I dearly love our Canadian Anglican Church and many of its people, but I’m afraid that it is becoming too committee and meeting oriented. It seems that ordinary discussions end with a decision to form a committee and then the meetings begin. When I hear about committee meetings I’m often reminded of the old chestnut that a camel was a horse designed by a committee!
I have three special concerns that I dream will become part of our focus as we reach out toward 2019.
I look forward to a day when Anglicans (clergy and laity) focus on relationships and act like they really believe what they profess and begin to love their neighbours (or relatives, friends, colleagues and all they meet) as themselves.
It would improve our parish life and the lives of the people around us (and probably our own) if we recognized concerns that are right in our midst. Notes, calls or visits to encourage, sympathize, congratulate or thank mean so much to those on the receiving end. And a note, call or visit simply to keep in touch with someone we haven’t seen for a while, or someone who is new to our community, does so much to lift spirits. It shouldn’t be necessary to organize a parish programme to do these things. We only need to think about friends, family, colleagues and parishioners and be willing to take time to let them know in a concrete way that we are thinking about them.
Secondly, a recent Anglican Journal article reporting on Canadians who are in need of our help encourages me. As a church, many of our efforts, as well as funds, seem focused on projects that are far, far away, and at times I fear that we are ignoring the Lazarus who sits at our own gates. Perhaps it’s easier to consider problems that we don’t have to see rather than dealing with those on our own doorstep. While I would never discount the importance of the wonderful overseas work that is done, I feel it is time for us to help improve the lives of Canadians who are also in need of help.
My last (and probably not final) concern involves the liturgy. Anglicans used to be known for beautiful music and liturgy. As I write, I almost duck when I say that the Book of Alternative Services needs help! While many people have the ability to talk and write about liturgy that reflects our Church, only a few are actually able to turn it into a service using beautiful words that feed our spirits – would that more attention had been given to such language in writing the Book of Alternative Services. The first time I used the book I noticed that a number of lovely prayers were “borrowed” from other books and then changed (not for the better) to make them Canadian. As an example, BAS Eucharistic Prayer 4 calls for a single repetitious response by the congregation throughout the prayer. It is an adaptation of the American rite 2 in which the congregation takes a substantial role in its responses to each paragraph. It’s as if it were a wonderful dramatic dialogue. In the Book of Alternative Services all prayers involving the laity became a litany because (I am often told) they were intended to be sung. As a lady in the pew who has visited many Anglican Churches, I have observed that the singing of prayers is very rare, but to my amazement the liturgists are still writing services as if singing of prayers is the norm.
If we really believe that laity are an intelligent and important part of our Church, then we could give them more to say than “Hear our Prayer” or whatever few words are said over and over and over again. It’s boring! We are losing beauty and mystery in our spiritual language. While I understand that the theology of the Book of Common Prayer is troubling to many, I hope they realize that Cranmer’s language was magical. There must be other Cranmers in our midst that can bring the beauty and mystery of 21st century spiritual language to our liturgy.
