Yesterday I came across this (somewhat) older article from Jonathan McIntosh. I enjoyed reading his thoughts on liturgy and appreciate a lot of what he had to say. Here is a brief excerpt of Jonathan explaining his illustration of a tethered balloon:

A really buoyant balloon however, has to be tied to a string to be enjoyed. In fact, it is only the filled balloon that needs to be tied. The leaky balloon is already on its way down, and will lie crumpled on the floor by morning. If the Church is only led by spirit and creativity, then it, like the filled balloon cut free, will fly off into error and flakiness. The long string of tradition, the faithful tradition of 2,000 years of Christian history, will keep the filled balloon in place where it can be truly useful. Both are needed and both need each other. Helium and the string. Creativity and tradition.

We didn’t create the Church. Neither did the generation before us. This is not some new fad. This thing has been going on for thousands of years, and faithful men and women have passed down an ancient tradition of what it means to worship God from generation to generation. Should it now be abandoned? Our hope is to find out if something important can still be gleaned from the liturgical forms of the ancient church, if there is a way to connect with God using these forms that doesn’t become stale or produce mere heartless repetition.

You can read the rest of the article here.