How shall I keep from singing?

I should have been singing Shaw’s ‘With a voice of singing’ today. But I didn’t have a voice – of speaking or singing – merely a cough and a squeak. So instead I stayed home and slept.

A very long service on the 15th, but we actually didn’t mind a bit because there were 30 people being either confirmed, or baptised, or both – apparently the largest number ever at our church. The church was packed and we had not one, but two, giant cakes to munch our way through at the end of the service. Perhaps the anthem should have been ‘Cake is Blessed and Broken’ rather than the more usually sung Iona version ‘Bread is Blessed….’?

Bread is definitely the theme of the month as we sang a fairly new anthem the following week: ‘Bread of the World’ (Brown). This is one of our favourites, composed by a local organist and choirmaster who also happens to be a very active player in the RSCM.

The choir have mixed feelings about the evening anthem, ‘Never Weather Beaten Sail’ (Campion). They either seem to love it or hate it – just like marmite, really. I happen to be on the love it side.

We had a visitation from Mini Moses (a.m.) and Rupert the Bear (p.m.) today. I hope they thought our church was fluffy-toy-friendly. The sopranos found a good swig of communion wine had other benefits than merely comforting their souls when they had to sing a top A in ‘King of Glory, King of Peace’ (Bach).

The evensong anthem, ‘Lord give me Faith’ (Robson), treads a fine line between schmaltz and honesty. The line can be very thin in places.

‘Study Night’ started again on Monday – this time with a very clear introduction to the doctrine of God. Having done a similar course once before (Certificate of Theology) I found it was much clearer to understand second time through. Maybe it was all due to a hyperactive vicar bouncing around as he talked – offering multi-sensory learning to all.

Fortunately there was no choir practice on Friday, or I’d have spent the whole weekend in church. The wedding music on Saturday (all modern songs and a CD instead of organ music) contrasted greatly with the traditional hymns, organ and trumpet fanfare for the Order of St. Lazarus service, complete with banners, regalia, processions and presentations of awards. The stalwarts then stayed on in the evening for the local male voice choir concert, returning home only for a quick sleep before being back again on Sunday morning.

The morning Eucharist was a fairly undemanding affair, with a John Bell anthem (‘Take this moment’). There were a lot of children in church this morning, bursting out of the creche area. Evensong numbers were low, but we enjoyed ourselves singing ‘Cantate Domino’ (Pitoni) which always sounds joyful, even on the rainiest of evenings.