Angelic Lent Group far from silent
Posted Tuesday 23 March 2010 ~ 10:15pm
Angel with innumerable meanings
Our Lent Group this year is considering the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book, Our Sound is Our Wound by Lucy Winkett. Tonight the chapter was about angels. Most people in our group - about 20 in all - have found the book unusual, a bit ‘bitty’ and often seems like a collection of ideas thrown together. There are some wonderful paragraphs (like the one in the first chapter when she describes 40 voices singing Spem in Alium : “.. not all play the same instruments or sing the same song. There will be times when we are asked to rest, to be silent, to allow another voice to be heard. But if we don’t sing or play the part we have uniquely been given, someone else will miss their cue”) but it is not a well structured book and sometimes fairly ploddy.
Lucy Winkett quotes from a large number of sources, but you are not always sure how the author feels as she jumps from one topic to the next and some people said it was difficult to connect with the ideas if you did not have a good grounding in music. Having said that, the book is not all about music - sounds in the city, birdsong, silence all feature. Some of us said we were not too sure what this book had to do with Lent.
We have been fairly critical and would love to hear feedback from any other individuals or groups who have discussed this book.
However, we have enjoyed it - our group and the book. It has sparked ideas and we have all had something to say about our own journey, how things are in Holy Trinity - or other churches in our experience- and what bearing the topics have on our lives. It has been a journey. We have all had lots to say - and to listen to!
Tonight we talked about angels. Some thought they were a complete working of the imagination. Someone said they knew someone who claimed to see an angel. Some guessed that considering angels was a way to recognise (maybe even hear - as voices offstage) that there can be inexplicable beauty, terror and movement outside the ordinary, in our lives.
Maurice
Categories: Groups, Book Group