麻豆约拍

Good morning.聽

Today I will be doing something that I haven鈥檛 been able to do for nearly fifteen months. Which is taking part in a choir. Our church will be singing Evensong again. That beautiful ancient service of prayer and music for Eveningtide, was one of the chief things that converted me to Christianity, and I still feel its pull.聽

When I was still at school, I was asked to sing at a local parish church, and I was blown away by Evensong:聽 the music from all centuries, from deliciously soupy Victoriana, to statuesque polyphony, converted me to a belief in God through sheer unrelenting beauty. If ever you have been to a near empty Cathedral and sat on the back pew, and heard a choir singing their heart out in a communal desire to bring beauty into the world, perhaps like me you have felt that you have glimpsed a heaven which is not quite out of reach.聽

During lockdown, we have been beset by words, so many words, that I often felt as though I鈥檓 drowning in a sea of noise:聽 articles and commentaries and speculations and policies and procedures, much of which was necessary in order for us to function, but it can all feel very loud, and CS Lewis rightly described Hell as the Kingdom of Noise.聽

Music, sung to those comfortable words of Evensong, lift us from that noise, into a better and more inspiring place. St Augustine said that they who sing, pray twice, and when we lift our voices in harmony, we become in communion with one another, and with God.聽

Almighty God the singers of the Temple of Israel sang a new song in your name, as a sign that all was being made well. As we lift our voices to you, may our harmonies blend with the song of the angels, that all things, and all people may be made new. Amen.