Community of St. Clare and St. Francis
(Ecumenical Catholic Communion)
I first visited this congregation on Pentecost and found them warm, welcoming, and in possession of a strong social conscience. On this visit, those impressions were reinforced. I was warmly greeted. A few people recognized me from the earlier visit. Fr. Frank greeted me warmly as he walked up the aisle before the service began. He recognized me but needed a brief reminder to place me.
As before, the music was led by a band of two guitars, light percussion, a violin, a saxophone, and three additional singers. The opening hymn was "Gather Us In" by Marty Haugen, in a 1980's post-Vatican-II liturgical style.
"Gather Us In" sung in worship at St Mary's Catholic Community
South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
A delight to sing. Accommodation was made to the national holiday by singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" for the offertory and "America the Beautiful" as the closing music.
Fr. Frank's homily wove together the Gospel lesson and the tension between national pride and national shame that Americans of conscience and good will feel in the age of our military hegemony. He focused on encouraging honest self-assessment and social justice. It was a good, extemporaneous sermon that recognized the holiday but focused on gospel meaning.
The open communion practiced here, all gathered around the altar, is joyous and expansive. but the thing that most impressed me on this visit was the prayers of the community. After the words of prayer led by a reader followed by the repeated congregational response, "God of Love, hear our prayer," members of the assembly spoke individual items of concern, petition, or gratitude, with the congregation offering the same response. Many people voiced their prayers that were then joined in by everyone, though the response. Everyone spoke with sufficient volume and clarity for all to hear. But the truly beautiful part was the way people spoke their prayers, uncensored, and were then affirmed vocally by all as the prayer of the group. In that way, the concern of the individual was transformed into the prayer of the congregation. It was confidently carried out and beautiful to experience.
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| Evangelical United Church of Christ 204 East Lockwood Ave., Webster Groves MO Host facility for Sts. Clare and Francis |
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Back at the apartment, I made myself a simple supper of Malaysian lodeh (veggies and tofu in a coconut-milk-based curry), wheat crackers, fresh figs, and a Schlafly pale ale. Fell asleep on the sofa. When I woke I thought to myself that it might be nice to take in a movie. By choice I've been spending my summer without television, and, as an accident of geography and schedules, I hadn't been to a cinema since mid-January in Chicago. It felt like time.
So I drove to Plaza Frontenac, which has the largest selection of art films and foreign films in St. Louis. On the way I listened to Public Radio, taking in part of a beautiful performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, one of my favs since forever. Pulled into the parking lot and thought I'd be able to make a choice of what to see, but I'd slept too long.
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9:30 PM, Saturday, July 2, 2011
Plaza Frontenac Cinema (A Landmark Theater)
I got there right at the last screen time of the day. So I saw what was on at that time: Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's most recent offering, starring Owen Wilson. Other than knowing it was Woody Allen's, I knew nothing about it, going in. But I figured that, well, even though I'm not gaga for Woody (capitalization is crucial to truth telling), the story takes place in Paris! And even though Woody's not my favorite, he knows his craft.
I loved this magical-realist piece. The ending could be seen coming almost from the beginning, but the path to get there was wonderful. It's a movie with a slap-you-in-the-face obvious moral used as a structural device. It is the temporal equivalent of Dorothy's mantra while clicking the heels of her ruby slippers. Instead of "There's no place like home," this movie is shaped about learning that being at home in the present is better than living in a nostalgic fog, pining for a golden age that was no more golden than any other time. Amusing and ironic that the fallacy of idealizing an imagined past is exposed by the least sympathetic character, a super-sophisticated know-it-all pedant whom the viewer would love to slap silly.
Ah! but the glory of the nostalgia we wade through before arriving at that oh-so-obvious insight is beautiful. Woody likes to have it both ways, indulging the nostalgia, wallowing in it, but ultimately using it as a mechanism for facilitating something else. Like, maybe, better narrative choices in the now.
But is that really what happens? What of the now that is being touted? The film has a facile, Hollywood-ish fairy tale of a happy ending, but it is the fantasy journey through the an idealized past that allows one the grace to forgive the formulaic resolution in the present. The whole story is thoroughly unbelievable except for the mismatched couple and the cheating fiancée. But one suspends disbelief... I loved it.
We forgive "And they all lived happily ever after" because there is no other way to end other than "And they all died horrific deaths." Life doesn't conclude. Yes individuals die. Relationships die. Aesthetic movements die. But endings are all somewhat facile - attempts to encapsulate as narrative a life or experience that had no beginning, no middle, and no end - to make meaning out of no meaning.
When faced with the vast undifferentiated is-ness of Life and the inescapability of mortality, the formula allows us to stop talking and go to bed. To sleep. Perchance to dream...
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Eliot Unitarian Chapel
This morning I went to church at Eliot Chapel. Eliot is in the interim period between called ministers, its former minister having departed about a year ago. The process to call a new minister is about two years long, so this time next year they hope to have a minister set to come soon thereafter. The interim minister is, per contract, at home in California for the summer, so summer programming does not include him. Instead, the Rev. David Breeden, who interned here three years back, returned to fill in for four Sundays in July. I was minimally familiar with him from his visit to preach one Sunday at Mt. Vernon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship during his internship year at Eliot.
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| Eliot Unitarian Chapel 100 S. Taylor Ave., Kirkwood MO |
From across the street as I approached the building, I saw a banner on the door with the word "Welcome" on a Pride rainbow-colored background. I entered the building at 9:48 AM for the 10:00 service and was greeted by a man and woman who were official greeters. Looking through the glass wall into the sanctuary, I saw only Rev. Breeden at the pulpit and two people in the pews. The greeters assured me that, even though summer attendance is less than the rest of the year, members have arrival down to a science, with everyone flooding in in the last five minutes before the service. And, indeed, that is just how it happened.
The greeters gave me the mini history of their congregation and their building. Congregation: 50+ year-old offshoot of First Unitarian in the Central West End, formed to serve members who had moved to the southwest suburbs of the city. Building: acquired 40+ years ago from the Episcopal congregation that had built a new building a few blocks away. To Unitarianize the Christian edifice, all the stained glass was removed, the apse was given an exterior wall of clear glass to look out onto the tree and shrub-green yard, and the cross on the spire was replaced with a new symbol:
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| Spire of Eliot Chapel |
Unlike the liturgical Christian churches' placement of the altar at the visual center or the non-liturgical Christian churches' placement of the pulpit at the center, Eliot Chapel had a baby grand piano at the center of the chancel with the green of the landscape as backdrop through the apse window-wall. The pulpit was off to the left in what seemed an awkward spot, as became more evident during the sermon. The only other furniture on the chancel was a chair to the right where the song-leader/drummer sat. Interesting that, in a religion that prizes sermons as a major duty on which many a minister or candidate is evaluated, this Unitarian Universalist congregation has visually indicated that something else is more important. And it is musical performance.
And so the service began with Jocelyn Rugaber at the piano, playing Alan Silvestri's "Feather Theme" from Forrest Gump. Since I've never seen the movie, this was simply beautiful music to me and did not evoke any particular scenes. I don't know whether it was on the program to evoke some content or setting from the movie or was chosen for its self-contained aesthetic qualities. It was lovely. Ms. Rugaber played George Winston's "Loreta and Desiree's Bouquet" as an interlude before the sermon, Joseph Martin's "On the Blue Ridge" as the offertory, and Francis Poulenc's Trois Mouvements Perpetuels No. 1 as music for going forth. In addition, she accompanied three hymns sung by the congregation. Her playing was a delight and of very high quality.
David Breeden's sermon was about wonder and awe as the basis of all religious and spiritual feeling and expression. He used texts from Lao Tsu and Albert Einstein, among others and explained the absence of creed in Unitarian Universalism in relation to the individual's commitment to continue to explore the world with wonder even after leaving childhood behind. Our religious duty is to maintain a sense of wonder and to live in the divine awe that was once natural to all of us.
I was surprised that, after staying for coffee and cookies and multiple conversations, when I got into the car to head back to the Central West End, only an hour and eight minutes had passed from the beginning of the service. How was that possible? ...Well, for one thing, there were NO ANNOUNCEMENTS and no expression of joys and concerns from the congregation. Those are the two time sinks I've observed in some other Unitarian Universalist congregations. There is never any way to know how long they will last.
So the service had cleaner lines than sometimes occurs in other churches. And I am happy for announcements to go by the wayside, since most congregations provide plenty of print and electronic versions of all manner of announcements. But the absence of Joys and Concerns was a stark absence - especially in light of last night's prayers of the congregation at Sts. Clare and Francis that so greatly impressed me.
Each congregation has its own ways. But I missed some mechanism for the people to join in the concerns and celebrations of the individual. The service was, though, aesthetically pleasing, the message relevant, and the people pleasant and welcoming.
Francis Poulenc's Trois Mouvements Perpetuels No. 1
Played by Zak, a 2006 graduate of Florida State University
Played by Zak, a 2006 graduate of Florida State University
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