cathedral times The Weekly Newsletter of the Cathedral of St. Philip, Serving Atlanta and the World
August 7, 2016
EXPERIENCING THE EXPECTED UNEXPECTEDLY By Dr. Dale Adelmann Canon for Music Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to join a group of pilgrims on a trip to the Holy Land. I have visited that part of the world previously, yet for some time I have felt an inexplicable longing to return. I knew that the experience was bound to be meaningful, even profound, in utterly unexpected ways. It was, and it still is. This is the kind of life event that one processes for a long time after it is over. The morning after my return to Atlanta, I was rehearsing the Cathedral Choir in a beautiful setting of the ancient eucharistic text Ave verum Corpus, natum de Maria Virgine (“hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary”). In my mind’s eye I was transported to Nazareth, where I had just visited Mary’s home, and the well where she drew water, and the churches that commemorate Gabriel’s news that she would bear the Son of God. Next I wandered to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, recalling our pre-dawn Eucharist in the place where Christians have commemorated Jesus’ birth “de Maria Virgine” since St. Helena built a church over it in the early fourth century. (Happily the Choir made it to the end of Ave verum Corpus safely despite my traveling thoughts!) The same sort of thing happens to me every time we read or sing the Beatitudes. On a prior trip to Galilee, I was the guy elected to run up the Mount to read Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who…” to the crowd below. I am a “visual learner.” These memories of biblical sites draw me more deeply into the biblical stories and will forever enrich my experience of scripture. I highly recommend creating time for such pilgrimages, but it’s certainly not necessary to travel to enrich one’s experience of sacred text. I often find this happens when I engage language in a new or different way, especially when it is unexpected. This is one of the best things about sacred music: music offers an inexhaustible means to encounter the Divine, and in ways that can be neither quantified nor experienced merely with words. I would go so far as to posit that music helps us transcend the limits of language and human understanding mystically. And if we approach worship (or even just daily life) in a way that is open-hearted and determined actively to “seek and serve Christ in all persons”—to quote our baptismal covenant—then the most familiar words and concepts of our faith, and the best aspirations of our lives, may unexpectedly be transformed—and the image of God in which all people are created ever more transfigured—every day.
Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” From this week’s lectionary Luke 12:32
Later this month we will announce a vast array of musical offerings to enter into the “beauty of holiness” during the coming year. July is not a quiet month for me. I have read every Bible passage that you will hear on Sundays at the Cathedral between now and next May, many of them more than once, trying to discern what choral music will best support the themes of the day and (I hope) inspire you to experience God week by week. Have you ever attended Evensong? The choirs will sing the Magnificat (The Song of Mary, Luke 1:46-55) to thirty different musical compositions this year— from ancient chant and sixteenth-century Tudor masters to talented composers who are friends of mine—and the music of each setting will bring something that is utterly unique to that ancient text. No matter how familiar “my soul doth magnify the Lord” sounds, it will be new, different, and very much alive every time we sing it. I feel certain that the Holy Spirit will never run out of music to inspire us in unexpected ways— whether it be through old music or new—and I invite you to engage in the texts and music of every hymn, every piece of service music, and every anthem that is sung at the Cathedral. While “participation” is more a matter of the mind than the mouth, I hope you will also have courage to lift your voices and “sing heartily unto God our strength!” You may just experience something that feels unexpectedly new and truly “awesome.”