Guest-blogger Phoebe Jevtovic writes for In Otherhood about the process of choosing mealtime graces for the Art Monastery. Phoebe is a soprano specializing in 17th century Italian music. She regularly performs with a variety of groups, including La Monica, Cançonier, Gamelan X and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. She is an artmonk.
I was probably 10 years old when I stopped thinking of myself as a Christian. After that, I adopted many spiritual identities ranging from atheist to agnostic to humanist to pagan to mystic, perhaps in that order. Throughout, I have maintained a friendly musical relationship to religion, especially as a professional singer in church services. My fondest memories of christian devotional music, however, come from my experiences at a girls’ summer camp when all of us would sing graces before each meal. I can still recall the sweetness that our concerted voices and focus brought to me.
As an artmonk, and particularly as the Art Monastery choir director, I felt a call to find us mealtime graces that could be consistent or at least resonant with the gregorian chant compline service that we sing together in the evenings, but also something that we could all sing in “good faith,” without anyone having to do the internal translation that I normally do when I sing overtly Christian text. I relate the stated concepts to ones that I can declare truthfully (eg. thinking gender-inclusive language when the original text is male-centric, replacing references to Jesus with the ideal of compassionate humanity…).
So, my mission was to come up with graces that would require zero mental acrobatics: I began researching Latin texts that might fit the bill and found a fascinating article about the students at Newnham College and the new grace they composed as a replacement for their traditional, explicitly christian one. Maggie Dawn, writing for the Guardian:
Colleges, like the monasteries they evolved from, are communities built on the assumption that people cannot flourish as isolated individuals, but only when they live interdependently. Without traditions and rituals to reinforce a shared sense of purpose and identity, a College becomes nothing more than a dormitory building. Eating together, then, is not just a matter of convenience, but a vital component in building the social cohesion of the group.