Churches are spooky at night

When I was a graduate student, I was the organist for my small parish. I had a key to the church and often practiced at night. The darkness, the creaking noises of an old building settling, the strange lights of passing traffic filtered through stained glass: these make for a certain spookiness, which is only enhanced by playing Baroque music in D minor (which, as we all know, is the spookiest of all keys).

I had forgotten about that feeling, at once comfortable and unsettling, until tonight. Having missed practice earlier in the day because of a meeting at the diocesan office, I went in tonight so that I could at least figure out what my prelude and postlude will be in time to get them in Sunday's bulletin. It was an eerie walk down memory lane, and as I played through the Ciaconna of Pachelbel's Prelude, Fugue, and Ciaconna in -- you guessed it -- D minor, I worked myself up into a most gratifying state of nervous nostalgia.