I've not been silent so long for want of thoughts, events, and musings; I've rather been deluged by them. J and I are back from Pennsylvania, my concerts are completed, and I finally have a cup of coffee at my desk and a free morning to write. Here are some highlights from the past week and a half:
-I played a recital at RWC, shared with the trumpet ensemble, of light classical music. Ryan E. accompanied me, and I was genuinely touched when several loyal supporters from CPC showed up in the front row. The program included a Bach duet with Magister, a lyrical cornet solo (Endearing Young Charms), the Hubeau Sonata, and Bugler's Holiday with Magister and Opifera. It was, as J pointed out, my most serious solo effort since my graduate recital, and (with the assistance of a beta blocker) I thoroughly enjoyed it. Almost thou persuadest me to play solo music, Paul!
-J and I traveled to Hanover, PA, where she performed the Borne Carment Fantasie and the Chaminade with the HSO as a special guest alumna. We visited with the music director (a former trumpet player, and Northwestern/Chicago enthusiast, as we found out) to discuss tempi and transitions on Friday night, rehearsed with the orchestra Saturday morning, and played Sunday afternoon. She sounded marvelous. She looked resplendent. Orchestra and audience were gracious; it was, I hope, a most welcome break from the drudge of her day job. I played along as well, hopping into the orchestra to cover a cornet part on the Suite Algerienne.
-We spent considerable quality time with J's family, including several long and delicious conversations with her parents. It is saddening how little we've seen them in the past year, but every time we have seen them there has been immediate comfort and a genuine thirst for honest talk that can be addressed right up front, without wading through a period of niceties and polite small-talk. We also saw her brother Dan and his fiancee Emily, with whom J went out to buy yet more formalwear. Tim brought home a ladyfriend for us to meet, but spent most of the weekend preparing for his most recent musical project. We also saw all of her grandparents and a small selection of aunts and cousins at the orchestra concert.
-I attended, for the first time since September, a Sunday service outside of CPC. It was wonderful. I will go back to CPC (for Chant Sunday) gladly this week having been refreshed in Hanover. The message addressed dispensational views of the endtimes, a significant piece of JMHEFCOP's identity. Knowing very little of the history of dispensationalism, I had an excellent chat with J's father afterward, and am resolved (especially in the light of my N.T. Wright volume) to explore the subject further.
-No mention at any point was made of preterist considerations, which convinces me all the more that American Christianity is still more unaware of it as a theological position than opposed to it. I am also convinced I ought to blog about it sometime in the near future, though of course I'm hesitant to misrepresent something I understand so poorly and hold so loosely.
-Having traveled back on Monday evening, J and I both played in the RWCCO rehearsal of American in Paris. She is playing the concert, and I was covering the third trumpet part for an absentee student. Steven. S. sounds fantastic on the solos in the part.
-We took my parents out to O'Lacy's in Batavia, where we celebrated their sale of the studio property. After twenty years of business there, they are back to a single mortgage. It has been heartbreaking to watch them scrap the property and the business model, but a relief to see my Dad move away from self-employment. As enjoyable as it was to share IPAs and Reubens with them, we share in their season of grief.
-After sending out several pointed and potentially bossy emails (my younger brothers tell me I can be that way) about rehearsal attendance, I had confirmed all parties of RBQ for a Tuesday evening practice. I arrived at 8:30 (for an 8:40 rehearsal), looked in the backseat, and realized that I'd left everyone's music at home in N. Chili. Incredibly, wonderfully, and mercifully, J left a recital early to drive it into us. It would have been an additional hour for me to drive both ways, and she saved my severely chastened hindquarters for that particular evening.
-I played the RPO Around the Town "March" concerts, getting cornet doubling, and switching back and forth between the 2nd and 3rd books. The concerts were free, and all held at different local churches. In the middle of the Thursday evening show, the conductor was introducing works by Grieg and Halvorsen, then mentioned "and speaking of Norwegians, our new music director Arild Remmereit is in attendance tonight." The orchestra sat visibly straighter. The highlight for me was playing 2nd on Aida, which was enough for a solo bow. I love RPO.
-My college-aged student, Ryan H., will attend Houghton College next year. I am proud of how well he is playing, and saddened that he'll be leaving. I did, however, pick up another student, an adult living in N. Chili, that starts this week.
-The RBQ played three assemblies at the Naples Elementary School on Thursday morning, all of a patriotic disposition. (Including one piece which was hastily renamed "American" Fire Dance, so as to fit the program bill.) The kids were respectful and responsive, though I don't think I'll ever instruct them to march in place again while playing anywhere other than a highly elevated stage. We came perilously close to having a horde of 2nd graders march into our bells while we played Stars and Stripes. I saw an RWC alumna who I overlapped with while at the school, and thoroughly enjoyed walking the halls as a distinguished guest instead of as a substitute teacher.
-I returned to substitute teaching in the form of high school Algebra II (read: Study Hall) on Friday morning, and was able to catch up on some neglected reading. I recently have read Tartuffe, some of the collected letters of C.S. Lewis, N.T. Wright's People of God, Matthew 8-11 (v. interesting stuff) up through Is. 62, some of the early Psalms, more letters of Cicero, and Iliad book 4.
-J and I spent quality time with Pax & K. J likened this video to Pax and I discussing the Bills draft needs. Pax is playing a gig this weekend for which he will travel by private jet and limousine. We also got together with Calvus & Beka last night (and a visit from Baby H!), and Calvus and I read Matt. 4-5 aloud in Greek over coffee and onions.
Needless to say, it has been a full week in the Smith house.
Showing posts with label Cranford Pres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cranford Pres. Show all posts
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Cranford Presbyterian 2/27
Prayer of Confession
You tell us not to worry, Mothering God, but we cannot seem to help ourselves. With refrigerators full of food, we still make grocery lists; with closets so full we cannot shut the doors, we run out and buy new outfits; with a simple invitation to "follow me," we form committees to help us decide. We lift our hearts to you, Tender God, so you would fill them with your mercy and hope. May we continue to seek your kingdom in every moment to come, hoping and trusting in the peace and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSAXLayoMKI
You tell us not to worry, Mothering God, but we cannot seem to help ourselves. With refrigerators full of food, we still make grocery lists; with closets so full we cannot shut the doors, we run out and buy new outfits; with a simple invitation to "follow me," we form committees to help us decide. We lift our hearts to you, Tender God, so you would fill them with your mercy and hope. May we continue to seek your kingdom in every moment to come, hoping and trusting in the peace and love of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSAXLayoMKI
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| Great googly moogly... |
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Everything Nice
Reading today Aen 6, Il 3, Cicero, Rev. 18, Is 45, Pascal, and finished The Thing.
The whole world seems rather smaller outside the window today, as if instead of looking out at it I'm in fact looking in on it, like someone peering into a dollhouse. J and I get our roommate back from Wind Ensemble tour this afternoon, which means today is a day of domestic works.
I've been considering recently the distinction between proper sin (oxymoron?) and rudeness, in the sense of bad manners or lack of social etiquette. I'm not quite sure there is an English word for the condition...perhaps inlepidus in Latin? It may be rude of me to track into a clean home with muddy boots, but it certainly isn't automatically sinful. (My will may be sinful while I do this, but the action follows my spiteful will which would have been sinful with or without action.) Similarly, there are a great number of coarse words I ought to avoid when angry, but these words themselves are not sinful. My anger may (in some circumstances) be sin against God and against my neighbor, but the word is only a sin against my Mother. (If there is sin in it, it is in the sense that it breaks the 5th Commandment) Smoking, if it is a sin, is something similar. It isn't sinful like real sins, pride or lust or envy, more just dirty than anything else...and to be dirty or coarse is not ipso facto a sin. I wish this distinction might also be applied to the undiscussed conversation about service styles. Indeed, I never heard a discussion not talked about so often. What my generation tends to aim for in a worship service is a particular atmosphere; but the atmosphere isn't really one of charity, nor joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, nor self-control. (Note, I would disrupt the atmosphere by using most of these words) but simply one of politeness; and not the politeness which places the forks and knives in the right order or says "thank-you" at the proper moments, but the politeness that is derived from the polis and simply seeks equilibrium in whatever measure of virtue or vice; it might even be called political correctness. And so do we shortchange ourselves on both sides, mistaking coarseness for vice and niceties for virtue?
The whole world seems rather smaller outside the window today, as if instead of looking out at it I'm in fact looking in on it, like someone peering into a dollhouse. J and I get our roommate back from Wind Ensemble tour this afternoon, which means today is a day of domestic works.
I've been considering recently the distinction between proper sin (oxymoron?) and rudeness, in the sense of bad manners or lack of social etiquette. I'm not quite sure there is an English word for the condition...perhaps inlepidus in Latin? It may be rude of me to track into a clean home with muddy boots, but it certainly isn't automatically sinful. (My will may be sinful while I do this, but the action follows my spiteful will which would have been sinful with or without action.) Similarly, there are a great number of coarse words I ought to avoid when angry, but these words themselves are not sinful. My anger may (in some circumstances) be sin against God and against my neighbor, but the word is only a sin against my Mother. (If there is sin in it, it is in the sense that it breaks the 5th Commandment) Smoking, if it is a sin, is something similar. It isn't sinful like real sins, pride or lust or envy, more just dirty than anything else...and to be dirty or coarse is not ipso facto a sin. I wish this distinction might also be applied to the undiscussed conversation about service styles. Indeed, I never heard a discussion not talked about so often. What my generation tends to aim for in a worship service is a particular atmosphere; but the atmosphere isn't really one of charity, nor joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, nor self-control. (Note, I would disrupt the atmosphere by using most of these words) but simply one of politeness; and not the politeness which places the forks and knives in the right order or says "thank-you" at the proper moments, but the politeness that is derived from the polis and simply seeks equilibrium in whatever measure of virtue or vice; it might even be called political correctness. And so do we shortchange ourselves on both sides, mistaking coarseness for vice and niceties for virtue?
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Festus Fratrum
Cranford Presbyterian was quite pleasant this morning, and the Rev. Haybridge (Associate Pastor) spoke well on the history of the Corinthian Epistle. J and I ate with Pax & Kylie in the afternoon, and we ate all afternoon. We had appetizers, then more appetizers, then coffee, then dinner (a magnificent pork roast) and then dessert. And then we went to Pastor Fleming’s for dinner. (We did not eat) The conversation was wonderful everywhere, though I’m rather disoriented to find the weekend over so quickly. J played for the RWC Concerto Competition today, which to my great delight Lydia S. won. I read Iliad 2, Aeneid 6, Is. 42, Rev. 13, and Udolpho before bed.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Cranford Presbyterian 2/6
We admit, Holy One, how in superstition, we will throw salt over our shoulders, but find it hard to flavor a world made bland by the ordinary. We dim our gifts to save our energy, instead of shining as long as we can in society's shadowed corners. We skip a meal once a week to show our faith but are unable to see those who go through the dumpster to feed their children. Forgive us, and have mercy, Creation's Goodness. By your grace, heal our brokenness, so we might fix the shattered dreams of our world. With your hope, strengthen our hearts, so we might fill the emptiness of our society. This we ask in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
How and when did bland become pejorative? At least as recently as Gilbert and Sullivan it retained its Latin meaning (sweet, pleasing, inoffensive).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzgaPEm-HYA&feature=related
I further charge this paragraph with the meaningless use of the words energy, society, shining, shattered, and dream.
I'm currently thinking out my case against cheap justice. There is no charged injustice to those who dig through the dumpster to feed their children. Is this a complaint against the condition of the unemployed? There are men in every city whose employment is digging through dumpsters, and they are well paid. Perhaps the objection is reliance on rubbish? But then, there are many other occupations, and I am thinking of specifically of the movie industry, which constantly re-cycle far more objectionable rubbish. I sense that the real objection to the dumpsters is the smell. Of the many interesting smells in the world, the average dumpster is among the more disagreeable. But the smell itself is not unjust, unless our definition of injustice is very cheap indeed. Digging through a dumpster is a dirty and disgusting business. Iustitia concerns itself with neither of these. I wish no one was ever so hungry that they had to look in the trash for food. I also wish no tired parent was every awoken to change a dirty diaper. Both of these, you might say, are mere misdemeanors against scents and sensibility.
Reading today:
Iliad II, Aeneid VI, Rev. 9, Is. 40, Udolpho
And, in the interest of domestic peace, Go Steelers.
How and when did bland become pejorative? At least as recently as Gilbert and Sullivan it retained its Latin meaning (sweet, pleasing, inoffensive).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzgaPEm-HYA&feature=related
I further charge this paragraph with the meaningless use of the words energy, society, shining, shattered, and dream.
I'm currently thinking out my case against cheap justice. There is no charged injustice to those who dig through the dumpster to feed their children. Is this a complaint against the condition of the unemployed? There are men in every city whose employment is digging through dumpsters, and they are well paid. Perhaps the objection is reliance on rubbish? But then, there are many other occupations, and I am thinking of specifically of the movie industry, which constantly re-cycle far more objectionable rubbish. I sense that the real objection to the dumpsters is the smell. Of the many interesting smells in the world, the average dumpster is among the more disagreeable. But the smell itself is not unjust, unless our definition of injustice is very cheap indeed. Digging through a dumpster is a dirty and disgusting business. Iustitia concerns itself with neither of these. I wish no one was ever so hungry that they had to look in the trash for food. I also wish no tired parent was every awoken to change a dirty diaper. Both of these, you might say, are mere misdemeanors against scents and sensibility.
Reading today:
Iliad II, Aeneid VI, Rev. 9, Is. 40, Udolpho
And, in the interest of domestic peace, Go Steelers.
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