I have to 'fess up – I'm biased. Part of my job at Robinson College is overseeing the work of the Chapel Choir. Earlier this year they recorded this set of musical items for Advent/Christmas, including the fabulously gorgeous Franz Biebl "Ave Maria" (my perosnal favourite), a lovely performance of Britten's Ceremony of Carols, some Haydn, Rachmaninov, Kodaly and more.

I think this is the first of 20+ albums I've been directly involved in where I didn't sing, play, conduct, write or direct. I did some of the production, and a small amount of vocal coaching. The rest of the time I directed operations from On High as Executive Producer.

I have to say I'm pretty proud of it… it sounds way better than most amateur recordings, and looks absolutely beautiful thanks to the lovely artwork of a grad student. Go on, treat yourself

Anyway, eighteen years later and the Anglican and Methodist Churches have taken more steps forward in their embracing of all this alternative/emerging stuff, and Fresh Expressions is now offering training courses for people involved at all levels. I’ll be teaching on the Cambridgeshire course, and looking forward not only to the course, but to thinking about how new ways of Church demand new ways of approaching teaching and training (what a travesty it would be if we started giving lectures and assessments on this now…! ). I am dreaming about how to give away wisdom, knowledge and experience in a way that opens up the way for people, rather than boxing them into an "approved" way of doing it.

Dozens of others are involved, and the courses are springing up all over the country. Go here for more.

Candlemas (aka The Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple) is the final element of Christmas. Our crib has stayed up in church til this weekend, and we have one at home too but on Sunday they will be put away as we look away from Christmas and towards Lent and Passiontide….As we hear the story of Christ’s Presentation, and his recognition by Simeon and Anna, we remember not just the joy with which Simeon greeted the "light to lighten the Gentiles" but also the foreboding of his words to Mary – "And a sword shall pierce your own soul also". It’s one of those hinge points in the liturgical year.

In the medieval church, this was the festival when all the candles to be used for the rest of the year would be blessed. Today, the Church of England “Common Worship – Times and Seasons” has a lovely provision for marking this transition time. At the end of the Eucharist, during the final hymn each member of the congregation will be given a lighted candle – then the clergy will make our way to the font while the choir sings Simeon’s song, the Nunc Dimittis…Once there we are all brought to focus on our baptism, and recommissioned to bear the light of Christ into the world.

We’re in the week of Pentecost, and our theme is on the experience of life with the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow’s service is about flesh and spirit. The reading (which I didn’t choose!) comes from Romans. I never preach/speak on Romans unless the lectionary dictates. It’s complicated and not something I naturally gravitate to. But it’s one of the things I like about the discipline of lectionaries and thematic plans that you are forced to engage with parts of the Bible, and the Faith, that you might otherwise leave on the back burner…

To "listen again" on the website go here after the service is over and scroll through the page to find the link to Tuesday’s service:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/dailyservice/index.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/dailyservice/index.shtml

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

U.A. Fanthorpe (born 1929)

more reflections on Advent and Christmas here

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves’ voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Luci Shaw

more reflections on Advent and Christmas here

Fauré said some stuff about his Requiem that may well chime with Emerging Church afficionados – he wanted to do something that was a funeral but not as we know it, church but not as we know it. His own faith and belief were an interesting mix of orthodoxy and complete maverick individualism. But then he was an artist, so that’s pretty unsurprising. Creatives are often feared in the Church because they want to reshape things. Odd, perhaps, that displaying creativity – that most God-like of qualities – often sidelines artists within Church circles.  Anyway, here’s what Fauré said about his Requiem:

"It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. The music of Gounod has been criticized for its overinclination towards human tenderness. But his nature predisposed him to feel this way: religious emotion took this form inside him. Is it not necessary to accept the artist’s nature? As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different."

If you want to join us for our Choral Requiem for Remembrance, it’s at Robinson College Chapel, Grange Road, Sunday 12th November. 6pm.