Briefly on the breviary

Thought it was time for a brief update on my earlier post about the arrival of the new Benedictine breviary (although why it is called a breviary when it's anything but brief at over 2260 pages I don't know - unless it's related to breve as in music. Mmm, might have to check that out...!).

Enough blather. I have been using the new breviary for a couple of weeks now and am starting to get the hang of its geography. It's much easier than it looks now I've actually had a go with it. I've got adventurous and fully observed several feasts (including the Conversion of St Paul on the 25th - this was almost a disaster because I got the date wrong, but I figured it out in the end!). I've also made it work in terms of my time: I'm anticipating Vigils. Just as major feasts have a first and second Vespers, I'm anticipating Vigils the night before (so Wednesday Vigils are done on Tuesday night and so on), followed immediately by Compline. This works well as I have more time in the evenings.

I am enjoying the readings for Vigils immensely: daily readings are contiguous parts of OT and NT books (currently Deuteronomy and I Corinthians), but on Sundays and feast days, the readings are a piece from a Church Father and a Gospel (and they have the correct readings for Years A, B, and C which means I get to hear the Gospel twice for the day). The readings from the Fathers are particularly interesting as my reading in this area was limited to what was required for theology and church history papers, usually segments from particularly argumentative people! We had Clement of Alexandria on Sunday, a piece I hadn't read before, and that was really lovely.

This has also meant that I've been able to use Lauds as my first morning prayer, and I've been doing Vespers in the early evening where it belongs instead of at night like I was doing with my old Morning and Evening Prayer book. I've managed to keep the Little Hours (Terce, Sext, and None) nearly at their right times by doing them at morning tea, lunch, and afternoon teatime. It hasn't worked every day, but it's worked most days. This means that for the first time in 11 years since I first started getting involved in things monastic, I've actually managed to keep the full Hours, all seven of them. It's worked for two weeks, so hopefully I can make it stick.

The interesting thing about this is that I'm finding the prayer slots very easily into my day, it doesn't take a lot of time, but it does help me focus again back on my work and why I do it. It's also feeding into my personal contemplative times as well. These are becoming richer too - the psalms feed the contemplation and vice versa. Balance is slowly being found....

Summertime

"The sun is shining, the tank is clean... The tank is clean!" (Finding Nemo - yes, I watch too many kids' movies!).

It is gorgeous here in the Harbour Capital today, and apparently if we're extra lucky, we might get a view of the aurora australis tonight about midnight if it stays clear - courtesy of an enormous solar flare. It's extremely unusual to see the aurora in Wellington, so here's hoping! It would be good to tick that one off my "bucket list", although one day I'd love to see it from a polar icecap!

We've been enjoying the summer weather with trips to the Wairarapa on Monday (a public holiday for Wellington Anniversary Day) and backyard camping with my daughter last night. She did much better than expected - she slept in the tent for quite a while - but we ended up back inside the house at about 2.30am. I wasn't particularly surprised about that. I was actually quite impressed that she slept out there at all!

The first of many?

Today has been an interesting day for lots of reasons: some good discussions with my colleagues, a walk in the wind (quite a lot of wind to walk in too), and I finished a report I've been trying to do all week. Given it was my first week back at work I was relatively pleased with what I got done.

But the best bit came last. I got home from work to discover my order from Amazon.com had arrived. Two books: Benedictine Daily Prayer, and Martin Laird's new book A Sunlit Absence. Martin Laird's first book Into the Silent Land has been a near-constant companion for me since Synod 2010, and the next one promises to be just as good.

I spent some time with the new Laird book tonight: this time, instead of looking at contemplative prayer as a series of doors in how we deal with distractions, he's looking at focused attention and the "opening up" that comes through contemplative practice. He uses the concept of the "prayer word" (usually the Jesus prayer) as a focus for attention: not to overwhelm attention but as somewhere to bring attention back to when it wanders - as it does when one prays (distraction is a given!) He uses the lovely image of the videos that play in our heads - emotional reactions, thoughts, replaying situations over and over, but that these videos aren't really us. They're just our constructs of us. I'm not explaining this very well, but it's a concept at the edge of language, and mine isn't all that good anyway!

The new prayer book is a Benedictine version of the breviary, written by a Benedictine oblate and used by a number of abbeys. It's a simplified version (apparently!) of the opus dei, but what's really lovely about it is that it is aimed at an ecumenical audience. There is also full text for the whole seven liturgical Hours (instead of the two I've been doing for the last few years), with full text for the readings for vigils (which I'll have to find somewhere to do - I may swap this and do it after compline rather than in the morning, as mornings are tricky for me!). The "geography" of it looks a bit more complex than the Morning and Evening Prayer I've been using for the last few years though. However, I suspect that with practice it will come to be as natural as the other. I am very excited about the full-text readings though, as these include readings from Doctors and early church Fathers and Mothers, and for the propers for the saints' days there are extensive readings from writings of those saints. Looks fun!

So I have my challenge for the year: a new breviary, with additional Hours (the day Hours and vigils), and a challenge to more regular contemplation. My spiritual director suggested that I find the time for prayer that doesn't take anything away from anyone else, like when daughter is asleep and hubby is watching tv. So, maybe less Facebook this year? Who knows! Anyway, the adventure begins!

Around and about

Hey, I'm back. I've been enjoying the gorgeous summer sun and Christmas festivities, not so much on the computer recently...

We've been up to a few bits and pieces. The traditional catching up with whanau at Christmas - my lot on Christmas Day for a very mellow afternoon tea/very late lunch/very early dinner - anyway, it was food about mid-afternoon with various members of the family and it was good. Hubby and I had collaborated on our first version of big bro's world-famous Christmas pudding and made a couple of puds: a smaller one for Christmas Day (for six adults and a child) and a bigger one for Boxing Day when we were catching up with his family (8 adults and a child). And they were wonderfully good. And we've had requests - so that sorts Christmas presents next year....

It sort of worked quite well: we had our traditional seafood Christmas, and on Boxing Day it was the English version with turkey etc. Although they did insist on serving devil droppings (aka brussel sprouts) I was able to avoid those. The turkey was good though.

Christmas at church was slightly less successful this year: we had planned to go to the Cathedral - we even got there for the carol singing at 10.30pm on Christmas Eve - but by the time the service was due to start at 11pm, small daughter was about to completely melt down so we headed home. Oh well, we sang carols. Pity: I was looking forward to hearing the mass they were singing as it was a setting I didn't know (Charpentier: Messe de Minuit), but it was the right call.

New Year's Eve was a non-event for us - in fact, I can't remember the last time we went out on NYE, but I wasn't worried. We pottered around and played games together. We've also been teaching our small daughter Canasta, and her card-playing genes are showing pretty well - she's picking it up like a dog does fleas. Or some other slightly nicer simile!

We've also caught up with a lot of good friends and family after Christmas too. And managed to excavate some of the dark sneaky corners in the house that tend to accumulate stuff (I had a massive throwing day in the study yesterday. It felt very satisfying!).

In terms of fun holiday-type stuff, we've done a few bits. There's an exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum at Te Papa at present called Unveiled - of wedding dresses, suprise surprise. We went last week when we had a grotty rainy day. I really enjoyed it, especially looking at some of the older dresses, with the intricate embroidery and incredible lacework. Some of the more modern stuff left me pretty cold, but there was enough wow there for me to be happy. Daughter enjoyed looking at the dresses, and we were looking at what inspired some of the more modern dresses (particularly the celebrity dresses). I was disappointed though that there were no male wedding costumes, especially from the earlier periods when men wore tights and women were scared....

The day before we'd spent at Dowse, one of our favourite rainy-day haunts. Again, this one was a dress exhibition, but of ballet costumes from the Royal NZ Ballet productions of the last few years. Really amazing to get that close to the dresses and see the details of how they're made to be both worn and danced in (we could get closer to this than the V&A exhibition, which was all in glass cases).

And today we went to the zoo. Lots of critters to see, and some great work being done to revamp everything. Lots of zoo babies to eye up too, including some very cute baby meerkats, baboons, and chimpanzees.

Oh, and we bought an exercycle, and we've been beating it up daily. And it's good!

Advent lessons

Just home from the 9 Lessons and Carols service. I sang again this year as a guest (we often have a few extras joining in the choir for special services), and it was really good. My two favourite pieces were both by Jenny McLeod, a New Zealand composer, who wrote Vulcan and Jade, both contemporary explorations of what it means to welcome Jesus into the world. What I liked about both of these pieces was they are both strongly rhythmic, but are also exploring Advent in a New Zealand, Southern Hemisphere context. There was a rich exploration of the themes of light, of brightness and beauty, of the joy that Christ brings, that really seem to resonate with me. Advent for us is the time of light, longest light - the longest day for us is December 22 - summer, brightness, freshness, beauty, the best food of the year with all the summerfruit and berries - it's a time of awakening, and the two McLeod pieces really capture this for me.

I also enjoy singing the much more traditional Quem Vidistis Pastores by Poulenc, and of course the Christmas carols. Hodie went better than expected (it's very high, very fast, and just rocks on at a million miles an hour!), so all in all pretty happy.

It was also really special to share this with small daughter: she has been singing in the childrens' choir this year and was part of the processional and recessional, singing Once in Royal David's City and Hark the Herald Angels Sing - as she's only just learning to read, getting her to sing all of the childrens' choir songs was a bit much but she led the whole choir for the processionals, and sang the carols she knew.

Here we are again

It's Advent again. The days are getting longer. Summer officially starts tomorrow! It's getting noticeably warmer - I've appeared in my favourite 3/4 pants a few times, and sandals are definitely making a comeback. Nights are still cool - there was a serious dew this morning - but the numbers of covers on the bed are reducing gradually.

The colours have changed at church, and now it's purple everywhere. The liturgy has changed too - finally Ordinary Time is over (all 34 weeks of it, most of it after Pentecost!) and we're into the season of being aware. For me, Advent is a "deepening" season: the colours at church deepen from green to purple, the sky deepens from the light blue of spring to the deeper blue of summer, the leaves are beginning to darken up a bit, shadows are darker, light is brighter. Deeper inside too: making space for the one who is to come, at Christmas and to us. There's such a feeling of refreshment when Advent begins: after all those weeks of Ordinary Time it's back to the beginning of the year and the start of everything, and all the prayers change again. It's almost as though one is dowsed in cold water after sitting in the sun for hours - a shock, but a refreshing, welcome one. All things are new!

As is our custom, the Christmas tree went up on Advent Sunday, the Advent wreath came out, and the journeyings of our Nativity figurines began. I've spoken about this before, and we always find it a very special, fun way of thinking about our own journey through Advent. It's also fun finding the "special" decorations: each year we each choose a special decoration from Kircaldie & Stains, and finding them in the box is always fun as we return through Christmasses past. Unfortunately this year, we found one of my "specials" (a gorgeous teal-green bauble with a leaf pattern all over it) had smashed in the Christmas storage box, despite careful packing last year. However, it's the first decoration that has broken in 10 years so we're not doing too badly, and all the really precious (and smashable!) stuff like the Nativity set was fine.

Crossing the threshold of life

I've been meaning to properly blog for a while, but haven't had the mental space to do so. Tonight, I'm at home, small daughter is asleep, and hubby is out helping someone with some computer glitch. I'll have the house to myself for a while, methinks!

Lots of things going on since my last proper post, when NZ had just won the Rugby World Cup final (by the skin of our teeth, but one point is all it really needs, hmmm?). Some things of note: my sister and brother-in-law took hubby and I to the Royal NZ Ballet's Meridian season of The Sleeping Beauty last Saturday night. We had spectacular seats, 3 rows from the front, and it was beautifully done. Freshly choreographed for this performance, with amazing sets, and some quite innovative stuff (like the two courtiers for the King and Queen being played by people pretending to be cats - very very funny). Unfortunately, the ballerina dancing Princess Aurora looked a bit overwhelmed by the role (we had one of the understudies) - however, the Lilac Fairy, the Prince, and Carabosse were all amazing. It was the first time I'd seen a full-length ballet live and I loved every second of it.

I've also been struggling with a nasty nasty cold for over a week: the sort that starts with chills and fever, and sticks you with a grotty congestion for ages.... I gave in to it fairly quickly as I knew I was supposed to be flying to Hamilton on Sunday night for work and didn't want to fly feeling really sick, so ended up spending Thursday and Friday last week in bed (keeping in mind I knew we had tickets to the ballet and wanted to be well enough to go to that too!).

Work in Hamilton was good, and even better that I caught up with a colleague I don't see nearly enough, and an old university friend I see even less - although less than impressed that I couldn't get a flight out on Monday and had to stay over a second night. My last trip to Hamilton was a bit of a disaster so I was pleased that things went better this time. I was delivering a new version of our contractor management course that I rewrote recently, and my colleague was sitting in to see how it went as it's a very different approach from what we've used in the past.

However, what I really want to write about tonight is something that happened at church on Sunday. We were celebrating All Saints' Sunday (although technically All Saints' Day isn't until 1 November, we keep it on the Sunday closest), and I was reading the epistle (from 1 John, one of my favourite letters) and praying in the chapel with anyone who wanted it. One of the older ladies in church, who I only properly met a couple of weeks ago, came in for prayer. She told me about three friends of hers: two who have recently died and another who has been told she has only days to live.

Just before we prayed together, the organ and choir were finishing their motet, and it had this amazing fanfare on the trumpet stops. We waited until it was over as we wouldn't have been able to hear each other anyway, but what was beautiful was how it all seemed to fit together. The lady told me her two friends who had died had both been glad to go and she wasn't sad (even for herself), and she was praying that her dying friend would go with courage. We thought about how the fanfare on the organ was like the fanfare that we'll hear when we finally go to God: such joy and delight that we will stand in God's presence and be embraced fully in God's love, and it suddenly struck me all over again how important this all is. Faith is where the rubber meets the road, when we live and when we die, when we hurt, when we cry, and when we rejoice. Going to church is only the practice (sometimes not very good practice at that!) for what we do every day, and more importantly, for how we handle the good and the bad bits, the living and the dying.

This lady herself is probably in her eighties or nineties and death is very much on her mind as well, but she said to me that she knows that she is walking in God's grace and love. I thank God for her faith, and for the reminder that this was for me: what we do is important, and our love and faith and courage change things, particularly when we have to cross that final threshold of death - the door into richer, fuller, more wonderful love and life with God.