Moomin Light

Rambling thoughts on faith and choir, also "An' I Cry" and "Lift High the Cross"

This month, every Wednesday evening choir rehearsal has felt like a mini-Lent.  We've been singing through the anthems for Lent, in order, so we go through the Lenten weekly themes, and the the Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil anthems.  It's like a time lapse - seriousness, sorrow, and joy in a little over an hour.  It's one of older son's favorite times of year because of the music, and it's one of mine too.

For whatever reason, for the last few months, I've been finding that I feel closest to God, not on Sunday morning, but on Wednesday evening.  The short prayer before rehearsal starts really reaches me, and I focus on prayer through the words of the anthems.  One evening, there wasn't enough sheet music for everyone so I sang When I Survey the Wondrous Cross from memory (I even remembered the second soprano harmony parts!).  Because I wasn't looking at the notes, I really focused on the words

...See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

I got teary.

I totally failed at Lent this year.  The reactions I had to blood pressure medicines knocked out the Lenten things I was attempting.  I've spent the last two weeks just trying to get everyday life back to normal.  After writing the previous post, I actually was able to relax more on Thursday and start really enjoying things again.  I should feel guilty for failing at Lent, but it's just not in me anywhere. 

I wrote a long, depressed post last week, but never posted it.  Here's part of the post:

Last Sunday was a lousy morning.  Even though it's been in the 70's and 80's lately, the heat was on at church.  In the choir robe, I was overheated* and just trying to get through.**  I blew my voice out (my throat swelling isn't totally gone) singing too high during the rehearsal beforehand so I couldn't sing much in the service itself.  Our seating was different than usual - I was way out on the end and couldn't hear the rest of the sopranos, or even the rest of the choir.  The anthem was a cappella so you can't rely on hearing the piano.  There were points where I didn't even try to sing in the anthem because I couldn't hear the other sopranos well enough to blend with them.  We sang Amazing Grace during communion, which reminded me of the funeral I'd been to the previous week.  I got through the funeral without crying too much, but singing Amazing Grace again somehow opened the spigots to full.  I couldn't stop crying and totally missed the last three verses (and I wasn't even crying for myself, I was sad for his family (who are my family too)).  I was sitting so far from most of the choir that there weren't many people to shake hands with during the Sign of Peace so I ended up just watching everyone else shake hands. That reminded me of the time before I joined the choir. During the Lord's Prayer, I missed holding hands with those next to me, like we did when we went with daughter to her Catholic church a few weeks ago.   The service just made me feel very isolated. On the way home, I realized that I would have been just as happy to have gone home when the rehearsal was over before the service even started...

...Except for the Eucharist.

Today was totally different.  I ended up in the middle of the soprano section so I could hear and blend (and shake lots of hands during the Sign of Peace).  I was even able to be at peace for the eight measures that were too high and quiet for me to sing without straining my voice.  I just joined in again when I could - without kicking myself for not being able to sing the whole thing!  I mentioned this to older son, and he said that there are bass parts that he can't sing because they are too high.  He loves it when the bass part is down in the basement.

I had the anthem going through my head all afternoon.  I love the different musical colors of the three verses.  The first one is more normal anthem-y, the second we all sing harmony with the soprano solo, and the third has very tight harmonies.  It's like walking into a new room for each verse.  Here is the Norfolk State University Concert Choir singing An' I Cry:

The attendance at the 11 am service varies lately.  Communion is sometimes one hymn long, and sometimes two hymns long.  Today, I was silently willing everyone to take a long time for communion because I really wanted to get to the second communion hymn.  We made it!  I had Lift High the Cross in my head a good bit this afternoon too.  Here, it's sung by Trinity Episcopal Church in Fredonia, NY:

(Okay, I got teary the last verse again.  No spigot, though.)

 

 

* Older son, who gets very easily overheated and is quite happy in 20 degree weather, said that he only remembered two things from the sermon - the part about the hike in the desert, which was very fitting, and the story about the rattlesnake.

** The title of the post involved the phrase:  "Sing 'till you pass out" - a variation of my garden motto from last summer:  "Garden 'till you pass out."

[I've been to Duke Gardens three times this week.  Thursday, I had a good time there with my mother and younger son.  I didn't want to slow them down too much so I restrained myself from taking too many pictures.  Friday, I went back by myself and took too many pictures.  Saturday, I went with dear husband, who had been in Atlanta all week and had listened to me bubbling over about how beautiful the gardens were. 

The Terrace Gardens are filled with tulips in full bloom, and it feels like you're swimming in color.

Thursday, it was moderately crowded.  Friday, I got there early, along with Garden staff and a handful of other people taking photos.  Saturday (photo, above), it alternately sprinkled and poured so there were very few people there.

The photo has nothing to do with the post.]

Two thoughts on All Saints' Day and "Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones"

Today was All Saint's Day, which starts out with the Litany of the Saints as we process into the nave (sanctuary).  I looked online, but I can't find any examples, much less the exact one we used.  The part of the litany which particularly struck me today was the part which reads (emphasis mine - I really like that part):

Priest:  With John of Damascus, Hildegard of Bingen, Charles Wesley, and John Mason Neale; with John Eonne and George Hergert; with Dunstan of Canterbury; with all the faithful who have shown us the splendor of your creation in art and science, we pray to you, O Lord.

Response:  Lord, have mercy.

Among their other achievements, the first four were composers, the next two were poets and the last one was an an artist.

That reminded me of a conversation yesterday.  While we were hiking in Asheville this weekend (more on that later (maybe)), older son mentioned a scientist who said that God has "an inordinate fondness for beetles,"* but he couldn't remember which scientist.  I looked it up, the saying is attributed to either Charles Darwin, or, more likely, British geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane. Quote Investigator mentions:

On being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.”

[If you like beetles, there's a Flickr group called An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles with lots of photos.]

Today was my first day to sing on Sunday in choir since last May.  It's also the first time I've sung in a group since the musical was over at the end of July.  I tried not to overdo my voice in the first half of the service so that I could sing all the notes in the anthem.  The anthem went fine.  I wasn't as hoarse after the service as I usually am.  I think that's partly because I've really been focusing on singing correctly and using the things I've learned in my voice lesson in my choir singing (rather than desparately trying to get the notes out whatever way I can, which is what I've done in the past).

I particularly enjoyed the second communion hymn, which is one of my favorites - Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, here sung by the choir at St. Peter's Catholic Church** in Columbia, SC:

 

* Because there are over 400,000 known species of beetles in the world

** A Catholic Church which sings traditional hymns?!

[Photo:  I particularly liked the altar flowers today because I love gladiolas.]

On-ramp prayer

The on-ramp to I-85 north near our neighborhood is uphill and short.  Because of the lovely stand of trees between the ramp and the highway, you can't see who's coming until you're almost at the end.  Most of the time, it's not a problem, but occasionally, particularly during rush hour, a little prayer spontaneously happens - like this morning:

Me (seeing that the traffic is heavy):  "Please may there be a spot for me to pull into."

Me (a second later):  "That spot between the two 18 wheelers is really small!!!!"

Me (a few seconds later):  "Please bless that truck driver who pulled into the left lane to let me in!"

Enjoying church

At one quiet point during the daily service on Tuesday, I realized that I was enjoying church.  That's not surprising during a daily service.  I've enjoyed daily services and daily Masses since dear husband and I used to go to daily Mass at the convent at St. Leo's in Winston-Salem - back when I was in college. 

The surprising realization was that I currently enjoy everything I do at church - daily services, choir rehearsal, and singing at Sunday services.  My only problem with church is that my voice hasn't allowed me to be there as often as I wanted this spring. 

Let me back up.  When we first started going to church, we went to an Evangelical Presbyterian church.  It was the sort of place where you were expected to be there as often as possible, and we were.  Sunday school and services on Sunday morning, Prayer and Praise on Sunday evening, guest visitation another evening, Wednesday evening programs, women's group, small group, etc.  Along with Sunday morning, we were there Sunday evening through Thursday evening. 

Did I enjoy these things?

No.  I enjoyed the Sunday services, learned a bit at the adult Sunday School, but, if I'd been doing what I wanted, rather than what was expected, I would have stopped there.  It was always a rush to get my work done for college because evenings were all taken up.  The orchestra at Wake Forest University met on Wednesday evening.  I never even tried out for it. 

I'm not one to sit around regretting the past, but, if there's one thing that I've done that I could change, it would be to go back and never have joined that church at all.  I look at all the things that daughter is involved with in college, and I really regret not having taken advantage of opportunities when I was in college.  Wake Forest was the last of the three universities I went to as an undergraduate, and I never even made any friends there.*  I only went to classes.

We went to the large, crowded, and noisy (exhausting for me) Wednesday evening dinners because that was part of being a Christian.  We volunteered for all sorts of things because that was part of being a Christian.  We taught Sunday School, even though I hate having to discipline other people's kids, because that was part of being a Christian.  By the end of the school year, we were barely on time for Sunday School because I dreaded it so much that I didn't get out of bed until the last minute.

Do you know that girls, on the whole, potty train a bit earlier?  I spent a good bit of the second half of the year in the bathroom with potty-training, two year old girls.  Some of them liked to read books on the potty.  Except for the whole sitting-on-the-disgusting-bathroom-floor aspect, that part actually wasn't so bad. 

Except for the Presbyterian pastor saying that we must be under the influence of the devil because we were switching to the Catholic Church, it was a relief to join the Catholic Church.  Yes, some priests emphasize the whole guilt-by-birth-control part, but most priests never even mention it.**  Catholic churches seem to feel lucky to get any volunteers at all so there wasn't any pressure to be there every evening during the week. 

We did get involved in various things at church, but, overall, we had more time.  At this point, I was working and dear husband was in college.  That's when we really got into hiking, camping, backpacking, folk music, going to concerts, actually making friends and having them over to dinner, etc. - all the things we didn't have time for before.

Once we had kids, our involvement varied.  We did children's liturgy for a few years (alternating with others so it wasn't every Sunday).  I still hated trying to keep other people's kids in line, but at least it only took place during the readings, the sermon, and the prayers of the people then we could send the kids back to their parents. 

The biggest drawback, for me was the music.  Catholic music was changing in that time, and, after the first few years, in most of the Catholic Masses we went to, the music varied from mediocre to dreadful - except for a year when one church had a fantastic choir director.  Really, I would have preferred to have Masses without music at all. 

When we joined our current Episcopalian church (with fantastic music, though that's not why we joined), we tried to get over-involved again.  We were there too many nights, there were too many attempts at socializing, and I was back to just enjoying Sunday services.   We spent almost no time with friends and very little time with relatives. 

[One aspect of churches that I've always enjoyed which I haven't mentioned yet is any sort of small (discussion) group involvement.  This was one of the only things I enjoyed in the Presbyterian church, it happened occasionally in the Catholic churches, and it happened in the program to join the Episcopalian Church.  I love discussing faith, but I'm always amazed at how little that happens at churches unless we're involved in something formal like a small group.]

Something strange happened at our current church, though.  All the things I volunteered for that I didn't really want to volunteer for but I did anyway because it seemed to be expected? - I was turned down.  They had enough volunteers and didn't need any more.  This made me feel horribly guilty for a while because I wasn't "contributing."  The guilt was particularly bad during stewardship season when the preaching really emphasized getting involved.  I finally started skipping church during those months - until one year when older son mentioned that the sermons weren't like that anymore.

Eventually, I volunteered (again***) for the choir, and it worked.  Right now, I'm one of only two second sopranos.  I do feel like I'm contributing.

My behavior towards myself, church-wise, has been very different than my behavior towards my kids.  I have dragged myself to all sorts of things at church because I'm "supposed to" as a Christian.  On the other hand, we've always focused on what the kids want from a church.  Do they want to try Sunday School?  Fine.  Do they want to go back to homeschooling instead?  Fine.  What do they want to be involved in?  We've always wanted church involvement to be a positive thing for them instead of a chore. 

Older son absolutely loves choir.  He almost never misses it.  Last fall, at college, daughter decided to go back to the Catholic Church, and she joined it at the Easter Vigil last Saturday.  I was surprised, because she was the one who was the happiest at having women as priests and deacons in the Episcopalian church.  I was less surprised when I found out that the Catholic church she attends in Asheville is about as liberal as a parish can be without getting in trouble (and more liberal than our Episcopalian church).  She's also been really encouraged by the Catholic student group there. 

Younger son?  When dear husband stopped going to the Episcopalian church, I didn't really feel that I could require the younger kids to keep going.  Sunday worship has always been the one thing that we did emphasize, church-wise, although we always tried to find a church that the kids could enjoy.  However, it seemed somehow hypocritical to make them go when he didn't. 

Although we still discuss faith, both as a part of everyday life and as part of our homeschooling, younger son hasn't had the regular church attendance that the older two did at his age.  This fall, we started going to daily noon services every few weeks (they're not held every week and sometimes with the rest of our schedule).  It turns out that he loves them!  He hates crowds and likes the peaceful, shorter service (though he does miss the music).  During the consecration, we all gather around the altar, which is a very special experience. 

I realized, at the daily service on Tuesday, that I was happy in what I'm doing at church.

Everything.

On Wednesdays and Sundays, I get to sing in the choir with a wonderful group of people.  In between, there are other non-choir people that I'm happy to see.  Occasionally, during the week, I get to sit with younger son at a peaceful, meditative, daily service, which he actually enjoys!

It's been a few years since I've felt like I have to drag myself to church.

Wonderful.

 

*  I went to MIT and UNC School of the Arts as an atheist so I had the time to make friends. 

** Trying to live up to Natural Family Planning brought us immeasureably closer to divorce than anything else has ever done.

*** I tried to be in the choir when we first joined but, because Wednesdays were so busy from morning until evening, I usually had a migraine by the time choir started.

Blog recommendation: Introverted Church

I'm at low ebb this evening, and I wasn't going to blog at all (my voice has been weak for a few months now, it almost totally disappeared at choir tonight, and I have an audition in a week!).  I wasn't even going to bother reading other blogs, but I have to pass the time until I can go to bed since I end up with insomnia if I try to go to sleep too early.

Then I read a post that I loved at Introverted Church, the blog of Adam S. McHugh, whose book Introverts in the Church intrigues me, though I haven't had a chance to read it yet.  As I wrote in a previous post, it often feels to me like being extroverted is a prerequisite for being Christian.  A whole book about being an introvert at church (written by a minister!!!) sounds like it would make being a Christian less discouraging.

The main point of this post isn't about introverts, though.  That paragraph was just an introduction. 

In his latest post, On Blog Traffic, Controversies, and Self-Promotion, Pastor McHugh writes about not having a "big" blog like some other well-known Christian authors:

...Yet sometimes I think I should work to attract more readers, especially when I compare myself to other Christian writers with hugely popular blogs.

Honestly, it would be really easy to do.  The secret? Take sides on controversies...

He has decided not to do so, and I liked his first reason (about not discussing the "Rob Bell/John Piper skirmish" (which I know nothing about)) so much that I decided to blog anyway:

...I almost always see the merit in both sides of the argument and value the contributions of both sides. John Piper was my favorite pastor and writer during college and early seminary. He introduced me to the theology and life of Jonathan Edwards, and he taught me that passion and intellect are not mutually exclusive. Rob Bell has been my favorite preacher for the past 3 years. He asks provocative questions that always leave me thinking, he makes me laugh, and he gives me an emotional sense of the transforming and healing presence of God. I don't agree with everything either one of them says, but I am grateful for both of them. I refuse to wear a Team Rob or Team John t-shirt. I'm going with Team Jesus, who loves both of them and is transforming both of them into his image...

The highlighting on that quote is mine.  That is the attitude I'm aiming at, although I have a long way to go.

Read the rest here.  I've also added his blog to my sidebar.

"One Bread, One Body" - LNB

One of my favorite of the modern Catholic hymns is One Bread, One Body.  We sang it as the second Communion hymn today.  Older son and I smiled at each other when it started.  I put my hymnal away part way through it because I know it by heart; it's sung very often in the Catholic Church.  There was a lady a few rows back on the other side of the nave who also sang through it without looking at her hymnal.  Another Catholic Episcopalian?

Here is LNB singing One Bread, One Body:

• John Michael Talbot also sings a beautiful version, but it's too slow for me (and a bit overdone in the accompaniment to the later choruses). 

Daily service

I wrote last year about trying to find daily services to go to with younger son.  I looked at the websites of a number of Episcopalian churches in Orange and Durham Counties, but never found anything regular that worked.  The closest I could find was a church in Durham that has services every Wednesday evening, but that's voice lesson/choir night. 

Our church has daily services on major feast days, but I always have ended up finding out about them after we've made our plans for the week.  This month, I made sure I looked at the newsletter in the lobby as soon as it appeared and wrote down the days for daily services.  Last Tuesday, there was a daily service, but we had ice.  Today is the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter so I planned the week partly around the service.

At first, younger son wasn't too thrilled at going, but he got used to the idea.  I remembered, again, why I love daily services (or daily Mass when I was in the Catholic Church).  The service (or Mass) is boiled down to the essentials - prayers, readings, and Eucharist.  I (obviously) love weekend services with all the singing, but I also love the more focused daily service (where I'm not worrying about making sure I drink enough water so my throat doesn't get dry, making sure I'm ready for the next hymn, etc.). 

I also really enjoyed sitting with younger son and sharing a Prayer Book with him.  Because there was a limited number of people there (9), we could all stand around the altar for the Consecration and for Communion. 

There's nothing quite like an Episcopalian service said by a priest with a lovely British accent.

It was quite wonderful, and I'm looking forward to the next one next month.  Even younger son said it was nice. 

Going to a Sunday service and singing with choir (with older son, even though we're in different sections) and then to a daily service where I can sit with younger son is really the best of both worlds for me. 

[The amaryllis has nothing to do with the post, but it's been blooming beautifully for a few weeks, and I don't seem to get around to posting about it.  The amaryllis bulb was a birthday present from dear husband.  I've never grown an amaryllis before.  

I'm hooked.]

Sanders Family Christmas - Orange Community Players

The Orange Community Players are performing Sanders Family Christmas on three weekends in the next month.  Sanders Family Christmas is a sequel to the play they did last fall, Smoke on the Mountain (my review here).  Here's the description from the Orange Community Players website:

In this sequel to the ever popular Smoke on the Mountain, the Sanders family returns to Mount Pleasant, NC, home of the Mount Pleasant Pickle Factory. It's Christmas Eve, 1941. Reverend Oglethorpe has invited them to the Baptist Church to sing and witness, getting the congregation into the down home holiday spirit before the boys, including one of the Sanders' own, are shipped off to World War II.

More than two dozen Christmas carols, many of them vintage hymns, and hilarious yuletide stories from the more or less devout Sanders family keep the audience laughing, clapping and singing along with bluegrass Christmas favorites. Richly entertaining, this wildly infectious musical brings cheer to audiences eager to see how their friends from Smoke on the Mountain have been getting along.

Friday, 8 pm, is opening night (I'll be going the following weekend because we'll be in Asheville seeing daughter's dance performance).  They're performing the play at a number of churches:

Nov. 12 - Pleasant Green UMC, Durham
Nov. 13 - First Baptist Church, Hillsborough
Nov. 19 - Cedar Grove UMC, Cedar Grove
Nov. 20 - Walnut Grove UMC, Hurdle Mills
Dec. 3 - Antioch Baptist Church, Chapel Hill
Dec. 4 - Central Orange Senior Center, Hillsborough

You can buy tickets at the door or online at the OCP website.

I enjoyed last year's performance so much that I saw it twice.  I'm expecting that this performance will be the same!

A brief flash of understanding

I'm a very non-authoritarian person.  Just learning how to tell my kids what to do was a big challenge.  As a teen, I never become comfortable with that while babysitting, which is why I celebrated the day I no longer had to.  I've never really understood why people would want to go into authoritative jobs.  Even teaching - which, though often authoritarian, can also partake of "here's something fascinating; do you want to hear about it?" - isn't something I could do beyond homeschooling or aerobics.  With homeschooling, my kids always have had the choice, each year, to go to school.*  With aerobics, people can walk in and out of class anytime they want.  No one is required to be there. 

The ministry is another authoritative arena which I've never understood.  Now, I know that ministers do lots of consoling, advising (actually, I don't often give advice either), encouraging, etc., but there's still a very strong authoritative goal to what they're doing.  One of the major parts of their week, and probably one of the few regular encounters that many churchgoers have with them, is the weekly tell-people-what-to-do-or-think sermon. 

I got a different view of being a minister, yesterday, while reading this passage in If the Church Were Christian:  Rediscovering the values of Jesus, by Philip Belly:

Several years ago, I learned of a growing, vibrant church located in a community that was, in every other respect, dying on the vine...

When I asked her [the pastor] about the growth of the church, she seemed somewhat mystified by it, said it had happened at every church she'd ever pastored, that she was grateful for it, but didn't fully understand the reason for it.  "I guess I just try to make people feel at home," she told me.

In my evening there, and in subsequent conversations with its members, what I discovered was a pastor who'd helped create such an accepting, open environment that people were attracted to it in droves.

"I can be myself here," one lady told me.

"I don't feel like anyone is judging me," a man said.

Another man told me of going through a difficult period after the death of his wife, of going to the pastor and expressing doubt about God's existence.  "It didn't bother her a bit.  She told me if her spouse had died, she'd have doubts about God too."

One lady described their adult Sunday-school class.  "You can say anything.  And I mean anything.  Nothing rattles her.  She doesn't get upset.  If you ask her a question, she takes it seriously.  And if you disagree with her, it doesn't bother her.  She just listens and smiles and doesn't treat you any differently."

As I got to know the pastor, I discerned she was deeply curious, eager to discuss substantive matters, and not so wedded to her worldview that she couldn't entertain other perspectives.  She was well-read, interested in a broad variety of subjects, and immune form our common need to have others agree with us.  Because of this, her church became known as a place persons interested in spiritual and intellectual growth could gather.  But it was not a coldly cerebral church.  Her sense of humor and warm compassion for others infused the community with such joy and verve that all sorts of persons were drawn to it - college graduates, high-school dropouts, right, poor, evangelical, skeptics, traditional, and progressive.  Together they offered an experience that was relationally, spiritually, and mentally stimulating...                                                           (pp. 95 - 96)

After reading this, I started to understand - from the inside, not just intellectually - why one would want to be a pastor.  This sounds really neat!

And then I realized that it sounds like homeschooling - just at the church level rather than the family level!

Note:  While the author has many (very many!) interesting points in this book, and I love his focus on how to treat other people, his authoritarian, non-orthodoxy ("You shouldn't believe that, or that, or that...") started irritating me pretty quickly. 

*  Except in middle school where the social life gets a bit strange.

The priesthood in light of Hamletta

Daughter was in a teen production of Hamlet a few months ago.  The whole thing is run by teens - the board of directors, the production director, the casting, everything.   The group isn't affiliated with any high school.

Hamlet has mostly male characters, and, this winter, this group didn't have enough guys for this production (and also wanted more opportunities for girls).  Daughter played six different male parts.  Many other parts, including Horatio, the gravediggers, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, were also played by young women. 

The first thing that daughter was told was "to learn how to walk like you have balls."*  This was as straightforward a production of Hamlet as they could do, given their cast.

Another local group, also run by teens, is** Athena's Train.  They put on one Shakespearean play every summer, and the group is for girls under 18.  They also do the plays in a fairly straightforward manner - the girls playing men have their hair up and are wearing relatively masculine clothes. 

I've seen plenty of Shakespeare performed by young women so I'm actually fairly used to it.  However, I was wondering today what would be changed if Hamlet were really Hamletta?

Lots.

If you really did switch the genders in Hamlet, what would you have?  Hamletta, wants to revenge the death of her mother, the queen, at the hands of her evil aunt, Claudia.  Of course, you would keep the characters as intense as in the original.  Think of Hamletta's mother maybe as a Queen Elizabeth-type character.  I picture Claudia played by Sian Phillips (the capable, and quite deadly, Livia in I Claudius, pictured right). 

Even if the characters are just as intense, good, evil, pompous - whatever their characteristics, the play would have a different feel when switching genders.  The friendship between Hamletta and Horatia would be different than that of Hamlet and Horatio.  The love between Hamletta and Oaf, who eventually drowns himself, would have a different character than the original. 

This is not to say that there aren't women who can be more "masculine" than men, and I'm sure there are men who can be more feminine than I am.  However, even though we've made great strides towards equality, overall, there's still a different quality to what men and women do. 

The new play, Hamletta would not only be about the story of the princess, it would also be about the switching of the genders.  That would become a major element and theme of the play itself.  If Hamlet had originally been written as Hamletta, that would be another matter.  It would have always had that quality or feeling.  However, changing genders, after the story is so well known, brings the gender changing to the foreground. 

This brings me to the priesthood.  I'm speaking only of the priesthood in Catholic or Episcopalian terms since the method and meaning of leading a congregation varies from denomination to denomination.

The rationale behind the all-male Catholic priesthood, and behind Episcopalians/Anglicans who don't agree with a female priesthood, reflects some of the same elements as the gender changing in Hamletta.  One of the biggest arguments for an all-male priesthood is that the priest symbolically stands for Christ.  Since Jesus is a Man, then the priest must be a man. 

[You know, you could probably write a blog post about the meaning of the capitalization and non-capitalization of "man" in that last sentence.]

Based on Hamlet/Hamletta, I could see that Man/man match - only if that really encompassed all of what being a priest means.  If the only function of a priest was to symbolize Jesus, then a female priest would imply a woman being scourged and crucified at the hands of the Romans.  It would give all the Biblical stories, at the very least, a subtle difference.  What would be different about, for example, a woman at a well asking for water and discussing a (woman's? man's?) five spouses. Would the disciples have been men or women?  Piera thrice denying a woman is different than Peter denying Jesus because relationships between women, in general, work differently than relationships between men. 

A woman doing any of these things would have a vastly different quality than a Man doing them.  

However, the symbolic nature of a priest, even in the most conservative Catholic or Episcopalian church, is only a very small part of being a priest.  When you're at a service or a Mass, are you really thinking of the symbolic nature of the priest - even when they're reciting the Eucharistic prayer?  Maybe you are, but I'm certainly not.  I'm usually trying to focus on the prayer, and, if I'm focusing on the priest at all, I'm focusing on how the priest reads the words, or, in a more formal Mass/service, how they're singing the words. 

I started there because I would think that the Eucharistic prayer would be the center of the priest's symbolic role.  In the rest of the Mass or service the priest is preaching, leading worship, discussing the important parts of the bulletin, stressing out about whether things are going right, etc.  Beyond that, the priest is an administrator, counselor, and leader.  While some people may be more comfortable with men in all of these non-symbolic roles, women can do them just as well.  It all depends on the gifts of the individual priest.

While I can, in a limited sense, understand the opposition to a female priesthood in the light of Hamletta, the reality is that a priest's symbolic function is only a small part of their role so I can't agree with that opposition.  I'm glad the Episcopalian Church has women as priests. 

[Bringing this back to the teen production of Hamlet - one of the male roles that daughter played was the priest.]

 

*  Of course, we had lots of fun discussing this!

** Or maybe it's "was."  I haven't been able to find out anything about them past about 2008.