6 April 2014: Fragile Best

This past Sunday whenever my hands were free I scribbled notes in the margins of an Order of Service template I created last week for my personal use. I am trying to smooth out the remaining rough edges of performance. Each week to date there has been a noticeable "bump" in the service, a moment when an "uh-oh" vibe interrupts the flow. The template is an attempt to identify and correct my part, if any, in the weekly "bump."

The current bog post would have been based on the marginalia if I'd made time to blog immediately after church but something else caught my attention in the meantime.

On Sunday morning, right before service, I asked S________, the woman who first contacted me about this gig and who, along with her brother, sister-in-law and mother, is a cornerstone (or backbone or....something) of the church, to look at my template. Together, we went through it step by step, comparing it to the order as outlined in the front of the hymnal and the order I inherited from the previous pianist, six or seven photocopied pages from an older edition of the hymnal.  We identified two minor discrepancies and I made appropriate notes.

While we talked, the minister sidled up and started his usual jovial, self-centered banter. Although the stated reason for the interruption was a desire to introduce me to his wife and son, both of them in attendance for the first time since I commenced my post, I think really he just wondered what S______ and I were talking about. Harmless meddling like a child who can't help making noise when Mommy is on the phone.

His adult son was in town for the weekend from Texas. Whether striving to impress his family or in response to some other self-consciousness, he worked very hard to stay on script Sunday. There was tension in his voice and posture:  his delivery displayed something less than the usual self-confidence with fewer ad lib anecdotes, frequent hesitations and overly-loud enunciation of cue lines before musical bits.

Yet, even with such strenuous effort toward correctness, he completely skipped a sequence known as "The Collect for the Day." It was not a huge deal for me. I had a few anxious moments anticipating where he would resume the order of service but we found our way and the service resumed, to my mind, with minimal stress.

The next morning, I was awakened by a telephone call from Rev. W_________. He wanted me to

know that he was in the process of creating a detailed table or chart or something to guide him through the liturgy on Sunday mornings. I am still unsure what the call was really about. Maybe he wanted sympathy or praise? Maybe he was trying to voice a complaint with my performance? Maybe he was just having a rough moment and needed a shoulder to cry on?

I wished him well with his creative efforts. He said I could take a look at his table and then perhaps we'll be on the same page on Sunday. I agreed to look it over and added that my opinion mattered little; the main concern is that he create something that puts his own mind at rest. I suggested that if the two of us synchronized our attention to cue lines -- which ever script or table we used -- we'd be OK.

I wondered whether S_______ or someone had talked to him after Sunday's miscue.

He said, "I'm struggling with this because I'm having to suppress my natural urges toward improvising and being more intuitive about things..." And, of course, as an improv artist, I could really "feel him" on that point; but I doubted the benefit of attempting a conversation with him about a joint collaboration to create a framework for the service and then improvising within that framework. I had the feeling he was feeling confused, guilty and frustrated in the moment and consequently not in the most receptive frame of mind for such a conversation.

I will look at whatever he brings on Sunday. S___________ approached me after the service and whispered, "I see what the problem is now. I'll edit the order of service I've been sending you and also make sure I send him the same thing from now on." It will be interesting to see how he

responds next Sunday as he attempts to reconcile his new chart with whatever she gives him....

Each Sunday I leave church with a somewhat heavy heart for a variety of reasons. Including the onerous sense of allegiance folks seem to feel to the service format outlined in the hymnal. I think it lends a deadness to their gatherings and they seem to possess no sense of entitlement or agency to change the format, to make the service what they need it to be. When Rev. W_____________ skipped The Collect, it planted perhaps 20 seconds of silence in the service. Perhaps people were disturbed, as people often are, by the silence; but is silence really such an ugly or scary thing?

For a moment, the congregation found themselves unguided, alone with their own thoughts. In retrospect, the lapse reminded me of my sadness that congregants do not voice their own prayers: instead, they confer with the minister right before service begins, informing him of who needs prayers and he includes their requests in the General Prayers segment of the service, during which he stands with his back to the people, facing a cross mounted on the wall behind the pulpit, and intones prayers...for the health and well being of politicians, for solace for families who lost loved ones in the recent Malaysian airlines tragedy, for a change of heart among local non-believers that will lead to them to begin attending church....

It feels like so much Fear to me:  fear of silence, fear of having no guidance, fear of the clamor of personal thoughts in the absence of specific instruction about where to place your attention, fear of living in community with people who don't think like you...

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I hear that Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book:  Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth About Everything.  I'm going to try to get it on e-book...something to read during the sermon.