Charles Olsen of the Alban Institute offers some suggestions for Ways to Pray in a [Church] Board Meeting. Here’s an excerpt:

Resistance to infusing the work of a board with prayer tends to come from the conviction that “there is a place for everything and everything should be in its place”—that worship belongs to Sunday and sanctuary and prayer belongs to worship. But an inspirational moment in a meeting does wonders in loosening the strings of resistance, and those inspirational moments will come once worshipful work is attempted. Let the only rule be “meetings are worship.” All else will flow to and from that fountain. Then we can drink from its fullness!

Some interesting ideas here. Maybe we should develop an Order for Vestry (and other!) meetings. We could even have a new supplemental book, the Book of Regular Meetings, perhaps? A Worship committee seems like a good place to start. Other ideas?

(Via Episcopal Cafe.)

One of my favorite things about the nave at my church is the “Talitha Cumi” window. Mark’s story of Jesus’ raising a twelve-year-old girl from death is one of my favorite Gospel stories. And this is a wonderful image, presented in deep, rich colors: Jesus stands over the little girl, holding her hand, while her anxious parents kneel at the foot of the bed. I’ve loved this window since my first visit to the church, and I have an excellent view of it from my seat on the deacon side of the front of the church.

This morning, during the sermon, my eyes wandered over to that window. And lo! it was transformed. This particular day, this particular moment, the rising sun was shining right through Jesus. His face was almost too bright to look at. A little of the light shone in the faces of the parents, looking up at him in hope. The little girl’s face was shadowed – the side of the window enclosure kept the early sunlight from her face. Yet that fits the moment shown – Jesus’ hand is raised; he is speaking the words that call her back from death. It’s easy to believe that in a moment, the darkness will pass from her face and she, too, will shine like the sun.

The sermon ends – I introduce the Creed – we move on. I forget to look again until the sermon at the 10am service. Now the day’s light is evenly distributed. The stained-glass image looks like I’ve always seen it before. I can see the details, the colors, the beauty – but that transfiguring light that made it come alive is gone.

This, I think, is one of the ways liturgy works. It’s there all the time, reliably beautiful, like the window. You look at it every Sunday, you think about how meaningful the story is. And then, one day, perhaps when you least expect it, perhaps when you most need it, something lines up. You’re sitting in just the right place, and the light shines through it all of a sudden and hits you. The story comes alive – not just frozen images or words but something that carries light and power and grace.

I won’t see that window the same way, from now on. It’s more than just a pretty picture. I’ve seen what it can do. 

We had our wake on Friday (see earlier posts here and here for more background). It was attended by a small handful of folks, most of whom came later in the evening. We ended up hosting it in our living room once again, as the other available spaces seemed too big, and having it at home simplified our childcare logistics considerably. (As it worked out, the boy was soundly asleep before anyone else even arrived, so we were both able to be present for the whole time that anyone else was there).

I did end up rearranging the room considerably, putting the two couches facing each other, with the icon at the far end, and a good chunk of open space in the middle, which made the room feel much less claustrophobic than last year. That and baking significant quantities of hot cross buns took most of the day, but I was really happy with how things came out.

This year, people used the sharing time to process the main holy week liturgies that they had been to so far in the week, and to work through some of the thoughts and feelings that those liturgies had brought up.

I mentioned before that I think of this as a supplemental liturgy, perhaps akin to the more familiar Maundy Thursday vigil that some churches keep overnight. It struck me this year that it might be a helpful thing to offer to a core Holy Week liturgy team in a parish, to give them some calmer time to process without having to be doing anything. It could also work well (perhaps with light modification) as an open chapel during the day on Holy Saturday, or possibly even spanning the time between the end of the main Good Friday liturgy and the beginning of the Easter Vigil.

If you’re interested, there’s a few more pictures on the new Doing Public Work Flickr account.

All in all, I’m very happy with how it came out this year. Next year, we’ll be somewhere new, likely somewhere with it’s own way of doing Holy Week. It will be interesting to see if and how this might fit into a new context.

Addendum: My friend Terry has a post up with a picture of another burial icon by Miranda, made for the Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, NC. In addition to the wake, they use the icon at last station of a stations of the cross which walks through Carrboro and ends at in the town cemetery. Afterwards the flowers are distributed to the graves around.

Why does collective repentance figure so strongly in liturgical tradition, but collective forgiveness does not?

That is, the liturgy regularly calls us to reflect on, and repent of, our sins. But when are we called liturgically to forgive others, our enemies, each other, ourselves? I’m not thinking of any examples. Some forms of the prayers of the people may ask us to pray for our enemies and each other, but I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.

Perhaps it’s difficult to do well in a corporate setting?
But surely we could use the practice? I know I could.

Anyone have any examples?

It was a useful translation, but, perhaps, it was not entirely accurate. Current scholarship suggests that a better translation might be public work, or public duty. In ancient Greece, the term was used to describe something undertaken by a (usually wealthy) private citizen that served a more general public interest. Such works included infrastructure such as bridges and roads, but also included public dramas and arts. Today we might use the words philanthropy or charity to describe these types of works. Not so much the work of the people as work for the people, work in the public interest.

What might this mean for the ways we think about and do our collective, communal, public worship? How do we celebrate the Eucharist in the public interest? Who is doing the work–the priest, the assembled congregation, Christ? Who are the benefactors–is the “public” the congregation, or the church, or the community surrounding a parish, or all of humanity?

And what does this mean for those of us who do this work, who plan, design, lead, and enact liturgy? What is it that we are doing when we do public work?