I really enjoyed what this piece reveals about what I suppose I'd characterize as 'the leisure imperative' - the deep breath of vulnerability that opens up in the absence of an instrumental aim. What I think brunch manages to do is to elevate the experience dimension of a meal in a manner that begs to be savored, in a way that even the finest dinner tends to be ultimately (as you put it) consumptive in its default mode.
Separately, I'm interested - in this and in Tara's several essays/explorations - in how differently the reactions/orientations y'all seem to have re: what I'll broadly call the NYC 'status-seeking' game play out, relative to my own. It is cool to see both of y'all explicate the nuances of how you navigate and react to those realities. Before I knew you and a few years after I had met Tara, I had attributed lots of these distinctions to her being a native New Yorker. But you're not, and yet I think y'all are generally valent in how you perceive, internalize, react to, navigate, and ultimately adjudge those kinds of implicit positioning exercises.
Perhaps a conversation for the next time I see y'all :)
"I worry about my own excitement when the music at a particular service happens to be something I particularly like."
Is this because it distracts you from what you are "supposed" to be paying attention to? If attending church is meant to be, above-all-else, attending to God, wouldn't you be better served attending him at home, free of distraction, just as we would be better served eating breakfast at home?
"...we’d be better off consuming alone and dispensing with the social bit, just like those Anglo-Catholic priests at high mass."
I challenge the notion that priests are dispensing with the social bit. I think it is the opposite, in fact. They are orchestrating the brunch; They provide ritual for their congregation. Their purpose is not to connect individuals with God, but rather to provide structure for a group of individuals to connect with God together.
Thanks for these thoughts, Marshal! You're our first commenter.
On the first worry: no. Music connects us with worship in just the way you describe. My worry is that, if I see ahead of time that the music is something I want, then I ready myself not to worship but to go to a concert of sacred music. It's in that readiness or orientation, before the fact, that anything worrisome rests. As a performer of sacred music myself, I find it essential to worship.
On the second worry: I'm not so sure on this one. But my (admittedly Protestant) concern is purely about the idea of a sort of mass where the priest is performing and we are spectating. Obviously there are some liturgical actions that the priest performs that we have a different relation to, but the Eucharist itself brings us all to one table, uniting us with one another and with all faithful believers in the world. A mass where only the priest communicates diminishes this act of fellowship, to my mind. That's the "social bit" I had in mind.
I agree with you entirely about what the priest is doing ultimately - worship is what *we* do, not what the priest somehow makes us do. But the priest is also not the host at this particular table. It's interesting to compare that thought to my claim that a brunch is best when there isn't an explicit center of attention.
I really enjoyed what this piece reveals about what I suppose I'd characterize as 'the leisure imperative' - the deep breath of vulnerability that opens up in the absence of an instrumental aim. What I think brunch manages to do is to elevate the experience dimension of a meal in a manner that begs to be savored, in a way that even the finest dinner tends to be ultimately (as you put it) consumptive in its default mode.
Separately, I'm interested - in this and in Tara's several essays/explorations - in how differently the reactions/orientations y'all seem to have re: what I'll broadly call the NYC 'status-seeking' game play out, relative to my own. It is cool to see both of y'all explicate the nuances of how you navigate and react to those realities. Before I knew you and a few years after I had met Tara, I had attributed lots of these distinctions to her being a native New Yorker. But you're not, and yet I think y'all are generally valent in how you perceive, internalize, react to, navigate, and ultimately adjudge those kinds of implicit positioning exercises.
Perhaps a conversation for the next time I see y'all :)
"I worry about my own excitement when the music at a particular service happens to be something I particularly like."
Is this because it distracts you from what you are "supposed" to be paying attention to? If attending church is meant to be, above-all-else, attending to God, wouldn't you be better served attending him at home, free of distraction, just as we would be better served eating breakfast at home?
"...we’d be better off consuming alone and dispensing with the social bit, just like those Anglo-Catholic priests at high mass."
I challenge the notion that priests are dispensing with the social bit. I think it is the opposite, in fact. They are orchestrating the brunch; They provide ritual for their congregation. Their purpose is not to connect individuals with God, but rather to provide structure for a group of individuals to connect with God together.
Thanks for these thoughts, Marshal! You're our first commenter.
On the first worry: no. Music connects us with worship in just the way you describe. My worry is that, if I see ahead of time that the music is something I want, then I ready myself not to worship but to go to a concert of sacred music. It's in that readiness or orientation, before the fact, that anything worrisome rests. As a performer of sacred music myself, I find it essential to worship.
On the second worry: I'm not so sure on this one. But my (admittedly Protestant) concern is purely about the idea of a sort of mass where the priest is performing and we are spectating. Obviously there are some liturgical actions that the priest performs that we have a different relation to, but the Eucharist itself brings us all to one table, uniting us with one another and with all faithful believers in the world. A mass where only the priest communicates diminishes this act of fellowship, to my mind. That's the "social bit" I had in mind.
I agree with you entirely about what the priest is doing ultimately - worship is what *we* do, not what the priest somehow makes us do. But the priest is also not the host at this particular table. It's interesting to compare that thought to my claim that a brunch is best when there isn't an explicit center of attention.