Happy New Year, Happy Christmas, or simply Hello. These are all ways in which we might greet each other at this time of year. Whilst we are all familiar with January being a time of fresh beginnings and new resolutions, what you might say all depends on the type of calendar you are following: the Gregorian, Julian, Islamic, Jewish or Chinese.
The truth is that the way we measure time can sometimes be a peculiar thing. Depending on what we are doing and how happy we are, life can either go quickly or drag along slowly. As Shakespeare observed:
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
I’ll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal,
who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.
As You Like It, Act III, Scene 2
For most of us it will be the month of January when we look at ourselves and decide if the way time travels for us is at the right pace and heading in the right direction. We tend go about this by deciding what we are going ‘to do’ about it. Is this the year we are going to lose a bit of weight or find a new job? January is aptly named for this as it is derived from the pagan god Janus who had two heads, one for looking back and one for looking forwards. The start of a new year provides us with the energy to try and do new things.
Yet within the Christian calendar, another way to look at this time of year can be found. One thing I like about the Church calendar is that the 40 days after Christmas follow along the first 40 days in the life of Jesus until his Presentation at the Temple on 2nd February. This was a time when Jesus, as a vulnerable small baby, was not about to do anything. All he could do was ‘be’ in the loving arms of Mary and Joseph.
Imitating the example of Jesus we could approach this time of year not by worrying about what we are going to ‘do’ to make our lives better. Instead we can practice ‘being’, just like a small baby. We can do this by trying to live in the present moment, to be fully attentive to those around us, to slow down, and to live the next 40 days, one by one. In so doing, we can give space in our lives to discover or re-discover that which is most important. In the words of the 14th century German mystic, Meister Eckhart ‘The most important hour is always the present. The most significant person is the one sitting across from you right now. The most necessary work is always love’.
Whatever this time of year means to you, I wish you well in your endeavours.
Tim
The Revd Tim Vickers
Assistant Curate – St Mary’s Church, Redbourn
neglected this part of the service and new settings did not appear until the last century. On this occasion we will sing the Preces and Responses of Humphrey Clucas, who was a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, and wrote these for King’s either while he was there or shortly afterwards. He uses single note recitation along with rich harmonic passages in up to six parts. He must surely have had the acoustic of that wonderful building in mind.
Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) is best known as the composer of ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘I was glad’. It’s less well known that he was the composer of some great hymn tunes including ‘O praise ye the Lord’ and ‘Dear Lord and Father’. But his output was larger than this and included much instrumental and orchestral music. Although he never held a church music post, he was writing chants and hymn tunes from a very early age. While at school near Winchester, he got to know SS Wesley, and later at Eton he wrote services and anthems. At the age of 18 he was awarded BMus from the University of Oxford for his oratorio ‘O Lord thou hast cast us out’ and promptly went up to Exeter College to read law and modern history. During this time (c1868), he managed to write, or at least get published what he had written earlier, a complete set of morning and evening canticles in D. We’ll sing the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis of this set in which the music follows the style of Wesley with considerable independent interest in the organ part. Parry began his adult life as a Lloyd’s underwriter, but continued to follow his musical instincts until he felt able to support himself exclusively from composition. It was the continuing commissions from choral societies which enabled this change. He taught at the Royal College of Music and was Professor of Music at Oxford University.
John Stainer (1840-1901), the composer of our harvest anthem, ‘Ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers’. The words of this anthem come mostly from Ezekiel chapter 36, but the piece ends with a setting of the last verse of the Chatterton Dix’s hymn ‘To thee, O Lord, our hearts we raise’ (524 in HON). This anthem, which dates from about 1880, appears to have been in the repertoire at Redbourn for some years: the copy I’m looking at cost 3d and is well used. The piece offers solo opportunities for bass in the Ezekiel section and soprano in the hymn, with largely chordal comments from the choir enlivened by enough, but not too much, spicy harmony.
St Mary's Church, Redbourn 