C.S. Lewis – Letters to Malcolm, “Speaking Of”
“Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And [believers] don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best – if you like, it ‘works’ best – when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
But every novelty prevents this, It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping…A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant…It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, “I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep, not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.”
Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity…But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship. You give me no chance to acquire the trained habit…”
I personally don’t understand why rhythm and repetition are necessarily seen as impassionate or devoid of power whether one is worshipping God or loving their spouse. Saying “I love you” each day or commanding the sun to arise and cross the circuit of the sky only to command it to go down on the westside most definitely isn’t a boring exercise just because it is done every single day. Aren’t sunrises and sunsets and vocal intonation slightly different each and every day? Isn’t there both continuity and diversity in rhythm and repetition?
