Lavabo

From a letter to a friend. She had been talking about ways to read literature more closely and deliberately - by copying parts of it, for instance - and was musing about the other arts, and how much time pianists must spend examining the structure of each piece they play. I replied:

You're right about close readings - it's the same reason for drawing things in order to see them better.  Pianists, though, don't necessarily read that way when they're engaged with the sheet music. If you are a good sight-reader you can simply move through the music without thinking much about the structure at all. I'm finding this with the choir: churning through music at such a fast pace with professionals and experienced amateurs, your goal is to get it into performance shape as quickly as possible. But that may mean you barely read the text, don't think about the keys or harmonic structure; you make sense of the shape and feeling of the music by fitting it into what you already know about the period, adjust the breathing and the rise and fall of the lines according to your developed musicality, and perform it. Then it goes back onto the shelf for another six years. But you certainly haven't "lived inside it," and I miss that - it is not, in other words, study.

Last night, along with a mass setting by Herbert Howells, we sang a Thomas Morley motet - absolutely beautiful - a sustained contrapuntal exploration for five vocal parts of this text:

Laboravi in gemitu meo.
Lavabo per singulas noctes lectum meum.
Lacrimis meis stratum meum rigabo.

I am weary with my groaning
Every night I make my bed to swim
I water my couch with my tears.

How terrific an Ash Wednesday text is that? But it was in Latin, and we had only fifteen minutes of rehearsal time allotted for putting it together. The performance was very good, but I felt my own experience of the music had barely begun...I did laugh inside as it went by, though, thinking how "lavabo" is a word I first discovered in IKEA  -- that's "bathroom sink" in French-Canadian stores. (I discovered later, from the New Advent Catholic encyclopedia, that "lavabo," Latin for "I shall wash," is "the first word of that portion of Psalm 26 said by the celebrant at Mass while he washes his hands after the offertory, from which word the whole ceremony is named." From the liturgical rite, the word came to mean a basin for the washing of hands.)

Last night the Dean, who's retiring this year and getting even more forthright than ever - which is saying something - preached an excellent sermon about how difficult faith is in the 21st century when the God we were taught about is simply impossible to believe in anymore. But he talked about the "thin places" which were important in Celtic spirituality, and where we might find them now. Music and poetry of course were two of the places important to him, and he quoted a long section of Eliot's "Little Gidding" while I sat there with Howells and Morley on my lap, watching the reflective face of our director as he too listened, looking off into the chancel. I felt fortunate -- though rather like a rare bird that knows it's being kept alive in a hot-house -- and somewhat renewed after a few weeks of not being in the best frame of mind. Caring for one another, and finding time to spend in these thin places, is about all we can do in the modern world, I think.

Comments

[Vivian]

Lavabo is also the name of the linen towel the officiant uses to wipe his/her fingers on in preparation for handling the elements used in consecration. Maybe not believing in the God we learned about as children is a kind of purification also. An invitation to give up that toxic and self centred relationship with a judging commanding invention and learn again that we are unconditionally and totally accepted by the loving creator who keeps on creating the whole world and with it, each of us, moment by moment.

[Anne Gibert]

I want to know more about the "thin places". I claim to never think about these things, because so much garbage is spoken and written about them. But actually, they do interest me. I would like to know whether such things can be discussed without getting completely fuzzy. Once I asked a friend, an Episcopal Priest, to explain what the word "spirituality" meant. I can't remember what he said, but it was not enlightening.

[Julie]

I know of those 'thin places', they are everywhere in Brittany. As I wandered with the dogs at the Landes de Locarn, sat beside a menhir or stood and gazed at a tumbling stream, I was in the presence of the spirits. It was very enlightening and moving and gave me a great feeling of connection with the past and peace with the future. Better than any ornate, icon-filled rich church. When I pray to The Supreme Being it is always in a wild and natural place....

[beth]

Fantastic! I didn't know that at all. And I like very much appreciate the thoughtful point you make here, Vivian. Thanks.

Anne, Hah! Well, your comment about the priest made me laugh out loud - I'm not surprised, though I do know Episcopal priests who could probably give a decent answer.

I like the idea of "thin places" too and will try to write more about them. Like you, Anne, I have no patience anymore with fuzzy or "feel-good" writing about spirituality, but that doesn't mean a spiritual life doesn't or can't exist; in fact I feel this is a very serious topic and what we are about. But allowing the church to define it is not acceptable to me anymore.

What do YOU think it means?

[Pat]

I loved learning that phrase "thin places" - never heard it before and so I googled. Seems they are suppose to exist "out there" and I do believe in sacred space. But, it seems more important to me to emphasize that our own awareness needs to be the true thin place.

Was reading a new translation of the Faith-Mind Sutra of the 3rd Zen Patriarch yesterday which offered these lines I really liked:

When like and dislike are absent, The Real is obvious and clear
Make the slightest distinction, however,
and it appears disguised as heaven and earth...

Seeing appearances as real, you miss the Source.
Seeing appearances as Void, you miss the show.

[Martine]

Your friend who wants to read more closely might be interested in this book I'm reading called "Reading like a writer", by Francine Prose.
http://www.amazon.ca/Reading-Like-Writer-Guide-People/dp/0060777044

I've taken quite a few creative writing classes as part of my college studies, and one of my favorite class was called "lecture et écriture". It was all about the importance of reading for writers, and ways that reading can be a starting point for new writing projects.

I'm always surprised when I read interviews with writers who claim they never read. Why would you want to create something that you either don't respect, or don't seem to be particularly interested in?