If I am alert, the messages come. In a vat of half-price stuffed animals at a grocery store, I spied this little red fox,* small enough to stuff in my purse, cuddle-firmness just right to squeeze for comfort.
On the trail, as I stooped to inspect a bird feather, I spotted this little rock. It has a face, with a little hole for an eye, and a smile!
One of my three stated goals for fall is to Think Positive, to see the glass half full. As you may know, that’s not my natural attitude. So I take joy in this little rock, which reminds me – like George would say — to smile.
May we be alert to the signs and symbols that come to us. May we find joy.
—- Barbara Fox
* The “fox” upon close inspection turned out to be a red panda by Aurora from EcoNation. But I can consider it an ‘honorary’ fox ! Consider it poetic license or “spiritual believer’s license”
Christmastide, an anthem by Tom Shelton, sends chills down my spine whenever I hear it. Today I was fortunate to hear Shelton’s Youth Choir render it twice, in a day of beautiful music, first at morning worship, when the Chancel Choir also sang one of my favorites, Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring. They reprised it tonight, along with joyful music from the Chancel and Handbell Choirs, directed by Hyosang Park, in a concert entitled “Rejoice!”
This post is a thank you to the musicians at Princeton United Methodist Church – and to musicians around the globe – who put their hearts and souls into bringing the hopeful strains of Advent and Christmas music into churches and concert halls everywhere. How can anyone not believe in the divinity of our Creator when listening to these harmonies?
So – thank you to these musicians, and as you read their names, you will see that several do double and triple duty. Many of them perform in professional ensembles. But there’s nothing like hearing your own friends make music in your own house of worship. Kudos to Park, who put the program together, as well as to Shelton.
In the Chancel Choir are Mandy Du, Yvonne Macdonald, Joan Nuse, Lori Pantaleo, Françoise Maitre, Karen Hoagland, LaVerna Albury, Jenni Collins, Lindsay Diehl, Stephen Offer, Curt Hillegas, Yannick Ibrahim, and Jim Frisbee. They gave us Handel’s Christ is Born (arranged by Jon Paige) and Shepherds Come Rejoicing by Joseph M. Martin, and Purcell’s Rejoice in the Lord Always.
In the Youth Choir are Elli Collins, Juli Collins, Maggie Collins, Shermel Morgan, Julia Potts, and Aditi Rapaka. After joining the Chancel Choir for the Purcell, they sang two old world carols and then, with Jenni Collins as soloist, Shelton’s Christmastide.
The Handbell Choir played News of Great Joy in an arrangement by Arnold Sherman and O How Joyfully, arranged by John Behnke. Ringing were Irene Yu, Diane Peterson, John Macdonald, Yvonne Macdonald, Joan Nuse, Bob Nuse, Amy Gardner, Bill Gardner, Julia Ciccone, Mary Ciccone, Sarah Betancourt, and Heather Hansen.
The orchestra closed the program with Handel’s Rejoice Greatly, featuring Bill Gardner on trumpet, along with Elizabeth Rouget, Violin; Myles McKnight, Violin; Paul Manulik, Viola; Gabrielle Hooper, Cello; Scott Collins, Clarinet; Amy Gardner, Clarinet; Bill Gardner, Trumpet; Julia Hanna, Piano. Ian Macdonald and Eric Gillette managed the video stream, available here on this Facebook page. Or on the website.
As Rev. Jenny Smith Walls said, in using the words of Kate Bowler for the benediction, “We have quieted our souls to listen, for your word made flesh is life to us.”
———————- Barbara Fox
On Christmas Eve at 4 p.m. the Children’s Choir leads a family-friendly candlelight service — and at 8 p.m. a traditional service features the Chancel Choir, Youth Choir, and instrumentalists. All are welcome.
Charles Montreuil, SVP of Human Resources at Best Buy, was interviewed by Alexandra Drane, co-founder and CEO of Rebel Health and ARCHANGELS, a national movement that recognizes and honors caregivers.
Montreuil broke new ground in ways for a corporation to care for its workers who are caregivers, and as both a recipient of care and a caregiver myself, his ‘corporatized empathy’ has special meaning for me.
Charles Montreuil and Alexandra Drane
At minute 23 came my AHA moment about why my church’s new arrangements for “taking care” are so meaningful. Montreuil says that having a caregiving system in place will reduce stress — not only for the employee caregiver — but also for everyone who works with or who knows that person. Stress for one person affects those around her. When the employee’s friends – her team – know that she can get help if she needs it — they can relax too.
I tend to carry a lot of that kind of stress. As an empath and a diagnosed worrywart, I am prone to worrying about who isn’t being taken care of. Ten years ago I helped manage an informal team to look after a beloved church member who lived alone but had dementia and other health problems. Refusing to move from her fourth floor walk-up Palmer Square apartment, she charmed everyone in sight, inspiring them to help her. But it took 10 of us to manage all aspects of her care.
What org”>Princeton United Methodist Churchlacked then was an organized system of tracking who else needed care. We did have had other formal systems in place. In addition to the pastors, they included:
Stephen Ministry, which I knew pretty well since my late husband worked, as the lay leader, with then -pastors Rev. Jana Purkis-Brash and Rev. Catherine Williams and the lay team of Stephen Ministers — caring Christians trained to walk alongside those in need for as long as necessary to provide emotional and spiritual care.
From Stephen Ministry grew a caring group for widows and widowers, called Love Lives On.
The Prayer Chain, for as long as I can remember, offers solace to many. To be able to say “our prayer warriors will pray for your loved one” seems to help even those (perhaps especially those) without a firm faith.
Until Covid, several 12-stepgroups had, for decades, found a warm and welcoming meeting home in the church’s building on the town’s main drag. (After Covid, they will return).
Then. last year, Pastor Ginny Cetuk and an experienced lay member, Laverna Albury, put together a program,Circle of Care, to try to ensure that no one in our flock would “fall through the cracks.” This 12-member team “provides services and support to individuals or families who find themselves in acute distress due to illness, injury or family stress. ” When Covid came along, Circle of Care was in place and ramped up its efforts.
My AHA moment: When Best Buy’s HR guy, Montreuil, acknowledged that help for a stressed out caregiver could reduce the stress among that worker’s associates. “When you take care of one employee you are influencing the rest of the store. ‘Look at how this store takes care of us.'” Just knowing that respite care is available for the co-worker makes everyone breathe easier.
Yes! I realized. With the Circle of Care in place I can put that particular worry, that particular reason to be anxious, on a shelf. Other folks are in charge!
Full disclosure: I found this video on the website of my daughter, Susannah Fox. She bills herself as an “internet geologist” who helps people navigate healthcare and technology. At the end of her post she gave a link to Best Buy’s caregiver handbook.
The photograph below shows the elder in the fourth floor walkup, barely able to walk herself, charming a 10-yea-old stilt walker.
My current delight is the children’s musical directed (and co-authored) by Tom Shelton and “preached” to Princeton United Methodist Church on February 24. The musical theme is God will be there for you,” and to hear it from these young voices is very meaningful to me.
Here is the video from when the children reprised the musical on Monday, March 4 at 6:30 p.m. at Bristol Chapel on the Westminster Choir College campus.
Then they take it to Stonebridge at Montgomery on Wednesday, March 16 at 4:30. Anyone is welcome to come to either. Like a groupie, I’ll be there both times!
My Christmas Card: before dawn, Rochester New York
I probably won’t get around to answering your cards this year, again. Sometimes I have sent New Year’s cards. Or Valentines. Or St. Patrick’s Day cards.
Instead, here is a list of resources that are helping me face 2019.
At Princeton United Methodist Church, we have embarked on a series called Relationships and Faith, based in part on materials from the Arbinger Institute. to learn the difference between an Inward Mindset and an Outward Mindset. Pastor Jenny Smith Walz is undertaking the important and difficult task — to talk about difficult questions of gender and race within the church. Her challenging sermon series, titled “The Beloved Community,” begins this month, focusing on “What God wants for God’s people.” The ongoing study has workbooks available in the church office. Also here is a link to one of the Arbinger books,
I am also led to discover, and embrace, the work of Julia Cameron. Known for founding The Artist’s Way, Cameron recommends — nay, requires — those pursuing creativity to write “Morning Pages,” three pages written in the morning, first thing, to clear the addlement from one’s brain. I found my first Cameron book in one of those “free libraries” on the street in DC in October, and it has taken me this long to convince myself it might work.
For the evening, I am trying to use a journaling system called Vertellis Chapters, This “mix of mindfulness and stoicism practices” is a Netherlands-based journaling system (the Dutch are so smart!) and I found it at my favorite shopping spot – online.
Then, my old favorite, is the Upper Room Disciplines. a book of daily devotions based on the lectionary — the Bible passages read throughout the Christian church. So often, that commentary, that scripture, speaks to a current sadness or gladness of the day. My small group at PrincetonUMC, the Monday Morning Group, uses these readings for informal study.
Am I reading these, writing these, studying these consistently every day? No.
George was a habit-driven person and I am the exact opposite. He did exercises daily without fail. When it comes to doing exercises daily, I mostly fail.
But I am trying to create these habits. And I feel led to share them with whoever is out there, just as Jenny, Ginny, Gerri, Aimee, Anthony, Ineke, Judi, Mary Lib, Pat, Deborah, Susannah and so so many more have shared their inspirations with me.
“Mrs. Siddons from the series ‘The Economy of Grace'” and detail image of Blackthorn-inspired wallpaper Photographs by Monica Bowen.
Since I learned that the design for Princeton United Methodist Church, built in 1909, has its roots in William Morris’s Arts and Crafts Movement, I have been trying to learn more about it, And my friend, Mary Pat Robertson, enlivens my research by posting Instagram pictures from England.
Wiley came to the streets of Saint Louis and Ferguson and painted 11 original portraits of people that he met. From the website of the Saint Louis Art Museum: Kehinde Wiley creates large-scale oil paintings of contemporary African American subjects in poses that recall grand traditions of European and American portraiture. His models—real people dressed in their own clothing—assume poses adapted from historic paintings. Wiley’s portraits often feature ornate and decorative backgrounds, elements of which surround and sometimes weave around his subjects. His works address the politics of race and power in art, drawing attention to the pervasive lack of representation of people of color in the art world.The exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum continues through February 19, 2018 and admission is free.
So two of my passions – Princeton UMC’s architecture and stained glass windows and the study of African American culture, based on experiences with Not in Our Town Princeton –– now intersect.
Carvings on the oak pews; At Princeton United Methodist Church, with roots in the Arts and Crafts Movement, attention was paid to every detail.
Hyosang Park directs the combined choirs and a chamber ensemble at PrincetonUMC
In a NYT article, Choral Music is Slow Food for the Soul, composer Nico Muhly has wise observations about how “the choral tradition operated in a series of interlocking cycles based on the liturgical year, with the music and the musicians playing a role in a larger drama.” Rather than expecting applause, church choir singing is “meant for worship…to be heard in a state of quiet meditation.. to guide the mind out of the building into unseen heights and depths.”
Muhly’s essay is meant to be a paean to Andrew Gant’s book O Sing Unto the Lord: A History of English Church Music. For me, it’s an affirmation of how — week after week, sitting in a church pew, listening to the Princeton United Methodist Church’s Chancel Choir — opens up my spiritual horizons. I am also inspired by the special music offered during Holy Week. This year Hyosang Park directs Anton Bruckner’s Requiem on Good Friday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m.,
As Muhly points out, live concerts of liturgical music follow the calendar. He finds himself “looking forward to a work’s annual visits as I would the arrival of a long-distant friend.”
Choristers — and attentive listeners — will agree with Muhly, that the liturgical tradition of choral music brings “sharp pangs of nostalgia, followed by a sense of gratitude that this tradition has been such an important part of my musical world.”
— to the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir tonight.’
It’s in the Princeton University Concert series usually held in Alexander Hall, but, ever-so-appropriately, the venue for the choir is the Princeton University Chapel.
After years of enjoying Janell Byrne’s choreography to the work of Arvo Part “the uncrowned king of Estonian music,” I’m looking forward to hearing his choral work in that Gothic cathedral space.
Though the ‘regular’ tickets are sold out, there are ‘obstructed view’ seats available and who cares about the view? But the snow will discourage some, and concert series director Marna Seltzer suggests “likely you will be able to move to a better seat.”
3 p.m. – Friendship Concert – Princeton United Methodist Church
• ChildrenSong of New Jersey (Haddonfield, NJ, USA)
• Paduan Suara El-Shaddai Universitas Sumatera Utara (Sumatera Utara, Indonesia)
• Liberty North High School Choir (Liberty, MO, USA)
• Shanghai Jiao Tong University Choir (Shanghai, China)
• Vassar College Majors (Poughkeepsie, NY, USA)
Jesus Makes My Heart Rejoice — a simple quatrain that I my granddaughter, Jillian Fox, sing at our 50th anniversary service.
Hosanna! — a responsive hymn for Palm Sunday which would be challenging for most congregations except that Moravians are born knowing how to sing four part harmony.
Morning Star — traditionally sung at the Christmas Eve love feast by one child, responsively with the congregation.
Morning star, o cheering sight, ere thou camst how dark earth’s light. Jesus mine, in me shine, fill my heart with light divine…
So you can imagine my delight when I learned that the Chancel Choir at my church (Princeton United Methodist) will sing Morning Star n an arrangement by Helen Kemp at a Christmas concert on Sunday, December 18 at 5 p.m.. They previewed it in morning worship the week before.
Jesus mine, in me shine, fill my heart with light divine…
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