I am getting old. So bear that in mind. I honestly could not comfortably read the text in the new text only edition. I mean, I could make it out if I took off my glasses and held it inches from my nose. The too small text (to these eyes) made me sad, because it is a remarkably beautiful book. “Packy” is how my buddy Kal Waetzig described such books to me years ago. They feel good in the hand, they flex beautifully AND they smell nice! This little guy does all of that. The entire Psalter is a win. The lack of the services (a necessity to keep the size down and match up with a tradition where the liturgy was only given in outline) is a loss. The thing I can't get over is how much BETTER the electronic version in my iBooks is. It’s even smaller, yet I can read it with ease (probably because I can make the text as big as I need!), it has all the liturgies, and well, it eliminates another book. I already do almost all my Bible work in my iPad or iPhone; and here is the complete hymnal there as well. Bonus? It keeps poetry lines!
I still am having trouble wrapping my mind around looking at another screen in church, even the one that's usually in my pocket. I mean, I generally loathe the fact that our lives are filled with these little screens. Just driving from LCEF to IC today I noticed every single person at the bus stop had their eyes fixed on a screen. To introduce that to the Church assembly too? I'd be far more comfortable if I had the personal text edition in hand and used that (and it would work, because next to no one at our church ever looks in the book for the liturgy - that's down in our hearts). Still, this past Sunday I gave the iBooks version a whirl, and I've been giving it a whirl at the IC in our daily chapels. I can definitely get used to it.
But that wonderful and cute little book is out of the running for these old eyes like me. Has anyone had a different experience with it?
2 comments:
Although my eyes are still excellent, I agree that the text is just way too small. Thin paper and very small text makes for a thin hymnal, but it could be twice as thick and it wouldn't be a burden, portability-wise. The text size should be bigger.
It's a disappointment, to be sure. I had hoped this would be a bit more like the old 1918 hymnal, with nice big text and at least all the Prayer Offices in there.
I do appreciate all the Psalms being present, though. Kudos on that!
Thanks, Michael. Good to hear the assessment of a “younger” fellow (relatively speaking).
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