Dreams for the church

At the moment, you don't have to look too far to find evidence of all sorts of unhappiness within that part of the Body of Christ that is the Anglican Communion (though as always, even as I prepare to wring my hands and consider despair, there's fresh evidence of God at work and I wonder how I dared to question...) so yesterday's Friday Five, which was all about the five marks of a perfect church, would have been distinctly apposite. However, I can't dream church dreams without hearing the words of others...the first a posting from WATCH a couple of years ago and the second from the ever wonderful Kate Compston. I certainly can't improve on these - and they are very much my dreams too.

I'm dreaming
about a church of sensitivity and openness,
a church of healing and welcome.
I'm dreaming about a community of friends
that celebrates differences and diversity and variety,
a community that is forgiving, cherishing, wide open.

I dream of women and men
who minister life and laughter and love;
of men and women who minister healing and harmony and hope;
of women and men who minister to each other
and minister to the crying needs of a world that hurts.

I dream against the rough climb still to come,
against expectation, against pessimism and despair;
I dream, I dream of the clear panorama
of the vision of light right at the top of the mountain.










I dream of a church that joins in with God's laughing
as she rocks in her rapture, enjoying her art:
she's glad of her world, in its risking and growing;
‘tis the child she has borne and holds close to her heart.

I dream of at church that joins in with God's weeping
as she crouches, weighed down by the sorrow she sees;
she cries for the hostile, the cold and no-hoping,
for she bears in herself our despair and dis-ease.

I dream of a church that joins in with God's dancing
as she moves like the wind and wave and the fire;
a church that can pick up its skirts, piroutting,
with the steps that can signal God's deepest desire.

I dream of a church that join in with God's loving
as she bends to embrace the unlovely and lost;
a church that can free, by its sharing and daring,
the imprisoned and poor and then shoulder the cost.

God make us a church that joins in with your living
as you cherish and challenge, rein in and release;
a church that is winsome, impassioned, inspiring;
lioness of your justice and lamb of your peace.

But of course dreams are of very limited value if they remain simply that.I'm in optimistic vein tonight, after some experiences of church that fit rather wonderfully with the dream - so I'm off to do some praying now, recognising that work may well be part of the package too...

Is this evasion or avoidance?

There are far too many things going on in my life that I'm anxious not to confront right now,- chief among them, of course, being the perennial problem of a sermon for Evensong on Sunday.
I really do struggle with this....the lectionary is often harsh to "Second Service" preachers, and even when the readings are good, I'm often defeated by the dynamics of preaching to a handful of people scattered across the church, while a far larger contingent sits behind me in the choir. This Sunday, actually, the readings are quite attractive if I can only apply myself to them,- but that feels like quite a substantial "if only" at this moment.

So, for the first time for ages I'm going to indulge in the Revgals Friday Five...something very close to bloggers' junk-food, quick and undemanding, which I've resisted successfully so far this year.
Not today, though.
Anything rather than concentrate on the job in hand!
For a once-upon-a-time semi-pro singer, a chance to revisit old dreams was really fun...but there's no obligation on anyone to read the results.

1) If I could sing like anyone, it would be lovely, lovely Emma Kirkby. Once upon a time in Cambridge, I got the chance to sub for her at the final rehearsal before we premiered a new edition of the Mozart Requiem...I love her absolute purity of tone - and she sings the sort of music I love most, and which my own voice, in its heyday, suited best. She's just heaven!

2) I would love to sing the song Dove sono, or come to that Porgi Amor - with a good orchestra. Well, let's be honest, I'd really enjoy the chance to sing the whole of the Contessa role from Marriage of Figaro. It's not going to happen,-and it would not be a musically pleasing event if it did, these days. However, dreams are free!
irl, the stuff I like, I sing all the time,- with more or less success. Public performances are a very different matter.

3) It would be really cool to sing at one of the lovely Wren churches in London. I'm specially fond of St James's Piccadilly, - where I depped as a chorister once or twice in my youth. I was also working just along the road, at Hatchards bookshop at the time, so St James's felt like my weekday parish church...There was a lovely early Eucharist that I could catch before work,- and I think it was then that I began to revolve my life around that particular sacramental pole. Definitely a Good Place (and I've just discovered, while Googling it for this post, that a friend's partner is on the staff there - lucky man!)



4) If I could sing a dream duet it would be with Ian Bostridge. Though I'm not sure I'd be able to make any sound at all, were he in the vicinity.

5) If I could sing on a TV or radio show, it would be...I honestly don't know the answer to this. There isn't an obvious show-case for the sort of singing I'd be likely to be doing...Perhaps I'll settle for one day precenting somewhere whose choir broadcasts on R3's Choral Evensong - assuming that this actually survives.

OK...having indulged in this cheerfully pointless activity, it's back to Genesis 1 and an ecology sermon. Unless, of course, I paint the dog's toe-nails...or rearrange the sock drawer...or...