Yeah blogging had slowed down to a minimum recently (and more so among some of the blog links to the right!)...but it's still something better to do than all this homework.
So I made this observation while reading for a class on Liturgics.
In my limited experience, a highly liturgical worship tradition seems to value smooth-flowing service and "invisible" liturgy, which is said to allow the worshipers to worship without unnecessary distractions. New things can be disruptive unless they are sufficiently taught outside of the liturgy itself. (new things aren't bad, they can just be difficult sometimes) Yes, ritual might signify a mindless repetition of formal actions, but it also points to comfortable and trusted movements which lead to a whole experience. (like, it's easier to really enjoy and get into a dance when you're familiar with the moves and the rhythm and the theme of the song...)
This is kind of silly, but when I read about the role of liturgy in pointing our hearts and minds to God, and I come across a grammar mistake, I can't help but think Grammar is really a kind of Liturgy. Proper punctuation, appropriate spelling and word choices make all the difference in getting the author's point across. Yes, we're all human, but editing oversights really do seem to me to be quite sacrilegious. They're horribly distracting, and they take the focus off of the content of the sentence. Where we're supposed to be following the author's train of thought, instead we're picking apart each misplaced comma. Typos undermine the author's authority like you wouldn't believe--pushing the train right off the rails. You wouldn't trust a dance teacher if they appear to be uncertain about what the next dance move is supposed to be, right?
I know I sound like a hardliner. People make mistakes, and that doesn't mean they should be immediately excommunicated or rejected from the community. (of course not--we forgive, too!)
Maybe my standards are too high?
5 comments:
I never thought about this before; thanks for sharing. I like the parallel with grammar. Anyways, I haven't really been following your blog (so I'm reading out of context), but I was just wondering if you could explain the 2nd last paragraph on making mistakes and being rejected from the community? Are you talking about within a church?
Hi Melissa!
Yup, 2nd last paragraph...I tend to have absolutely no patience for things like grammar mistakes. Especially if I'm doing a lot of reading at a post-grad level-- it just doesn't make sense that people writing at this level have forgotten to use spell check or to make sure they're using the right 'there' in their work. (heh)
So I am taking a stab at my own lack of patience (I also get pretty peeved if I see someone littering, for example... no patience!)... The analogy works between liturgy and grammar as vehicles for the content--the worship service, the author's thoughts--but I don't think that disregard for proper liturgy would lead to excommunication. So I suppose the analogy fails there.
But! In a tradition where the function of the liturgy is seen in this way, a blatant or ignorant disregard for the beauty and necessity of that liturgy would be really detrimental to the congregation's worship experience, just as a blatant or ignorant disregard for the beauty and necessity of proper grammar makes for a really horrible read. I suppose we forgive, but we'd also like to educate, so that neither is overlooked so much in the future...
ps post grad? graduate school? haha. I don't even know what level of education I'm in. That's not good.
I have the same problem with footnotes, too. Can't read a Bible that has too many little letters and numbers next to every other word.
Ahh, it all makes sense now. I really like the analogy. Oh man, that's crazy that you are still encountering grammatical errors at a graduate level :|
It is much more difficult to focus on the content when it doesn't flow properly. Who/Whom - I can understand when that happens, but there/their/they're??!
Frustrating.
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