song – Notes from Bambi

Let’s dance!

Dear Benedict,

Me again, still on chapters 23-30 I’m afraid. I’m not sure what you make of this but I’m encouraged by those who have been in touch with me about this blog and the comments and thoughts they have shared.

When writing about the pattern of work and worship I said something about it being like a dance: together, apart, together apart. So now I’m thinking about this section on discipline and it seemed to me that the dance goes on here too. It’s a slightly different dance, with a graver tune perhaps.

I’m wondering what sort of faults put your monastics in need of discipline? In my calling as a minister I have sometimes been gifted the most amazing stories. I’m mindful of the personal cost to people who share their inner most thoughts and experiences with another person. I’m also aware how complex such episodes can be and how they reveal the depths of community life. We don’t really have that sort of detail about the communities you were writing for in the 6th century, which is one of the things that makes it difficult to understand your discipline process.

We have other stories of discipline, personal experiences or community observations. Each has their own context: part of a dance somewhere else. As I write this I think of a woman who experienced torture under Pinochet’s Regime in Chile, 2 women who came here from East Africa, one who got leave to remain and one who didn’t, of my personal observations of racism and sexism in the church and wider community and so on. Each one has it’s own backstory, each one is part of a dance.

I’m concerned we behave like adults which is difficult when our experiences of discipline begin and childhood and are often stuck there. These things lodge inside us, body, mind and spirit, and influence our steps in the dance. Some of what you write about discipline doesn’t sit well with adulting as I attempt it, and indeed time spent inside the church can sometimes reveal a tendency to infantalise and long for a nostalgic return to childhood. I am mindful that the words discipline and disciple share a common route. So too our understanding of the former depends on our experience of the latter.

I’m not a good dancer. I enjoy dancing but don’t practice enough to be confident. If I get it wrong the worst that might happen would be no one would ask me to partner them in the next dance. But I can imagine that sitting out dance after dance on the sidelines could be hurtful and lead to further alienation. Even so, the community can be damage by one, or more, who dance merry hell over everybody and everything inside the community.

I write as one who loves to sing and one of my favourite morning songs from my time as school chaplain was the hymn Lord of the Dance by Sidney Carter. You can here it sung from a church in Leeds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04zd4kg

It’s a song I love: Jesus dances with us through his life and ours. I taught it to my Sunday School class when I was in my late teens, in Essex. One Elder told me it was heretical, because there was no mention of Jesus dancing in the bible. There is in mine and it’s an image of life in community, right or wrong, that I’ll dance with.

Together, apart, together, apart: let’s dance. Try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5b15lTnGm0

From the remembered bible: Listen, wisdom is calling in the streets – and dancing too!

Dance with me, Jesus.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Sing!

Dear Benedict,

In chapter 17 of your Rule you are quite specific about which psalms the community should sing and when. The Psalter was the hymn book of your community and in all of the Benedictine communities I have visited it is obviously well known and much loved.

When I walked my End to End last year I was surprised how many bits of psalms, what I call psalm snippets, there were in my remembered bible and when I walk I often come back to them and reflect on them. Although I do use the psalms I also sing a lot of other things, quite a bit of which I make up ‘as I go along’ with the pattern of the psalms and the seasons to inspire me.

Today I was walking in our valley enjoying the falling leaves. Forest Church, an expression of outdoor worship, attracts me and there are places round here I often revisit . Today I made tracks to a group of beech trees that I call the Beech Cathedral and they were glorious. I wrote this hymn whilst I sat there.

The beech trees in this season
Each wear a golden gown,
And in the strips of woodland,
Deciduous leaves fall down.
All sorts of berries ripen
And turn a vibrant red
So in the coldest season,
The wayside birds are fed.

Chorus:
With all these things around us
May we learn to share
The good things of Creation
And for our planet, care.

The canopy above us,
The leaves beneath our feet,
The world continues turning,
The patterns still repeat,
But with our climate changing
We haven’t got much time
To change our wasteful ways
And repent of climate crime.

Chorus:
With all these things around us
May we learn to share
The good things of Creation
And for our planet, care.

The swallow have flown southwards,
The geese have come to rest,
By patterns of migration
We all are truly blessed.
But temperatures are rising,
The poorest bear the cost
We must change how we’re living
Or all we know is lost.

Chorus:
With all these things around us
May we learn to share
The good things of Creation
And for our planet, care.

Tune is Wir Pflugen (We plough the fields)

From the remembered bible: And the trees of the field shall clap their hands

I sing to you!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Alleluia!

Dear Benedict

‘Alleluia’ is one of those words for particular times and seasons, you write in chapter 15 of the Rule. In my own tradition it is not used that much, only for particularly lengthy Easter hymns from what I recall. But it’s a short word and it can be a fun one.

My daughter’s preferred response to me on social media is ‘Woot!’ I think ‘Woot!’ is a sort of ‘Alleluia!’ so maybe I’ll try replacing ‘Woot!’ with ‘Alleluia!’ and vice versa.

As you include ‘Alleluia!’ in responses at certain times of the year, so you exclude it from others, all of which gets a bit difficult to remember. As a community it might be easier to do that: a shared remembering.

COVID19 has given us much to remember and not much to ‘Woot!’ about. Last night, Greater Manchester (the boundary of which is 1100 yards away from where we live, according to my husband) entered Tier 3 of the current COVID19 restrictions. I didn’t hear many alleluias, except perhaps a few faint and ironic ones.

From Easter to Pentecost the community observing the Rule would have had much to celebrate and so Alleluia might have come more readily into worship. But now in gloomy October with grey days and bleak news there are fewer alleluias. So what if we started saying Alleluia now, and I don’t mean ironically?

Let’s hear a few more Alleluias. It might remind us who’s we are and who we follow. It might lift us from the mundane and the murky days. It might serve as a word of recommitment to the risen life and the kindom of peace and justice to which we are called. To some it might be liturgical anarchy but to others it might be a prayer, a sigh, a song.

A worshipful response: Christ is Risen, Alleluia!

Alleluia!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Good morning!

Dear Benedict

After a few days walking I’m planning to catch up with some writing beginning with writing to you about your Rule. I’ve been reading what to sing at Lauds, first thing in the morning.

I love to sing in the morning. Not a great singer as a child, I got over my sense of musical unease by singing more. When I worked in London, forty years or so ago, I’d sing as I walked from the station or the bus stop. It can get you some funny looks but where else are you supposed to sing? I love to sing anywhere, outdoors or in, alone or with others. There’s no exercise quite like singing: body, mind and spirit in one activity.

These days, as I walk I also sing. Often it’s something I make up as I go along, a sort of commentary on the walk, the sights and sounds, the weather, how I feel. Anything can be in a walk song! I sometimes think how the psalms were made up, perhaps like this on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and then passed around the group until everyone got the hang of it. Here’s one of my morning songs that I use in the worship of the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica (aka Bambi!)

This is the day, a welcome day, 
as welcome as the sun. 
Today we'll live together here 
and get our whole work done. 
Today we’ll care for weak and strong 
That all may grow in love, 
We'll serve each other, serving God 
Creator, Spirit, Son. 

This is the day a welcome day, 
as welcome as the rain. 
As we embrace the challenges 
we know we're loved again; 
We know we can build justice here, 
and learn to live in peace 
We'll serve each other, serving God 
the kindom here will reign. 

This is the day, a welcome day 
whether in rain or sun, 
every day we can be kind 
and laugh and have good fun; 
Today we set out on a road 
together hand in hand 
Companions each and every one 
till travelling days are done. 

copyright Janet Lees Tune: Kingsfold or Forest Green (DCM)
(PS I use the word 'kindom' on purpose: a gender neutral word)

It’s great to sing if you can and to acknowledge God in our Good Morning activities, like the psalmists.

From a remembered psalm: Let every creature sing and praise God.

I’m singing to you!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

You cannot leave your donkey in a ditch

When the Sabbath comes around each week for humans (yes for humans),
There’s worship and there’s teaching to join in (just join in).
It worries some that there are strict instructions (strict instructions)
Of things you can and cannot count as sin (count as sin).
If your donkey has been working hard for days now (hard for days now),
And really seems to warrant a short rest (a short rest),
It seems only right that you decide how (you decide how),
To rescue your lost quadruped’s a test!

For you cannot leave your donkey in a ditch,
In a ditch,
No you cannot leave your donkey in a ditch,
In ditch.

JAL 22.01.2019 on finding a valued quadruped that was given to me 10 years ago by a group of RN and RAF Chaplains.
Tune is Policeman’s Lot by Arthur Sullivan

A song for this day

I’ll sing my Lord a morning song
So with the rising sun
I’ll offer up my prayer and praise
To God the Three in One.

I’ll sing my Lord a midday song,
For justice and for peace.
I’ll offer up my prayer and praise:
Worship will never cease.

I’ll sing my Lord an evening song
As glowing sun does set:
The endless round of prayer and praise
Has never ended yet.

I’ll sing my Lord a night time song
As gentle moon shines on.
The stars shall join in prayer and praise
Until the kindom comes

JAL 14.01.2019

Tune is St Columba