For the Beauty of the Earth: Singing from Hymnals

Members of Anglican churches worldwide are called to live out Five Marks of Mission, the 5th of which encourages us:

To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

Since coming to the Cathedral in January, I have been struck by how much paper we use, with bulletin printing being a very large part of that. It’s so easy and convenient for us to create all-encompassing bulletins, but at what cost? The 10.30am service alone uses over 900 sheets of paper each week. In a year, that’s 46,800 sheets just for Sundays, not including extras at Christmas and in Holy Week.

In the case of the hymns, the majority of what we currently print in the bulletin is taken from the Anglican Church of Canada hymnal Common Praise. Those are the blue books that live at every seat or pew. Before bulletins began to expand into multi-page stapled booklets, we used those hymnals weekly – the bulletin simply listed the hymn number and title. I agree, it’s a little inconvenient to have to refer to multiple items – a bulletin, and a book - not to mention the days when the green Books of Alternative Service were used as a third item. But, many things we do to help our planet are a little inconvenient: we have to remember to take re-usable bags to the store, or re-usable cups or water bottles to work, and we have to check schedules for transit or car-pooling, and so on.

In order to reduce our paper usage, we will have to omit something from the bulletin. So, as a trial during the Season of Creation, we’re going to return to our previous practice of listing only the hymn number and title in the bulletin: we will raise our voices directly from the blue hymnals.

As we begin this 5-week physical act of prayer for environmental sustainability, let us all be mindful that there may be some teething problems:

- Will you use the hymnal in front of you, or behind you? Our books are kept in the backs of the seats, yet it’s instinctive for us all to reach to the seat in front. So, which books will people in the front row use? I’m guessing “Is this hymnal taken?” might be an oft-heard phrase in the front rows of seats.

- Do you need larger print? We have a number of copies of Common Praise that are words-only in large print. To make those easier to find, we’ve gathered them at the back, and we invite you to ask the greeters for one, returning it to them at the end of the service.

- Do you find the full hymnal too heavy to hold? Again, the words-only, large print version will make that easier for you - please ask a greeter.

- Sometimes the hymnals are moved around, and there may be the odd seat without one. We know we have enough for everyone, so please look out for your neighbours by passing along extras to those without.

- Visitors may be confused between our hymnals (blue) and the Book of Alternative Services (green), which live beside them. Again, please offer guidance to those around you.

For those who like to reflect on the words of the hymns at home before or after the service, you may find the Hymnary.org site useful – words and music that aren’t under copyright are available here in a complete listing of Common Praise:

https://hymnary.org/hymnal/CP1998

This may not be an easy transition, but I do believe it’s worth a shot. We’ll review our progress after the Season of Creation, we’ll hear your thoughts, and we’ll assess whether this is something we can continue.

And resonating with the words of hymn 429 “For the Beauty of the Earth,” let us offer up this small sacrifice of convenience as an act of praise:

Christ our God, to thee we raise,
This our sacrifice of praise.