A Thought for Today…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

Psalm 46

For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth.A song.

1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come and see what the LORD has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields[d] with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”

11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

The double bass…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

is an unwieldy instrument, not so much heavy as big and definitely more fragile than it looks. Difficult to transport and subject, like any hollow bodied instrument, to the whims of humidity, weather, and care, it is, in some ways a relic of a world before electricity.

And I understand why players let it go when the Precisions, Jazzes, and Longhorns and such, light weight, easy to carry and unlimited in amplification, came along. Surely the double bass looked old, worn out, and boring compared to its faster, sexier, progeny. As long as the juice was flowing the sky was the limit.

Still, upstairs in the music room is a double bass, shiny, clean, always in its stand and ready to go. Every other instrument I own f to is its back up. Every gig I play they all stay home and “Number 4” as I like to call it, is in the car headed for another adventure.

Some of it is the nostalgia. It’s good to have something made by hand of wood and steel requiring only imagination and a steady hand to bring it to life. When you bring it in from the cold it needs to warm up. It flexes, it moves, its organic and earthy. The sounds it produces are the ones built into its structure awaiting only a touch to be set free. It is in its own way a time machine calling people back to a special kind of beauty and simplicity, songs on the porch with friends in a long ago time before IPods. And yes, you can still make music when the lights go out.

Some of it is personal. More than most other instruments the double bass is an equal partner with you. The instrument and its player move together as a team. It’s not something you put on your body but rather something that stands with you, next to you, a companion on the musical journey. If you think you are its master you are already lost. If you treat it like a friend you will discover its magic.

And that magic, that sound is irreplaceable. Over and over again in the reviews I read about how this bass or that set of strings has the “acoustic” sound of a double bass. They do not, because they do not have the size or dimension or organics to make that happen. No electric bass can summon from within itself the tone and note of an instrument that uses vibration, air, and wood, to conjure sound. There is no mystical emptiness inside a solid body instrument where the alchemy of music can be produced in the same way. On my electric basses the gear is used to make the bass sound like something else. On my double bass the gear is used to help project and sustain its own sound.

Of course, its kind of cool as well. People’s eyes move to the double bass and little children like to touch it. A band with a double bass has a kind of authenticity that comes with the presence. When you play it the people listening know that its you, every resonating note and every mistake as well. It’s big enough for some people to hide behind but you never can, and when you play it well you and the bass have your own quiet way of being a star.

Looking back I wish I would have had the chance to start earlier, practice longer, and have the benefits that come with years of encountering an instrument. It was not to be. Perhaps when the time is right the instrument arrives as well. Looking forward I wonder if there may be a day when age and health make it impossible to stand next to my bass. One never knows. All I have are these great moments with my friends, playing music, smelling coffee, and dropping out of the real world for a while on stage. Me and “Number 4”, my partner in crime and a big wooden box filled with soul.

The snow is slowly…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

receding back into the ground as dull gray green grass takes its place. The trees are quiet with the sleep before morning their branches warmed by a higher sun.

Of course it won’t all come at once. There are fits and starts, days of light and hours of rain or snow and the cold that seems to always stay close to these parts. Yet they are here, the sure signs of another winter passed and the days to come when open windows fill a home with lively air.

As the years accrue winter loses its charms. Those things that were inviting to us in days gone by get colder and more formidable with every candle on the cake. We endure because we, for whatever reason, are here but our thoughts jump beyond the winter to some more hospitable place and then one day we realize we’ve basically spent more months than we imagined without ever leaving a building. We’ve become prisoners of our warm spaces, captives of the winds that stream down from Alberta.

Somewhere along the line the first cracks appear in that ice, the first signs of something more like life. The world seems to change. We seem to change. We stretch. We yawn. The scales fall off our eyes. We thaw as the world thaws. We emerge like the first blades of green grass or the daring tulip next to the house. It is spring and we join the rest of the world in taking a few tentative steps outside.

Bearing a cross…

~ Fr. John Chagnon ~ Leave a comment

isn’t an unusual thing at all, we do it every day. We all have put in extra time and effort, endured hardship, and worked above and beyond the call for all sorts of things, sports teams, careers, possessions, and we often do it without thinking.  Its doing this for holy things, though, that somehow makes us squeamish.

I couldn't resist…

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A man goes into the confessional box after years of being away from the Church.  

There’s a fully equipped bar with beer on tap. On the other wall is a dazzling array of the finest cigars and chocolates.

Then the priest comes in. “Father, forgive me, for it’s been a  very long time since I’ve been to confession, but I must first admit that the confessional box is much more inviting than it used to be.”

The priest replies: “Get out. You’re on my side.”

_____

Thank you, Jane…

St. Innocent of Alaska…

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I’ve been reading Paul D. Garrett’s “St. Innocent, Apostle to America” from St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press and as I’ve passed the half way mark one of the things that has impressed me the most has been the Saint’s workload as he served the people of Unalaska and Alaska as Priest. Dozens of Chrismations a day, same for baptisms and weddings. Long journeys by kayak over the open ocean to remote settlements. Translation work when there was free time plus the care of his family. As I read along it seems that consecrating him Bishop in Sitka actually lessened his work load in some ways if one can ponder that idea.Compared to this my five years of weekend trips to LaCrosse in a heated and air conditioned car seems like a kind of sloth.

Another thing I’ve been coming to understand in a greater way is that the stories of Saints can be true. There is a kind of scepticism, even in the Church, even in me,  about the stories of Saints, especially from the remote past. Yes, the legendary can be mixed in with the factual but one of the great gifts of more recent Saints is that there are written records, often photographs, which verify the accounts of holy people in a way that meets the criteria of our understanding. God has no obligation to do this, of course, but its a kind of mercy to our weakness and lack of faith to see what we would consider to be “real” evidence of holiness even though the blessing belongs to those who have not seen and still believe.

Over the years something has changed with me. In seminary we read and examined the works of scholars but as I get older I prefer to read the stories of Saints. It’s not that there is no place for scholarship but rather the realization that my graduate work fitted me academically, perhaps, for ministry but did little to shape me as a person (besides making me tired). There are the credentials of a pastor and the character of a pastor and it seems to me that both have to be in place. What would having all the degrees matter if I am not, at least, somewhat like Christ? The devil is capable of exegeting Scripture and quoting the sources at a level well beyond mine. The stories of Saints, however,  help me discover not just what to believe and defend but how to be.

That being said I have a tremendously long way to go, a far journey ahead to be anything like Saint Innocent let alone Christ. Part of me is discouraged when I read his story. I feel like someone plunking out a few tunes on the piano while watching a concert master. Yet part of me is hopeful as well. Growth, sanctity, and grace are possible and we have the photos, papers, records, and eyewitnesses to prove it.