Dear lovers of music, mystery, and meaning,

Fog, Isaac Watts, and incense coalesced around All Saints’ Day for me this year.

This past Sunday, I woke up in a fog. I had gotten a good night’s sleep, so it wasn’t that I was groggy or confused or anything. It was a literal fog. An unexpected one. What happens when what is familiar to us is suddenly shrouded in mist? When the normal is made numinous?

My wipers and defroster worked to clear my damp car windows, and I drove the empty streets to church in this dense fog, a rich palette of fall color emerging at unexpected turns. The routine became surprising, almost spiritual. It was a welcome flavor of meteorological mysticism.

I ended the day, too, in a kind of fog: the rich clouds of incense at the Church of St. Michael and St. George, St. Louis, where the service was Solemn Choral Evensong. The liminal luminosity of this evening office was curled with puffs of prayer and tendrils of praise. 

Amidst these fogs, I sensed myself surrounded by the words of Isaac Watts, without whom I seriously question whether Anglicans could have a proper All Saints’ celebration at all.

“Give me the wings of faith to rise” (Hymnary.org)

On this foggy day, the veil seemed to be made manifest. The incense, though still carrying our intercessions aloft, hung heavy with the weight of this saintly separation.

“There is a land of pure delight” (Hymnary.org)

I want to particularly commend the whole of this latter text to you. And paired with Grayston Ives’s lyrical, spacious composition, I found their effect to be profoundly moving.

Until next week,
-David