Jun 13 | A light in a hall (Letters from the Coast)

This is my first series of posts on my ordination journey. It is likely not the only time I will write on my story of faith or the journey I made toward becoming a priest. These were preliminary thoughts.

 

PART I: FOR THE MUSIC

My hands wound themselves together into a wild bird’s nest of uncertainty.

Dean Peter Elliott, my priest, waited patiently.

Finally I said, with a giggle, “You can tear up that paper I gave you last time. The one with the five year plan on it?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure what to do now.”

 

Somewhere in the forests of trinkets from my childhood is a photocopied and stapled sheaf of papers. This is the “yearbook” that my sixth grade teacher put together for our class. Neat rows of black and white photographs line the pages, with short blurbs beside them.

My picture is…not great. I had protested that I hated photos of myself, and when I was asked why I said, “I smile weird.” Whoever took the photo then said, “What do you mean? What does it look like?” I widened my eyes and twisted my lips into a clownish close-lipped smile…and heard a sneaky click.

The blurb next to the photo says I want to be a poet.

Fast forward twenty years and you’ll find another photo on my Facebook page.

In this one, you can’t see my face. The white sleeve of an alb is in the way. Archbishop Melissa Skelton, the first female bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster, has her hands on my head.

Behind me is a sea of clergy in white, with their hands on my shoulders or on the shoulders of the people in front of them.

Whatever strange molecules work the magic of ordination must travel like electricity.

There had never been any indication that my life would turn out this way.

 

My earliest memories are mostly related to church and music.

Whenever someone asked Mum about her faith, she would mutter, “Oh, I just go to church for the music.” And through the ‘80s and ‘90s that was mostly true, although as I began to learn more about my family history I started to question those long-ago denials. Great-grandpa was a missionary and abolitionist. My grandfather was a church organist for ten years. The importance of faith ran deep in my family. Mum’s demurrals ring hollow even now – she could have signed up to sing with a secular choir like Phoenix or Electra. But no, it was always choirs that focused on sacred music, because that’s what she loved. It’s what spoke to her.

I would watch Mum sit back in her chair as she listened to Chanticleer or The Tallis Scholars and close her eyes, letting it wash over her. I remember thinking, “This must be very profound.” And so I too would listen, absorbing Renaissance polyphony and simple plainsong and the intricate Celtic knotwork of English choral Matins and Evensong tones. Mum would take me to rehearsals for different groups with a bag of toys and books and leave me in a corner to myself. I crafted complicated narratives with plastic ponies and dinosaurs, all the while subconsciously breathing in the glory of Palestrina, Byrd, Vaughn Williams, Bach, Handel, Gabrieli, Willan. At that time, Christ Church Cathedral had no children’s programing, and so there was nothing holding me back from soaking up the sacred fumes all around me.

When we moved to Ottawa when I was eight, we joined St. Matthew’s Church in the Glebe, which had a brand new Women and Girls’ choir. The Men and Boys’ choir was a long-established tradition here where Anglicanism was more entrenched than on the secular west coast. This was a place where, when I told church people my godfather was Patrick Wedd, they would gasp in admiration.

I entered into a strange new world of blue and purple robes, white neck ruffles and surplices, and silver “Head Chorister” pendants; a world of Responses and Psalm pointing; a world of passing notes and braiding the long multi-coloured streamers attached to hymnal bookmarks during the sermon; a world of my mum cranking the volume on Handel’s Messiah in the car so we could sing along as we drove to Montreal most weekends, where Mum would sing in my Uncle Paddy’s choir, Musica Orbium Acceuil.

When we weren’t at St. Matthew’s or in Montreal, my mum brought me to St. Barnabas, an in-the-rafters high Anglo-Catholic church. In my memory the smell of incense is perpetual and the lights are always low. They did not have a children’s choir, and so there I was allowed to let the music cover me like a blanket.

Music was an easy conduit to the divine. There was never a struggle in my search for profundity. It was easily accessible.

Jesus was friendly, and God was vast. And that seemed okay.

2 comments so far to “A light in a hall (Letters from the Coast)”

  1. Lilian says:

    Claire, this was so beautiful to read & envision. Now I know you & your wonderful gift more.

    • clarity says:

      Thank you so much, Lilian, this is so very kind. <3 It was so neat to see you had read it, I feel very honoured!

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