We make fun of Episcopalians for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for cheese straws and ham biscuits. But nobody sings like them.
If you were to ask an audience in Des Moines, a relatively Episcopalianless place, to sing along on the chorus of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”, they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Episcopalians, they’d smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! ...And down the road!
Many Episcopalians are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony, a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person’s rib cage. It’s natural for Episcopalians to sing in harmony. We are too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison.
When you are singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it’s an emotionally fulfilling moment. By joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.
I do believe this, people: Episcopalians, who love to sing in four part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you’re in deep distress. If you are dying, they will comfort you. If you are lonely, they’ll talk to you. And if you are hungry, they’ll give you chicken salad!
Episcopalians believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.
Episcopalians like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.
Episcopalians believe their rectors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don’t notify them that they are there.
-Lynn Gardner,
Organist/Choirmaster