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I was listening to the Catholic Laboratory podcast by Ian Maxfield yesterday, where he was bemoaning a recent report in NewScientist magazine about the effects of mental practices on recovery from illness. Yeah, stunning, I know. If you are grounded in your thinking, this will help you recover faster. This column today was so insightful that I thought I’d share it in full with all of you. Lloyd Thomas is a fellow coach here in northern Colorado for whom I have the greatest respect. If you want to subscribe to his weekly column, follow the directions at the bottom. I’ve had a number of things happening in the last few months which seem to be trying to push me away from having faith – in myself, in my church, in God. They’re subtle, but after they start mounting up you start thinking there might be a pattern. But I find myself paying attention to this, and my soul reaches out as if to yell, “No! My faith is alive and growing!” It’s all about having intention, making a decision. This past week I’ve been preparing for our new chant year – practices begin on August 22nd, and our first Mass is September 19th. As before, I was able to have a 1-on-1 discussion with almost every member of our schola, and got some great feedback and ideas about what challenges we should take on as a group. But I’m definitely stretching in some new directions. Continue reading Gearing up for a great year!
Here’s the core of the idea:
But this is just the starting point, there’s more to the story. CMAA Colloquium XX 2010 from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo. In addition, the audio recordings are all available on http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium.
This is a fascinating idea, that the word of God is conveyed through readings, through ritual, and especially through sacred music because it reaches so deeply. And when people hear the word, they receive the Word. It’s hard to get my mind around, but it strikes me as truth. Our music isn’t about feeling good about ourselves and how “well” we are worshiping. It’s about giving another means for each of us to receive the blessed Word, the ultimate gift, from our maker. I’d be interested to hear what thoughts this sparks for you! I’m really enjoying God’s gift of yearly cycles. During the summer, especially, is my time to refresh, re-energize, and re-commit. This is possible because so many things slow down during this season as people focus on vacations and family. Sometimes the summer “break” feels a little weird because our kids are grown up and I’m running my own business, but that’s a topic for another day. For the last three years, I’ve gone to the Sacred Music Colloquium. Continue reading Revitalize! Yesterday was a challenge! Up at 3:00AM, to drive to Denver, grab a flight. Then hang around in Milwaukee for 4 hours, and finally on to Pittsburgh. OK, that’s enough whining. Meeting up with all my great Colloquium buddies was wonderful, as expected. I started out tired, but when we got to singing … heaven! It’s just such a wonderful experience to be immersed with a bunch of great people who are all passionate about bringing back this heritage of music. Today we did the simplest Mass, English Ordinary Form. That’s mostly just for practical reasons – there’s not enough time to practice anything very hard. We did the Richard Rice ordinaries, which is the first time I’ve heard them done for real. Quite excellent, in my opinion. I don’t know that I’ll be able to put up as many posts this week as I’d like, since I don’t have network access on my own PC. But rest assured that the recordings are coming! For a teaser of the program, go to http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium.  Colorado's state flower Summer is my time to reflect and renew my commitments for the coming year. I talked about this some last June, when I was struggling with whether our schola would achieve critical mass. Looking back on the progress, we now have grown to a dozen loyal and talented members, now including women as well as men. We really are quite blessed. Despite challenges and frustrations, it’s wonderful to be bringing this traditional music back to our parish. |
