Friday, 11 April 2014

The Good Worship Guide by Robert Atwell

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In many ways this book captures my own inclinations about worship. That what we offer as worship to God, and offer as a context for one another's encounter with God, should be the best it can be.

“Informal” is a current buzz word about worship, but too often informal worship becomes casual worship, under-prepared worship, and ultimately lacklustre. I don't believe worship must always be rehearsed to the nth degree, there is a place for chaos in worship, but Godly chaos is distinct from worship that has merely become shambolic. And so the first section “Worship Matters” is useful whatever your style as it sets out the principles of “Good Worship” as Atwell sees them.

The remainder of the book is a sort of ritual notes and therefore is much more closely tied to a particular churchmanship. Atwell admits there is a certain middle-class quality to the approach to worship he is advocating. There are certain assumptions that he makes as a former Vicar of St Mary's Primrose Hill which don't translate easily even to other “liberal catholic” settings which are not populated by the muesli munching urbanites of Primrose Hill (I say that with a certain affection for I myself would probably count as such a muesli muncher...).

One aspect I found irritating was the sense that preparing and leading worship is not really the business of lay people. Atwell offers “A beginner's guide for lay people” on leading public worship, which runs to 3 whole pages in a book of nearly 300. It is clear that lay people leading worship is viewed as a last resort – for those times when the Vicar is ill. There is also a list of what lay people “can and can't do” which is almost entirely a list of can'ts.

I think this underplaying of the laity's role is perhaps because “liturgists” who start with Atwell's assumption about order and dignity in worship tend to be control freaks. I call to mind Richard Giles who certain appears to have adopted fairly dictatorial methods to realise his vision of renewal within the liturgy. Now I accept this is a part of key difference between a “visionary” and a mere “dreamer”, the capacity to push the vision into reality, but we must hold that in tension.

Thursday, 10 April 2014

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

Buy it from Hive.co.uk and support local booksellers 

I took a Facebook quiz about “what childrens' book are you” and the answer turned out to be Harold and the Purple Crayon, which I had never heard of.

Therefore I simply had to get it out the library and read it in case Facebook was offering me a significant ephiany of self-understanding (ok it was a long shot but I felt even long shots should not be overlooked).

There is great whimsy in this book, of the best kind. Harold has a certain god like status, the world he walks through is perhaps not strictly created Ex nihilo, he needs the crayon as a vehicle of creation, but it is clearly his thought that is the primary determiner of what is created.

The book leaves some key questions unanswered, what are the nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best? And what exactly was it about the porcupine that made it deserving?

And then, if this book is a prefect summary of my being, or I a summary of it, as Facebook claims what might I like it to be saying about me?

Harold clearly has a strong capacity for wonder, something I would like to claim.
Harold is restless until he finds his rest in his own bed... and I certianly like my bed.
Even though Harold created the Dragon he was still frightened of it, he had an imagination big enough to go beyond his own comfort zone – and I believe if we do not allow ourselves to be scared we will never grow.

 So I would never suggest Facebook is a custonian of universial truth, but on this occasion it didn't do a bad job!