CHRISTMAS LETTER 2024
Dear Parishioners,
If it weren’t for the courage of a girl named Ella and a brave band of young singers, the rich history of spirituals like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” might have been lost forever.
Ella Sheppard was born into slavery in 1851. At the end of the Civil War, she enrolled in Fisk School, one of the few schools that opened its doors to blacks. But the Fisk School desperately needed money and would soon close if the school’s choir could not earn enough money on tour to save it.
So, the “Jubilee Singers,” with Ella as their pianist, set off on tour. At first, they sang the popular songs of the day, but that failed to move their audiences. Their cause seemed lost until Ella searched her heart and decided they would sing the songs from slavery days, songs of sorrow, joy, hope and freedom. The songs that have the power to move listeners to tears. They soon became famous for introducing spirituals to the world. In this Christmas season let the story of Ella and the Jubilee Singers remind us to search our hearts and find our song, our voice, and go tell it on the mountain that Jesus is born.
God gave each of us a voice. Everyone can sing to some degree. Our voices are unique so don’t worry about the sound of your voice. As it has been said, “God created both crows and canaries, and apparently finds each of their voices appealing.” This is the season of not just comfort but joy. As we begin a New Year look for the joy in new beginnings.
We just might discover there is more to us than we ever expected. Joy is a gift to be nurtured and, above all else, shared. So, let’s laugh a little more in the New Year. Research tells us four year old children laugh 400 times a day. Adults only 15. Let us look for, and see, the good that is right in front of us.
The Jubilee singers on their historic concert tours raised enough money to save the school and build Jubilee Hall, the first permanent structure in the South for the education of black students. Above all else, they were instrumental in keeping alive the rich musical tradition of the spiritual.
This Christmas may we find our voice, sing our song, and celebrate the gift of love given to us this day.
Merry Christmas!
FRANK
Dear Parishioners,
I have been thinking a lot about miracles this past year. You know, those extraordinary occurrences that cannot easily be explained by rational means...those happenings that skeptics dismiss as being figments of one’s imagination, or flights of fantasy, or most often “coincidence.” I prefer to think as Albert Einstein posited, that “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” The word miracle comes from the Latin “mirari,” meaning to wonder, and I often wonder about life, about God, and about what I see happening in our parish community. And what I see can often be classified, at least in my mind, as miraculous.
I see a community that coalesces, that seems to be of one mind at times, welcoming new and old members, so many different people with different lives outside of church, but coming together as one in prayer and worship, in song and conversation, much like the secret network among trees, the so-called “wood wide web,” that provides pathways of communication and support among the tress in a forest. I see people who care about one another, who help one another, who extend themselves to the other, both within and outside of our community. Helen Keller believed that “when we do the best we can, we never know what miracles are wrought in our life, or in the life of another.” And it is that care extended to the other that opens hearts, that changes minds, that binds us together in ways that I believe make God smile.
Our community gives witness to reconciliation...some to old foes, some to the Church, some to God. The power of a community to bolster one’s life and faith cannot be easily dismissed. That power is known as love, and it is contagious. As Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.” And I would venture, the more love they have to give.
As we celebrate the birth of Christ this year, let us be attentive to the miracles that surround us...in our lives, our families, our friends, our parish and our world. As we contemplate the miracle of Emmanuel, our loving God with us, breaking into human history, let us give witness to the words of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney, “Believe that a further shore is reachable from here. Believe in miracles.”
We are, each of us, a miracle, and together, with the help of God, we can do miraculous things.
Merry Christmas!
ELEANOR