Six days a week, I am a dedicated Quaker. But on the seventh day, for one hour, I pretend to be part of the United Church of Christ. The one thing I really miss in attending an unprogrammed meeting is singing. Although I am not a soloist by any means, I love singing with other people and I especially enjoy singing traditional hymns. University Friends does have singing before meeting occasionally, but this is not nearly enough for me.
So I have started going to the Wednesday Jazz Worship at Plymouth Church. I highly recommend it if you happen to be in downtown Seattle on a Wednesday. The service is mostly music played by a jazz trio, comprised of a xylophone, an upright bass, and a grand piano. They play a mix of traditional and newer music, and the congregation gets to sing along to at least one song. And even though I thought I gave up on regular sermons years ago, I usually come away feeling like something in the message spoke to me. It's a nice feeling to have in the middle of the week.
This past Sunday, I was delighted when I walked into the meeting house and found people singing. Even better, my friend Sarah P was already there, songbook in hand. She was in town on other Quaker business (as she says) and it was her first time visiting University Friends. I was glad to see her and glad she came on a week with music. We sang together, and it was good.
"An adequate life . . . might be described as a life which has grasped intuitively the nature of all things, and has seen and refocused itself to this whole. An inadequate life is one that lacks this adjustment to the whole nature of things—hence its twisted perspective, its partiality, its confusion." Douglas V. Steere, describing the life of Thomas R. Kelly, in A Testament of Devotion.
Dude, yes. Quakerism is awesome for what is has, but almost every (unprogrammed) Quaker I know misses singing in worship. It's funny, because it seems like those Quakers who pine for singing are more committed to singing as a means of worship than are many people in congregations who sing all the time. People who are serious like that about singing are the ones I love singing with the most. -SP
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI too miss singing at worship (I came to Friends from the Catholic Church). Our meeting almost never has music these days...
But I was thinking the other day: a Meeting is what the members/attenders make it. Perhaps I should search for ways to bring more music to my worship community? Or at least bring the subject to the Meeting as a concern?