Midway between Sewanee and Nashotah House

So I got a little behind on my blogging in the latter days of the Sewanee Conference and didn't catch up while I was visiting my family. I'll see if I can't get back to it now.

The rest of my time at Sewanee was quite enjoyable. I had looked forward to "Frolic" with considerable trepidation -- the idea of a bunch of church musicians doing skits and comedy routines was quite frightening, but it was actually fantastic. With only one exception, the acts ranged from entertaining to hysterically funny. Sunday Eucharist was splendid. The preacher (the University Chaplain) offered a learned, well-constructed sermon that commented on the Gospel of the Day and quoted from Augustine, which is really all anyone can ask of a sermon, in my view.

Because Fr Turrell had recommended the book, I ordered Aidan Kavanagh's Elements of Rite, which came yesterday. What a wonderfully opinionated, no-nonsense guide -- quite successful as what it is intended to be, an acerbic Strunk & White for liturgists. I particularly like his frequent remarks that someone who can't do such-and-such should be barred from presiding at liturgies. It's a long list!

But I'm glad I didn't run across that book until my own understanding of liturgy was well-formed, as much by thoughtful reflection on experience as by any reading or theory. So forthright and assertive a book, working on my native tendency to Prayer Book fundamentalism and textual scrupulosity, might well have produced the very sort of liturgical fetishism that Kavanagh rightly deplores. As it is, I've encountered it at a perfect time.

Today I'm off to Nashotah House for a week-long liturgical workshop. I had really signed up for the course thinking it would be more practical and hands-on, sort of "How to Act Like an Anglo-Catholic Priest in Five Easy Lessons." It turns out that there will be a lot of theoretical stuff too, and it will be interesting to see to what extent the theory at Nashotah differs from the theory at Sewanee. My guess is that the overall understanding of what liturgy is and how it should function will be very close, despite the considerable practical differences between Sewanee's middle-of-the-road churchmanship and Nashotah's high Catholicism.

Before I leave, though, I have to play for the contemporary service at Saint Swithin's. The Rector is both celebrating and preaching, so opportunities for spiritual growth will abound.