Simon Says ...

We are celebrating the return of our newly restored pipe organ on Sunday. Two prayers I have written for the event: Christ our King, angels and mortals sing thy praise and trumpet thy victory, we give thee thanks for thy gift of music, for its power to move our spirits and to raise our hearts, for its accompaniment to joy and to lament, and for its witness to thy creativity and life. May we who worship thee here in this place, join our praise with the whole company of heaven and renew our longing for the coming of thy kingdom. We ask this in thy name alone. Amen. O God, whose praise our lips have sung, hear now our prayers: may the melodies we have sung draw us to the message of your Word; may the harmonies we have fashioned deepen our common life in this community, may the rhythm of our praise guide our lives in your service; we ask this through him to whose glory the music of the spheres is played, even Jesus Christ, our Lord and King. Amen.

I collect versions of Leonard Cohen 's song ' Halleluia '. Cohen's own version is superb, and there is a fantastic cover of it by Jeff Buckley on his album 'Grace'. I also find Bono's cover of it has really grasped the song. Needless to say the X-Factor cover of it last Christmas was a self-promoting travesty. And, sadly, the version that is on the soundtrack of Shrek is too relentlessly upbeat, and so fails to do it justice. But tonight I discovered a choral arrangement of the song, first used at St Paul's Cathedral, which is truly excellent. I confess to being a bit nervous when I saw it on the programme, but it really was good. A new version for the collection, and a bit of help with tomorrow's sermon!

Piano art has come to Bristol. All over the city there are pianos simply left and waiting to be used. I've come across two in the past couple of days, and both have been played constantly (and very well). An improvised concert across the city! The artist behind this, Luke Jerram , is based in Bristol, but has only put pianos around Bristol after he's done this in Brazil, Thailand and all over the world. Art for the people! Now to upload my photos onto the website ...

Today saw the first pieces of the organ start to be removed. It's quite a piece of work! It's also aroused quite a bit of local interest with the radio, television and newspaper all wanting a piece about it. There are about 4500 pipes in our organ. Each has to be removed, restored and replaced. It should take about 18 months, and costs a small fortune .

For a short time we have two organs in church (our pipe organ is being removed on Monday so it can be restored). So this evening an assembled choir sang Widor 's Mass for choir and two organs as part of a eucharist. What particularly struck me was the role of the great organ. The little organ accompanied the choir and the great organ played parts that threatened to drown out the human voice. It was a reminder to me of the majesty of God, who is beyond all human conception and containment. It was beautiful, and a real privilege to be involved.