Cool Choirs, Clappy Choruses, Cringy Coffee: Religion Chat Thread No 5

[madhairday]

I thought seeing as our other thread has gone somewhere into the oblivion that is old MN pages, I would start us up again anew for a new term. This is a place for those who are Christians (and anyone who's not, we're not an exclusive little club) to chat about life, theology, church, any other stuff and of course Graham Kendrick, as nickel would not forgive me if I forgot to mention him

So all welcome, old and new, it would be fun to chat and chew over anything that comes to mind. Lurkers say hello!

Anyone got a nice juicy topic to get the ball rolling then? Or if not come say hi anyway and tell us how you are doing. :)

and thank you for the incense.
feel a lot less GKd now!

at happy spashy!

Nickel, tell you what, I'll say 'thurible' lots for you. Thurible. thurible thurible thurible THURIBLE thuriblethuriblethuriblethurible.

Feel better?

I don't know cambridge much, I am further ooop north.

I'm not in Cambridgeshire either.

I was baptised in the sea by full emersion and wearing baptismal gown (wasn't really given a choice on that). I had bruises on my shins afterwards where the lead weights had been banging against my legs when I walked. There were three of us baptised at the same time. We walked in procession from the church to the shore aobut half a mile away, two guitar-wielding pastors at the front . Seems very 80s now, thinking about it .

Wow gingercurl that is actually a very lovely picture. I'm embarrassed to say that mine was a dribble of water on the head without even a decent font in sight. But it was still very lovely and moving (for me, anyway) occasion.

Tuo I think your virtual incense may be the answer to our health-related incense problems...

are you saying it properly, though?
with a thththththtth through your teeth and a rolled rrrrrrrrrrrrr?

lovely.

I hereby appoint myself as the thread's virtual thurifer.

~~~wafty~~~wafty~~~waft~~*~

MHD can follow me around saying "thurible"!

Gingercurl... I agree that that sounds amazing. The sea is very special to me, as I grew up near it but live very far from it now.

Got an urgent message at work today to ring the cathedral back before the end of the day with DD's measurements from neck to floor for a new alb. My PA was a bit

Planning for the event I'm running on Saturday with the local theological college/outreach centre. It's very exciting... and humbling to think that quite a sizeable number of people are willing to give up their Saturday to come and listen to us and talk with us.

DS was baptised with just a smidge of water on his head. I'm not in Cambridgeshire either, just to balance things out

Another one "not in Cambridgeshire" :)

Also love "happy splashy"

I agree that I love sharing different styles / preferences and denominations.

Tuo that made me splutter and dd looked over my shoulder saying 'what the heck is a thurifer? Now I feel I must mention the word thurible in each post to you. In fact, we need a [thurible] emoticon

ginger that does sound lovely, but did they have rainbow guitar straps with sticky fishes on their guitars? And were they singing GK songs? Were they? Because only authentic 80s if so

I'm in a silly mood, porb due to being high on too much codeine for ouchtastic toothache. Have dentist appt in morning, filling has fallen out.

Oh and nickel, I can't roll my rrrr's. You're being rrrrrr-ist

TUO that day sounds great, what are you speaking on? arf at the alb measurement call!

So a thurifer carries incense in a thurible? How does that work out emoticon

Here you go, DO. It's basically not unlike those hippy-ish incense sticks, except put into a wafty-abouty thing and ... err ... wafted about. (That's not a scientific explanation, obviously; nor a very theological one. But that the basic drift.)

I can't really say too much about Saturday's thing without totally revealing my identity (not that I'm famous... just that there are not many people who do what I do!), but suffice to say that it involves poetry and art and music and a couple of mini-lectures and some discussion. Or at least, it will if I ever finish putting this powerpoint together!

Your "wafty-abouty thing"-thurible explanation had me spluttering, Tuo.

It was a special day, but with no GK mhd, I'm afraid. He wasn't heard of in Sweden in 1982. (I'd only come across him on a couple of occasions when I moved here in 1995) BUT, yes, they had rainbow guitar straps and fish stickers and one of them had his roots in the Jesus movement . WHen I met him he'd gone on to study theology at uni and become quite respectable, but with a lovely quirky fun streak.

Oh Tuo I knew that, at St Matthew's church Northampton (High as a kite) there is a very beautiful black man who swings the thing around with ernest gusto and everyone bowing and scraping, no I was after the linguistic connection.

Ah, the wiki link had the linguistic bit too, though!

tuo Just out of interest, does doing the wafting bit have a specific word? "Thurifering"? Or is it referred to as simply "wafting"?

Have been thinking about your question Mhd and the lack of GK is Sweden. It has occurred to me on several occasions lately how little influence Scandinavian and British church music seem to have on each other's traditions. Apart from a few Wesley hymns and the like and Christmas carols (imported via the US) there appears not to be much that has migrated across. Likewise, apart from How Great Thou Art (origin of the music is disputed but the original words are Swedish) I cannot think of a single hymn of Swedish/Norwegian/Danish origin that is sung in church here. If you go to the STates, however, the situation is quite different as Scandinavian and British immigrants brought their traditions with them. I guess that, although not miles apart theologically, culturally Lutheranism and Anglicanism are separated by oceans.

The wafting bit is called "censing" :)

Had to LOL at the wording of this phishing email:

"National Westminster Bank has been receiving complaints from our
customers for unauthorized use of the Natwest Online accounts.

As a result we periodically review Natwest Online Accounts and
temporarily restrict access of those accounts which we think are
venerable to the unauthorized use."

Venerable to the unauthorized use? Sounds like some sort of dodgy liturgy :o

Mary - that thurible is A-MAZ-ING!!

What if the rope breaks?

Love the music though. Have always fancied learning to play the organ.

it's not a rope, it's chains.
each corner of the thurible is held by a chain which join together to make the long hanging chain.
it'd be a big disaster to get them all to break at the same time, although if one broke, it might swing funny.

can you play the piano cloutie ?
it's only a short step to the organ from there.

the world is desperate for new organists.

Yes, but struggle to keep up with the instruments I play already. Also, our church doesn't have an organ. I also get ridiculously nervous about playing in public. If I have time when the kids are older I'd love to learn. I love Bach and Handel and think they sound so much better on an organ than on a piano.

if you play he piano, then that's great. :)

shame you don't have an organ ready to go.

basically, the pedals are a third hand, they are useful to beginners to play the really low notes on the bass clef when you can't make your fingers stretch 3 octaves! it's laid out in exactly the same way as a keyboard
the only other thing you have to worry about is stops. but on most organs, you just pull out one or two and off you go (each stop makes the organ sound different, so you can play around and see what sounds best).
you normally only have to change stops when you are changing movement.

okay, most organs have 2 or 3 manuals (keyboards), but all they do is play different ranges.
you could use one for left hand and one for right hand - very useful if the music swaps over and the left hand is higher than the right hand! and in hymns, when the alto line and the tenor line are the same.