Well, I've had enough of just complaining to everyone on the internet about what I see as liturgical abuses in my parish. I've decided to complain to someone who will actually be able to do something about it, and I am now in the throes of composing a letter to the Parish Council and Liturgy Committee at my parish. I don't really feel much like it is my parish anymore, to tell the truth. I do state at the end, at least of the first draft, of the letter that I intend to seek a spiritual home elsewhere. I know I won't find a parish within a 50-mile radius where people don't hold hands at the Lord's Prayer, but I can live with that. What I can't live with is the rock and gospel music, and a pastor who is so focused on building a sense of community that I think he's forgotten about building a sense of the sacred.

So, I'm writing a letter. I'm working now on the second draft. I was upset when I wrote the first draft, so it came out with lots of good ideas but no organizational principle, and it was a little too heated. It's going to be a long letter. The first draft was four pages, and now I'm going to try and put in some quotes to back up my statements.

My mother asked what I would do if they just said, Thanks for the input, Jane, and didn't do anything about it. I told her that I would say, I have been assured that the concerns of every member of this parish would be taken into consideration and addressed. I am a member of this parish, and I expect to have that consideration extended to me. Well, that's the best I can do, I guess. I don't want to threaten them and say, I'll write the bishop! or something like that. Not that I think writing to the bishop would have much effect.