I never heard Here I Am Lord until today. I think if I *had* to sing/play it, I would dissociate from it too.

Here I am Lord, I'm Mr. Brady,
And I'm busy with three boys of my own.

You were probably attacked by the malevolent ghost of plagiarism past.

> kind of black film come over my eyes

I have a theory, and "mystical" is not the word I would use for it...

I believe poor church music has spread that much only because church musicians realized that performing it induces mystical experiences.

Or want to keep their jobs.

Hah! LOL

It was written for a diaconal ordination, I have heard it used in that context and thought it worked quite well [the story has just been aired again]. I confess I have been moved by it, in a good way, as I have by Sydney Carter's "It's God they ought to crucify", but only in very particular circumstances.
I can't imagine what it might be doing at a funeral.

Chris is certainly right about the tune.
It might well pass for a saccharine love song from The King and I, or some such.
The text is supposedly inspirational to follow in the Lord's footsteps.
One could even draw parallels with the commissioning which closes the potent 'In the year that King Uzziah died' text (settings of which none will ever surpass that of David McKay Williams).
But the music absolutely cheapens and destroys it.

Stravinsky, in Poetics of Music, said that 'surely, taste is a moral category'. Taste and beauty, whether of moral fibre or human craftsmanship (of which music is chief), are gifts of God and, as in all facets of creation, there is an hierarchy of achievement and value. Only those who dismiss such achievement as 'elitist' and such are wont to suggest that they are of no consequence to God (and, we aren't supposed to ask how they know this!) - as if God didn't know the difference! It isn't that God isn't pleased with the work of the less endowed ones among us who offer their best in good faith. What is reprehensible is for those who are poorly endowed to presume (as some will do) that their achievements are equal to those of a Beethoven or a Bach, or a Palestrina. Ignorance is not a sin. Preferring it is.

Hmm...I'm jealous. I'd love to be able to mentally check out when the sap level rises. I wonder if a hypnotist could program me to do it.

The purpose of art (including music, and especially at Mass) being to lift minds and hearts to God... I remember a nun strumming on a guitar, singing a solo of Kum Ba Ya with all her heart. how many points does she get for sincerity?

N.B.: am not saying that Here I Am Lord is quite Kum Ba Ya

Does he judge us by the quality of the composition, or what is in the hearts of those singing ?

You propose a category error, opposing a "composition" to "hearts."

MJO has spoken well to the question of 'quality.' I cannot judge the quality of NFL play-calling, because I have zero experience in any sort of football. What makes a PIP (or priest) with zero experience in music qualified to judge a composition's fitness for worship of God?

On the other hand, I cannot and will not, judge the fervor in anyone else's heart.

Perhaps this thread would be an appropriate avenue for us to discuss or share any mysticism that has touched our lives, about which we know in others, and just what does and does not constitute genuine mysticism. I have no doubt that Greg was using the term 'mystical' in a very loose, or colloquial, sense. Too, others of us have had similar singularly unpleasant experiences.

Perhaps some of our resident Forum priests and religious would share their thoughts and knowledge of the subject.

Mysticism, genuinely understood, is a direct encounter with the fullness of the God-head, one which results in divine knowledge, spiritual enlightenment, inspiration to the performance of good works, all of which are shared with the Church at large. The list of true mystics from the mediaeval era into our own times is lengthy. This mysticism is quite the opposite of a certain 'false mysticism' which one encounters from time to time, which produces no works, no true enlightenment, no sharing, and which may be described as a psychological spiritual disorder resulting from an acute form of spiritual narcissism.

I have had a number of so called 'peak experiences' which resulted from playing Bach or directing the likes of Tallis or Gibbons, or singing chant or Anglican chant. While each of these experiences resulted in an exraordinarily heightened consciousness and benevolent affect, were seemingly supernatural, they certainly were not mystical experiences. One might suggest that they were kindred - but they were not genuinely mystical. I have no doubt that others on this Forum have had similar experiences. Perhaps they would be inclined to share them. They are as likely to happen whilst gardening, darning socks, or making a peach cobbler, as while playing Bach.

Surely, such experiences, and true mysticism itself, are a propos on this Forum of serious Church Musicians whose vocation calls them to Divine Worship of a deeply spiritual category, to the making of music that is prayer - not just 'prayerful', but actual prayer, and, as such, is a channel, a crucible, a 'sacramental' for possible Divine Encounter.

___________________________________________________________

TO A SOUL that beholds the Creator,
all creation is narrow in compass.
For when a man views the Creator's light,
no matter how little of it,
all creation becomes small in his eyes...
To say that the world was gathered together before his eyes
does not mean that heaven and earth shrank,
but that the mind of the beholder was expanded
so that he could easily see everything below God
since he himself was caught up in God.
- The Dialogues of Gregory