We’re standing in the nave of our local parish, discreetly adjusting our waistbands because of the Pandemic Pounds we’ve gained, taming the children and taming our thoughts. But where are we, really?  When I set out on a road trip, I usually consult Google Maps on my phone. To find directions to the place where I want to go, I input my current location then type in my destination. My starting point…

Back in the late ’90s a friend of mine related a conversation with her father, an old-school Baptist who was bemoaning his church’s musical transition from traditional Protestant hymns with keyboard accompaniment to a band on stage leading the congregation in modern praise choruses. “Seven–ten songs,” he called them. “Seven words, and ya sing ’em ten times.”   We laughed together, and the following Sunday at my nondenominational church we sang a…