Finding grace

Guest-blogger Phoebe Jevtovic writes for In Otherhood about the process of choosing mealtime graces for the Art Monastery. Phoebe is a soprano specializing in 17th century Italian music. She regularly performs with a variety of groups, including La Monica, Cançonier, Gamelan X and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. She is an artmonk.

I was probably 10 years old when I stopped thinking of myself as a Christian. After that, I adopted many spiritual identities ranging from atheist to agnostic to humanist to pagan to mystic, perhaps in that order. Throughout, I have maintained a friendly musical relationship to religion, especially as a professional singer in church services. My fondest memories of christian devotional music, however, come from my experiences at a girls’ summer camp when all of us would sing graces before each meal. I can still recall the sweetness that our concerted voices and focus brought to me.

As an artmonk, and particularly as the Art Monastery choir director, I felt a call to find us mealtime graces that could be consistent or at least resonant with the gregorian chant compline service that we sing together in the evenings, but also something that we could all sing in “good faith,” without anyone having to do the internal translation that I normally do when I sing overtly Christian text. I relate the stated concepts to ones that I can declare truthfully (eg. thinking gender-inclusive language when the original text is male-centric, replacing references to Jesus with the ideal of compassionate humanity…).

So, my mission was to come up with graces that would require zero mental acrobatics: I began researching Latin texts that might fit the bill and found a fascinating article about the students at Newnham College and the new grace they composed as a replacement for their traditional, explicitly christian one. Maggie Dawn, writing for the Guardian:

Colleges, like the monasteries they evolved from, are communities built on the assumption that people cannot flourish as isolated individuals, but only when they live interdependently. Without traditions and rituals to reinforce a shared sense of purpose and identity, a College becomes nothing more than a dormitory building. Eating together, then, is not just a matter of convenience, but a vital component in building the social cohesion of the group.

Guest-blogger Phoebe Jevtovic writes for In Otherhood about the process of choosing mealtime graces for the Art Monastery. Phoebe is a soprano specializing in 17th century Italian music. She regularly performs with a variety of groups, including La Monica, Cançonier, Gamelan X and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. She is an artmonk.

I was probably 10 years old when I stopped thinking of myself as a Christian. After that, I adopted many spiritual identities ranging from atheist to agnostic to humanist to pagan to mystic, perhaps in that order. Throughout, I have maintained a friendly musical relationship to religion, especially as a professional singer in church services. My fondest memories of christian devotional music, however, come from my experiences at a girls’ summer camp when all of us would sing graces before each meal. I can still recall the sweetness that our concerted voices and focus brought to me.

As an artmonk, and particularly as the Art Monastery choir director, I felt a call to find us mealtime graces that could be consistent or at least resonant with the gregorian chant compline service that we sing together in the evenings, but also something that we could all sing in “good faith,” without anyone having to do the internal translation that I normally do when I sing overtly Christian text. I relate the stated concepts to ones that I can declare truthfully (eg. thinking gender-inclusive language when the original text is male-centric, replacing references to Jesus with the ideal of compassionate humanity…).

So, my mission was to come up with graces that would require zero mental acrobatics: I began researching Latin texts that might fit the bill and found a fascinating article about the students at Newnham College and the new grace they composed as a replacement for their traditional, explicitly christian one. Maggie Dawn, writing for the Guardian:

Colleges, like the monasteries they evolved from, are communities built on the assumption that people cannot flourish as isolated individuals, but only when they live interdependently. Without traditions and rituals to reinforce a shared sense of purpose and identity, a College becomes nothing more than a dormitory building. Eating together, then, is not just a matter of convenience, but a vital component in building the social cohesion of the group.

The same is true of families, schools, churches, army units, all kinds of groups that share a common purpose – belonging to the group depends on more than signing up, it depends on what we actually do and say together to act out our common life.

Finding a form of words for shared ritual in a multi-faith community is tricky – you need something that everyone can say in good conscience, but something which isn’t so bland and vague as to be completely meaningless. The best thing about Newnham’s new grace is that without being specific to one faith tradition, it retains a certain “religious” element in the recognition of a common purpose that looks beyond mere self interest.

Their new grace:

Pro cibo inter esurientes,	For food in a hungry world,
pro comitate inter desolatos,	for companionship in a world of loneliness,
pro pace inter bellantes, gratias agimus	for peace in an age of violence, we give thanks

Dramatic responses to their attempt at making their community grace more inclusive ranged from outrage over a perceived pretension (putting “modern” concepts into classical Latin), to accusations of scrubbing Christ and God from the expression of thanks, rendering it object-less.

I swiped their final phrase, “gratias agimus,” which means, simply, “we give thanks.” We are a rather grateful bunch, so I felt confident that this would fly, and wrote a simple, call and response tune. Since most of us are English-speakers, I also wanted something in our own tongue. I find it meaningful to visualize and thank the plants and animals that were sacrificed or disturbed in order for me to eat. I looked for texts and hymns along those lines, but was unable able to find or write anything as lovely as one of the tunes I remembered from summer camp, so I took it, and a page out of the Newnham student handbook, and rewrote the words. Original:

Lord of Life, the fountainhead,
by thy hand must we be fed.
As we bow in gratitude,
Lord, we thank thee for this food. Amen.

(Does anyone know this hymn? I couldn’t locate the source.)

Since none of the other artmonks knew this grace, I tried a new set of words on them as an experiment:

Sun and sky and stream and field,
we are fed by all you yield.
Now we sing in gratitude,
“Thank you, thank you for this food! Amen.”

Aside from a perhaps-jesting suggestion to replace “Amen, amen” with “So say we all” (a line from Battlestar Galactica), it went over pretty well, but we’ve yet to see if it will take hold as a habitual…well, ritual before meals. I hope it will, because I cherish my camp memories of a peace and beauty that sounded three times a day, like community clockwork.

So say we all.The same is true of families, schools, churches, army units, all kinds of groups that share a common purpose – belonging to the group depends on more than signing up, it depends on what we actually do and say together to act out our common life.

Finding a form of words for shared ritual in a multi-faith community is tricky – you need something that everyone can say in good conscience, but something which isn’t so bland and vague as to be completely meaningless. The best thing about Newnham’s new grace is that without being specific to one faith tradition, it retains a certain “religious” element in the recognition of a common purpose that looks beyond mere self interest.

Their new grace:

Dramatic responses to their attempt at making their community grace more inclusive ranged from outrage over a perceived pretension (putting “modern” concepts into classical Latin), to accusations of scrubbing Christ and God from the expression of thanks, rendering it object-less.

I swiped their final phrase, “gratias agimus,” which means, simply, “we give thanks.” We are a rather grateful bunch, so I felt confident that this would fly, and wrote a simple, call and response tune. Since most of us are English-speakers, I also wanted something in our own tongue. I find it meaningful to visualize and thank the plants and animals that were sacrificed or disturbed in order for me to eat. I looked for texts and hymns along those lines, but was unable able to find or write anything as lovely as one of the tunes I remembered from summer camp, so I took it, and a page out of the Newnham student handbook, and rewrote the words. Original:

Lord of Life, the fountainhead,
by thy hand must we be fed.
As we bow in gratitude,
Lord, we thank thee for this food. Amen.

(Does anyone know this hymn? I couldn’t locate the source.)

Since none of the other artmonks knew this grace, I tried a new set of words on them as an experiment:

Sun and sky and stream and field,
we are fed by all you yield.
Now we sing in gratitude,
“Thank you, thank you for this food! Amen.”

Aside from a perhaps-jesting suggestion to replace “Amen, amen” with “So say we all” (a line from Battlestar Galactica), it went over pretty well, but we’ve yet to see if it will take hold as a habitual…well, ritual before meals. I hope it will, because I cherish my camp memories of a peace and beauty that sounded three times a day, like community clockwork.

So say we all.