. Consider them to be a brother or sister in Christ.
2. Believe that they are true believers and inheritors of eternal life.

I am also required to pass this challenge on to five people. I challenge:
Catherine, Cecily, Louisa, Iain and Daniel

Doubts about this exercise aside, I offer the following:

God is one, Holy, Mighty and Immortal,
who died for us, rose for us, and will return for us.
This is our God, and we are His people.

Or

We are sons and daughters of God,
Inheritors through Christ of the Kingdom of Heaven.
One in the Spirit,
Channels of peace, hope, and love.

Life, death and Christmas cards

Probably, I shouldn't have been quite as enthusiastic about the snow in my last blog post.
Probably, it would have made no difference.

On Monday evening, as I was driving together with my colleague to Lyon on the "Autoroute Blanche" (so aptly named) we encountered some black ice (isn't it already clear that those two things don't mix well?!) and after hitting the motorway barriers three times, managed to emerge from a largely wrecked Peugeot in one piece. For which we were extremely thankful.

It was an adventure the full story of which does not need to be told here. Not least, it brought us to confront many thoughts that we wouldn't usually otherwise have. It brought me to reflect on all the blessings of my life, and on many happinesses that are taken rather for granted. And of course with that it made me think about the risks that we take every day. It's not as if we were recklessly driving at great speed. Nor, I suspect, were the 9 other drivers that day whose car ended up in the same state as ours did, in the same area of rural France. But chance, or whatever you like to call it (providence? God? fate?), decided that that day, we were the ones whose journey would not turn out quite as we had intended it.

It is probably the most strange experience I've had, those split seconds during which you realise that you are about to crash, and have absolutely no idea what is then going to happen, where you will be, how you will be, whether you will be.

Afterwards you have time to think. To think about all the "what if" questions. But in those moments you don't have time to think of all those, or anything except to be scared. Not scared of dying. Only scared of the million possibilities somewhere between status quo and death. Scared of the unknown.

Of course, we can avoid the unknown by avoiding 'all' risks but life is all about risks and reducing them too much just means we miss out on many great experiences. And sometimes, being 'sensible' doesn't stop you from coming into an encounter with all those things you would rather not consider.

Although this wasn't originally going to be a post about death, but rather about being thankful for life, it nevertheless reminded me of this year's CEC Christmas card. It's a controversial design, 1990s artwork, which draws a picture that must be intentionally designed to make disturbing links between life and death, love/happiness and evil/darkness. It portrays the nativity, in black and white. In the foreground, the baby, whose swaddling bands are distinctly skeleton-esque. It is watched over by Mary, hooded and with a blank face, a spectre. Behind, in the shadows of the stable, stands a 'shepherd', typical image of the messenger of death, with a staff. And to indicate that we are in a stable, in the back there is something like a 'fence', which appears as an instrument of eight daggers.

Should I assume that on Monday evening, such a messenger of death decided to play games with me? Might the shepherds be sent on missions by God to remind us of our earthly attachments?

If so, they got me thinking, for sure. But they didn't manage to worry me.

Let it snow…

Today I returned from Brussels to Geneva by train. It was a smooth trip on the TGV and not too crowded. It had been trying to snow in Brussels, and as soon as we got outside the city, the entire Belgian countryside was white. As I crossed France, the white continued…in some places, it was snowing or sleeting onto green fields, and in some places it was snowing or sleeting onto white fields. In any case, almost all the way it was snowing in some form or other, or had done so. And I arrived back to Geneva in a sort of snow-flurry that will probably settle by the morning. I wonder how often the majority of the continent manages to get snow all at once...

Here's a picture of snowy Belgium:

Songs and memories

Last Monday, as I was walking to the ecumenical centre to go to this service, I thought about what one would choose to sing at a service to celebrate arrivals and departures. And I thought, aha, I suppose the appropriate thing would be "One more step along the world I go…" and indeed, it was. It's a song that has particular memories, because the very first time I sang it stuck (for a reason unknown to me) in my head. But that was not such a surprise, since I sing it often enough.
More surprising was the second song-related moment of remembering that happened to me this week. On Friday evening, as one does, I found myself in Brussels, practising hungarian songs with a bunch of hungarians for a mass this morning. A couple of the songs turned out to have familiar tunes, indeed, to be Hungarian versions of songs I knew (including "Seek ye first the kingdom of God"…). One of them was the round "Jesus, we adore you, lay our lives before you…" It's a song I haven't heard, sung or even thought about for years. Probably more than a decade. But singing it took me right back to my childhood, and many good memories about that time that I haven't revisited for ages.

It happens with music like it happens with smells and numerous other kinds of things…ah, the wonders of the human mind…

Swiss things…

Shopping in Switzerland is generally rather disappointing compared to the experience in other countries. However, one thing is certainly more exciting here than in some places: yogurt.

The Swiss seem to love strange yogurt inventions, so in the yogurt row of the supermarket you can usually find coffee, coconut, chocolate brownie, linzertorte, mulled wine and other rather unusual flavours. Today I tried Apple Strudel…with bits of apple and raisins in. A strange but tasty experience, and even with a brief history of Apple strudel on the inside of the pot (in three languages, bien sur).