Worship: The Work of the People
I'm still wrapping my head around this, so have mercy on these scattered thoughts.
I used to chasten my noisy children with the specific admonition that they were interrupting "such and such" person's worship next to us. Someone, wiser than I, has been relating to me that the notion of individual worship and prayer inside the Orthodox Church is...well one could say: anathema. The Liturgy is a not really a time for personal prayer. The Orthodox Church building with all its icons and decor, the incense, the chanting, the candles and the lamps, none of these are intended to create an "atmosphere" or to cater to your personal worship needs. They are for the Body.
I sense that this is the newer protestant mindset in many circles, like when we see pomo churches using our Icons: it's all geared toward creating this cool atmosphere that "helps" me worship. Since icons don't "work" for everyone, the following week a new theme will emerge: perhaps a prayer labyrinth or a rock band or an interpretive dance.
So what does Orthodox worship feel like? What does it mean to step away from the worship "mission" most of us grew up with? You know what I mean? We "felt" that worship was truly accomplished when we had some sort of internal reaction to what was going on around us. Does true communal worship feel different? Do we react differently? Do we experience it differently? As we participate in the "Work of the people", do we manifest it in our own hearts and minds in a unique (to us) way?
Worship in evangelical circles can often be graded: was it a good service (i.e. were a lot of people touched? Did it take on a life of its own and go longer than expected?) or mediocre services (i.e. the planned set of music ended and there was no grand emotional experience). You really cannot do that with the Orthodox Liturgy, I mean I suppose you could say that some services (e.g. Pascha, Nativity) are more joyous and festive and do in fact bring out more of an emotional response, but in general you do not see priests scrambling week end and week out to figure out what will "work" this Sunday along with the ever present promise that if it fails, next week will be better...different. (Rather they scramble through a host of books to figure what WILL happen regardless of what one may FEEL will "work".)
The overall implication is that noisy kids are a part of the Work of the People. Their voices, however indirect or inarticulate, speak along with us as one ought to expect from a real and LIVING and thriving community laboring together. A perfectly quiet nave is unnatural. Now please, let us reason together, I'm not advocating letting a screeching child go on screeching throughout the Work of the People. Just a bit more grace for noise perhaps, given that we aren't "working" like we used to: individuals focused on obtaining some ecstatic internal experience.
- Get link
- Other Apps
Comments
You know it's funny, but when you reminded me of eye-closing, the exact same thought occurred to me...what exactly is it we are trying to see without our eyes?
Parents of small children of course can NEVER close their eyes. Funny, if I think back to when I worshiped as a pentecostal I'd often close my eyes and imagine being in God's presence...ala St. John's description in Revelation.
Welcome to the Orthodox Temple.
:)
Imagination can be dangerous...especially if you are me.
Focusing on this difference of REAL personhood vs. individuality and how I/we manifest this in my/our experience of/participation in Orthodox worship is stirring me to consider how I might more fully invest myself.
Pondering goes on....
sf
Some orthodox I know have opted to throw it all out, and start fresh, not trusting that they would have the discernment at such a young 'orthodox' age to know what was fruitful and what was merely comforting. I have to admit, this was also my approach, although I do know other orthodox converts who love their vineyard worship music and are truly edified by it.
I have no answers, only questions...
Well, I'd say that Orthodoxy in North America has suffered from this for quite awhile now. This continent is rather unique - perhaps excluding Alaska - in that it wasn't as much evangelized as it was settled. Part of why we have a jurisdictional problem is that Orthodoxy in America - cradle or otherwise - doesn't itself know what to throw out and what to keep.
Greek celebrating Greek independence day at Church is a prime example. Would we ever think of celebrating July 4th at Church? Perhaps if we were an immigrant community elsewhere I suppose we might...but who knows.
So we converts shouldn't feel too bad about being ignorant about what to cling to and what to let go...the persistant ethnic problem in many Orthodox churches is evidence that we are not alone and neither are we as immature as we might imagine.
That being said, I am adamently opposed to some convert attitudes that insist EVERYTHING we do MUST be different than how evangelicals do it. That's wrong and frankly it is wrong in the historic spirit of Orthodox Mission. We Baptize what is good, we reject what is bad...discerning that is the tough part I suppose.
I'm presently reading a book called "On the Edge of the World" by Nicolai Leskov and it speaks a good deal about Orthodox Mission work in
Eastern Siberia.
With regard to worship, I am still working through how I should participate...or at least how I might participate more fully with a clearer understanding of how the service itself differs from my past experiences and theories of what happens on Sunday mornings.
I can recall sometimes after a rather "dry" evangelical service that someone would console us with the words: "Well, God was worshipped, brother." There is truth to this...perhaps more than we cared to understand.
Aesthetics aside, Americans I know who want Byzantine music in churches say they prefer it because it is more "meditative" or "prayerful." My problem with that is that it takes the liturgy, the work of the people, and turns it into dozens of people praying by themselves while they happen to be in the same room. Unless everyone is actually taking the ten seconds it takes to chant "honorable" in a Byzantine style to reflect on the word "honorable," which I highly doubt, it has become individual worship/prayer.
Again, I'm putting aesthetics aside. If someone wants to say, "Russian chant is annoying. It reminds me of a barbershop quartet on steroids" (I was told this by a Catholic monk who was a music historian at the Vatican)I'm fine with that. But I don't see the fact that Byzantine chant is so slow and sparse as to allow you to do your own thing, which in my understanding is what the 20+ hours a week you aren't in church are for, as a selling point.
"A good post. I agree with what he said. As a priest I would be careful about who I shared that information with however. The reason is that we live in an age in which many parents seem less aware of the disturbance their kids can cause during church services than parents of only a generation or two ago. "Back in the day" parents would tend to be a bit more strict in this regard and would tend to "shush" their kids a bit sooner and teach them to be quiet in church and to be aware of disturbing those around them. A sense of social responsibility was inculcated into the children at an early age. Today's parents seem to be more inclined to let their children "express themselves" perhaps out of a fear of being too mean or that their kids will grow up to hate church.
I am of course speaking in general here as there are many exceptions. And I am not pointing fingers! I am just offering this thought to explain why I have said things very similar to what James writes to non-parents who have been disturbed by the children of others, but have not said the same to many parents who might take it as an endorsement of their "parental style" which in some cases I see as too lax.
Do I sound like a grouchy old coot? Heh-heh..."
Our church is blessed with many many young families, and I think there are well over 40 children aged 10 and under at our parish (when everybody shows up at once), so it is not a quiet service.
In fact, I was remarking to my husband a few weeks ago that what we need is more elderly, grandparent types! We have some. One couple, in particular, (just converted roughly 3 years ago) are just wonderful. They were listening to another older gentleman complain about the whining and crying babies disrupting his worship, to which our friend K. replied "If you find your worship being disrupted by the sounds of children fussing, you must thank the Lord, because it means your parish is alive and has a future" (paraphrased).
I was so encouraged by his words. As a mother of three, church has not always been easy. It is only within the past few years that I have actually been able to remain in the church for the whole liturgy. (my kids are now 10, 12, and 14, but were only 1 and 3 when we became orthodox). Sundays used to be just a lot of work, and we'd often leave immediately after communion to get home in time for naps (theirs and ours!).
So I sympathize greatly with those parents with babies and small children. It's frustrating for them as well, and it doesn't help when others make comments (I heard more than a few in my day).
If I had to err, I'd err on the side of leniency. Just the other day at church, a new couple were hissed at (by a visiting orthodox, we get a lot of those when the Bishop is here), to keep their children quiet as the Bishop was here! Great witness, eh? They left rather promptly after that. I pray they are brave enough to try again.
However, I have seen the opposite extreme where a child is babbling, talking or giggling, on and on, with the parents doing nothing to even attempt a quieting of the child. There has to be a balance as some noise is inevitable. Yet, as a Matushka at the local OCA cathedral once counseled us, "They can learn to be quiet, even at very young ages." I'm finding with J (our nearly 2yo) that she is right. It does mean quite a bit of "in and out" of the nave, but witnessing progress has been assuring. Helping J learn has involved a very simple, gentle conditioning that, "Noise (excessive or constant) means out, but does not equal play time." So I hold her in the "narthex" until she is quiet and wants to get down. I was shocked to see how quiet she was last night through much of Bride Groom. And we're not talking about low-key kids, these are high energy younglings.
Obviously, I'm just starting to find my groove in this. I'm very open to looking at this in other ways.
Rdr. Steven
Kurt's methods with our children were that if they fussed to be taken out, then the experience outside of church had to be more unpleasant than actually just staying in church. So he'd bring them out, and just hold them very very still in the narthax. They really really didn't enjoy this, but he made it clear that their choice was either to be held very still outside of church, or stand on their own quietly in church. It was a long and frustrating process, but it worked eventually.
Who's place is it to comment on the behaviour of other people's children? I'm not sure. The priest? The deacon? Certainly not me.
What I have noticed, at least in my kids, is that age is a HUGE factor in the "being able to sit/stand still" demand. I've watched them enter into the "I can't sit still phase" and then slowly leave it. Frankly, it's a pain in the arse, but I've found duct tape and beatings are frutiless.
I've seen a few kids - at about this age - who COULD stand like a bas-relief. It seemed eerie to me...but perhaps an indication that that child's parents were far better than me (quite likely), or that their kid just had a different dispostion. Maybe a combination of both? But I did notice something odd...that this kid's hands were behind his back and that those hands were twitching WILDLY, as if he had a neurological disorder, which I know the kid did not have...so I'm not sure what to make of that.
Anyway, as active as my boys can be I *THINK* that I am pretty sensistive to knowing when they need to be corrected or escorted out. However, EVERYONE HAS DIFFERENT TOLERANCES WITH CHILDREN.
I know some people are literally uptight being in the same room with kids...oh how they must loathe the festive and chaotic noise of my home! Such folk cannot suffer little more than a single peep out of a child. If THEY know where the "OFF" switch is, I'm happy to receive such advice. Alas, it is akin to receiving advice on shooting from someone who has never owned a gun.
I've never known a parent to be so overly lax that the work of the people is being consitantly and unapolgetically inhibited by an unruly child. I suppose if I did encounter such, then a talking to would be in order...but something better:
Many of us are, have been, or will be flustered parents in a service. For those annoyed by a noisy kid, why not offer to help? Perhaps the parent actually has multiple kids to "deal with" and could use a hand with one? I've seen how someone other than a parent can be a big benefit to calming a child. And believe me...the parent will love you for it.
Also, a word of encouragement can go a million miles. I ALWAYS make it a point to offer some kind words to a parent whose had a rough go of it. We all have bad days...kids have bad days too. Parenting is hard...it takes far more than a firm hand and stern rules.
The last thing we want to do is drop a hammer of condemnation and isolation on our younger families...if they need to be shown a better way, show them a better way. It's far too easy to look at OTHER kids and marvel at how "We would never let our kids do THAT!"
Of course, perhaps I've not recognized any parents who were too lax because I am one of them?
God bless the kindly older man in our Parish who has time and time again offered loving words to me about my children on days when I'd like to have hauled them out to the woodshed after church for a real dose of lax parenting.
sf
sf
"once I learned from the my Mother, the Holy Church, what the Father is really like, it revolutionized my approach to parenting. "
It's the Church, not your parents that is the source of information regarding what the Father is like.
Can I get a wittness?
sf