It's been quite an experience spending time at St Gregorys. These are the buttons - everyone has one, your button says who you are and a couple of words about you. It helps you feel your own identity within the place.
I've been to the main Sunday Service and also the Morning Prayers. It's how the music is mixed in with the ministry inside and outside the Church which causes me most pondering. Music, as in unaccompanied singing, is in the liturgy, but it goes much further here. You sort of get the feeling that someone might start singing at any moment, in the services or washing the pots. And it's not necessarily a 'lets have a happy singalong' sort of singing, it's a liturgical singing - it has meaning. You sing because you want to express something from deep within you to God and to others. It is praise and lament at the same time.
And singing the Psalms and readings, well this has been an experience. Here they are sung or chanted to very simple tones which has opened up a whole new way to get meaning from them. So I reach for the Psalms most mornings, but I've never sung them before. Singing them is much easier than reading them - doh, they're meant to be sung of course.
So these guys just seem to sing at any opportunity. Most powerful are stories of visiting the dying. Folks from the choir, or anyone really, going to sing in the rooms of the dying and continuing when they have passed. I have read about this happening in monasteries, but never before out here in never never land.. What a wonderful thing to do. That is soooooo spiritual. This is Sara's particular ministry, which I think she would call a healing ministry. People can experience healing as they are leaving this world - that feels very real to me. The poeple, being the person and also their family and freinds. The healing being a coming together in onenness with God, in peace. A liturgy - a way, is wanted for this and I can imagine her doing it. Anointing the body, sitting with the body, making people ok with sitting with the body and singing. And she's not special, not ordained, she has just experienced something herself and she is bold enough to offer it to others. I need to read the rest of her books, Sara Miles.
And singing the Psalms and readings, well this has been an experience. Here they are sung or chanted to very simple tones which has opened up a whole new way to get meaning from them. So I reach for the Psalms most mornings, but I've never sung them before. Singing them is much easier than reading them - doh, they're meant to be sung of course.
So these guys just seem to sing at any opportunity. Most powerful are stories of visiting the dying. Folks from the choir, or anyone really, going to sing in the rooms of the dying and continuing when they have passed. I have read about this happening in monasteries, but never before out here in never never land.. What a wonderful thing to do. That is soooooo spiritual. This is Sara's particular ministry, which I think she would call a healing ministry. People can experience healing as they are leaving this world - that feels very real to me. The poeple, being the person and also their family and freinds. The healing being a coming together in onenness with God, in peace. A liturgy - a way, is wanted for this and I can imagine her doing it. Anointing the body, sitting with the body, making people ok with sitting with the body and singing. And she's not special, not ordained, she has just experienced something herself and she is bold enough to offer it to others. I need to read the rest of her books, Sara Miles.