I’m tired of doing the chapel dance.
It’s my near-daily routine of walking into Christ Chapel, hearing the blaring organ, and walking right back out.
The beautiful chapel was built to give our campus a spiritual center, a place for students to gather and pray. Instead, the chapel has become the nation’s largest rehearsal studio.
Students play the organ every day at unpredictable times. Melodies bellow throughout the building, disrupting all who come to enjoy the quiet. And while the talent is exceptional and music lovely, it interferes with what the main goal of Christ Chapel ought to be: giving students a quiet space for spiritual reflection.
The college must limit and post the hours organ playing is allowed, leaving the majority of the day for quiet reflection.
As it stands, most of the day is available for students to play, except for a few scattered, inconvenient “quiet” hours: Monday-Friday from 6 to 8 a.m., noon to 1 p.m., and 8 p.m. to 10:15 p.m.
The college’s website boasts that “the chapel is open to students for personal devotion.” It promises these hours: Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. to 10:15 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 10:15 p.m.
The reality is that we get less than six of those 16 hours for silence.
But it’s not just students practicing. The music department holds organ lessons in Christ Chapel.
Approximately 13 hours of instruction take place in the chapel weekly, according to the music department. Seventeen students take organ lessons, and each needs at least an hour a week to practice, he added.
Given that three organs are available in Howard Music Hall, it seems unnecessary to hold lessons in the student body’s designated spot for prayer.
The chapel should be shared among all students. The disproportionate and unpredictable time given to the few who play the organ is deterring the chapel from providing its full spiritual impact to the school.
The administration and music professors should reign in the hours for organ playing and promise to keep most of the day open for students’ quiet time.