If this blog is the only way you know me, you could be forgiven for thinking that my life is consumed by angst and drama.
It isn't.
I do believe I have a particular vocation, at this time in history, to make such gifts of analysis and communication as I may have available to God and the people of God as we journey through a period of great ferment and instability. This blog is a partial response to that sense of calling.
But I also have an actual life, a very real life. And from time to time, I am made aware in a fresh way of how all the sound and fury--as important as I know it is--is dwarfed by the ubiquitous grace of a God who is so much larger than the trials that can, if we let them, easily define reality for us.
This evening I ferried three large tubs of ice cream up to our diocesan church camp (only about 15 miles away) and helped serve it to about 130 grateful campers and staffers. Then we went into the room next door and sang some songs and heard some stories about their day, and it was my joy to be asked to lead them in prayer and give them a blessing before they were sent off to bed. It was a luminous moment as I looked out over them all, and beyond them to the sun setting over the lake. Some twelve of the campers are from my own parish, and before they went off to their cabins, several of them came by for a goodnight hug from their priest. Does it get any better than that?
Then I came home and, via an email, discovered this amazing video.
It's a subject already close to my spirit, so I was predisposed to like it, but it made my heart sing. Using only part of one line from the Apostles' Creed, it lays out the Good News of Christ in an utterly stunning and compelling way. Do share it with others. Major kudos to Dean Nick Knisely and the people of Trinity Cathedral, Phoenix.
3 comments:
Thanks Dan! (I'm heading up to our diocesan camp next week - when we have a large group from the Cathedral here attending. I hope I have half the experience you describe.)
For anyone who's interested, we're happy to supply the video series we're working on in better quality via a DVD. Our hope is that they can work as discussion starters or as meditation pieces in non-traditional worship.
Our target audience is college students and young adults, but these have been praised by all sorts of groups so they may be more useful than we'd imagined.
A whole lot of my Christian life and formation are colored by that place (not to mention the facilities we used for decades before that!) and those people. I do dearly miss them, especially this time of year. I'm glad you were blessed in the doing. (^_^)
Dan (and Nick),
Impressive graphic story-telling. Kudos to Bryan and Craig and the production team.
I had to go back and track down the music, because I didn't remember Edward Elgar providing a choral rendition of Lux Aeterna using the Enigma Variations (Nimrod, to be specific). Most of the musical references provided by an internet search were not helpful and with no further elaboration the implication was that Elgar was responsible. But, more than simply providing the arrangement for the Agnus Dei recording, indeed, it was the Brit, John Cameron, who provided the original textual setting and arrangement of Lux Aeterna, around 1996, as far as I can tell.
This is the same John Cameron who has done forty-plus feature film and feature TV film scores. He received an Oscar Nomination for his music for A Touch of Class, (Glenda Jackson and George Segal). His list of scores include "The Ruling Class", and he wrote music or "Nightwatch" , "The Mirror rack’d", "Scalawag", "Black Beauty", "The Jigsaw Man" (Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier & Susan George), and "Nasty Habits."
I wonder if the AGO and RSCM purists are aware....
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