Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Recite Impaired

So I'm listening to these tapes, by the Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, on how to chant the Psalter. They're great. You need not have any musical training whatsoever to get going. She starts you out simply singing the Psalms in a soft monotone, until you're comfortable with that, and then adding one note, and then trying other notes. I can do this. (Even though it makes the other two members of my family look at me funny.) And the act of practicing these simple exercises has helped me remember other tones I have heard back in the days when I belonged to a congregation that chanted the Psalms.

But here's what I've found interesting: For the past couple of days, I've had these simple melodies running through my head, longing for Psalms...but I'm in my car, or in some other place where I have no access to a psalter. And it's made me a little sad that I don't have more Scripture memorized. The same thing happens if I try to pray the Noonday Prayer or Compline in a place where I have no access to a prayer book; I can remember most of it, but not all of it, and it frustrates me; you'd think it would be imprinted in my brain by now, but it isn't.

Memorization is something of a dirty word in pedagogical circles these days. This wasn't always the case. My parents grew up at a time when recitation of memorized material was expected. One of my uncles memorized William Cullen Bryant's Thanatopsis in its entirety when he was in school. My dad had to memorize the responses in Luther's Small Catechism in German and in English.

Sometimes I think we lose individually and collectively in not having more touchstones of our faith and culture within easy access of our memories. Contrast our contemporary disdain for rote memorization with cultures proud of their oral tradition, where professional poets and storytellers can recite the great epics of their people verbatim, sometimes for hours or even days.

Imagine being in, say, a prison, or displaced, or traveling, without a Bible or hymnal or prayer book; how hard would it be to keep our connection to The Story, and to one another as the community of faith, without these things?

Psalm 119 puts it this way:

With my whole heart I seek you;
do not let me stray from your commandments.
I treasure your word in my heart,
so that I may not sin against you.
Blessed are you O Lord;
teach me your statutes.
With my lips I declare
all the ordinances of your mouth.
I delight in the way of your decrees
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts,
and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.

9 comments:

oldhall said...

Frankly, I'm happy if I can just get the MONOTONE right, forget adding OTHER notes... ha!

Cathy said...

ok, are you trying to entice me to purchase this? I am trying to be good and hold off on it!

Tempt me tempt me!

Thanks for sharing.

In terms of memorizing Scripture and the Prayer book - some of the BCP rolles off my tongue. Compline is getting there for me. Psalms aren't there yet. And...funny... prayers from the 1928 prayer book still are in my brain, even though I am fine with the new one.
Cathy

LutheranChik said...

Cathy: I still have much of the sung liturgy from the old 1940's-era Lutheran Hymnal, which I grew up with in the 60's and 70's, floating around in my head. In fact, several years ago during a Christianity lapse [rueful smile], these bits of liturgy would suddenly break into my consciousness at odd times, much to my dismay. Funny how that works. Anyhow, yes, it's a good series, but good luck finding a copy. (E-mail me if you need help.)

Oldhall: I did the monotone the other day and I think my mother thought I'd finally gone 'round the bend. (She has her suspicions.) And my dog, who favors pop classics of the Big Band era (really, he does) gave me a bemused ear-sproing. Everyone's a critic.

Anonymous said...

Long, long ago, (about 55 years, if I'm honest!)I went to an Anglo-Catholic church. No-one then used anything but the 1662 prayer book, and we chanted (or intoned) everything. I can still sing the Nunc Dimittis and the Te Deum, but ONLY if I 'sing' them. I couldn't say them in a normal speaking voice!

I do think learning things to music, of any sort, helps the memory.

will smama said...

This past summer I did a series of sermons on Bible Basics. Every week had a memory verse challenge, 11 in all. I announced that if anyone had even 5 down to come to me and I would take them out to lunch.

My husband is the only one who did it.

Kathryn said...

When I was at university, I really envied all those guys who had gone through the Cathedral choir school system, and knew all the psalms (and the correct Anglican chant) AND which belonged to which day of the month. I memorise quite easily when I'm not trying too hard, so do have huge chunks of Scripture floating about in here somewhere, though i'd be hard put to it to give much of it its correct address...but your post put me in mind of Terry Waite, a former special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was held hostage in Beirut for some years. He said that the way he survived was reciting his way through the Book of Common Prayer Psalter, and assorted other passages of Scripture and Liturgy..so your surmise was correct. It really does help.
The first thing I can ever remember having to learn by heart at school was part of Ps 107..they that go down to the sea in ships...I cannot go near the sea on a windy day without it coming instantly to mind, and it always reminds me of my father, a naval officer, who loved the sea so very much.

LutheranChik said...

Tonight I was chanting a little, and my mom said, "Do you really have to know how to do that? What use is it?" LOL You have to know my relationship with my mother...just when I think we're on the verge of a meeting of minds, she delivers one of these "encouraging words.:-/ I wanted to reply, "It's cheaper than psychotherapy, and this way I won't have to talk about my parents."

LutheranChik said...

BTW, welcome, Oldhall.

Dwight P. said...

Poetry and song are the two best ways of preserving material in one's own and common memory. The Icelandic sagas were recited at their enormous length -- and that recitation was from memory, memory enhanced by the metre and rhyme structure. (Icelanders still value poetry -- very complicated poetry with internal rhyme and the whole schmear.) The great Homeric epics were sung and therein lay the secret to their preservation. (I still, however, cannot begin to imagine the ability to memorize like that. Give me my Palm, my notebook computer, my looseleaf binder, my memo pad, my ... .)I have to sing the Sanctus in order to remember the Latin. I can't recite it otherwise.

Thanks for reflecting on this important and fascinating issue in the life of faith.

Dwight P.