I have been accused of being pessimistic. (I know, I know; where's that coming from?) And there is a class of people out there which will tolerate bad news only as prelude to a glib, uncomplicated solution. I myself have occasionally even been called a curmudgeon!

It's rare, but whenever it happens it hurts me deeply.

I blame television for this. I sometimes think that TV is not so bad for its gratuitous sex and violence—which by its very nature is compelled to shock us to continue achieving its end. With that shock might come recognition and repugnance. But where the idiot box really destroys the soul is in its facile description of a problem and its brainless promise of a solution.

Anyway, I recently chatted with someone who wondered what would have to take place before liturgical reform could take place. I told him I thought maybe a Vesuvian pyroclastic flow might do the trick. Obviously I'm way too much of a Pollyanna to qualify as a curmudgeon. Any qualified volcanologist will tell you there aren't enough volcanos in the world.

But I do think some preliminary tremors, some wisps of white smoke, might come as signs of hope.

When we begin to take note of our heritage and when we recognize our obligation to that heritage, perhaps then something useful can happen.

There is this old, creaky article on the web by Calvin Stapert which might help. This was posted over eight years ago, but most of you know by now that if you want some swank, cobbled nonsense, you need to click on Christianity Today dotcom. I think this remembrance of JSB's thought might help you sort through our mess.

And I will remind you of some truths voiced on these premises. A solution might emerge, d.v., when:

     a) we dedicate ourselves to art
     b) we elevate our theological knowledge, and
     c) we perceive that we are rooted in a tradition

We can repeat the twaddle about being relevant, but we know after 60 years of pursuing relevance that we haven't got the stamina. Relevance means nothing without a context in our tradition. Any change worthy of our attention will necessarily be a synthesis of what is fresh with what is permanent.

P.S. And lest bmp (or any of our readers) misapprehend the meaning of this poem, I can tell you it was written by George Herbert. George's mother was a patron of John Donne. This graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and beloved rector at Bemerton also said, as Stapert reminds us: "With my utmost art I praise thee". The thee spoken of in that sentence is presumably the same one with whom Ron Hamilton and Clif Boyce claim some acquaintance.

Go figure.