Rowan Williams: "Advent Calendar"

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

—from The Poems of Rowan Williams

Dominus Regnavit

Days like today are cause for optimism: both of my church services went well, and there are so many good hymn tunes for Christ the King Sunday. (Diademata is a particular favorite; everybody likes "Crown Him with Many Crowns".) I am becoming more and more fond of this part of November, when the fields are cleared and nearly all the trees are bare, before it snows; it's not desolate but rather clean-looking. Perhaps it's just this year in the three-year lectionary cycle, but the readings — with their apocalyptic imagery — lead nicely into Advent. Comparing different hymnals, there is even overlap between end-of-the-church-year hymns and Advent hymns: Helmsley ("Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending"), for example.

The notion, particularly relevant today, of the kingship of God is an interesting one. Perhaps the most common conception of God in the psalms is as awesome King; another, nearly as common, is as just Judge. Indeed, the two concepts seem closely linked in ancient Jewry. Other psalms (cf. esp. 45, 72, 89) describe God's covenant with mortal kings, who are expected to carry out God's justice. Some sections read as little more than monarchist propaganda; the Bible is not a book for republicans. In any case, it appears that legitimate, God-pleasing government has an obligation to the poor, a fact lost on a great many people nowadays.

There is one issue I've always wondered about: if earthly kings derive their legitimacy from God, what meaning does the title "King" have for God himself? There is — we presume! — no higher power to grant God the title. It seems that God is King simply by virtue of being God.

* * *
Next week is the start of Advent. I have resolved that I should start posting — here, if there is no more suitable place — music selections from the liturgies at my churches, like some do. So: here is some of the upcoming music at St. Paul Lutheran and St. Luke's Episcopal.

Organ preludes and postludes for Advent and Christmas, 2011:
27 November (Advent I):
J.S. Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
W.F. Bach: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, F.38, No. 1
4 December (Advent II):
Jeanne Demessieux: Rorate caeli, Op. 8, No. 1
Michael Praetorius: Alvus tumescit virginis
11 December (Advent III, Gaudete):
Healey Willan: Prelude on Richmond
Gerald Near: Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam
18 December (Advent IV):
J.S. Bach: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
Paul Manz: Toccata on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, Op. 5, No. 10
24 December (Christmas Eve):
Claude-Bénigne Balbastre: Quand Jésus naquit à Noël
Dieterich Buxtehude: In dulci jubilo, BuxWV 197
25 December (Christmas Day):
Louis-Claude Daquin: Noël X (Grand jeu et Duo)
Georg Böhm: Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her

The American Guild of Organists

This evening I attended my first AGO meeting. I am pleased to report that it went reasonably well. The theme for pieces was "things based on hymn-tunes"; I performed that bombastic Karg-Elert Nun danket alle Gott setting, and, to atone for that, also BWV 645. The membership of the local chapter is quite tolerable: the only instances in which I found it necessary to bite my tongue were when I heard praise of Allen instruments. (One must bear in mind that many — far too many — organists out here in the provinces have never played a tracker, and thus may be forgiven for their misguided tastes.)

Being away from school, even for only these few months, has taught me how important the company of one's peers is. It is, of course, a bit of a stretch to call my fellow AGO members peers — they are, after all, predominantly women who could charitably be called "post-middle-aged" — but it is nice to have people who understand the vicissitudes of a career in church music. In every profession one needs people to whom one can complain about one's job; I suspect this is the true origin of the great medieval guilds.

Wolf Hall

Finished, at last, with my slog through Tolkien, I turned immediately to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's been a bit of an adjustment, going from Tolkien (who, though a worthwhile read, has too many adverbs and all the humor of the Heimskringla) to Mantel, whose wit could be metaphorically compared to something that is very sharp.

The hero (or antihero, if you must) of the book is Thomas Cromwell (who was indeed related to Oliver, though we mustn't hold that against him). History, for the most part, has not been kind to Cromwell: the impression one often gets is that he was an amoral schemer, who, in the end, reaped the whirlwind after several years of attempting to manipulate the king's favor. If you've seen A Man for All Seasons you've probably got a much more charitable opinion of Cromwell's rival Thomas More, whom Roman Catholics now call a saint; he's held in high esteem at Notre Dame, certainly. But Mantel deconstructs this beatific image we have of More: as she sees it, he was little more than a religious zealot.

[Cromwell] never sees More — a star in another firmament, who acknowledges him with a grim nod — without wanting to ask him, what's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you've learned, confirm you in what you believed before?

It's worth remembering that More was not some selfless defender of personal conscience to be compared to Cromwell's unprincipled henchman of royal prerogative. More merely preferred Papal tyranny to royal tyranny. The question, perhaps, is: which should one prefer in Henry VIII's England? Despite my fondness for Anglicanism, I still have this image of the king as this horrible sort of Bluebeard character, ruled by his appetites, quite probably more beast than man. I don't know if Mantel means to dispel this characterization further on in the book; after all, I've only read about a hundred of its six-hundred-odd pages. But I recommend it highly, so far.