Musical Notes

Thanks to everyone in the music program for their hard work during the Lent and Easter seasons. The music was wonderful, and I appreciate all of you. Now we’re almost through the Easter season, and summer is just around the corner.  The choirs have all worked very hard this year, and we’re looking forward to the slower pace of summer and a well-deserved rest.

      As always, the bell choir will be the first to go on summer break. It gets uncomfortably hot to rehearse in the balcony in May, so we plan our year accordingly. Given the music schedule for May, the bell choir’s final Sunday appearance will be on the 2nd.   They’ve prepared a difficult piece that is based on a Gregorian chant tune.

      The vocal choirs will continue rehearsing until Father’s Day. The children’s and youth choirs will sing for services on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, 9 May and 20 June. They will then go on break until choir camp in August. All members of the children’s and youth choirs are eligible to attend the camp, and we have several surprises in store this year. The adult choir will finish their program year in late June, too. As always, we will have a “come and sing” choir during the summer. If you’d like to sing with this group, come to the choir stalls on Sunday mornings at 9:30. I’ll give you the week’s anthem and, after a quick rehearsal, we’ll all be ready to go. There are no vestments and no pressure. So if you like to sing, come join us this summer.

Nancy Radloff, Director of Music

SOUND OF SILENCE

For those of us of a certain age, these title words evoke memories of Simon and Garfunkel and of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate  beating in frustration on the Plexiglas shield of a church balcony.  Fast forward to the beginning of Lent this year at Holy Cross Monastery on the Hudson, where I attended a silent weekend retreat.  For me, there was an absence of frustration in this silence. The calm of the monks’ chanting

       When the other retreatants and I arrived at the monastery, the Hudson was frozen.  As the weekend passed, the ice broke up and the floes flowed back and forth with the tide.  Amazing!  It was a grace filled time and place that was enhanced by silence.

       Fast forward again to a Sunday service at St. John’s.  In the Book of Common Prayer, an invitation to silence is scattered throughout the Liturgy of the Word and of Holy Communion.  In the Liturgy of the Word, the BCP says that “silence may follow” after the readings.  Silence is an integral and important part of three of the six forms of the Prayers of the People and “silence may be kept” before the Confession of Sin.  In the service of Holy Communion, silence is called for when the celebrant breaks the consecrated bread.

       St. John’s offers a final chance for silence during the postlude.

       Perhaps as the world has become noisier, it has become more necessary to carve out oases of silence and for the church to lead the way.  An earlier prayer book (again, only people of a certain age have such things) does not include calls for silence.

       In the 60s, “The Sound of Silence” was seen as a clever phrase to use in a song.  But silence is an age-old gift.  We need look no further than to those ancient songs, the Psalms.  The current Book of Common Prayer translates Psalm 4:  “…do not sin, speak to your heart in silence….”

- Amelia Wheeler

Youth Group News: A Slumber Party at St. John's 

Calling all Jr. High and High School youth of St. John’s:  We are having a Slumber Party on Saturday, May 22, 2010, starting at 6:30 p.m.

The Slumber Party will be a great time of fellowship and a time to learn new things about St. John’s, about the Christian Church, and probably a fun-fact or two about each other. The night will kick-off with a special evening service offered by Father Snyder, followed by dinner and the first ever youth “Gathering,” hosted by Taryn Chubb and Pamela Talbot. This is a fantastic opportunity to express thoughts and opinions on things that will shape the course of Church events during the next five years.

      Later in the evening there will be several surprise activities which will leave you laughing for sure. No doubt there will be a late-night movie or two and something special for everyone to take home commemorating the night.

      The following day, everyone will wake up to a group breakfast and cap off the event by attending the 10:30 a.m. service together. For more than one reason this will be a special service as it is the kick-off to the third “mega-festival” on the Christian calendar – that of Pentecost. Marked by the liturgical color of red, this day marks the birth of the Christian Church by the power of the Holy Spirit.

      This occasion is surely a cause for celebration and this time of year is a great time to gather before the summer takes over and schedules become particularly hectic. If you are (or if your son, daughter, grandchild, niece, nephew, or loved one is) between the grades of 6-12, please consider attending this great event. As they say, the more the merrier!

      If you have any questions or if you’d like to sign-up, please contact Mindy Oakes at mindy_and_brett@yahoo.com