Liturgical boot-camp at Nashotah House

It's been two long but enjoyable days at Nashotah House. We begin at 8:00 with Morning Prayer and Eucharist and go straight through until Evening Prayer at 5:00, with minimal breaks for breakfast and lunch. Here are some random things I've learned so far:

(1) Being an expert on liturgy doesn't guarantee good liturgy. Our celebrant on Monday was the Revd Dr Marion Hatchett, who is practically the Thomas Cranmer of the present-day Episcopal Church, and the liturgy was a mess. Lack of planning, inaudibility, and sundry other little problems did him in.

(2) Nashotah's liturgics guy is surprisingly un-fussy. I was expecting, almost hoping for, over-the-top Anglo-Papalism. Instead, Fr Klukas's favorite phrase is "God doesn't care." He's made a point of showing us maximal ceremonial, not to insist that we use it, but because (to quote my favorite line from him so far) "It's important to know what's traditional and why you're not doing it."

(3) Fr Klukas also nicely balances the different aspects that liturgical planners need to deal with: word, music, movement, gesture, architecture, furnishings, etc. He's an art historian by training, and I particularly enjoyed his slideshow of church buildings and the commentary on both aesthetic and functional shortcomings. Art historians are cool.

(4) I had a great conversation yesterday about the Robinson hoo-hah with a priest from the Diocese of Virginia. There is so much good will everywhere but on the edges of this discussion; maybe there's hope for the Episcopal Church after all. This priest had recently used the following example in a sermon: we're walking across a swinging bridge over raging rapids. We don't know exactly what's on the other side, and the passage is frightening, but we know we'll reach the other side safely in the end -- if only the wackos on both ends of the bridge will stop jumping up and down.