I don't!

I know what you mean, but sometimes it is important that someone else reminds you that 'serving God' and 'being a useful member of society', while being related, are not the same thing. The episode of Mary and Martha comes to mind. One of my teachers liked to say, "liturgy is the most un-useful activity you can imagine."

Contemplative orders are an important signpost to confront all of us busy people with this fact.

Difficult question: whether this is told you out of care for you, or rather because someone thinks you are not being useful enough to them right now. The line between these can be slim.

But feeling guilty for not being useful to society during a few hours/days/weeks is definitively a warning sign; try to be honest to yourself what this tells you.

(There are many people around that need the feeling of being useful/indispenseble - sometimes, understandably, as a substitute for harsh working conditions or bad salary - which can make them difficult to cooperate with.)

I didn't have a Sunday off between 2007 and 2020 when I retired. I knew the parish would not hire substitutes and that would mean no music at all during the time I was gone. I admit to being a workaholic. I still work half time for the government agency from which I retired. I hate sitting around. Someone else can decide if I am useful or not. I don't care.

with the local piano teacher.

as long as that piano teacher is skilled at playing the beautiful tracker organ you have in your choir loft.

A cappella is underrated and even more so, low Mass where no music can be a welcome change.

Sorry, not Duquesne. It was the St. Paul, MN, Colloquium at Univ. of St. Thomas, in 2017. I got my colleges mixed up.

Here's a story:
This Lent, I went out to San Francisco for a concert with my music on it. I took the redeye back so I could be there for Lent 1, because that was my duty, I told myself. The choir could have done Mass on their own; indeed, I planned things that way, because stuff happens in the air. I picked up my car from the lot (after no sleep on the plane and shorted the night before), drove to Akron, did Mass, drove home...and nodded off at the wheel. I was fine, everyone else on the road was fine (thank God); the car was about 8K worth of not fine.

In pondering this, I realized that what I thought was "duty" was actually pride. Somehow, something horrible would happen if I were not there. I am a mediocre performing musician (just more capable than my singers). I was adequately replaced when in the hospital with COVID. You are, by all evidence, a better performer than I am. But you are not indispensable. Someday, you will die, or worse. be injured to the point where you can no longer do your job. The chances of that happening increase if you do not take care of yourself.

You'll have those anthems and probably most of those people next year. There's no such thing as wasted rehearsal time. This may be a sign that you're doing too much that is proper to the day, and that you may need some generic Eucharistic motets you can plug in on short notice. No matter how hard you work, that Mass will not be all it can be, probably for reasons beyond your direct control. You're going to have to wait for Eternity for that.

the past 16 years of my life was a collosal waste of time

Your time is NEVER wasted if you are serving God. Remember your catechism! Know, Love and serve God here, and be happy with Him in the next.

And even if the oasis in the desert eventually goes dry, at least it was an oasis for a while.

This.

I have worked instead of attending certain life/family events because I thought I needed the money, or because I wanted a certain level of music for a certain feast.

In retrospect, I wish I had not missed the life events. They are unrepeatable, and your presence means more to your family than it does to any institution, even a church. And money just gets spent. The amount of money I have spent since that time makes the earnings of those few masses look like peanuts… not worth what I missed.

I have also come to believe that program building is not a goal in the present church music climate. People frequently say to me, “I love your music” (or hate it, lol), and I’ve started to embrace that idea. The program you build is so that you can realize your musical vision for the parish. Your successor will have a different vision and will want to change things, even if they believe in traditional church music. You are creating an oasis for the present, don’t worry to much about legacy.

I recall that you posted a similar message a year or two ago. I think that you definitely need a vacation (and/or a monastic retreat) which would give you some peace of mind and to work out a solution to your distress. Taking a vacation may be seen not as a dereliction of duty but as a part of your work - undertaken to relax from the stresses of your work and come back ready to tackle your duties with a fresh mind and renewed spirit. Even priests take vacations, so you shouldn't at all feel that you are abandoning ship.

Have you discussed these matters with your pastor?

Isn’t it mandatory in canon law that they need to take an annual retreat?

Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference between a retreat and a rout.

So, I am on day three of my "vacation", and I can't say that I'm enjoying it. I spent most of yesterday sleeping.

Can anyone give me any book recommendations, preferably something relatively mindless: I've noticed that my library mainly consists of things like "Tactus, Mensuration, and Rhythm in Renaissance Music" or "The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent". I need something to help me "switch off".

I just finished reading the entire opus of the original Sherlock Holmes series. 37 hours of reading and I loved it all.

If you want a goofy laugh, look up the “Liturgical Mysteries” series by Mark Schweitzer. They are like Murder She Wrote but loaded with bad puns and liturgical music references left, right, and center. I’ve read the whole series but one. I have kept the last few for the week that I decompress either after Easter or Christmas. Mindless, but stupidly amusing.

Then there’s Martin Setchell’s book of organist stories which is good too.

Like you, my library is filled with rather serious tomes, but sometimes you just have to go through a period of decompression.

Something that I have done to "switch" my brain is dabble in field that are not related to my work as a musician. For instance; I took up bird photography and began reading about birds. I also began looking at microorganisms from pond water under a microscope. I had no reason to become interested in them other than just "trying" it. Speaking as a millenial, it's also fun to dive into nostaglia. Growing up I played a game called Roller Coaster Tycoon. You design a theme park and have certain objectives to meet. It helps me continue to feel that "accomplishment" satisfaction without me getting worked up. I don't play it often but sometimes when my wife comes home from work and she needs to rest I might fire up the game and play it. These things keep me from totally burning out and becoming a burden to my team at Blessed Sacrament.

I have ADHD and so the tendency to hyper-focus on music for liturgy is real. It is my favorite thing to do and I can waste hour upon hours finding, learning, planning, arranging music. Sometimes so much time other more eminent tasks should have been done and are now getting the short end of the stick (ahem... the K-4 School Mass is a frequent victim....). Through trial and error, I learned ADHD medication was not right for me. I lost my "spark" so it took some counseling to get me to recognize my tendencies towards hyperfocusing and perfectionism.

I do limit my reading of this forum as well to once every few days. I notice some participate on here everyday; but fasting from such things is a good spiritual excercise. The point I want to try and make is you'll never know if something else will be a meaningful past-time unless you give it a try. I will never become a professional photographer or microbiologist. These are just things I have enjoyed as a past-time.

The Mysterious Benedict Society (series)

I don't dare yet going in the desert for 40 days, but a week in nature far away from civilization (including cellphone except for emegencies) is a real re-creation for me. Haven't done that in several years but this summer it's happening - I'm slowly starting looking forward to this!

CGZ: I'm 35 and unmarried, if I have grandchildren, I'm curious to know what alternate dimension they hail from.

Is there anything nearby such as a botanic garden or arboretum, even if you have no pre-existing interest: go round looking at flowers or trees, reading labels and really looking. Or if the weather discourages you from that, museums or art galleries, again looking at each exhibit.
Failing that, any public libraries where you could read without borrowing? I used to like light detective stories set in remote cultures. Brother Cadfael stories by Ellis Peters were a favourite of mine, if they are still on the shelves, or Sister Fidelma ("Peter Tremayne"), but don't put much credence in their historical verisimilitude.
Note that I am suggesting getting out of your usual surroundings and its distractions.

Why aren’t you in Italy or something? Go somewhere. You’re gonna have to pay more since you didn’t plan in advance but go somewhere. Do something.

That’s what I was going to say- get out, get some sun, breathe the air, and most importantly, listen.

@Salieri


What did the church do before you came on the scene?

Whatever will the church do after you leave the scene?

There is only one person in the Catholic Church who is indispensable and that is Jesus. Even the Pope have been replaced over 250 times.

If music at your parish cannot survive without you, you are doing it wrong. A good leader trains others to take over his duties if that is necessary. An insecure leader makes himself indispensable to those he leads.

I agree with trenton... I've turned my schola around and they are all "on the team" so to speak (to the point that when I provided a modern note transcription of a chant, one alto sighed and asked quite earnestly, "can we just have the square note version?") but even then, no one can play the organ in my absence. No one has the schedule to permit them to be at all the masses in my absence. And while plenty of people are willing to sing with me playing, very few are willing to sing in front of a whole parish a cappella and totally exposed. That's daunting for all but the bravest of souls.

The Church has provided resources for singing in the absence of an organist and a well trained schola. It's called the Graduale Simplex, the cantor called for needs to be able to read square notes, but Sprechgesang would be sufficient for the voice, no need to worry about precise pitches. For myself I would much prefer to be unaccompanied when chanting, instead of worrying about timing or wrong notes.
The same would be true in English for Fr Weber's simplest settings.

So - unless you are in a large professional musical team, ensure that people can fall back on these simple resources, it is always possible to be involved in a traffic accident on your way to church, have a contingency plan which people know how to deploy.

AF, the issue isn't music that is comprehensible or even easy. The issue is willingness to sing a cappella in front of others alone. I assure you, everyone and their mother can sing Hyfrydol backwards, but not everyone is willing to try and lead 140 other people to sing it a cappella. You also have to figure in what happens when that lone person, nervous as all get out, starts singing and no one else joins in because they are also shy, in their own right, to sing without the organ. Then you have that already nervous cantor wishing to die an instant death because no one will join in. This has nothing to do with the music itself.

Regularly, when choir is in session, I will work the organ down so that one of the verses of a hymn is a cappella. Even with a full choir leading the charge, people still drop out because they feel too vulnerable.