Let's be exuberant

Today, sermon on praise; Psalm 145 to be precise.

We were told a few good things. One that sticks in my mind is that praise is exuberance of delight in God.

So, I reflected on my experience of other church types, bearing in mind our church's disdain for 'performance' or anything like it. Thus we decend to the insulting depths of ill-considered folksiness.

Formal liturgy with everything being done as well as is practical, rehearsed, effort applied, thought through...is a means of exuberant praise.

Preparing for a service without distractions (crying kids, expressive congregations, happiness AOK, of course), acting like adults in the planning and order goes to an exuberant service with the result that all feel good.

And lastly, my eyes wondered to the offensive unadorned back of the upright piano...a slab of small Bosendorfer (such as a model 200, for instance) would be truly exuberant compared to the banal, which is very much unexuberant.