Rebus in arduis *

It's Sunday. You've celebrated Candlemas, because you could - a day late, but in the boondocks you can't celebrate too often and get people there. It's been a joyous service, and at least one person has confessed to having their heart up in the air and tears running down their face because of the music. So you're happy. Actually, you were happy before they said that, in all sorts of ways involving children, young people capable of reading the lectionary as if it made sense, lovely imagery, a vision of how things can be ... I could go on, but I suspect I already have.

And then you go to the social area at the back of the church, greet someone standing alone - not a stranger, someone who's been coming on and off for decades - and he informs you, quite firmly, that he didn't know any of the hymns except for the first one and he'd hated them all anyway.

Time was I'd have felt wounded at that moment, for church sometimes leaves you vulnerable to the kind of barbs we don't often get thrown these days. But I've been around a lot of barb-fests, and I merely, mildly even, point out that what he derides as "happy clappy" music didn't form part of my tradition either (Church of Scotland, seduced by singing Byrd and Palestrina, in Latin) and that Mr B never chose happy crappy (sic) music and that this chap should perhaps widen his horizons ... Again, I could go on. I did, a bit - something about singing sentimental verse full of lamentable poetic diction set to dreary tunes - but I won't.

But I do wonder, sometimes often, about the future of parish worship. If I were faced with the prospect of worshipping where there was a diet of Victoriana, badly played at funereal tempi, led, perhaps, by a choir whose sopranos had voices that weren't, any more, I think I'd give up. On t'other hand, if there was an indifferent praise band with a very powerful amplifier, I fear it too would drive me away. So what am I looking for?

Easy. Either a competent musician, on any instrument, who has the gift of inspiring people to sing (and that often comes down to rhythm) - or silence. We sing too many hymns, mostly - and this is especially evident when actually hardly anyone sings anyway. They leave it to someone else. And I'm looking for hymns whose words are theologically meaningful, whose imagery I relate to, which don't ask me to think that God made us high and lowly and so on. I reckon that hymns tend to reflect the folk music of their day. That being the case, we shouldn't object to the odd bit of syncopation here and there. They also tend to reflect the world which informs their words - so we balk these days at singing that all must love the human race "in heathen, Turk or Jew", and some of us at least rejoice in discovering the songs of Christians in other countries, because the world has shrunk and we have access to a far wider song-pool than we did a century ago.

I didn't let all of this fly at the misery in the church; I'm letting go here instead. I didn't even ask him what made it all right for him to girn this way at someone who doesn't actually choose the music but who obviously had enjoyed singing it - or even just at someone who had offered him a friendly greeting.  Long ago I made the decision to try to be Pollyanna till I got home - or to keep out of the way of temptation if I felt unduly volatile.

 But sometimes, just sometimes, I want to throw something.

*Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem : Horace. Means Remember to keep an even temper in difficult situations.

Reflection on Gaudi

La Perdrera: like soldiers
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I realise as I reflect on the Barcelona trip that by far the greatest single influence on my photos and on my memories is the work of Antoni Gaudi, previously known to me only as the creator of the crane-surrounded towers of La Sagrada Familia. The photo here is of the roof terrace of Casa Milà, 'La Perdrera', the extraordinary apartment block in Barcelona, so nicknamed because the façade looks like solid rock (the name means "the stone quarry").

The apartments we saw on one of the upper floors was fascinating in its early 20th century domestic detail, but the real joy was the roof terrace, with its serried ranks of helmeted chimneys and ventilators like soldiers of Sparta or Middle Earth, glittering with tile work (the trencadis, or broken ceramic pieces) or smooth concrete. Wandering the undulating walkways in the bright sun was an exhilarating experience, at once surreal and calming, as if the equilibrium between earth and sky was mirrored in the architecture.

A comment on my earlier post about La Sagrada Familia suggested that it was a waste of resources to complete a building that belonged to the tastes of a previous era, and while I always acknowledge that de gustibus non est disputandum, I shall dispute the idea that resources spent on art are wasted. Many years ago, a teacher I admired gave me notes he'd used in teaching poetry to recalcitrant adolescents, the first words of which were: Poetry, like all the arts, is useless. It went on to enumerate the benefits to the spirit of art, but that first line never failed to bring forth a protest.

Yes, we can concentrate on feeding the poor and ensuring that people are properly housed, and such are the proper aims of society. But any society that cannot find the lightness of spirit - and yes, maybe the lunacy - to invest in something of beauty (taste, again!) misses something really important, I think. And of course, we can argue that all these workmen drilling and cutting and polishing in La Segrada Familia are being paid to do so, and their families are better off because of their labour, and the community benefits from all the paying punters like me who go to gaze and wonder.

No, I was thrilled by what I saw - the Basilica, the unfinished Crypt in Colonia Güell, and this, La Perdrera - and enthused in a way I've not felt in many places. As for the taste of another age - well, there are all these Perpendicular and Norman buildings calling out for restoration and upkeep, all over England, and we don't tend to disparage their even older style, do we? And as for the method of designing these wonderful structures - the hanging bags of lead shot suspended over mirrors that you can see here - this left me gobsmacked.

I'm glad that, even in this rational age, we're still a bit crazy,