Well, I wrote already last month about music and the huge role that it plays in my life. If it's possible though, since then I think I've come to be even more inundated with music.
You know how you can have a song stuck in your head for days on end? Right now I've got a whole list of tunes I can play mentally. I can select from Carmen, from Andrea Bocelli, from three or so psalm settings, as well as various Mass parts and hymns. I'm humming or singing under my breath constantly the last couple weeks.
I wake up in the morning, and about the first fifteen minutes of tangible consciousness is Lauds, which has the Invitatory, which is sung, an opening hymn, and the Benedictus, which is also sung.
Mass figures into every day save Wednesday, when it occurs while I'm at Concordia. Mass at the seminary includes at least three hymns and four or five Mass parts, if not more of both, and occasionally sung prayers.
About three days a week I make it to chapel at Concordia. There are always at least two musical pieces, if not more.
Going to and from Concordia, the CD player is usually on. This is where Andrea Bocelli or something else, typically classical, would occur, since Pablo oftens makes use of the CD player to indulge our shared musical tastes.
I say the Office of Readings and Daytime Prayer on my own, and I never feel completely satisfied if I omit the hymn at the beginning. Today I was so enamored of the psalm setting we did at Compline last night that I set all the psalms to it.
Every evening we say Vespers together. This has, again, an opening hymn, as well as the Magnificat, which we sing. Tonight we get the full musical version, "Cathedral Vespers". And right before bedtime we have Compline, which has at least an opening hymn sung.
The communal life of the Church is full of music. Though the liturgy does not require it, it is a rare liturgy that lacks it, and it is a poorer liturgy, in my opinion. If words are the expression of our thoughts, then I think that music is the expression of our emotions.
And yet, for all that I am musically addicted and revolving... I absolutely hate iPods. Well, it's not that I think they are intrinsically bad. An iPod is like almost any tool: in and of itself there is nothing bad about it, and used well it can be a great boon to have.
However, I do not think most people use it well. It has become an antisocial agent, encouraging people not to communicate, but to withdraw from the world. It encourages obliviousness to the needs and presence of the community around us, and is really used in a profoundly selfish way. Equally bad, I don't think I've ever seen any evidence that iPods do anything to encourage people to sing or make music of their own. It certainly stifles the sharing of music, since they are scarce to be seen without the presence of earbuds. Music is like speech--it is meant to be audible, it is inherently communal. Music cordoned off into just one person's isolated ears is next to an abomination.
Anyway, that's my rant about it...
It's really funny, though, how this insane urge to hum and sing has been constantly recurring this weekend, which is supposed to be a silent retreat. Actually, I don't think I've had a less silent retreat yet... besides the musical instinct, I've had music practice which also entails all sorts of unnecessary conversation, and I'm engaged right now in outside communication, besides which I tend to read aloud... and read I have. That being said, this has been one of the most productive recollections I've experienced spiritually.
In a way, that's a microcosm of the seminary year thus far: less strictly adherent to the rules, but a lot more spiritually fruitful.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
I lift my eyes up to the mountains, from where shall come my help?
Over the weekend, I had the privilege/task of chauffeuring Archbishop Smith to Hinton for a parish visit. His Grace is attempting to make such visits to all the parishes in the Archdiocese, above and beyond regular visits such as for Confirmation, and Hinton was on the agenda for last weekend. Since I had no overly large burden of homework, I said yes to Fr. Stephen when I was asked to take on the task of driving the Archbishop and acting as his MC at the Masses.
Now, before I go into the peculiar thoughts that occurred to me during the weekend, let me state that it was a good trip. Hinton is about three hours west of Edmonton, and is just on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, outside Jasper National Park. The Yellowhead Highway runs direct from Edmonton, and we had excellent driving weather, and the highway was quiet. Once in Hinton, we had an excellent reception by the parish. The Masses were good, the socials were good, the people were friendly, and my hosts were charming (due to there only being one spare bedroom in the rectory, the Archbishop stayed there with Fr. Brian while I stayed with a couple parishioners).
Indeed, it was really nice to get away from Edmonton. I think I passed through Hinton when I was five, on our way to B.C., but I have no memory of the event, nor indeed do I ever remember driving the Yellowhead west of Edmonton. It's a gorgeous drive, being mostly in forest and the foothills once you get past the suburbs, and for the last half hour before Hinton the Rockies loom enormous in front of you. I loved the trip, as it took me somewhere I'd never been, somewhere beautiful, and it got me out of the city. It had all the hallmarks of a vacation, except for the company.
And therein lay the most mind-bending part of the trip. Despite having the right conditions for feeling like a really awesome roadtrip or vacation, it was a business trip, and it was just the Archbishop and me. Now His Grace is a really nice and gracious man, and I enjoyed his company, but I really don't know him particularly well (which is a part of the reason he gets seminarians to drive him around), and he is twenty-five years my senior--and my boss.
I don't know... it just felt a little odd, and the fact that I neither had family nor friends along gave me quite a bit of cause for thought as we drove out. Simultaneous with being awestruck by the enjoyment of the adventure, I was quite melancholic with the realisation that that very lack of loved ones was probably going to be a major factor in my future travels.
Thinking on roadtrips, it occurred to me that I'll probably never go on a roadtrip with anyone other than seminarians (or once we're ordained, priests). The constraints of seminary life are such that I'll never have the flexibility to up and go somewhere with other friends from school, and the constraints of being a seminarian are such that while I have many people I call friends at school, precious few of them do or will likely ever see me outside of it, especially within the parameters of just having fun.
Once I'm ordained, I do get four weeks of vacation a year, and most priests I know do like to spend them going on trips--to Europe, to the States, to tropical locales--but they generally all go with their brother priests. While the option is there for me to spend my holidays with non-sacerdotal friends, it is unlikely that I'll have very many close enough that I would invite them or they would invite me, and the older I get, the less likely it is that I'll develop more such friends, while it's certainly likely that I'll lose them.
As for family, while I certainly intend to be as much a member there as possible, the fact is that while holidays such as Thanksgiving may see me at home, they are far more likely to see me in small doses, like visits for the weekend than for anything exciting like traveling. Maybe my parents--except that neither of them are really travelers.
On top of all this travel companion business--about which I'm not sure whether I like it or am neutral to it entirely--there's a more sobering thought about travel which really does strike me. Odds are, most of the traveling I do, especially the grand international stuff will be as much business as pleasure. It concerns me that what should be the awesome events of a lifetime will become the rote duties to be escaped in holidays.
I don't know where I'm going, exactly. I'm feeling quite melancholic about all these thoughts, but I don't see them as bad, or even necessarily as inevitable, but simply as probable. It is, really, just another hallmark of the fact that a priest is not his own man, but is someone set apart, sealed off for the service of God and the Church.
Now, before I go into the peculiar thoughts that occurred to me during the weekend, let me state that it was a good trip. Hinton is about three hours west of Edmonton, and is just on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, outside Jasper National Park. The Yellowhead Highway runs direct from Edmonton, and we had excellent driving weather, and the highway was quiet. Once in Hinton, we had an excellent reception by the parish. The Masses were good, the socials were good, the people were friendly, and my hosts were charming (due to there only being one spare bedroom in the rectory, the Archbishop stayed there with Fr. Brian while I stayed with a couple parishioners).
Indeed, it was really nice to get away from Edmonton. I think I passed through Hinton when I was five, on our way to B.C., but I have no memory of the event, nor indeed do I ever remember driving the Yellowhead west of Edmonton. It's a gorgeous drive, being mostly in forest and the foothills once you get past the suburbs, and for the last half hour before Hinton the Rockies loom enormous in front of you. I loved the trip, as it took me somewhere I'd never been, somewhere beautiful, and it got me out of the city. It had all the hallmarks of a vacation, except for the company.
And therein lay the most mind-bending part of the trip. Despite having the right conditions for feeling like a really awesome roadtrip or vacation, it was a business trip, and it was just the Archbishop and me. Now His Grace is a really nice and gracious man, and I enjoyed his company, but I really don't know him particularly well (which is a part of the reason he gets seminarians to drive him around), and he is twenty-five years my senior--and my boss.
I don't know... it just felt a little odd, and the fact that I neither had family nor friends along gave me quite a bit of cause for thought as we drove out. Simultaneous with being awestruck by the enjoyment of the adventure, I was quite melancholic with the realisation that that very lack of loved ones was probably going to be a major factor in my future travels.
Thinking on roadtrips, it occurred to me that I'll probably never go on a roadtrip with anyone other than seminarians (or once we're ordained, priests). The constraints of seminary life are such that I'll never have the flexibility to up and go somewhere with other friends from school, and the constraints of being a seminarian are such that while I have many people I call friends at school, precious few of them do or will likely ever see me outside of it, especially within the parameters of just having fun.
Once I'm ordained, I do get four weeks of vacation a year, and most priests I know do like to spend them going on trips--to Europe, to the States, to tropical locales--but they generally all go with their brother priests. While the option is there for me to spend my holidays with non-sacerdotal friends, it is unlikely that I'll have very many close enough that I would invite them or they would invite me, and the older I get, the less likely it is that I'll develop more such friends, while it's certainly likely that I'll lose them.
As for family, while I certainly intend to be as much a member there as possible, the fact is that while holidays such as Thanksgiving may see me at home, they are far more likely to see me in small doses, like visits for the weekend than for anything exciting like traveling. Maybe my parents--except that neither of them are really travelers.
On top of all this travel companion business--about which I'm not sure whether I like it or am neutral to it entirely--there's a more sobering thought about travel which really does strike me. Odds are, most of the traveling I do, especially the grand international stuff will be as much business as pleasure. It concerns me that what should be the awesome events of a lifetime will become the rote duties to be escaped in holidays.
I don't know where I'm going, exactly. I'm feeling quite melancholic about all these thoughts, but I don't see them as bad, or even necessarily as inevitable, but simply as probable. It is, really, just another hallmark of the fact that a priest is not his own man, but is someone set apart, sealed off for the service of God and the Church.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Dreaming
I had an interesting dream last night--interesting if only because I remembered it, but interesting for quite a bit more than that, really.
I started by dreaming that I was going in to school--presumably today. Not that Concordia ended up looking anything like it does. One small corner resembled the basement in my parish church, before they renovated, but even there the resemblance was localised and fleeting. I ran into a few people from school: Phil, Sierra, Nolan; before I headed off doing something else, and Concordia shifted from being school.
I was then driving back to the same place, but it was (as I said) no longer Concordia, but apparently some sort of major event... maybe a convention or tournament. The building was still the same, except that now it was a giant parking facility, with many floors, and I was carefully trying to find a parking spot. I ended up parking way off in the annex, and then walking through the rain to whatever was going on.
For whatever reason, I lad to get something from my car after that, and since it was now sunny outside, I took the long way around with a couple of girls in ethnic garb that looked Polish. We had a discussion on the way about how our made-up world (and we knew we were both in it and that it was fictional) had a made-up Poland and Czechoslovakia and other eastern European countries, but no western ones, like France or Germany. This was occurring as we walked through a park/campgroundlike area that was surrounded by mountains. It was high summer and GORGEOUS.
Well, we hadn't made it to the car when things shifted again. I made a detour through a gazebo-looking building in the middle of the park that was actually a bar full of guntoting gansters, and emerged to discover that I was actually at a Bones Tournament, and that my team was playing as soon as I returned from the car with whatever item I was after.
I finally reached my car, which was parked in what was essentially an underground drive-in movie theatre. I say that because it was a parking lot, in a cave, with a screen playing movies on it. Somehow, I got distracted and started watching the movie, and I was reminded of my history. Apparently I'd lost my girlfriend recently after an argument, and I was quite melancholic.
Amusing as that was, I was soon jolted back to reality when I realised I was fifteen minutes late for my first game (which, interestingly, took place at 11:10, the time of my first class in real life), and since there was no way I could walk the enormous distance back in time to play, I decided to sit around near the car-cave and leave later in time for my second set (again, timed to match my class schedule). I went over to a falling-down log cabin near a clear-cut forest littered with fallen wood, where I had a run-in with my former girlfriend and some guy. I'm not sure if he was supposed to be my brother, her brother, or some random friend, but in real life he's another seminarian's brother, and I've met him about once. In the dream he had the function of trying to get us to hook up again.
Feeling melancholy, I went back to the car-cave theatre, where for whatever reason, the direction the movie screen was facing had flipped around, and saw my former girlfriend standing there watching what I thinking was a sappy movie, looking quite sad. At this point I came up behind her, hugged her, and we apparently made up.
At this point, we both realised we were late for our games, and we decided to forget it all, since we didn't really care about the tournament, and it was too late to do anything about it. We got in my car, but I don't think we were driving anywhere.
The perspective now shifted slightly, as two previously-unseen secondary characters (resembling Timon and Pumbaa in camaraderie) started talking, and I was looking at them cut-and-paste a picture together. I have no idea what that was about, but this is when it clued in to me that I was a seminarian, and having a girlfriend was NOT going to work with that... but I couldn't just dump her, having just got back together, especially since I really, really loved her.
Well, that was when Arvo Pärt's Berlinger Messe started tolling out of my alarm clock, waking me up. And let me tell you, I have never been so relieved as finding that I didn't actually have a girlfriend I needed either to dump or dump the seminary for.
I must say that it really had me thinking for most of meditation what, if anything, this dream means. I certainly don't take it as a sign of God's intentions, but it stems from my subconscious... and where did my subconscious get that from? Why is this figuring into my dream landscape?
Also really odd is the fact that my "girlfriend" is actually a classmate at school, but not someone I can really claim to know. Well enough to know her name, and say hello in the halls, but that's about it. It'll be odd if I run into her at Concordia this afternoon.
I started by dreaming that I was going in to school--presumably today. Not that Concordia ended up looking anything like it does. One small corner resembled the basement in my parish church, before they renovated, but even there the resemblance was localised and fleeting. I ran into a few people from school: Phil, Sierra, Nolan; before I headed off doing something else, and Concordia shifted from being school.
I was then driving back to the same place, but it was (as I said) no longer Concordia, but apparently some sort of major event... maybe a convention or tournament. The building was still the same, except that now it was a giant parking facility, with many floors, and I was carefully trying to find a parking spot. I ended up parking way off in the annex, and then walking through the rain to whatever was going on.
For whatever reason, I lad to get something from my car after that, and since it was now sunny outside, I took the long way around with a couple of girls in ethnic garb that looked Polish. We had a discussion on the way about how our made-up world (and we knew we were both in it and that it was fictional) had a made-up Poland and Czechoslovakia and other eastern European countries, but no western ones, like France or Germany. This was occurring as we walked through a park/campgroundlike area that was surrounded by mountains. It was high summer and GORGEOUS.
Well, we hadn't made it to the car when things shifted again. I made a detour through a gazebo-looking building in the middle of the park that was actually a bar full of guntoting gansters, and emerged to discover that I was actually at a Bones Tournament, and that my team was playing as soon as I returned from the car with whatever item I was after.
I finally reached my car, which was parked in what was essentially an underground drive-in movie theatre. I say that because it was a parking lot, in a cave, with a screen playing movies on it. Somehow, I got distracted and started watching the movie, and I was reminded of my history. Apparently I'd lost my girlfriend recently after an argument, and I was quite melancholic.
Amusing as that was, I was soon jolted back to reality when I realised I was fifteen minutes late for my first game (which, interestingly, took place at 11:10, the time of my first class in real life), and since there was no way I could walk the enormous distance back in time to play, I decided to sit around near the car-cave and leave later in time for my second set (again, timed to match my class schedule). I went over to a falling-down log cabin near a clear-cut forest littered with fallen wood, where I had a run-in with my former girlfriend and some guy. I'm not sure if he was supposed to be my brother, her brother, or some random friend, but in real life he's another seminarian's brother, and I've met him about once. In the dream he had the function of trying to get us to hook up again.
Feeling melancholy, I went back to the car-cave theatre, where for whatever reason, the direction the movie screen was facing had flipped around, and saw my former girlfriend standing there watching what I thinking was a sappy movie, looking quite sad. At this point I came up behind her, hugged her, and we apparently made up.
At this point, we both realised we were late for our games, and we decided to forget it all, since we didn't really care about the tournament, and it was too late to do anything about it. We got in my car, but I don't think we were driving anywhere.
The perspective now shifted slightly, as two previously-unseen secondary characters (resembling Timon and Pumbaa in camaraderie) started talking, and I was looking at them cut-and-paste a picture together. I have no idea what that was about, but this is when it clued in to me that I was a seminarian, and having a girlfriend was NOT going to work with that... but I couldn't just dump her, having just got back together, especially since I really, really loved her.
Well, that was when Arvo Pärt's Berlinger Messe started tolling out of my alarm clock, waking me up. And let me tell you, I have never been so relieved as finding that I didn't actually have a girlfriend I needed either to dump or dump the seminary for.
I must say that it really had me thinking for most of meditation what, if anything, this dream means. I certainly don't take it as a sign of God's intentions, but it stems from my subconscious... and where did my subconscious get that from? Why is this figuring into my dream landscape?
Also really odd is the fact that my "girlfriend" is actually a classmate at school, but not someone I can really claim to know. Well enough to know her name, and say hello in the halls, but that's about it. It'll be odd if I run into her at Concordia this afternoon.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
With Great Power comes Great Responsibility
So, it had been my hope never again to be involved in a major online dispute. The Davem episode gave me more than enough to satisfy that longing, and I've tangled as a moderator before on Classic-Castle with dealing with upset members. It seemed reasonable to me that, given I'm unlikely to ever have time for internet forums like I once did, and given my interest in those already around is fading, that I would have no real opportunity for it, since one does not have moderation/discussion issues when communicating with friends.
Then along came Facebook and the Philosophy Club's Group and forums.
I can't deny that discussion was getting way off of Philosophical topics, nor that the manner the discussions were being done were failing to conform to any normal concept of "reasoning", which is what Philosophy is supposed to be about... however...
Marking posts as irrelevant, deleting posts, and deleting whole topics is NOT a successful way of dealing with it; not if you actually want to have a lively forum. Already, since the binge-deleting started, fresh posts have dropped off, as everyone with any sense has stepped back and abandoned posting, thinking there's no point.
Half the issue here... or more than half... is that I'm the only Admin who has experience moderating an online forum, and I get the feeling that power has gone right to some people's heads. I agree with what they're trying to accomplish! God knows I have nothing but loathing and derision in my heart of hearts for those who claim to be philosophising when really, all they are doing is rambling on with emotions and ad hominem arguments. But still! If you don't want the forum to die, you have to respond with TACT.
Authority without tact is only going to antagonise people and drive them away. Far from reforming the forums, it will kill them. Which is worse: a dead forum or one that no longer has anything on topic? Frankly, I think it's a lose-lose situation.
So here I am, again stuck in the middle of an internet furor. The worst of it is that I really, really don't feel qualified to play peacemaker. I had a stupid incident in class on Wednesday where I acted like an arrogant know-it-all, and in reflection I feel like an utterly insensitive pedant, and not at all qualified to act as the conscience of an irritated group of powerful and smart admins.
God help us all!
Then along came Facebook and the Philosophy Club's Group and forums.
I can't deny that discussion was getting way off of Philosophical topics, nor that the manner the discussions were being done were failing to conform to any normal concept of "reasoning", which is what Philosophy is supposed to be about... however...
Marking posts as irrelevant, deleting posts, and deleting whole topics is NOT a successful way of dealing with it; not if you actually want to have a lively forum. Already, since the binge-deleting started, fresh posts have dropped off, as everyone with any sense has stepped back and abandoned posting, thinking there's no point.
Half the issue here... or more than half... is that I'm the only Admin who has experience moderating an online forum, and I get the feeling that power has gone right to some people's heads. I agree with what they're trying to accomplish! God knows I have nothing but loathing and derision in my heart of hearts for those who claim to be philosophising when really, all they are doing is rambling on with emotions and ad hominem arguments. But still! If you don't want the forum to die, you have to respond with TACT.
Authority without tact is only going to antagonise people and drive them away. Far from reforming the forums, it will kill them. Which is worse: a dead forum or one that no longer has anything on topic? Frankly, I think it's a lose-lose situation.
So here I am, again stuck in the middle of an internet furor. The worst of it is that I really, really don't feel qualified to play peacemaker. I had a stupid incident in class on Wednesday where I acted like an arrogant know-it-all, and in reflection I feel like an utterly insensitive pedant, and not at all qualified to act as the conscience of an irritated group of powerful and smart admins.
God help us all!
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Internet Philosophy
Well, it feels like ages since I last posted here, but "ages" is really just "eight days", during which the internet was down at the seminary for about five, which made it feel like ages.
The internet being down wasn't the worst of it. For whatever reason, the internet being down had an unforeseen consequence for my computer, insofar as it seemed to go from being junk to being worse junk. I was THIS close to going out and buying a laptop on the spur of the moment, and was saved only because Friday night and Saturday was a silent Recollection, and I didn't feel justified in disappearing during it, and the fact that I don't really have the bank funds to justify it. Still, if the return of the internet on Monday hadn't somehow magically rectified whatever the problem was, I would probably have a new computer by now.
Other than the woes of the internet, life has been good. The Peripatetics, Concordia's brand new (and first) Philosophy Club, of which I am Recording Officer, had its first general meeting on Monday night, and it rocked. We had a twenty-two person turnout, more than expected, and the room was full. We had lively, balanced, engaged discussion (on why prostitution is immoral, to which only one person really disagreed about the basic assumption that it IS immoral--we just didn't all agree why), and wrapped up with lots of energy and excitement for the next installment, on Monday the 15th.
It looks like this is going to be an awesome year, at least as far as Concordia and Philosophy Club is concerned. If the meeting is any indication, Monday nights are going to be a blast, and we have special events cooking that are awesome. And then there's the Facebook group, which is halfway to wacko, but is also halfway to beating the Barrow-Downs as my most engaged-in forum.
Seminary life is also good, but in less obviously spectacular ways. I really can't define why or how except to say that I love living here, and I'm really glad to be back.
Hmm... I had all kinds of ideas while the internet was down for my usual introspective musings, but they aren't coming to me, and may be best left for another post anyway.
The internet being down wasn't the worst of it. For whatever reason, the internet being down had an unforeseen consequence for my computer, insofar as it seemed to go from being junk to being worse junk. I was THIS close to going out and buying a laptop on the spur of the moment, and was saved only because Friday night and Saturday was a silent Recollection, and I didn't feel justified in disappearing during it, and the fact that I don't really have the bank funds to justify it. Still, if the return of the internet on Monday hadn't somehow magically rectified whatever the problem was, I would probably have a new computer by now.
Other than the woes of the internet, life has been good. The Peripatetics, Concordia's brand new (and first) Philosophy Club, of which I am Recording Officer, had its first general meeting on Monday night, and it rocked. We had a twenty-two person turnout, more than expected, and the room was full. We had lively, balanced, engaged discussion (on why prostitution is immoral, to which only one person really disagreed about the basic assumption that it IS immoral--we just didn't all agree why), and wrapped up with lots of energy and excitement for the next installment, on Monday the 15th.
It looks like this is going to be an awesome year, at least as far as Concordia and Philosophy Club is concerned. If the meeting is any indication, Monday nights are going to be a blast, and we have special events cooking that are awesome. And then there's the Facebook group, which is halfway to wacko, but is also halfway to beating the Barrow-Downs as my most engaged-in forum.
Seminary life is also good, but in less obviously spectacular ways. I really can't define why or how except to say that I love living here, and I'm really glad to be back.
Hmm... I had all kinds of ideas while the internet was down for my usual introspective musings, but they aren't coming to me, and may be best left for another post anyway.
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