PERIOD OF SILENT PRAYER
Sir-For a long time past I have wondered about that "period of silent prayer." Just at what point in the sequence of studio effects is prayer supposed to take place? Is it while the rather gooey bit of romantic music drips like golden syrup from the loud-speaker? Or during those cracked nine o’clock chimes, sounding like the belly-rumb-
lings of a brass mastodon, heard through 20 feet of water? The music, one must admit, calls up images of undertakers’ chapels, black plush drapes, changing neon lights, claw-hammer coats that sweep the floor, Forest Lawn, "The Loved One" ...And the so-called chimes might well be a bass, and debased, version of the "bells of hell" in the old song. Are these things conducive to, or consonant with, the spirit of prayer? I do not presume to say. I should not have thought, however, that Christian prayer would need to be triggered off every night on the dot of nine by a Broadcasting Service temporarily assuming the role of muezzin. This curious rite has persisted ever since the war. How much longer may it be expected to survive? Will my great-great-grandchildren still be listening to it in A.D. 2057? The thought unnerves me. I have no doubt that some dear old souls will write to you anxiously defending this flummery, and saying they find t "consoling," or "greatly comforting," or something of the sort. This is not altogether relevant. If "Silver Threads Among the Gold," arranged for wurlitzer organ and 12 euphoniums, were played you would get hundreds of letters. Is there no Commissar of Taste on the staff of the NZBS?
A. R. D.
FAIRBURN
(Auckland).
(Mr. Fairburn seems ‘to have listened somewhat spasmodically since the end of the war: the "period of silent prayer" is on Sunday nights only.-Ed.)
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570301.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 5
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303PERIOD OF SILENT PRAYER New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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